much better than the first
this was a great improvement over the first game. what bugged me about the first was that it seemed very unbalanced and focused on throwing more and more battles at you. everything seems much more organized in the sequel and the leveling/skill setting process gives you a chance to set the battling straight instead of mindlessly throwing random attacks and hoping to get lucky.
I'd say the only downside is that Toxic seems nerfed, I used it at least once nearly every battle and only one opponent was poisoned. but honestly though if 20 more of these were made i'd never complain about any of them.
btw, anyone having trouble with the medals should just go to the medals menu and resend all of them, that seemed to be the only way on my end to trigger them, and thank god they save the medals you got after the savepoints.