As squeals go, Fable II is of the highest quality, though sadly it can't shake all of those flaws from the original
Fable II is a welcome return to Albion. Set 500 years after the first game, things have certainly changed. The Hero's Guild is no more after a violent citizen revolt. The landscape has changed with towns growing in size, new ones popping up, and old ones being overrun by nature. In this time where Hero's no longer have presence in modern day Albion, you begin your adventure by learning you are directly related to a Hero of old, and thus, have inherited their powers, you just didn't know it yet. You and and your sister are poor street kids living in the slums of Bowerstone, until said event above deeply changes the course of your characters life forever.
Not to reveal too much about the story, I can say this is possibly the weakest point in Fable II. The quests for the main quest feel like they have been stapled onto the game, since you'll continually find so much more to do.
Which brings me to my next point. There is so much to do in Fable II. For instance, the Jobs mini-games. If your gold bag is feeling a little light, you can take a job as a Blacksmith, a wood cutter, a Bar tender, a assassin and even a sword for hire. Each of these jobs provide well if you invest time and effort into them, allowing you to expand your gold wealth rather quickly.
So what will you do with so much gold? Well you can buy and rent out practically any home you encounter, and furthermore you can even buy businesses. In Fable I you could only buy certain real estates, making things rather tame. In Fable II you can buy all of Albion, thus making yourself King (or Queen if your playing as a female character)
There are an assortment of side quests as well, which also feel quite dull. There are some good/evil sensitive quests. For example at one point you are given the choice to either destroy a farming family for a group of bandits, or rather kill of said bandits for the family. The latter will result in the farm growing from a small shack to a large property to which you can then buy and make large sums of money off.
There are choices like these all throughout Fable II, where your choices at crucial points will determine how things will change in Albion.
There is one flaw I can see that crossed over into Fable II from the first game, and that is the good/evil aspect. As any fan of the first game will no doubt know, it is far easier to reach 100% evil than it is 100% good. In a play through as a good character, it took me almost the entire length of the game to reach 100% purity, compared to my character on my second run through almost reaching 100% evil before I even did the second main quest ( and no, I didn't run around killing everything and everyone)
As I said in my opening, Fable II is a great sequel in the sense that it built on the original. Even though it still suffers from some of the same flaws as the first game, it does take a step in the right direction. If there is in fact a Fable III, then an ultimate blend of the immersion of Fable II with a story that is equally developed would be the magnus opus of Lionhead studios. However, on its own merits, Fable II is a purely fantastic game that will certainly give you your money's worth.