You never really know what to expect from the sequel to a bad game. Sometimes developers listen to their audience and work on fixing everything that was wrong with the first title.
"Gimmicky" is one of those words that's often thrown around in reviews. Obviously, to be gimmicky, a game first needs a gimmick: something that's unusually innovative.
The idea behind this title--traveling through time to stop your multiple deaths is amazing, but man, there are a few major chinks in the armor that turn Shadow into...well, a shadow of what it could be.
The fighting is from a detached camera angle that shows you both characters as you wander around the stage, which is usually a fairly square patch of ground, littered with various breakable objects.