The Fortune/Strength fight really only works in the context of the game, with the wheel determining how your party and the enemy are affected from turn to turn. This is all we get to see of “Innocent Sin Online” and “Maya” They took a dump on Social Links once again. But you know, he’s a whiny self-entitled brat. Then, after learning the truth, he still decides to try and kill Shinji and then commit suicide, even though the events that led up to this should have made it extremely clear that his mother’s death was actually an accident. Here, Ken has no idea who or what killed his mother, and becomes closer to Shinji. In the movie, they completely changed this. Originally, Ken joined SEES because he wanted to find and kill Shinji to exact revenge for his mother being killed (which was an accident, but he didn’t know that). I don’t even think that they ever acknowledged that the battle with the tank was two Shadows in one. So if you weren’t already familiar with the game, you wouldn’t have a clue that it was the case. In the game, he decided to join after learning that Ken had joined SEES, but here he came in just in time to save the day during the Chariot and Justice fight. For example, Shinji’s entrance wasn’t nearly as theatric originally. Some of the massive changes to the story are more problematic than others. Basically, this is how the movie started. The story picks up with the Hierophant/Lovers event, then works through the trip to Yakushima, four new characters joining the team, the Chariot/Justice fight, conflict with Strega, the Hermit fight, and the Fortune/Strength fight tied with Ken and Shinji’s issues.
As in they completely rewrote how plenty of things played out through the course of the film, not simply changing how certain events happen. There was plenty of creative liberty with the story, far more than in the first one. However, I do think that this was a better movie altogether. By a very small margin. Like the first movie, I have a lot to say about this one, mostly in the form of comparisons back to the game.
Unlike my post on the first movie, there will be lots of big spoilers here.