The story between II and III has always bothered me since it's so disconnected. If the voice acting could be gotten around, it seems that it would be easy to fix this (perhaps that project that is attempting to make III more like II?).

1. The ship hits a storm and sinks - better then pirates stole the ship and explains why the are all over the place. This was already alluded to at the very end of II.

2. Sometimes in II, one's close friends die. Gorn seems to have a particular problem unless you clear the bridge area of lizard men before he leads the attack. I have fairly often lost Bennett (I think the only smith you can bring with you to the Halls of Idorath) but this time, both Milton and Lester bought the farm (died). I could see the nameless hero in III being surprised to see anyone who died in II there - this would require some data transfer from the saved end game, I suppose - with the reply being something like, "Inos was so pleased at Beliar's defeat that he has restored x, y, z ---- n to life.

Well, my return to II is now over for a while. As is, I'm pretty burned out on III so unless/until the project is finished, I likely won't return to it. Probably will get over my fear of relearning the horrible controls in I for a few more play-throughs, though but, not now.