There's a lot of improvements from the first, there's even multiple iconic scenes of the series accompanied by the most iconic and one of Falcom's magnum opus soundtrack "Blue Destination"

The concept of the story itself is nice, going from a usual school setting to the middle of the war, though some moments are really "anime" and some parts (especially in chapter 2) is really dragged out, it's still really engaging at times, the high of this game is really high while the low can match the first game's pacing.

It's the culmination of the world building of the first, so it's much better than the first game at least.