Same place, different weather
I have just revisited Fable II to play the Knothole Island downloadable content (a sort of mini-expack from Xbox Live) and actually finish the game, which I hadn’t quite managed when it was released (having been interrupted by the appearance of Fallout III).
The gaming press’s main complaint about Knothole Island is that it’s too small for the money (800 Microsoft Points from Xbox Live, currently ten bucks). Maybe so; it represents only a couple of hours of gameplay plus some new items (a couple of which however provide significant new options, so in that sense it can be considered a mod). That’s between each player and their pocketbook, however.
Knothole Island provides a new region with one questline in three parts. When you install the expack and start Fable you’ll be notified that a new quest is available at Bowerstone Market; go there and you’ll be taken to the island, which has a meteorological dilemma. It’s stuck in winter, and the keys to the totems necessary to change the weather are located in three shrines behind critters, traps and puzzles. There’s a series of books to find, which give you a rather thin backstory “explaining” this situation, and also explaining why there’s a set of plate armor whose pieces are scattered around the place. Naturally your job is to bring back the three totems.
The three shrines, like all of Fable’s dungeons, are highly individual and rich in detail — although Fable clearly uses a dungeon “tileset” like Morrowind and Oblivion, with recurring objects and architectural elements, great lengths have been gone to to give each one a unique character, including lots of hidden areas and surprises. The enemies are nothing special, unfortunately; no new species here. The puzzles are all variations on “hit the flit switch with the appropriate damage type” (ranged, melee or spell). The harder ones, which present the real challenge, require you to do this in a particular sequence on a timer, starting over if you fail. The most annoying “puzzle” would have been a jumping puzzle in any other game; in Fable, however, your character cannot jump at will, but must be standing at a particular trigger point. In this particular puzzle the “you can jump here” indicator was misaligned with the actual jump points, so I spent a lot of time wondering why my character wouldn’t jump when the interface (and any idea of real-world physics) said she could.
The really novel and interesting thing about this area though is the island itself. Under the three weather conditions of snow (and ice), rain (and floods), and sun (and drought), different parts of the landscape are hidden or revealed, and you have access to different treasure chests, dive points and dig spots. While the weather-changer concept is not completely new (the same thing was featured in the first Morrowind expansion pack), the effect on terrain and hence gameplay is inventive and well-implemented. On that basis I’d recommend it to jaded RPG players who think they’ve seen everything.
As for the items: besides the the collectible armor set and book series already mentioned, the most significant is an augment remover tool which you can use to take your best augment out of your outdated weapon and put it in your shiny new one. Nice to be able to use your best augments without worrying about losing them next time you upgrade your gear. There’s an augment shop on the island with some excellent new augments, too.
The other really interesting items available on the island are purely cosmetic: potions that adjust height and weight and add or remove scars. This I find puzzling, since the whole point of the way Fable handles your character’s avatar is that your appearance should directly reflect your gameplay. I guess the inclusion of these potions represents a nod to those players who want to customize their avatar as is allowed in other RPGs; I’ve certainly seen players complaining about it in forums. In my view, however, this takes away one of the game’s most distinctive characteristics.
Besides these things, there’s a shop where you can trade mundane items like carrots, wine, or particular books for “surprise” items. You’ll know what type of item you’re buying, but not exactly what it is, and the items are all unique to the island. The shop represents a fun diversion for completionist-type players: yet another collection quest along with the demon doors, gargoyles, expresssion statues and so on, and the item design is attractive.
I encountered a couple of small glitches in the add-on. Besides the jump problem described above, the lore books are miscategorized in your inventory, appearing under “miscellaneous” instead of “books”. Mild compared to a couple of quest-breaking glitches found in the main game.
All in all, I thought this was a fun addition to the game. Though the combat and puzzles didn’t particularly impress me, I enjoyed the atmosphere and the story. And I thought the use of weather as a real gameplay mechanic rather than mere eye candy, as it is in most RPGs, was ingenious and very well implemented. I’d like to see more of that in games. Still, if you’re looking for hours or days of new gameplay, you won’t get it from this add-on.
