(Spoilers Ahead. Go Play The Game You Bastards): Okay, I already made a post about Fable II (technically) but there is more to be said, I tell you. I'm still playing the game many hours after the ending, and I'm still finding tons of things to do. For one: there are a ton of achievables, and it's been awhile since I played an Xbox game where they actually took some time to get, and were actually FUN to get.
Playing the game now, I'm starting to see just how much of the ending I had fazed out. It was like a one-two suckerpunch of...suck. First, after recruiting Reaver, he makes it a point to shoot one of my favorite characters, Barnum the Photographer, directly in the face, right in front of me. Destiny or no, I immediately started smashing the Y-button in a vain attempt to return the favor, to no avail. Then Reaver, of course, betrays you, proving once and for all that you can't trust either of the hosts from A Bit of Fry and Laurie. It seems that dealing with either of them will get you misdiagnosed for lupus or shot in the chest. Or both.
Then, continuing on, I receive quite the shock from Lucien, the evil-bad guy of Fable II. He goes on to tell me, "Hey, dude. You know, I've been waiting for this moment. All that shit you did: yeah, null-and-void, motherf**ker. I just marched my ass over to your three houses and killed your three families, including all your children and that unreasonably hot undead chick you had at that expensive-looking farm. Sucks. Also, I'll be killing you dead right now." And to add as a punctuation mark to this tirade of...lameness, he then proceeds to shoot me and kills my dog in the process!
At this point: lost my family and I lost my dog - just effing shoot me.
He does.
I relive this distant memory in my hero's past in which you run around with your dead sister and shoot bottles, beetles and kick chickens into their coop. The place is gorgeous, but of course I can't find the last bottle and the chickens keep bouncing off the fence of their coop and I only get one inside. Sigh.
Eventually, I kill Lucien wif magic in a neat little ending, and then it comes to the three wishes. I almost immediately choose to resurrect everyone who died in the Shattered Spire's creation, thinking it would include my dog. It didn't. I return to the game with a neat little statue and a halo for my trouble, and a glitched out expensive-as-hell farmhouse that still thinks my wife is living there and it won't let me rent it out. Sigh.
I start progressing through the game again, looking for better weapons, buying up all the houses in Albion, and trying to get some achievements. It's right then that I really start to notice the dog's absence. It started subtly: I'd notice a treasure chest and wonder why my dog hadn't sniffed it out...oh...
Then, I'd start getting rewarded with things like dog treats and tricks manuals. And when I went to a general store to unload the bulk of my inventory, I couldn't help but notice the rubber ball sitting unassumingly near the top of the list, taunting me, reminding me of better times that would never be again.
But the real salt in the wound came when I stumbled across a demon door. I was exploring the area around Rookridge, talking to a friend of mine over XBL, when I see the door through the trees. It's surrounded by blue flowers, lit up under a gray sky. Beautiful sight, until I approach...The ghost of my dead dog comes bounding out of the flowers. He's wagging his tail, barking, looking positively happy, wearing the same collar I had given him at the beginning of the game.
My heart drops.
The demon door, the uber-f**king-bastard, then tells me to make the dog do some tricks. Despite my manly constitution, I start getting teary-eyed as I start having my dog do some of his old tricks. I knew exactly which expressions to do, and he responded to all of them happily, obediently. When the demon door had seen enough, my dog gave me one more yap and sat down amongst the blue flowers, and glowing with their color, he disappeared.
=O
I started freaking out into my headphones, enough that my friend must have pulled his away from his ears in confusion. I was so emotional that I don't even remember what it was that I got from the demon door; it was all a blur.
Now, I've played many RPGs in my day. KotOR and Dragon Age both sent many emotions my way. Mother 3 was very depressing at one moment, but I'm not so sure if any game has made me feel genuinely sad after playing it...well, maybe the Aeris thing...but I'm still sad regardless! So sad!
For that, I must applaud Lionhead Games yet again for making this RPG. I really didn't think I'd end up liking this game at all, but here we are. I'm still playing, making money, traveling around, shooting targets. Need the DLC for the game, or else I'd have the achievement for making love 25 times. Took forever, and I was very confused when I didn't get anything for mine/her trouble. But still! I have plenty more to go. Raising enough money to buy the Brightwood Tower so I can get that gargoyle, and I'm thinking about going out today and buying myself the Platinum Edition of Fable II so that I might go to Knothole Island: to see an old friend.
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