I just finished this game recently. I think that it's a big disappointment next to the original. I really didn't like the annoying minigame segments or the fact that the majority of the dungeons and puzzles are extremely close to the ones from the original game. There was no challenge.
I also wasn't too fond of Emil's split personality in and out of battle and having to capture and evolve monsters, as I found these way too close to 2 other games that each have popular TV shows and card games. You know the ones I mean.
Oh, and some of the new voice actors for characters from the original game sucked hard.
On a positive note, I did like Richter quite a bit, however.
I liked this game better than the original, myself. The battle system was faster and added free-run, which was great. I rate gameplay higher than any other factors when I play a game, so that's why I enjoyed DotNW more.
So they slightly improved one thing about the game. Here's a list of things that they either took away or made worse:
[list]
*You only get two human characters in the entire game that can actually level up and learn new skills and artes.
*The tree for artes is extremely simple and doesn't give you the chance to earn new moves based on what you've been using and whether your character is an S-type or T-type.
*You can't explore the world map at all.
*Most of the puzzles in dungeons, and the dungeons themselves, are nearly identical to the ones from the first game.
*Far less ability for the player to have an effect on the course of events in the game.[/list]
So while they improved one aspect of gameplay, they took out or cheapened almost all of the others.
I haven't even started this yet! I'm still attempting to finish Vesperia first. My hopes aren't very high for this, especially following a great game like Vesperia, but I'm still looking forward to it. I'll share my thoughts in more detail when I get into it.
Vesperia I found too slow after playing DotNW. I got used to it after awhile, but I didn't like having to play as defensively as I had to in Vesperia.