I went in expecting this to just be kinda ok like the first game was but I ended up enjoying this as much as I did the Mysterious games probably more than that

Like the first game it still did have some gameplay things that bugged me but it improved upon so many things the first Ryza game didn't do very well helping it feel as fun as the Atelier games I love with some really great new features liek character events unlocking through progression rather than the annoying friend point system from previous games

As much as I did enjoy this though the items not being nearly as useful as in previous games INCLUDING the first Ryza game makes them feel pretty redundant if you just get good gear, I rarely ever switched around my items and got through the whole game just fine so hopefully this is something they fix in the next game in the series to make it a bit more challenging

As for the characters the new characters were all GREAT and the returning characters(most of which I found sort of bland in the first game with a few exceptions) got developed a lot more and with the new development I enjoyed them a LOT more

That's all I really have to say about this game and I'm VERY glad I played it