I enjoyed the first game. I thought it was a neat enough story and I really liked the characters and their interactions, but at no point did it ever really touch me emotionally. For reasons I can't really explain, this game hit a lot closer to home and made me cry, that's probably enough said in that regard.

In a more objective sense, Oxenfree 2 is a huge improvement over the first game, mainly in how you actually interact with it. Moving around especially feels a lot less clunky than the original, partly cause Riley seems to generally walk a bit faster, and because paths seem to be a bit wider so you don't get "stuck" as much. The dialogue mechanics have also been smoothed out a lot, dialogue choices stay on screen a lot longer and most of the time will be buffered once you select them and said once other characters finish their lines, so you're not constantly being forced to interrupt other characters and miss lines like in the first game.

Overall I really liked this. I can't be sure how much I can recommend this for someone who hasn't played the first game since I don't know of a way to unplay Oxenfree, but if you liked the original you'll probably like this.

Also, you can pet the dog. 10/10.