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As the saying goes, you can't know where you're going unless you know where you've been. So as Lionhead Studios gears up for Fable Legends to kick off a new, online age for the franchise, fans who remember where the series began have the opportunity to experience the original game yet again. Time hasn't been kind to the now decade-old RPG, but Fable Anniversary has given it a second wind.

Updating a game built long before the Xbox 360 was possible is no simple task, and the brand new ViDoc from Lionhead shows the lengths that the development team went to to preserve the original vision. Some of the results are genuinely staggering, and if you've managed to resist taking a nostalgic walk down memory lane, the featured footage of Anniversary in action might convince you it's worth the trip.

There's a good chance that diehard fans of the original Fable simply needed to hear that an HD remastering was available for purchase to lay down their dollars, since the RPG holds a unique place in console gaming history. Going by the trailer, the team has preserved enough of the original to leave them satisfied.

Fable Anniversary Updating Trailer

It's always somewhat controversial whenever a classic video game is remastered, especially when its the same studio that crafted the experience handling the update. Yet Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary handled the task, shocking many players by not only offering them a modern-feeling game, but showing just how far technology had come since the game's release (to the shock and disbelief of the players). The developers in this video reiterate those claims, taking pride in the fact that Fable now looks the way players at the time fondly remember it.

The remastering apparently worked well enough for Microsoft to warrant an upcoming glut of Xbox One ports and remasters, and it seems Lionhead is making a similar move to strengthen their future by digging up the past. The early reviews for Fable Anniversary are respectable, and should serve as a good indicator of how much enthusiasm currently exists for the franchise - welcome information as Microsoft prepare both a Fable Trilogy for Xbox 360 and is counting on Fable Legends to make the most of next-gen.

Are you enough of a fan to replay Fable in honor of its anniversary, or has your interest been piqued enough to try it out for the first time on Xbox 360? Are there other classic RPGs you would rather see updated for modern audiences?

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Fable Anniversary is available now in North America and February 7, 2014 in Europe. The game is currently exclusive to Xbox 360.

Follow Andrew on Twitter @andrew_dyce.