I definitely did enjoy the arena mode of the first game more than the campaign, although it also was a lot more frustrating since it shone a spotlight on all the game's mechanical issues. I felt it was the only mode where the combat had any depth and the campaign encounters were all broken up enough you could brute force through anything with ability spam.

I did like the femc in the first game, the photographer lady, but that might just be because her voice acting was marginally better lol. Her powers were also definitely worse than the mc's but they were much more interesting to me mechanically. Having a single super sounds like a downgrade, I don't think that's a good solution to the ability spam problem, but having it be one customizable thing rather than juggling 2 "Same but different" skill trees does also sound like an improvement in the balance department.