The Good:
-I love that you can follow different paths to proceed through the main storyline. eg *spoiler* different ways to enter the prison non-violently, and different ways to exit.
-Love love love the changes to the combat abilities to make point requirement not scale and have actual benefits to lvling the different schools of magic rather than just "Now you can learn X lvl spells". Also love the separation of combat and civil points (This is the best improvement).
The Bad:
-The world doesn't feel big. Pre-prison/keep escape it felt apt because you are confined, but even after leaving the prison you are still confined to the tiny island. It definitely is not a large open world. If the land were made larger with more barren land with small encounters, and areas/towns that are non-essential to the main storyline but have small sidequests, then the game would feel much less linear.
-Eventhough you have multiple options to proceed through the storyline you can always find one option that is the most optimal exp-wise. Furthermore, to maximize exp gain you find yourself backtracking a lot. If the game weren't laid out in such a linear way then it wouldn't feel like you're backtracking.
