Fable of the Sword

Pros:
Nice art
voice acting (Chinese)
cheap

Cons:
Boring story
Boring Puzzles

Fable of the Sword is not a game, it's an e-book that's been dumped on Steam masquerading as a game. As a visual/interactive novel, this doesn't feature any notable gameplay, it's just a lot of clicking through badly written dialogue that would never have been accepted or published in print, which poses the question, "How did something this badly written end up on Steam?". When someone hoping to become an author is unable to get published in print, they spend $100 and dump their high school fan-fiction onto Steam, under the guise of a game. This e-book was slapped together with the godawfully bad KiriKiri Visual Novel/E-Book construction kit, so just like no professional writing took place here, no professional game development took place either, it's just a product of filling out templates in the construction kit.

There's a basic, badly translated and horribly badly written novella here with an anime/manga styled historical theme... it's incredibly poor quality, although readers may find some mild amusement from the godawful translation. Masterpiece phrases like "You don't need to eat solid food."

Visual novels/e-books are tedious at best... imagine the best novel you ever read, be that Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Twilight (if you have terrible taste in literature), but then translate that to a format where the words dribble out and you have to click your mouse every time you wanted to read the next sentence, instead of just turning the pages. You'd think it was garbage.

Now imagine that experience, but with much worse writing (because if these guys could write professionally, they'd be published authors and this would be on shelves in bookstores, and they wouldn't have to pay Valve $100 to self-publish this on Steam), and you have your average Steam e-book.

You can get better quality books and comics for free online or from public libraries, or from bookstores for a fraction of the price of this "game". Steam isn't a comic book store, neither is it Netflix, it's for games. Your gaming rig is not a Kindle. It's impossible for me to recommend things to PC gamers that aren't really games.

The developer has an incredibly shady history, of which I won't go into great depth here, but a well researched and validated writeup from the Sentinels of the Store curator group is available here:

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Sentinels_of_the_Store/announcements/detail/1666769865946284024

Fable of the Sword is relatively cheap at $2 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the E-Book, coupled with the unrealistic price, and the unethical nature of the developer this is impossible to recommend. While game reviews are about games, it's important that prospective game buyers know whether a developer is ethical or not. Buying games from unethical developers puts your money at risk. Be safe out there.

The art, voice acting, and music are all lovely. However, the English translation is obviously done via Google translate or something similar. As a result, the dialogue is at times incoherent. There are important/interesting plot points where the translation is so bad that it isn't clear what is happening. The 'gameplay' aka minigames are sporadic and very outdated, playing like a mobile game from the mid-2000s. Finally, the action/battle sequences have no visual or audio component and are simply described in brief detail which is pretty anticlimactic. I can't recommend this game to English speakers, but I would guess it is worth playing if you understand Chinese.

The story is really difficult to follow due to bad English translation but the art is cool I guess.

⣿⣿⡻⠿⣳⠸⢿⡇⢇⣿⡧⢹⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣾⣿⡇⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⡐⣯⠁ ⠄⠄
⠟⣛⣽⡳⠼⠄⠈⣷⡾⣥⣱⠃⠣⣿⣿⣿⣯⣭⠽⡇⣿⣿⣿⣿⣟⢢⠏⠄ ⠄
⢠⡿⠶⣮⣝⣿⠄⠄⠈⡥⢭⣥⠅⢌⣽⣿⣻⢶⣭⡿⠿⠜⢿⣿⣿⡿⠁⠄⠄
⠄⣼⣧⠤⢌⣭⡇⠄⠄⠄⠭⠭⠭⠯⠴⣚⣉⣛⡢⠭⠵⢶⣾⣦⡍⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄
⠄⣿⣷⣯⣭⡷⠄⠄⢀⣀⠩⠍⢉⣛⣛⠫⢏⣈⣭⣥⣶⣶⣦⣭⣛⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄
⢀⣿⣿⣿⡿⠃⢀⣴⣿⣿⣿⣎⢩⠌⣡⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣆⠄⠄⠄
⢸⡿⢟⣽⠎⣰⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢀⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣦⠄⠄
⣰⠯⣾⢅⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡄⠄
⢰⣄⡉⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠄
⢯⣌⢹⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄
⢸⣇⣽⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄
⢸⣟⣧⡻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⡻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄
⠈⢹⡧⣿⣸⠿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠗⣈⠻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⠄
⠄⠘⢷⡳⣾⣷⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣾⣿⣿⢀⣶⣶⣶⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠇⠄
⠄⠄⠈⣵⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄⠄
⠄⠄⠄⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠘⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠇⠄⠄

It's not completly bad, but not good either.
We all know that this developer has some issues with translations, so let's not go through there... I already know when I buy their titles that the english translation is not going to be good--but it's enough for you to understand and get a grasp of things.
The gameplay is easy, and even the minigames felt that they were simple enough to be done without much stress (which I approve!)
My issues are more with: the story needed to be more interesting! and left many moments hanging; also, the serif font with shadow wasn't a good idea (it hurts the eye after a while); dialogue sync with the text had some problems here and there.

