Much like the first game, great fun. Refined in some aspects (the battle system was slicker, characters look better etc) and it was cool to see all the characters several in-game years later, with the introduction of some new guys it meant quite a large cast. Didn't think some of them got enough time as a result. The "banter" between the main characters didn't seem as sharp either, but maybe that's supposed to be a sign they had grown-up. Just a bit less amusing as a result. Loving this series though.

PATTY SWEEP !!!!!!!!!

this game is such a great sequel!! improves on the first in basically every aspect

+ they made klaudia & ryza even gayer !!

While it brings a lot of positives from Ryza 1 back, they really pushed harder (not as hard as in 3...) for the whole fanservice appeal. That's fine, but it clearly detracted from the game as it became a main focus and the story became sort of just a way to experience that fanservice. More importantly though, this game drags like crazy, it always feels like every step in the story is hours longer than it needed to be and it ends up really difficult to bother finishing. A step down from Ryza 1, and a huge step down from things like Ayesha and Sophie (especially Sophie 2 but it wasn't out when this had released).

A wonderful improvement upon the first game in the trilogy. Movement and Exploration have been improved a lot, you can climb, crouch, squeeze, swing, swim and dive, and even have a mount to get around faster. The environments evolved alongside the movement, god this game is pretty.

The Combat is barely recognisable, lots has changed and while it may be confusing at first, after a few battles you'll never want to go back to the old CC system. Itemslinging becomes the new Meta, around the finale Ryza feels like a walking nuke. Battles are dynamic, fast paced, and busy, meaning you don't just wait your turn, you always have something to do, something to manage.

Alchemy is just as fun, if not more than in the first game, thanks to some new mechanics like Evo-links and the skill tree system.

In terms of new characters, lots of new fun faces. Since everyone's in the Capital now, Ryza meets new faces left and right, like the Café worker Zephine or a fellow Farmer's Daughter Cassandra. Their little arcs of "what do i want from life and how do i achieve self-fulfilment in my work" is quite cute to wittness. the three new party members are also very fun to use and have around, Patty is adorable, Serri is elegant and tragic, Clifford thinks he's so cool (he is, okay? nobody tell him otherwise) I was a little saddened that i couldn't play as Lila once more since she was a main stay in my Party during the first game, but my new core of Lent, Ryza, Klaudia with a rotating support from Serri and the others worked wonders too.'

Storywise the game has a lot to offer, multiple ruins to investigate, though after a while the exploration might feel repetetive, since you kinda do the same thing over and over again, so it's smart to do side quests and character driven side stories between main adventures, even if you don't need better gear.

I only really have two complaints about the game and those are A) the sheer amount of dialogue cutscenes to drive the side-plots forward can oftentimes interrupt the player in the middle of an intense Alchemy session. B) the final boss was laughably easy, though, maybe, i was just overprepared, since my Ryza almost took it down herself. The secret boss though.. oh it had me grind a lot, try a bunch until i found a strategy that worked, similarly to the Queen from Ryza 1.
Overall, great game, pretty world, fun characters, good music, addicting gameplay loop, big fun.

Ryza 1 was a biggest piece of dogshit produced by Gust.
This one is a big glow up: battle system is great, character writing exists and managed to fix all my negative perception for every character, new characters are cool and likeable, UI and QoL improvements.

Unfortunately good things end here:
alchemy is still the worst in the series (i'd take mysterious tetris over this torture), but you don't ever lose quality so making 999 quality items is effortless. Still going through 7 loops to make an item sucks big time. Like you miss one ingredient and have to go get it and then spend another 5 minutes for loops and repeat. Fuck recipe morph, all my homies hate recipe morph.

Giant maps without warp points, selling early game shoes as DLC is a crime.

Dungeon exploration is worst shit ever: do 5 weird arbitrary tasks for half a dungeon, then go back to the beginning to collect 15+ clues per map (There are 3 per dungeon!!!)
BTW monster placements are awful: there are 5+ monsters near every gathering point, the game forces you to jump off the cliff one time and the other to go back to atelier so you miss the fucking clue and have to spend 5 minutes running through monster infested corridors. SMT has less monsters per square meter then this right here.
After that comes MANDATORY time wasting clue matching minigame with 30 clues. This shit makes the game a fucking dungeon crawler and breaks the gameplay loop: spend 3 hours doing stupid dungeon shit, then go back and watch 2 hours of cutscenes.
It's like persona 5, but worse, since there is no friendship system and time passage you can get 10+ events in a row, go to sleep and get another 10 events.

