3 minute read
faBle forTuNe
Following the collapse of Lionhead, this is likely to be the only Fable we get for a long, long time
Publisher MedIAtonIc / DeVeloPer FlAMIng Fowl StudIoS / forMat XboX one / release Date 2017 / Cost £9.99 (gAMe PrevIew)
it’s aLL cOmE dOWn tO this Josh West
We won’t lie, it’s all a little difficult to understand.
And we don’t necessarily mean Fable Fortune itself, the CCG that thought it was appropriate to launch into Game Preview at £9.99 without a tutorial. We mean the circumstances surrounding the game’s existence at all. This is all that remains of our beloved Fable and it’s difficult to process how it has all come down to this. Let’s just get this out the way: Fable Fortune isn’t the game for those of you that were excited about jumping back into Albion for one last adventure.
Kind of Magic
It is, however, perfectly placed for any of you that have fancied your hand at a CCG but have bounced off of the complexities of Magic: The Gathering or GWENT. Because – and this is in spite of the lack of tutorial – Fable Fortune is indeed an easy game to pick up and play, designed to be enjoyed in short bursts and gradually learned over time as you earn resources through wins and losses, begin to purchase cards, and eventually get to grips with the intuitive deck building system.
The setup is incredibly familiar, especially to those of you that have ever put down your controller (heretic) and picked up Hearthstone on another device. The standard one-versusone PvP scenarios see you and an opponent begin with a shuffled deck, 30 life, five starting cards and three gold coins for your opening turn – the currency acting as a resource gate for the type of cards you can drop onto the table, escalating and expanding the power curve of play with every go.
Every turn draws a new card and more gold; every turn you need to not only consider the scope and timing of your own assault, but assess the shifting balance of play. While Fable Fortune can often feel unbalanced, there is, admittedly, something exciting to be found in a competitive card game with no established meta. We’re all learning the ropes, trying to work out the intricacies of play and of the benefits of each particular hero – archetypal classes such as the Knight, Prophet and Shapeshifter that feel like a hangover from the ill-fated Fable Legends. That can mean that rounds of Fable Fortune are often erratic, a mad rush as each player desperately tries to extinguish the 30 life from their opponent. It is, in its own little way, fun.
But there’s still the lingering corpse in the room to contend with. Fable Fortune feels like a CCG without an identity, a troubling situation given the personality of its closest competitors. It fails to breathe the Fable spirit into its play – it’s a largely humourless, quite dour, experience. And that just isn’t Fable, at all. One aspect we’d like to see expanded is the Quest system. These in-game objectives – such as spending a certain amount of gold – can be completed between rounds and grant you small, in-game bonuses; it even tries to implement Fable’s good or evil metric, with different Hero bonuses being awarded depending on your alignment. It’s a system we’d like to see Flaming Fowl go further with. But that’s Fable Fortune all over. It clearly has legs as a CCG, but it doesn’t feel as if it’s bringing anything to the table. Right now Fable Fortune is a fun competitive game that’s in search of an identity to call its own. n
right FF is in game Preview right now, but it will relaunch as a F2P game later in the year.
BELOW there are some balance concerns, but this will likely be addressed.
short cut
What is it?
A competitive card game that you would expect to find in one of Albion’s taverns.
What’s it like?
It’s fun, but it doesn’t feel that much like a Fablegame. Who’s it for?
It’s for anybody in desperate need of more Fable in their life.
oXM VerDiCt
It’s a fair amount of fun, but in need of refinement. And chickens. It needs more chickens.
