Better than the first game, but not by much. Pretty much the same concept, but now with weaknesses that make you want to use specific attacks on an enemy. With the lack of gear swapping and build creation, there still isn't as much strategy as there could be. If you made it so that you had to chose your attack pool going into a fight, there would be more strategy to it.
I found it odd that you had to die to charge up you attacks to win in the next fight in hard mode. However, since there is no penalty for death it actually adds to the complexity of the game.