The game is good. It improves on a lot of things from the first game. but not everything. Let's stop pretending it's a perfect game. It's awesome, and i will replay it for sure

Enemy variety is still low like the first game, and battle encounters are too frequent and formulaic, accentuating the fact that you've fought nothing but goblins, sarurians and harpies every 20 steps on your way back to... anywhere. Even memorizing where they spawn.
Make encounters far less frequent and random, include more monsters and variations in the roster.
with the potential for even more random shit to appear. This game is peak when everything goes to shit.
What about cockatrices? Elder Ogres? Greater Saurians? Gorecyclops? Banshees? Gargoyles? Hellhounds? Hydras? Evil Eyes? Corrupted pawns? Orcs? or enemies we haven't seen yet???

The idea of fastravel with ferrystones and oxcarts is cool, but not perfect.
Oxcarts don't go to a lot of important places, and backtracking is something you'll do several times. So it can get extra tedious when you add the frequent encounters with the same enemies.

Why not add boat fastravel between Vermund, Battahl and Volcanic Island, unlocked after finding ports for the first time?
Why not put a surface road in the ocean castle, connecting Harve and Battahl??
Why not make actual roads connecting the Sacred Arbor and Vermund, so you can unlock oxcarts there after progressing through their storyline?
Why wouldn't we be able to take an oxcart and choose what part of the road we want it to leave us?

Game is kinda easy. Addaptive difficulty my ass.
It is very fun, but only gets easier and easier. Thank god there is a mod where you can customize the difficulty to your liking.

Removed QoL features from the first game.
-DD1: Change equipment directly from the stash inside the Inn
DD2: Take the equipment manually from the stash first, then equip it from the pause menu.
-DD1 Gift pawns directly from your stash
DD2 Gift pawns from your inventory only
-DD1 Placed Portcrystals remain going into NG+
DD2 Placed Portcrystals are returned to your stash going into NG+
-DD1 Buy and sell items directly from your stash
-DD2 You can only buy and sell from your inventory
-DD1 stacks of 999 for all stashed items
-DD2 Some items have stacks of 99 (like arrows)

Music is just not as good as the first game.
It fits, it's good. But not as bombastic and epic. Also sounds very synthetic with far less memorable and melodic songs.

The story is better than the firts game (because there is an actual storyline this time) But it felt incomplete and sometimes rushed.
First you are discovering the plot of the Queen and just as you are getting somewhere, it suddenly stops, non of that matters anymore, because you are in another country with something vaguely connected is going on and we are not returning to that plot again, then this also ends and stops mattering because we will fight the dragon with no build up.
During the endgame this quests "mattered" but only on the surface.

Everything else:
The combat!!!
The exploration!!!
The fashion!!!
Some cool quests with multiple choices and ways to solve problems!!!

8/10, would play another 100 hrs again

The good:

-Better paced gameplay/story than the first
-Music is very very good
-The story is good but confusing if you are not paying attention, as we are dealing with time travel.
-The ability to go back to previous areas at any time
-The ability to replay story bits
-Challenging endgame

The bad:

-The crystarium system has been changed. Now every class shares the same sphere tree. Stats increased with every node depend on the class leveled up and if the node is big or small.
This is not explained, so you can potentially get very low stats, which makes the endgame borderline impossible. And there is no way to reset it.
My advice is look for a guide and learn how it works.
-The difficulty in the story is minimal. So much in fact, that fights often feel like a chore, as there is no challenge until the last couple chapters and the endgame.
-Those tedious clock puzzles.
They're fun, but only if they're not randomized (which they almost always are)
-A LOT of reused areas. And while this doesn't seem like a problem at first (as the point is to travel in time to those areas to see what has changed...) Almost nothing really changes... ever. Except for music, weather, and NPCs in there. Not even containers change, so there is no point of re-exploring these areas for loot most of the time. But you will because there will be a quest that makes you walk through the entire map like twice in order to complete it. It will be tedious and annoying, especially because you can't interact with a lot of things while riding the a chocobo.

The ugly:
-If you play this on PC, you will need to install some patches to make the game playable, and not crash every minute

The game just launched in early access, and it still has a long way to go before the full release.
So there is no reason to be overly dramatic and negative about the current experience because it wouldn't make much sense.

It is a survival game with monster capturing mechanics.
You can use your captured Pals to make items and collect resources, giving you more and more time for you to capture more Pals, defeat bosses, collect special items, breed Pals, and exploring the map.
Eventually you may get raided by NPC groups of various difficulties, so you also have to focus on your defenses and leveling the Pals staying in your base.
There isn't that much besides that.
As of right now, March 2023, the performance is pretty bad, parts of the map are empty and there is no endgame content, which is... a normal thing for an early access title to lack.