Second had potential with the thematic of "We revisit the same places and how they change over the years". It was (and is) something that is not really explored in RPGs, so I don't mind that they tried something different.
Execution of it was messy, because areas were too similar (even when they were different locations). Area layout should have only been similar in the same location over time.
Story also suffered a bit from it, but honestly it was fine for me. Try something different, it might work.

But the whole wave combat system was way overdone and ruined the game for me. It would've been fine for a few encounters where it makes sense that the enemy sounds the alarm and reinforcements show up after a while, but it was used in every fucking fight.
It boiled down to "I cannot use my expensive skills, because in a round or 3 new enemies might spawn and I want to save the abilities for that". Until the fight was over and you thought "Fuck, that would've been easier if I used ability X".