Navigation: GoWII expanded on this with Grapple point swings, ceiling climb, slides, rapid movement, 'steam vents', icarus wings, etc. while dropping beams, rope swings, etc. Give and take. More 'give' than take, I'd say. GoWII gets the edge.
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Puzzles: The actual puzzles seemed a bit better in GoW1, but GoWII had more focus on 'combat puzzles', you could say. It breaks even for me though.
Armor: GoW1 had Magic Legionnaires. GoWII basically had nothing. You can sort of count the HP thresholds for stuns with Juggernauts, I suppose. One of the few steps back with GoWII. GoW1 takes an easy win by forfeit.
Spells: PR is among the most OP spells in GoW history (at lvl2+ *due to Wrath*). Vanilla AoE type enjoying i-frames while hitting above and below the activation point. With the mashing, it can extend the AoE range and gain more hits (more damage). Takes some foes off the ground too. Cast more rapidly with air usage. GoWII's PR was far weaker. Less so with the Urn active for the 'MAX' version. AQ is the vanilla AoE type that replaces it. Has knockback which can work for or against you (Tranny). Being tied to Power % can be a blessing (high) and a curse (low). The mashing it does is pretty crap for being random and unreliable in terms of damage (multiple, weaker versions of the primary blast would have been better). Unless in a run with high Power % and/or insane collisions, AQ can't compare to PR.
Zf gets deflected/blocked a lot. TB isn't blocked much. Zf charged shots can be used for the cost of a regular bolt when low, but TB can do the same with CWB. TB has two other firing types. LV can launch, but the real utility is instant shatter of any statue (regardless of damage). TS travels through all surfaces, hits above/below, lingers a bit, covers a large area, hits for enough to break any statue, etc. TB also has i-frames on all casts except the basic shot. Even its draw animation has them. TB takes this easily.
Though one may have thought to compare CR to PR, it's more related to AoH as a 'cast and forget' type to tie up foes for damage. On that front, AoH is far and away the stronger case with a huge range and damage potential while bouncing foes around (less hits for what that is worth). CR has i-frames on cast, can cause knockback (collisions) when MAX'd and can be used for less MP in a given cast. AoH brute forces to victory here.
MG doesn't allow movement while in use. EH does. MG lacks the i-frames of all casts (save for active stare) and draw animation that EH enjoys. EH can stare from the air (useless) aside from using flash (like MG) *and blast*. EH gains blast (crap) and greatly improves rage (cost efficiency). MG could stack stare and flash. MG's stare seemed slightly more cost effective, but EH's Flash and Rage were easily more cost affective than before. This with an entry where you can petrify Gorgons. EH has the clear advantage.
Close as this is, the OP nature of AoH and PR sort of make the clear losses with MG and Zf non-issues. They're just that big of a deal.
Items: N/A
Relics: GoWII expanded. Though we lost proper counters from upgrades (same for rage), we gained much. I suppose I'll need to compare the two rages and the two parry options in this section (a paragraph for each). Aside from that, Icarus Wings gave more mobility in and out of combat aside from some decent specials. AotF was neat, but extremely limited.
Parry is the same between GoW1 and GoWII. No i-frames. With lvl2+ BoC, you get counters that were light (s6) and heavy ender (t0). Pretty good. In GoWII, there is no such follow-up. Instead, when you gain the appropriate relic (Fleece), you lose the old parry in exchange for a new one. This new one has i-frames during activation and i-frames during the automatic return (being automatic is not favorable) of projectiles (sadly they don't retain properties and have standardized damage) or petrification (a huge deal). The counter also had i-frames for a 360 AoE with knockback (for collisions, breathing room, ring-out, etc.). We couldn't cancel Revenge or Return, but with i-frames, there wasn't much need to. The damage wasn't quite as good as having a t0 or s6 on demand, but the utility of the return for petrification was pretty major, I'm sure most would agree. Having both would have been great. Special input for 'Fleece' parries, but regular block inputs (timed) for the old one.
RotT and RotG both gave tanking and a notable increase to Armor % (taking away from collisions *which was useful for Tranny should he suddenly be put in danger from that source*). RotT altered modifiers on weapons rather than our Power % like with RotG. The former has less potential for damage, but was a neat alternative. RotG altered the BoC moveset with more powerful hits, but they lacked explosions (for breaking shields *glitched them instead*). Pretty large increase in moves and quite good. RotT had as small movelist for the Blades. Took away the guard (subs had it still) in exchange for Prometheus' Flare (crap). It had a novel ability with Inferno (feeding off hit count). Really nice. Torment was meh. The RotT t3 had i-frames, but still wasn't very good. Just wasn't a good moveset aside from RotT s3 being okay. RotG had a MAX perk in Athena's Blessing that couldn't be beat (infinite MP during rage with OP spells such as AoH and PR to work with). RotG is easily the stronger of the two, but RotT has a very important advantage in usability. Rage orbs exist (filling the meter), hits fill it slightly faster, we can activate it with about 20 units of 100 filled and turn it off at anytime (rather than just turning it on when full and it draining until empty without orbs to help fill it back up). Full refills after bosses helped (along with certain other cases like the Kraken pre-fight).
All this said, parry and rage in GoW1...just weren't 'relics'. Comparing the systems is fine, but in terms of relics, GoWII has the advantage despite the Trident losing the grab/rush antics it had before.
Collectibles: GoWII expanded on this with "Urns".  Uber chests sort of count too. More 'secrets'.
Camera: Pretty much the same.
Targeting: About the same. GoWII added (R) for lock-on. Both systems have pros/cons, but the sequel was slightly better. In both cases, I'd like to break the auto-lock in favor of the option to manual aim where that would be more effective (possibly not kicking a dog at the Tranny).
I don't have the energy to go over the rest right now. Weapons is a category among that which remains though. Comparing the Blades, subs, etc. Cancels, tricking, evade, normals/infinities, damage, hit properties, specials, modifier, perks, etc. will come up.
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