With the novelty of the first one gone, and maybe other underlying factors, I actually didn't really enjoy my time with the second installment of the Ryza series that much. To clarify, I actually think that it is better than the first game in most aspects, with various Quality of Life improvements. Battle system also felt a lot more fluid and I liked the changes in the use of Core Items and Tactics. Despite all that, the game felt very iterative to the first one, with the story being quite less interesting, even if there are some cool exploration moments here and there. It's not like the first game has some crazy good storytelling, but I really liked it for what it is, and a lot of that is gone in this, it felt a lot more sterile to me. Moreover, the side stuff in Ryza 2 were kind of intrusive to the overall pacing of the game, sometimes plowing through event after event in order to continue with the main storyline.

Honestly, my overall impression with this game is that I had my fill with this particular series, it has a nice loop, but maybe I shouldn't have played the games so close to each other, as I basically got sick of it by the end of the game.

Gameplay: Great, 1 is better
Music: Same as 1, Ok
Replayable? I don't want to, but has New Game +
Streamed? Yes

Extra Notes? I'll give it this, first JRPG i maxed out to Level 100 without trying to and was fun in gameplay all around, except for 1 part i got stuck (the necesarry upgrade of tools). Also story VERY inconsecuential.

Positives
- detailed and colorful character models for the main and supporting cast
- good soundtrack; with Birds Over the Valley being a personal favorite
- engaging combat that encourages the usage of specific elemental attacks, buffs and debuffs
- playable characters are well balanced, allowing any team combination to be successful
- items are not consumed when used, removing any hesitancy in utilizing them
- fantastic crafting system that is simple to execute, but rewards mastery with incredibly powerful items and equipment
- essences, evolution link and reinforcement are all terrific new additions

Negatives
- explorable areas occasionally feel cluttered because of the excessive number of enemies and gathering points
- voice acting is limited to only Japanese
- mostly uninteresting main story and characters
- optional cutscenes are intrusive, frequently interrupting crafting sessions or attempts at making a manual save
- several cutscenes provide no meaningful character insight or world building and often feel disjointed from the main story
- the majority of sidequests are monotonous and yield lackluster rewards
- enemy variety is severely lacking
- inventory management is cumbersome due to the vast amount of items

This was technically a better game than the first one. They fixed a lot of the jank. All of the changes to the battle system were welcome; though the game was laughably easy until the last two dungeons, so I didn't get to enjoy the changes to their fullest. The alchemy system was improved. All in all, this is a much more polished game than the first. Yet, I still ended up liking this less than the first game.

The biggest mistake was making Fi the emotional linchpin of the story. Fi is fine in small doses, but he got very annoying very quickly. Also, the game was paced poorly. It's great that the game gives you so much content, but it seemed like everywhere you went you would trigger a new cutscene about some sidequest or secondary character. It made progressing through the main plot a chore.

My head says this is a three star game, but my heart says three and half. I've grown to like most of these characters and the basic gameplay loop is fun and very addictive.

Segundo de la trilogía y, continuando a la primera entrega, vuelve a ser una aventurilla simple de verano. En este caso el sentimiento es un poco más amargo, hablando de un verano donde las amistades empiezan a alejarse un poco porque ya todos están creciendo, pero que siguen siendo un grupo a su manera.
En general esta segunda entrega se centra en exploraciones de catacumbas -con un concepto muy interesante que da pie a un lore especialmente grande para la saga- y, aunque la trama es menos interesante que 1, está simpatica, girando esta alrededor de Fi, un bichito que nace de un huevo al principio del juego.
En todo lo demás el juego es estrictamente mejor a Ryza 1, han sabido refinar todos los problemas que tenía y bueno, está bien. Además Patty es muy linda.

Si, como me imagino, Ryza 3 expresa los sentimientos de "el ultimo verano antes de que cada uno tenga que seguir con sus vidas" probablemente sea a la vez el más triste y el mejor, ya lo veremos cuando lo juegue.

Pero Ryza dentro de lo que es está muy bien, como un buen pucherito de abuela. (en verano)