Majin Tensei II: Spiral Nemesis

In terms of presentation and polish this is head and shoulders above the first game (with the notable exception of the battle portraits), but otherwise it feels like kind of a lateral move. The story is way more ambitious, but not only is it told incredibly poorly, the gameplay actually suffers thanks to the story structure. Jumping through different time periods means you can't return to completed levels to grind or recruit new demons, meaning you actually have substantially less control over the composition of your forces, and way less freedom to approach challenging maps with planning and strategy. It's a real shame, because this could have been a ground-shaking second entry to a series that feels like it has tons of potential.

Still better than devil survivor