Between the consistent progression, the partner system, and the plot, this feels like a proto-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. The first game's broken real-time elements have been dropped, leaving a perfectly playable Mystery Dungeon game.
One complaint: the equipment fusion system pushes you to build up a single set of equipment, over time, while the feather system, which rewards you with permanent abilities and boosts for breaking equipment, encourages you to churn through it as quickly as possible. If you take the latter path like I did, you end up badly outscaled by the end of the game. Recovering after you get wiped and lose your equipment is also quite painful—you can recover it if you make it back to the floor you died on (truly, CMD2 is the Dark Souls of 1998), but that's easier said than done.
One complaint: the equipment fusion system pushes you to build up a single set of equipment, over time, while the feather system, which rewards you with permanent abilities and boosts for breaking equipment, encourages you to churn through it as quickly as possible. If you take the latter path like I did, you end up badly outscaled by the end of the game. Recovering after you get wiped and lose your equipment is also quite painful—you can recover it if you make it back to the floor you died on (truly, CMD2 is the Dark Souls of 1998), but that's easier said than done.