A huge improvement to the first one, the overall plot is way better and less simplistic, the plot was almost consistently really engaging, two of the antagonists are really excellent. Some flaws regardless, the fights and battles were not really exciting except some of them, and some little parts of the game felt a bit like filler. The casting was overall very charming since the chara design is top-notch, and they all had their distictive personnality, even though it was also frustrating since I wanted to see more of a lot of them. The continuity with the first game was also a very nice touch, it was a pleasure to see again some characters of the first game and to see the prolonging of their stories. The last quarter of the game was less exciting but the endings managed to wrap-up the game in a very beautiful way emotionnally and thematically. It's a flawed game but it was really excellent and my current favorite JRPG if we don't count From Software games.