Fable of Heroes I: Legendary Edition

Introduction

"Fable of Heroes I: Legendary Edition" is a game developed by Dustsoft in order to emulate the feel of RPGs from the NES and SNES era. A goal which is either admirable or foolish depending on who you ask. As such, this game has been at the heart of a few controversies when it comes to game design as well as how to properly rate a game of this nature. After all, for every KyleLascar, that loves this game, there's a Marrend.

Story

"Fable of Heroes I: Legendary Edition" starts a bit on the slow side, but it slowly starts to build up steam as it chugs along towards its conclusion. Of course, as the game chugs along it tends to throw up almost every RPG cliche in the book at the player. As such, this game really doesn't offer anything unique or particularly original when it comes to its overall narrative or characters, but it does manage to pull of the usual sea of cliches well enough to be passable.

In fact, my only real gripe about the game is the will they, won't they aspect of the relationship between Mika & tac. Seriously, that aspect of the game follows it all the way to the end. As such, I was really starting to get sick of it by the end of the game. Though, I suppose that's because it was give me flashbacks to when I used to watch shows like "Ranma 1/2" and "Inuyasha".

Gameplay

"Fable of Heroes I: Legendary Edition" hearkens back to the old school days of game design. As a result, the quality of this game is a matter of hot debate to a certain extent. For those looking for an old school experience. This game stands out as a solid way to play a game that reminds them of their days sitting in front of TV and playing away at a game likes "Final Fantasy I" or "Dragon Warrior". On the other hand, the nature of this game is an anathema to many modern gamers. As such, I only suggest playing this title if your looking for that kind of experience, because you'll probably hate this game otherwise. That aside this game also contains a few notable issues in my opinion. These issues being how useless the magic defense stat in this game, an excessive encounter rate, and an optional boss you need to defeat for an alternative ending.


As I already mentioned, magic defense is an entirely useless stat in this game. As you can see in the gif above. I did roughly the same amount of damage to enemies that appear near the end of the game as those that appear at the very start of the game. As such, were left to either assume every enemy in this game has the exact same magic defense stat. Or that spell damage doesn't take magic defense into consideration when calculating how much damage it will inflict. As such, I'm going off the assumption that spells do piercing damage in this game and that their damage is set to fall between a certain range of values.


Another notable issue in this game is just how insane the encounter rate is at times. As you can see in the gif above. I was hit with three random encounters within 10 steps.


Of course the biggest issue with this game is just how unbalanced the final boss is on the path for the best ending. Seriously, the Demon King is designed to be a fight that is inherently unfair. So much so, that it's impossible to develop a strategy for this battle that will work every time. After all, this boss posses the ability to remove stat buffs, inflict certain status ailments like chaos and banish even if the player is wearing equipment that blocks status effects, as well the ability to straight up kill one of the player's party members. And that's not even taking into consideration how much this boss loves to spam powerful attack spells, or the fact that it gets two or more actions per a turn.

Conclusion

"Fable of Heroes I: Legendary Edition" is a game that you'll either love or hate in my opinion. You'll either love the antiquated design of this game or hate it with a burning passion because of that antiquated nature. As such, I recommend you only check this game out if you love old school RPGs and fell like modern games are far too easy. Other wise, I suggest you keep your distance from this game.

Bugs

Probably the most amazing bug I encountered while playing this game was while I was traversing across the ocean using a boat. For some reason my companions decided to spill over the sides and started walking on the ocean like it was solid land. Sadly, I didn't think to record any footage of that bug, and I haven't been able to replicate it. As such, I don't think this is a bug your likely to encounter unless you spend massive amounts of time at sea while crossing your fingers. Of course, I did come across a few other bugs/mapping mistakes as well.


As you can see in the images above. It's possible to walk on a pair of statues in one of the optional dungeons. Though, I will admit that stuff like this isn't exactly a big deal, but it is something the developer might want to go back and fix if they ever do another major update for this game.


And along the same vein. It's possible to land your balloon on the top of this tower. Hop off your balloon and then board the balloon again. Of course, I'd be a lot more hung up about this bug if the balloon then became inaccessible or required me to warp to another town in order to fix it. As it stands, this just comes across as a minor annoyance.