Fable

Fable (1996) is one of those DOS curiosities that feels like it was built late at night with equal parts ambition and caffeine. It presents itself as a fantasy role-playing experience, but quickly reveals a slightly odd personality, like a dungeon master who keeps changing the rules mid-session. The world is colorful, the ideas are bigger than the hardware, and the interface has that unmistakable mid-90s charm where every key on the keyboard seems to do something important. Combat and exploration are serviceable rather than spectacular, but there’s a genuine sense of experimentation here, as if the developers were trying to squeeze a living fairy tale out of a very small technical box. It may not deliver epic moments at every turn, yet Fable is oddly endearing, the kind of game you forgive because it clearly believes in its own magic, even when the spells fizzle a bit.