It feels like it's a title that needed more polish, I don't know if it's their first game (I'm talking about the team developer, not the publisher) they're going in the right direction, but they need to create more emphasys on the writting, especially when there are actions going on that we don't know about if they don't describe them.

I recommend just for a "passing the time kinda game", and on a sale.

A Chinese VN published by the infamous Sakura Game. Similarly to many other of their games the localisation is horrible to the point of being unplayable. Moreover, it's most likely their worst translation, so yeah...playing this is painful.

The story itself is about average; a fantasy story sparked by a sword legend. Some intrigues, some drama. fighting etc. No explicit romance theme here which is relatively rare for VNs. It's a few hours long but there are several endings so it takes a few playthroughs to see everything. However, the tragic translation makes this game a serious challenge. Only few lived to complete it and tell others how bad it is.

The art is pretty good. Female audience might be particularly attracted since we're dealing with a bunch of bishounens here and a lot of even secondary characters have their own sprites. It's not a BL story though and it's all ages as well. Backgrounds and CGs are also pretty detailed but while there is enough backgrounds, the number of CGs is pretty low. If you like Chinese art you most likely will like this style a lot.

All music as well as voice acting is Chinese. It sure fits the overall mood and events of this VN. If you like Chinses music and language you will like this for sure. I'm much more used to Japanese voices so I prefer that rather than Chinese but I can't say it's bad.

No issues encountered.

Overall, a swomewhat ok Chinese fantasy VN, with a good art and audio but with one of the worst translations I have ever seen. Can't recommend it unless you're a masochist: 3/10

Not what I expected, but the story is decent.

Pros:
*Nice art
*Good voice acting
*Fair price

Cons:
*Boring story
*Bad translation

曹植 《七步诗》

煮豆燃豆萁，

豆在釜中泣。

本是同根生，

相煎何太急？

Fable of the Sword is heavily influenced by Wuxia (Chinese sword & sorcery). From the spiritual energy, to pursue divinity, to magical swords, to errant priests and mystical shifu (masters). All the elements of the genre are included together here. The cast of characters is quite large with many to follow, and depending on your choices varied endings to uncover depending on who you meet during your excursions. The dao(way) here clearly plays into the end results of the story in a fairly literal sense.
At the centre of the story is the tale of two brothers, their familial bond fueling their devotion to each other. Fable of the Sword is not shy in representing idealistic Confucian values, though its tragic ends clearly lead to loss and breaking of relationship ties in the pursuit of individual power, whereas its harmonious endings clearly showcase the restoration of such ties, in addition to other values such as compassion towards ones enemies whilst retaining loyalty towards ones guan(school).
The story itself is fairly complicated weaving multiple characters motivations into the plot, of which most will remain mysterious unless you replay the game using alternative paths. Whilst this does lend the game mystery and a sense of discovery its also frustrating on early playthroughs where the game will introduce new characters with fairly little information then drop them again only for them to play a climactic role again later. Limiting knowledge on individual playthroughs leads to a situation of confusion for the player, not encouraging successive playthroughs for new endings and further understanding.
The characters themselves are not particularly innovative in anyway, even if the do perform their roles in the story admirably. The stoicism of Lin and the vivacity of Yuu form a distinct counterpart to each other, with Bai fulfilling the role of the stranger with unknown motivations (if you follow his path you discover them, if you don't then they remain unknown) and Steve who is also vivacious though more naive than Yuu.

The greatest issue with Fable of the Sword is the presentation of its writing. Whilst the text is visually appealing, makes distinction between characters and descriptions it isn't consistent. The text changes font dramatically at times for long periods before switching back, and the other issue is that it clearly hasn't been formatted for western languages. Western characters if split will break words, requiring word wrapping, whereas Chinese text doesn't require this since it uses ideograms. The constant breaking of words, sometimes across textboxes was highly frustrating and made it difficult to read.
Another major issue was the machine translation. At times the machine would translate the characters names literally at other times not. The same was done for places in the story, making for a confused mishmash of actual Chinese names and fully translated names. In addition to this the actual grammar of the game is terribly offputting and makes the story incredibly opaque at times, due to the difficulty in attempting to understand it. That the quality is inconsistent is frustrating as well, especially since some effort seems to have been made on earlier stages of the game as well as certain character routes.

It's a pity the translation is so flawed as the story is otherwise quite enjoyable, with some good twists and unexpected revelations. The inclusion of small match-3 minigames and memory games make the game slightly more interactive as well, with story outcomes even based on how well you perform. That the minigames are fairly easy as well, makes them a welcome addition to break the monotony of reading poorly translated text.

