Fable 2 is easy to play, foregoing the depth and complexity of larger fantasy RPG’s for the simplicity and excitement you’d find in an action/adventure game. That it weaves a charming tale and emphasizes fun makes Fable 2 an addictive, if not perfectly balanced, addition to the role-playing genre and Xbox 360 library.

A full 500 years have passed since the first Fable was told on the original Xbox. This time out, Fable’s fictional world of medieval Albion has evolved to anachronistically include a quirky mix of the colonial and pre-industrial. Fable 2 also retains its forebear’s whimsy and goofiness, capitalizing on witty British humour and colorful stylized graphics to evoke a cheerful mood. Game designer extraordinaire Peter Molyneux and team have assembled a great fantasy story that weaves Fable 2’s plot with the existing world of Albion, and invites emotional investment in some of the game’s characters.

To get started, Fable 2 offers the simple choice to play-out the game’s story as either a male or female character, eschewing the complexity and character variety of RPG’s like World of Warcraft or The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Character creation in Fable 2 uses in-game choices to decide whether your character will become a burly, crusading hero, or a wily spell-casting agent of evil. This mechanic is terrific for players looking for an intuitive, more linear alternative to vast open-ended RPG’s, though it limits Fable 2’s customizability.

From the start, the player determines whether to be a force for good or evil in Albion by taking advantage of key moral choices sprinkled throughout Fable 2’s many quests and character interactions. Most quests feature the option for a moral or immoral resolution, depending on whether you’re in the mood to uphold justice, or simply, erm, hold up justice. Morality points track your decisions, and greatly affect the look of your character as well as how the world of Albion receives him.

Morality points impact standing among Fable 2’s non-player characters, and can affect exchanges ranging from a merchant’s strike price to a damsel’s willingness to wed (or bed) your character. Also of interest, Albion itself will change based on the nature of your character’s actions. Towns will develop in prosperity over time where you rid them of seedy menaces such as bandits or evil hobbes, or conversely entire regions will fall into darkness if you elect to sell the local citizenry into slavery or wage an open war against its garrisons. These choices give Fable 2 a sense of dynamic unfolding, where your moral choices move the story forward in drastic ways.

Combat in Fable 2 is a joy. All fighting is handled using three buttons that control Melee, Ranged, and Will techniques individually. Melee encompasses general swordplay and bludgeoning, and features intuitive flourishes that are accomplished by holding and releasing the button in battle. Ranged, meanwhile, offers crossbows and gunpowder-based weapons, along with a bevy of acquired skills that allow for specialized shots on enemies. Will represents magic in Fable 2, and is separated into a variety of summoned and elemental spells, all of which can be upgraded to increase damage or the number of enemies targeted at once. All three forms of combat are available at any time, and experience shows that the player will go back and forth between them during the course of a single battle.

The world of Albion is easily traversed thanks to a handy golden strand that always leads you in the right direction toward your next objective. This simple mechanic eliminates the headaches of wayfaring, meaning you’ll spend next to zero time backtracking or combing dungeons for objectives. It does have the slightly regrettable effect of making the gameworld seem unchallenging, kind of like GPS does for finding directions in real life, and you may spend more time focused on following the golden strand than on acknowledging the world around you.

Fable 2 does suffer from certain balance issues that often make the game feel too easy.

For starters, your hero will quickly seem too powerful for many of Albion’s variety of foes, quickly dispatching entire bands without any real danger. Combat is always fun, and often very cinematic, but without a sense of potential loss, Fable 2 quickly starts to feel like an action movie with an untouchable main hero.

Second among the gripes, the game’s economy seems slightly out of whack at times. Powerful weapons are easily acquired early in the game, and at later stages it becomes easy to earn more money than you could possibly spend, thanks to Fable 2’s myriad of jobs, games, and investments that all return income. Notably, enemies in Fable 2 do not drop money or loot, instead giving you their “experience orbs,” which fly to you at battle’s end with a press of the right trigger.

All told, Fable 2 is tremendous fun because the game has a sense of always moving forward. Combining a quest manager to keep your to-do’s straight, a great navigation system to get you where you want to be quickly, and combat that is endlessly fun, Fable 2 features nary a minute of backtracking or “needle in a haystack” searching. Simply put, you’re always doing something productive, and that ultimately translates into a very fun and satisfying game experience.