Symphonia 2 is a solid spin-off of one of the best role playing games of all time.
Visually speaking, the game has been given a significant upgrade over its predecessor - polygon counts are higher, textures have a higher resolution, animations are improved, and character models have also been improved and updated. Although it's nice to see a step up from the original Symphonia, this spin-off is still a far cry from better looking Wii games like Metroid Prime 3 or Mario Galaxy.
As for the audio, Symphonia 2's soundtrack and voice work are generally well done. For example, all of the towns' music tracks have been redone (still essentially the same, just done better) and sound spectacular, and most of the voice work is solid. On the downside, there aren't many memorable new tracks, and some of the voice work (Zelos in particular) is not terribly well executed.
The gameplay seen here is pretty much standard Tales gameplay, nothing terribly different from what we've seen before. The combat is handled by the same battle system used for Tales of the Abyss, which is a very good thing, and, unlike in Abyss, all of its features are fully unlocked at the beginning of the game (for example, being able to run freely on the battlefield). When not in battle, the player will be going through scenes of dialogue, and wandering around towns and dungeons with the goal of advancing the plot.
The leveling system used in Symphonia 2 works well; you'll gradually unlock new skills and artes, as well as raise your general stats, simply by fighting and gaining experience. You can recruit monsters to fight alongside you, and can level them up and give them new abilities. At every town you can shop, buy new weapons and accessories, and can go on side-quests given by the Katz.
I loved the first Symphonia, and this game leaves me with generally good, but mixed, feelings. I loved being able to see all my favourite old characters and locations. I loved the soundtrack, and I loved getting to have my new characters fight side by side with the original cast. In addition, all throughout your journey, you keep hearing references to the original game, such as "...but then Lloyd and his friends killed him..." which is really cool. On the other hand, I was frustrated at how short the game was - I was at the end at about 30 hours, which is considerably shorter than the first Symphonia. Also, the point and click format of travelling (as opposed to freely wandering outside of towns) made the world seem much smaller and more restricted, and it also removes the incentive to go exploring, and removes the feeling that you're in a big and exciting world.
Finally, my biggest gripe with the game is that you are not given full control over the original cast. Your favourite original characters will not reliably be in your party until you reach the end of the game. You cannot level up the original characters, you cannot change their equipment, and you can't even make them your avatar, or set them to be your default character in battle. These details prevent you from feeling truly reunited with your old characters, and it's heart breaking to know that with a few changes, all of this could have been avoided. On the bright side, however, the original cast are featured prominently in all the dialogue interactions, skits, storyline, and so on, so you definitely get to see them a lot, for what that's worth.
All in all, despite its flaws detailed above, Symphonia 2 is still a solid RPG in its own right, and is a real nostalgic treat for fans of the original.