Better than the first one in some ways, worse in others. The level design is still great and the graphics and music are top tier. The bosses are still pretty good, but the difficulty feels all over the place.

The major issue I have with this game is the ganky enemies. Enemies stunlock you into oblivion and contact damage means even parrying enemies can result in damage and then a follow-up attack. The first game had this but it wasn't quite as obnoxious because this one insists on forcing you into small rooms to fight waves of enemies that are really not designed to be fought in significant numbers.

This one is more of a metroidvania, true, but gets pretty linear after the initial 3 bosses. I much preferred the map of the first game which felt more mysterious and didn't always tell you exactly where to go. The new weapons are cool though and all have different uses including traversal mechanisms. Although, I did find myself primarily using the sword-type weapon.

The story and lore in this one is also just a lot less interesting. Once you realise that there's not really much going on, it becomes kind of grating to listen to the overwritten dialogue and I found myself skipping through a lot without really missing much. The first game was infinitely more interesting in this regard.

For all I've said on the negative side, this game still works pretty well as a metroidvania and it felt good to play in a way that made my dumb metroid brain happy. It's by no means bad, it's actually pretty great. Just feels like as much as they got right, they forgot what made the first one unique.