Funderful!
While its story isn't the most compelling, gameplay and extra features are what make this game great, though it borrows must resources from its predecessor.
The battle system is rather strange at first glance but it all takes a bit of getting used to, you are allowed to summon ,at most, 10 characters per battle onto the field, this means that if one character dies, the limit is reduced to 9. Every character's actions take place at the same time, meaning you can move every chracter at the same time and order them to attack the same enemy at the same time for extra damage.
The sprites are very detailed, in my opinion, every character possesses animations that capture the essence of that character, the weapons also look detailed since every weapon has an original sprite.
The ability to create characters from nothing is still around, create characters from up to 200 classes you must unlock! These play no part in the story and are just random generic random people that help in battle. To my knowledge, I don't know what the character limit is if any. These are essential. While the game can be played with story characters alone,these make the game a little easier.
The Dark Assembly is what allows most of the game's features! You can increase the game's difficulty, create characters, reincarnate(upgrade) characters, unlock bonus stages and much more! And all you need is a little mana, which is obtained through normal combat.
Overall, I reccomend this game for anyone looking for a VERY long game and anyone patient enough to deal with many of its time-taking tasks.