Grimoire Of The Rift follows more or less the same formula as its predecessors which is a good thing because both of them are incredible (even with the divisive judge system of FFTA), the thing is that there is little to none improvements from the last games so it tends to feel kinda repetitive at times. You still can't skip or fast forward enemy turns or yours, so it makes grinding a lot more annoying.
Making the slow pacing aside, the combat is still good, and it has a lot of versatility and skills combinations for your units, and maybe that is my favorite part of the game, to make that one unit a perfect killing machine. The story is just serviceable, it has potential but is not even near of the other two games, so it makes everything a lot more inconsequential, the characters are OK but nothing to write home about, and the music sounded like a lot of tunes were recycled from FFTA. On the graphic side, the game looks like a work of art, simply beautiful.
Overall is a great game but compared to its predecessors it fells just a little short, especially in the story side, but if you have extra time and want to have a good tactical experience, FFTA2 is a good choice.