A rare better-than-original sequal!
You get to run a shop with one of your characters (about half way into the game) and to pick up items and buy items and sell them at your vastly expensive price, but in a day or 2 they will be sold, regardless of what your wife prices them at, fantastically fun. A dog accompanies you in a small part of your journey, you also get to hire on new characters, like mercenaries for a moderate price. Certain NPCs help you and accompany you for small portions of the game (sometime powerful NPCs). You get to travel in your own personal ship, a great sense a freedom and exploration at your own pace. It really makes the game as realistic as it can be for its genre!
You also get to unlock certain doors with a (one key unlocks all) and for every door that you come to that you cannot unlock or open, than you can break down with the right character.
The casino is a fantastic part of this game, I have spent over 10 hours in it, and it is only in the basement of the Inn in the main town in the game. The "monster battle" is my favorite part of the Casino.
Later on in the game, a large number of your characters, get the Outside (which automatically gets you out of a dungeon) spell, and Return (which automatically gets you to a former town you have visited without having to walk all the way to it. This also allows you to get to towns that are overseas as well.) spell, both are some of the most useful spells ever created in a videogame. Furthermore, in many RPGs you will lose gold and experience when you die and will start form the last saved place. That is not so in this game, which makes it a real time-saver. When you die in this game you will start back at where you last saved it but with no experience lost, also any items you may have found or things (quests, ect.) you may have done before you died are still done and do not have to be completed again. However you do lose half of your gold every time you die, unless you are Taloon and have the special box or chest or vault, w/e it is that he can get that keeps his gold in, even if he dies. Later on other characters can deposit their gold into his box for the same 100% safekeeping, in 1000 gold increments, and they can take it out whenever they wish.
It does, like nearly every other game though, have some disappointments, such as you have to press "Search" whenever your looking for a certain item that is directly under your feet, or in a pot or jar, or in a drawer, or in a treasure chest directly under you, or to find a secret switch for a door, ect. This becomes very tedious after sometime, but with everything this game offers, this can be overlooked. A minor setback is also that you have to press "Door" to open a door anytime you want to get inside that area. At least its not like Dragon Warrior I in the aspect that you would have to press "Stairs" every time you wanted to climb the stairs, and you have more than 1 character in your group unlike Dragon Warrior I which makes most enemies quick work.
I give this game a 9.7 out of 10.0)