TLDR ; Buy this game, excellent memories
I played it for about 2 or 3 weeks, maybe a month, a few years back and it felt so good. Story is pretty okay, a bit childish, since I played to relax it didn't bother me. I was a bit sad when I finished the game and post end-game. Even played through some DLC quests and dungeons, they are ok but not as good as the main game.
Excellent action JRPG, the places you get to see are all so diverse, loved it. Same for the different gameplays and characters, they're all so unique.

Mixed bag. Glad I played it because its been staring at me from my library, but also... it feels JUST shy of being incredible and its just not.

Questionable story certainly has its moments at times, but for the most part is pretty forgettable.

Combat is really simple while also at times being incredibly punishing. By that I mean, the best way to mitigate damage is to run away. You can block, but against the monsters and bosses who're most likely to kill you, blocking usually isn't good enough. Combine this with some enemies having fairly BS telegraph windows, and it leads to feeling like your not given the appropriate tools for the challenge. First game had this problem too so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised to see it here.

Finally, it's surprisingly grindy. Lots of dialogue. LOTS of side quests. Most characters don't matter but EVERYONE has something to say. Kingdom management has real time waiting which, while I get the intention, feels incredibly ♥♥♥♥♥♥ when you need to research something for a quest and are told to wait 45 minutes.

It kept my attention so clearly it wasn't all bad, but towards the end I was kinda just skipping through everything. Not a good sign. Kinda went zombie mode doing post game content too and had to remind myself that.. actually, I don't HAVE to play this game so..

If you REALLY liked the first one then I'm sad to say that this one probably doesn't live up to what that game offered. It suffers a lot of the same problems whilst providing less of that Ni No Kuni magic that the first game had. Also unfortunately missing are the custom animated 2D cutscenes that really brought the first one to life.

Very fun and cute game. story is a bit forgettable but its overall a good time.