The visuals are far more consistent than they were before, there will be no scenes with absolutely atrocious animation or badly drawn faces, and all the fights are competently done, although the budget is still noticeable limited. This is very noticeable with the art, the backgrounds lack detail, are usually completely bare and are nothing in the way of eye candy. The character designs for the girls are diverse and have a lot of charm, whereas those for everyone else have much less thought put into them. If they had more money to pump into the show all of them would have looked much better. At least they have their priorities right with focusing on the female characters.
The soundtrack also is an improvement upon the last season, there were a couple of insert songs that may catch your liking, both of which were sung by Takagaki Ayahi, the seiyuu for Chris, who is by far the best singer in the cast. The lyrics for the songs (if you your subs provide them) are incredibly cheesy and are often funny because of that, they rather fit into the spirit of the show. The other seiyuu aren't bad singers, and some of their songs are also pretty nice, however it is Chris that runs away with it.
The characters are much more likable this season, and the developments of the characters (notably the three new ones introduced), whilst clumsy and lacking subtlety are markedly better than the random character developments of the last season. The characters are really weak, however despite this they are still quite endearing, to the extent where some of their annoying habits become lovable quirks. In all they are much like the show, really poorly written and lacking any depth, but that's just a strange part of their appeal. Sadly, for all my back-handed praise, they are not characters that you will forever remember, if not for the character designs they are entirely forgettable. They lack the depth to leave a lasting impression. Additionally some of the characters still manage to be annoying on occasion, however those events are few and far between.
The plot is disappointing the sense that it does not reach the ludicrous moon-shattering events of the first season, it does somewhat make up for it by being much more cheesy. In any case, whilst slightly more grounded, the writing is still horrendous. For one it managed to make the fairly simple plot convoluted to the point where it was unclear what exactly was going on. Additionally serious plot twists which are sporadically introduced get either dismissed or resolved easily and are instantly forgotten about despite the fact they should be major events, and even some major points which build up throughout the series are effortlessly resolved out of nowhere. The antagonist is also an atrociously written character, his motives are beyond cliché, his actions are inane, and his personality is one dimensional and he has only two emotions, hysterical or cocky. Despite his amazing seiyuu he is an incredibly irritating character towards the end, he was far inferior even to Fine in the first season.
So whilst Symphogear has improved in most areas, it is still a very poor show on paper, and indeed if you cannot ignore bad writing, and cannot let go stupid things, then I do not recommend this show, because you will be in for the same experience as you had watching the first season. However if you can embrace Symphogear for the incredibly earnest and cheesy show it is then you may have an enjoyable experience watching it. You will find that there are plenty of things to laugh and smile about; one scene in the latter half had me in fits of laughter, and another near the begging had me smiling at how lovable Chris was despite everything. Having watched the first season you should know well by now whether you will be able to enjoy the show or not even if this season is considerably more enjoyable.
Overall, I will say pretty much the same of this season as I did the last; if you can embrace this for the earnestly silly show that it is then you should be able to have some good fun watching it with its somewhat unique appeal. However if you cannot abide watching an anime that does almost every single technical and literacy aspect wrong, then I simply cannot recommend it, because you're going to have a rough time.
