The wackiness of the early SOs was part of the fun: they remind me of the early anything-goes internet. Anything goes in SO2. The battle system was the most simplistic (and not great) thing ever, but it was interesting to see how much they got out of it with the weird skill growth.
Divine Force (the new one) I'm finishing right now. I'd say:
- Decent to good base for the battle system, but it's unfortunately too easy even on the higher starting difficulty. You don't really get to use the system until the postgame.
- The storyline is laughably non-existent for the first half of the game. The second half of the game is a decent Star Trek movie.
- Ray might be the best main character in the series, although the competition admittedly isn't great (and he looks like Frankenstein). Others are a mixed bag.
- OK but awkward graphics: should have just gone cartoonish I say.
- Several missing QoL features and the font is unreasonably tiny, although there will apparently be a patch for some of these.
All in all it's kinda fun if you're an old-school JRPG fan - there aren't a lot of old-school JRPGs these days - but it's a 6.5/10 kinda game.