It's amazing how much better this is compared to ARR, it feels like a reward for getting through that slog fest.

Here, the narrative is more urgent and the action is tight-packed, thankfully. The characters are allowed to be characters, and not lore dumps. They have clear motivations and their flaws are more apparent, allowing us to relate to them in a way that was not possible before. Even your Warrior of Light gets a semblance of a personality.

The classes also open up with new abilities and builds, which makes duty rolette-ing much more fun.

All in all, every Final Fantasy and RPG fan should play this at least once in their lives so those stupid french elves can make them cry their eyes out. This totally didn't happen.