A real barn-burner of a game. As much as I love all the rich side content in RGG Studios' games, once I hit about the mid point of the story I just had to go main quest non-stop until I got to the end of the story. Tense and gripping with plenty of great character moments and a fully integrated setting that wouldn't work if it wasn't for what had come previously.

In terms of game system improvements, I'm happy with the compromises they made. Tailing is less boring and flows much better, chases are more consistent so you don't need to be staring at the middle of the screen for prompts, mortal attacks have gone (mostly) from something you run away from to opportunities for high damage, your tools for avoiding encounters are better than ever while rewards for battles make them much less of a waste of time - all fundamental improvements which keep the nature of the game while reducing frustration. The only blot on the copybook really is the insta-fail stealth but you can retry fairly quickly and they're mechanical enough that once you've worked it out you're fine.

Special call out to the soundtrack too, they've really gone for it this time around with lots of special themes and battle tracks. Great stuff.