Ys II is essentially the 2nd half of Ys I, and it comes with all that entails. That means that while the art direction and music are still excellent, you still have to contend with the horrid bump combat.

In this entry it almost feels as though the designers realized that bump combat was terrible, and wanted to get rid of it entirely. Instead they compromised by giving the player a projectile, and making that projectile be the only way to damage most of the bosses. Yes, you're still going to be dispatching the majority of enemies by bumping uglies with them, but it's nice that the fireball attack is present and feels like an attack that should be present in an action RPG. Even with this shift of focus in the combat I still find the game to be pretty mechanically dissatisfying, especially considering how much longer it is than its predecessor and how much of that is wondering around massive levels where everything looks the same.