Don't think I've ever seen a bigger jump in quality between series entires. No more weird stealth mechanics, hub world backtracking, or boilerplate RPG grinding. Instead, level-after-level of sweaty mech action. Every level has some new gimmick, which means there's an occasional miss, but that's just what happens when you commit so hard to taking an already-promising combat system, juicing it up, and placing it into as many varied situations as you can think of. The localization is still terrible - which is a bit of a shame because you can tell the bones of a decent anime OVA style story would be here - but the action is so good that it doesn't matter anymore.