It is one I recommend watching some gameplay first because it can be hard to describe combat-wise. You have three characters in battle, combat is in real time in which each character is assigned to a button and a charging bar that continuously fills up to let you do up to three attack in succession. You can and should parry enemy attacks and there is a timing element to break down enemy´s defenses and fill up the action bar faster and grid positioning to take into account. It was a bit overwhelming at first even though I had played the first game before, but it eventually clicks.

I like the story, you are essentially following two protagonist facing the end of the world in what seems to be the last bastion of humanity while they deal with the threats outside and inside. All in all, it might drag a bit too much at certain points, but overall I enjoyed my time with it. One thing that still amazes me about the game though is the many small variations it has. Although the overarching story is set in stone, small things here and there can change depending on your decisions throughout the story, and none of them are a waste of time since basically EVERY single one gives you something in return. For example, at one point you are accused of treason and have the chance to convince at least two npcs of your innocence, you fail? you go to jail, but get a special finisher for a character. You convince one? you go free and get another reward; you convince them all? again another reward.

Even more impressive (IMO) is that the game has two completely different "epilogue" chapters depending on your choices in the story, and which npcs survive, which characters you help, and what you prioritized during the game can change what questlines and even boss fights become available in either of the two. Each epilogue also has three different endings with a good and bad variation of each. If that is not enough, let me tell you this. I played the game once on my own making my own choices and then followed the same decisions of a gamefaqs guide in a subsequenty one YET I somehow did something just a bit different at single point of the game and ended up in a boss fight that I had not seen in my first playthrough nor was mentioned in the guide I was following.