Now Fable II, takes the stage. The story takes place five centuries after the first game and the age of Heroes is over. Due selfishness and arrogance the people of Albion destroyed the Guild of Heroes and none are believed to exist in the world. Your character, either a boy or a girl, and your sister are homeless in Bowerstone, the unofficial capital of Albion. You see a vendor who is selling useless junk, but a music box catches your eye. He tells the crowd that it will grant the user a single wish. Your sister scoffs it off, but a blind gypsy tells you that it may be worth it to buy the music box. You do odd jobs for people in the slums, much like the first game, and even save a dog from being bullied. After a few odd jobs, you buy the music box and you and your sister make a wish to live in the castle of Bowerstone. The box disappears in a flash of light, and it seems to not have worked. Later that night, guards have come to escort you to the castle. The dog you saved earlier has to remain behind and you are brought before the lord of the castle, Lucien. He tells you that he is seeking individuals to help him in an endeavor, and that one of you is who he’s looking for. You step onto a platform that has the symbol of the Heroes Guild, and it lights up. He tells you that you two are indeed heroes, the one’s that he is seeking. He tries to enter the field of light, but the field rejects him and turns red. He consults his books and learns that you are not one of the Three he needs. Rather that one of you is the fourth, one that is destined to stop him. He pulls out a pistol and shoots both of you. Your sister dies in the castle and you are knocked outside of the castle and fall very far to the ground. You are saved however, by the gypsy that you met earlier. She is revealed to be Theresa, the sister of the Great Hero 500 years ago
She takes you away and trains you to take on Lucien. She tells you of his plan. He wants to rebuild the Spire, a device of the ancient world. The last and only time it was used by the Last Archon, it destroyed Ancient Albion and the inhabitants had to rebuild from scratch. He wishes to remake the world, at first to bring back his departed family, but now power has corrupted him. You must seek out the Three Heroes, The Hero of Strength, Skill, and Will and unite them against Lucien. You find the first Hero, Hannah, in a monastery. She is forbidden to fight, even though she is the Hero of Strength. The death of her father drives her to abandon her vows and take up the name “Hammer”.
The second hero, Garth of Will, is kidnapped and taken to the partially constructed Spire. In a good parallel to the first game, you enter into the prison as guard in training and spend the next ten years as a figurative prisoner, until Garth can summon the strength to free you and you two escape. The last Hero, Reaver of Skill, is a pirate lord that you must recruit. After performing a dark ritual to keep him young, he follows you to the ruins of the Heroes Guild.
Theresa begins a ritual to untie their powers, but something goes wrong and Lucien kidnaps the other Heroes. Once again he shoots you, telling you the first time he did it tore him apart, but now he is no longer a child. After you are shot, you appear as a child again in a home with your sister. The world seems very happy and carefree, and your sister tells you your parents are coming home. You both go to bed but in the middle of the night you hear music in the distance. Your sister tells you to remain in bed, but you go toward the sound of the music. You find the music box in a field of bodies and swords, and have mini flashbacks as you advance through your life and decisions. This situation gave you the illusion of choice, even if the actual choice wasn’t there. You could have remained in bed and in this dream world, or go back to reality and finish what you started. You grab the music box and are transported to the Spire. You travel to the inner chamber and encounter Lucien, drawing power from the other three heroes. The final battle… does not exist. The final confrontation is you holding the music box up to him, breaking his connection to the heroes, and one strike sends him to his death.
This is the first case of the ending not being as powerful as it needed to be to match up with the rest of the game. The final conflict, the entire reason you trained and traveled all this time, was over in fifteen seconds. What was the point? If the Hero could have defeated him like that, the more logical option would have let him capture all three, get shot and retrieve the music box, and save twenty years of your life! This ending would have been much more fulfilling would have been the Hero arrives as Lucien absorbs all three Heroes and become the Next Archon. He begins to use the power to warp Albion to his will. You battle him, as you have the blood of the Last Archon within you, and begin to weaken him. As he falters, you use the music box to draw out the Heroes one by one. I would have it in the order you found them in game. First Hammer, the Garth and finally Reaver. When all three are free they give you their power and you fight the mutated Lucien in a final battle. As he dies from his wounds, his family appears and they all disappear into the Spire.
As the dust settles, Theresa appears and tells you the Spire will recognize you as an Archon and grant you your one wish. Now we come back to the actual game. The Hero is presented with three wishes. The first is sacrifice, all those who died in the construction of the Spire will be brought back, but your family and your dog (who were killed when Lucien captured the other three) will remain dead. The second is love, you dog, sister, and family will be brought back, but those who died remain dead. The final wish is wealth, the player gains one million gold pieces, and all remain dead. Again like the first game this point, the wishes are powerful tools and there is another option that is more a moral grey area rather than the black and white option. The game ends with you making the wish and the Heroes going their separate ways. Theresa tells you that the Spire is hers and that you are not to be there anymore. You return to the world, later to return in a dlc to see your future as King or Queen of Albion. A child is seen in the vision and Theresa tells you it shall be the next Hero. This is great story but it suffers because of the anticlimactic ending. The journey does not feel like it has been worth it, a few dozen hours has been put into a game that did not feel like it delivered in the final confrontation. The point was not to make a wish, it was to prevent one from being made and defeat the man that took everything from you. These elements feel extremely downplayed, and the game suffers from that, in terms of replayability, story and popularity.
colemanboring 