This is the exact same game but with a more polish. This one has boats and more dragons, and more wizards, but yeah, it's basically the same shit. The main difference here is the introduction of a party. The first game focused solely on one hero, and this one introduces two fixed party members. And - spoiler alert - turns out the entire first game's world was just an island in this even bigger world. That was cool. You even go back to the final boss from the first game and he's like, just there, chilling, and you can talk to him.

I'd argue it's much better than the first one, and feels a lot closer to the JRPGs I played in the 90's. It's good, but this is the kinda game you go back and play for posterity, not like... fun. It's very dated, and hard. That's not saying it's bad, it's good, very good, but it's just a thing. And that's okay.