I played the game last DD too and my feelings haven't changed much since then. I like the new animations and I don't remember if items were a thing back then but I like the risk/reward of fighting mini-bosses to get them.
My biggest issue is still that the hardest battle is always the first one, you either die to a dice or snowball into godhood, with no in-between.
The reason for this, I believe, is because the starting symbols have no synergy with each other whereas most of the ones you can unlock have 2 colors which makes rolls way more consistent, and in any game with lots of RNG, consistence is overpowered.
You go from having to work on lining up 3 reds for pitiful damage to matching 7 or 8 with just a few dual color items. Synergy between items is really good and I like the color system because it's very intuitive, it only needs a bit more balance in my opinion.