Worse than the first part. And not because she is “friendlier”.
The first part was loved by fans, first of all, for its magnificent world, excellent combat system, art design, challenge, but everything in this game was done worse. Let me explain to you why.
Let's start with the world. The plot of the first part affected the entire mythology of this world, starting from great people and gods, ending with the great destruction of the past world. Here the entire plot is focused on one kingdom. He is interesting, I don’t argue, but it was much more interesting for me to listen about the death of the whole world and its subsequent life than about the kingdom’s war with the giants.
The combat system remained unchanged, but a number of strikes, sheaths, kicks, in general, some elements were changed and removed for no apparent reason.
Art design has become more modest. There are damn few truly beautiful, unusual places in the game, and the bosses are now 60% made up of “some kind of knights.” Even the music became more monotonous.
Now about the challenge. How has it become simpler? It's simple: fewer traps. If before we were killed by a trap, an unfortunate position of the enemy, ambushes, or the fact that the enemy had to be probed and found out what he was capable of, now everything has become much more straightforward. And this is one of the fatal problems of the 2nd part.
And yet the game is not bad. For fans of the 1st part, it seems like an unfortunate step back, but even so, no one is doing anything like that now. There are only a few such games, and even unsuccessful games can attract new players. I recommend the game to beginners. All the criticism of the game does not concern you, because the game still has everything that fans love about it. Perhaps in a smaller size, but the first part may become more interesting for you.