The visuals of the game are quite lovely as well, the background art is sometimes inconsistent but the character art is always superb. Fabric and weaponry is wonderfully detailed, and the expressions capture each character quite well, with broad beaming smiles from the more energetic characters and quieter demure smiles from the more reserved characters. The characters do have limited sprites though, which meant in some scenes they were less able to effectively convey emotion, and the sprites aren't animated (i.e. by moving across the scenes as paper dolls) which led to an overall static feel, instead of dynamic scenes, which was particularly noticeable during descriptions of combat.

There is some merit to Fable of the Sword it's not an outright bad visual novel, however the lack of proper localization has seriously hurt the title, both in how the text itself is displayed, and in making the story unnecessarily difficult to understand.

Score 4/10

Very bad game - at least for western audiences

• Follow Main group
[*] Follow Second group

still in chinese, dont bother.

Okay, this is a… machine-translated game. The plot seems to involve genies and other spirits and you (and some companions) have to defeat them. While this seems easy enough… for many of the endings (especially the good ones) you have to win all the minigames along the path. This can be extremely tricky. There is a time limit to them, and while the Match-3 ones are easy enough, the Memory game… well, since failing to make a match seems to take some time away…

That and the rather spotty translation (I’m not sure that genie is the actual word they were looking for) make it hard to recommend this game.

Not English.

This game has so much potential and I wanted to like it badly. But overall I didn’t enjoy it. Enjoyment 2/10
Pros: Beautiful art, voice acting featuring some well-known CVs e.g. Petboy!
Cons: Lack of romance/bromance, boring mini games, poor translation, inconsistent voice vol.
Overall, I struggled to complete 2 routes just so to give a final assessment. But if you like the artwork and wuxia story, at $2 you might want to give it a try.

All English!What's wrong?My friend said her edition was Chinese.I tried hard to change language.But I fail.TAT

This fantasy visual novel with mystery and horror by 蔷薇千墨游戏组 and SakuraGame features two male Taoists Lin（林朔）and Yuu ( 安陵月）who are both disciples of an orthodox sect Mt. Jade. One day, while Lin and Yuu are making a trip to Tanglin City to enjoy some time off from their training in seclusion up in the mountains and see the world, they both encounter a young hunter Seven （阿七）being pursued by a few little demons. After scaring off the demons, Lin and Yuu continue to Tanglin City.

At Tanglin City, Lin and Yuu would hear rumours of a legendary sword which was believed to be in Four Phase Mountain and has the immense power of a phoenix. The rumours of the sword's existence have attracted the attention of both unorthodox and orthodox sects and they have sent their disciples to investigate. As Lin and Yuu investigate the source of the demons around Tanglin City where they are joined by Seven and Yuun （楼云）, they discover that an unorthodox sect Water God Sect and its interest in the legendary sword may have caused the demons to become hostile towards people living around the city.

Deciding to investigate the rumours of the legendary sword, Seven would bring along a guide Bai Yeh （白夜）to show them the way to Four Phase Mountain. At a nearby town White Emperor City, they would learn and discover that many disciples from the various sects and pugilists are also going after the sword where the hidden way to the sword is full of traps and magic circles and the way to bypass the traps may be somehow connected to a family that was completely wiped out for their knowledge and possession of the legendary sword. Lin would later get separated from Yuu where he would go on a different route with Yuu, Bai Yeh, Seven or Yuun which could lead to a good, normal or bad ending.

The common route will take approximately 2 hours while each character route will take another 2 hours each. The game has arcade match 3, memory and spot the difference minigames. It also has a relationship status screen which shows the character sprite of each main character that will start initially in black and white and more colour will be added while making various gameplay and dialogue options to gain positive relations with the character and help players reach the various different endings in the game.

Having played the titles from the Love Bundle by SakuraGame for at least 2 hours each to qualify for the free visual novel key promotions, all the Chinese visual novels featured in this bundle often have great artwork and soundtracks. Fable of the Sword uses Chinese painting artwork style that is different from the anime artwork in the other titles and has smaller soundtrack variety where it has 7 BGM and one theme song with vocals while the English translation of this game has improved with fewer errors although there are still a number of errors and inconsistent naming of the different characters in the game notably during each of the character routes later in the game.

Overall, this game is recommended for those who are looking for a fantasy visual novel in an ancient Chinese setting, nice artwork, voice acting, theme song with vocals and can read Chinese or doesn't mind a number of errors in the English version. The Chinese version of this game has more features with a music gallery, lyrics for the theme song and unlockable chibi cartoons for reaching a good ending. For those who can read Chinese and are interested in collecting Chinese visual novels and the titles by SakuraGame, this game is recommended with the Love Bundle. I hope to see this game qualify for trading cards, add Steam achievements in future and SakuraGame bring in more Chinese visual novels to the Love Bundle and other bundles in future.