Objectively an improvement in every way over the previous entry. There are so many QoL changes that make it feel like an actual video game.
Combat is balanced enough to make me actually want to put effort into team building, but I quickly reached the point where I could just brute force most of the bosses without using actual strategy. Dunno if I was just overleveled or what. Most standard enemy encounters can still be cheesed by using specific guns and ammunition too. This is simultaneously a disappointment and a relief for me, because most enemies give very little experience and I didn't want to waste much time on them, but I was also looking for more of a challenge.
The demon fusion system seems somewhat less tedious now, especially with greater access to gemstones/elementals. I don't know if this was in the last one and I just didn't notice, but demons can inherit skills which is really interesting, but I couldn't find a clear way to understand which specific ones would be inherited. Towards the end of my playthrough I figured out how to fuse a demon with Tarukaja, Rakukaja, and Dekaja which removed even more of what difficulty was left.
The decreased encounter rate is nice, but it actually became a problem for me pretty quickly because I could only keep one or two demons in my party at a time without exhausting my magnetite supply, even going short distances. Whether this is to encourage strategy or is just an oversight I cannot say, but it's something of a drag when the game revolves around building a team of demons with various utilities. This also led to me bruteforcing a lot of the combat because I often did not have enough magnetite to have a full party anyways.
The story and worldbuilding is much more fleshed out in this one. It expands interestingly on the law/chaos conflict in a way I like. The locations all feel much more populated which just generally makes the game more enjoyable. There were a couple of moments which really had me invested, honestly I just wish there was more of it. You get most of the character interactions drip fed to you between like 5 hour periods of running around lost/backtracking.
Just generally, it's still grindy. There's also a lot of weird and unnecessary backtracking, seemingly more egregiously than the previous entry. The game itself isn't that long if you factor out all of what feels like padding and tedium.
So far I can see why people like this series, there are definitely parts that I like about it too, but I'm not sure if I'm entirely sold on it. I think I might just not like the core JRPG gameplay style (heavily punctuated by grinding) that much, which is more of my personal preference than fault of the game. I do plan to play future entries, but not in the immediate future.
Combat is balanced enough to make me actually want to put effort into team building, but I quickly reached the point where I could just brute force most of the bosses without using actual strategy. Dunno if I was just overleveled or what. Most standard enemy encounters can still be cheesed by using specific guns and ammunition too. This is simultaneously a disappointment and a relief for me, because most enemies give very little experience and I didn't want to waste much time on them, but I was also looking for more of a challenge.
The demon fusion system seems somewhat less tedious now, especially with greater access to gemstones/elementals. I don't know if this was in the last one and I just didn't notice, but demons can inherit skills which is really interesting, but I couldn't find a clear way to understand which specific ones would be inherited. Towards the end of my playthrough I figured out how to fuse a demon with Tarukaja, Rakukaja, and Dekaja which removed even more of what difficulty was left.
The decreased encounter rate is nice, but it actually became a problem for me pretty quickly because I could only keep one or two demons in my party at a time without exhausting my magnetite supply, even going short distances. Whether this is to encourage strategy or is just an oversight I cannot say, but it's something of a drag when the game revolves around building a team of demons with various utilities. This also led to me bruteforcing a lot of the combat because I often did not have enough magnetite to have a full party anyways.
The story and worldbuilding is much more fleshed out in this one. It expands interestingly on the law/chaos conflict in a way I like. The locations all feel much more populated which just generally makes the game more enjoyable. There were a couple of moments which really had me invested, honestly I just wish there was more of it. You get most of the character interactions drip fed to you between like 5 hour periods of running around lost/backtracking.
Just generally, it's still grindy. There's also a lot of weird and unnecessary backtracking, seemingly more egregiously than the previous entry. The game itself isn't that long if you factor out all of what feels like padding and tedium.
So far I can see why people like this series, there are definitely parts that I like about it too, but I'm not sure if I'm entirely sold on it. I think I might just not like the core JRPG gameplay style (heavily punctuated by grinding) that much, which is more of my personal preference than fault of the game. I do plan to play future entries, but not in the immediate future.