Never played the original, so was surprised that instead of a very intense arcadey experience like everything about the name would suggest this is actually extremely chill and has you do a lot of things like "ask for directions" and "take photos" in a really nice world that is well developed! Amazingly, the side content is the good stuff here, though the main story was still solid. There's a manic energy to the optional content that is Yakuza-esque. I just loved hanging out in these places with goofy friends and superpowers. You are both very powerful and incredibly awkward in everything you do which is a good combination for fun.

The story starts pretty strong and just kind of starts tossing stuff out there in very underbaked form the further you go. Kat is delightfully naive and there's a probably accidental aspect of the story where she can recognize the problems with an unfamiliar society but immediately stops being even slightly critical when she goes back to her familiar city. That said the late-game stuff, while absolute nonsense, is still great for just being cool anime fights and some of the later bosses are visually wonderful if not mechanically.

I don't actually want or need a sequel to this specific story but I would care more about open world games of this type if more of them had this kind of care for their settings and characters. Lovely game.