An improvement over the first game in every conceivable way. Its writing isn't significantly better, and its pacing still suffers significantly when getting to new characters. But the dungeons are all fun to explore, and most importantly its bosses present very fun and varied challenges. The soundtrack is outstanding, best of 2023. And the way the game teases little pieces of the plot that all come together for the final sequence is genuinely an impressive bit of worldbuilding and game design. Final boss feels way too difficult, but I understand that it's a challenge for the JRPG freaks who actually want to teambuild and engage with the game's systems to their limits. Hard to do better than this for a JRPG in 2023. Masterclass.