Fable Legends is all about teamwork (and taking off a trolls pants)

There is a troll in Fable Lgends, who towers over you and your team. To his rear, he is wearing a cross made of what looks like bones. If you concentrate your attacks on this cross, it breaks and his trousers fall down and then hes much easier to kill. As it happens, in the demo I played, our teamwork actually bested the troll before that could be tested, but its nice to know the option is in there.

What's going on? This is the asymmetrical 5-player mode that sees four combatants team up to take on the fifth boss player. Said boss gets some time before the match begins to lay traps such as mines, in an attempt to thwart the team of heroes. Once the game begins, said heroes charge in and take on a set number of waves of enemies. Most are just small goblins to begin with, but the enemies get increasingly hard to kill (and cleverer too) as the waves progress.

The characters arent all the same. I played as Leech--a support character (no, of course I wouldnt have chosen support if Id known before I sat down)--but this backup role gave an interesting perspective on the battles. As Leech, you leech the life force of enemies by holding LT, but instead of using it to replenish your own health, you then fire it at your comrades with RT. A lock-on reticule appears over a character, colour coded green or red to show whether theyre friend or foe respectively, and this is fuzzy-matched to whichever character youre pointing at most at any one time.

It works well and I was able to hit everything I wanted to without too much trouble. The environments are colourful and do feel like Albion of old (only lusher), but they also look quite rough in terms of graphical quality. Its an unfinished game, certainly, but theres nothing here that couldnt be done on an Xbox 360. And there's definitely some control input lag on this demo, though that could be the TV setup.

After each area is cleared, the boss player gets to set more traps in the next area. The 35 seconds dont feel too long and its a chance to regroup and use health potions (with up on the d-pad) as needed. There are extra moves mapped to the face buttons. For instance a curse attack that makes one enemy more vulnerable to attacks from your colleagues, and a Day of the Dead move that you can use to revive all your teammates if you are the last one standing, while playing as Leech, of course.

While I certainly enjoyed the team aspect and beating the ogre in this Gamescom demo, I do wonder if its complex enough or appealing enough to win over gamers who could will likely be playing Destiny by the time this comes out. But then Destiny probably doesnt have removable troll pants. And this does.

Check out the following slides for more Fable Legends images and information.