I think you can sum up the modern Ninja Gaiden series through the arc of chapter 7: you storm an airship, fighting a bunch of fun mobs and destroying it from the inside. You face off against a rival ninja, before driving a motorcycle out of the crashing wreckage. So sick... And then you randomly fight a giant turtle that just wanders around in a circle. The game repeatedly builds sequences up to a slam dunk and then punctuates it with a brick.

It was forgivable in the first game, but the sequel foregrounds the issue. Ultimately, this is a consequence of the maximalist philosophy of NG2 - there is no restraint, everything is more. Most of the worst elements could have simply been cut from the game and it wouldn't have even felt like anything was missing. But chapter 7 needed two boss fights, because we can't let that brilliant turtle boss design go to waste. Hell, let's make you fight two of them later on, really get our money's worth. It doubles down on its worst impulses.

Again, the core combat is excellent, but I just can't look past that stuff. Good boss fights are make or break for me, so no game with that Gigadeath fight could ever earn more than three stars, and I'm not even sure that's the worst boss in the game. With such great melee combat, why are there so many boss fights where the optimal (and often only) strategy is just "use bow and arrow until dead," or worse, some lame cheese? I want to square up and fight. These games have a handful of good duels (e.g. Murai, Doku, Genshin) but they just keep giving you lazy ranged fights and giant enemies with limited movesets.

Similar to NGB, a big part of the problem is the game's superlative reputation. For years I heard nothing but praise about these games - the pinnacle of the action genre, total masterpiece. It's not totally unfounded; I can see glimmers, and sometimes the games really shine. But I guess I do understand why, whenever I saw clips of the gameplay, it was never a boss fight.

Realised I haven't written about this one yet, yeah it's a goddamn masterpiece of character action in my eyes.

It's so fast and frenetic, throwing everything and the kitchen sink at you and never giving you a moment to rest. I know some people miss the interconnected world of the first, but I never really felt like that complimented the type of pacing I want from an action game.
Call me simple but I just wanna go-go-go whenever I play a game in this genre, running around a map and getting lost doesn't really do much for me so I'm happy that this one is much more to the point and linear.

Onto the combat, I love the split second decision making that permeates every moment of a duel. Whenever a blue orb popped out of an enemy I always played the positioning game where I held up my guard as to not immediately collect it and had to make the on the spot choice of taking the free health or using it to charge up Oblivion Cross Cut to swiftly take out an enemy.

However, despite my love for this game, there is one complaint I can lobby at it. There are some really tedious bosses that do not compliment the best aspects of the gameplay and in fact force you to whip out your bow and slowly chip off their health bit by bit. The bosses I refer to specifically are GIGADEATH and the Twin Gold Dragons, they're not overly challenging nor cheap but they are a hindrance whenever I go back and play this game.
However this game also has a Vergil equivalent boss. And as any well versed action player knows the best fights are always 1 on 1 duels against an enemy the exact same size as you. To this standard, Genshin does not disappoint.

I implore anyone who's interested in hyper challenging action games to check this one out. I may slightly prefer Devil May Cry 5 and God Hand overall, but this is a bloody good number 3.

It's not perfect but there's a lot of good stuff.

It's weird because in many ways this game could be considered an upgrade to Ninja Gaiden Black:
The combat has been expanded to the max, there's a lot of moves and most of them are extremely deadly and the new weapons can be extremely good
The movement was refined, dodges are faster to accomodate the speed of the gameplay
The water running was also refined and you have more control over it (being stuck in water and having to swim is really slow, but not anymore, you can just get on top of the water and water run from inside the water)
The health system was changed but made way more interesting and makes for a dynamic gameplay loop, risking your life at low health to then get most of it back is definitely satisfying or even saving your health upgrades for a free maximum heal opens up very interesting options
The bosses can be extremely fast and aggressive which makes up for very quick fights on your end or theirs

Now if that was my review of it I wouldn't have rated it a 3. Because there is some bad.
To start the story is just a very simple rehash of NGB's story it doesn't even try to make anything new, you end up going around killing greater fiends that give you a totem (only on the second rematch though, not even on the first time) that you use to access the final boss while a femme fatale is being helpful but also unhelpful at the same time. It is what it is, but you don't play Ninja Gaiden for the story or if you do I guess you're a fan of 3/3RE.
The level design is non existent it may as well be a series of corridors that connect you to other arenas at times which sometimes look pretty interesting and even pretty but sometimes they look so generic I practically forgot I was still playing a Ninja Gaiden game.
The bosses for the most part are actually good, but the moment you get the scythe it's over for them and for you, using anything else is probably an handicap: it's fast, hits all around you with most attacks and does a lot of damage. It also has one of the best Ultimate Techniques this game can offer, and since charging up UTs is so fast you're probably gonna abuse it. There's other good and fun weapons and maybe it is better to switch around every now and then or you'll go mad.
There are two or three bossfights which are totally garbage: Gigadeath, Water Dragon and maybe the Giant Skull Worm but he's quick and easy. The game would be better off without them.
The game would also be better off without all the flying enemies which are painfully and excruciatingly dealt with by aiming your bow and arrow at them and hitting them with a UT while standing still. Thrilling gameplay.
The game, atleast on the Xbox Series S|X BC, seems to be endlessly glitchy, I've softlocked myself at least three times and the enemy AI sometimes just gives up and lets you deal some free damage or they get stuck on some geometry. Clearly this game needed to be polished a little more.

There's much to love but there's also a some bullshit that if you wanna put up with it can leave you with one of the goriest and bloodiest games of all time.

If Ninja Gaiden Black is gaming cocaine, Ninja Gaiden II is crystal meth. Extremely addictive and visceral combat, that for the last 15 years did not had been matched by any other game, will suck everything from you until you will not be able to move your hands. playing on newer Xbox consoles makes issue with framerate and resolution gone (epic staircase battle is finally 60FPS rock solid). This obviously does not solve all issues as uneven graphics and simplistic level designs in some parts of the game. However with such great combat, strong art direction and adrenaline-pumping music NGII is an essence of cool, escapist video game that cannot be stopped by anything.

Is ninja gaiden black an objectively better game? Probably. Do I like Ninja Gaiden 2 more? Oh hell yes.

Ninja Gaiden black is a masterfully crafted, beautifully made game polished to a mirror shine. Ninja gaiden 2 is an exercise in insanity, and I love it all the more for it. It's so completely unhinged and so unapologetic in how over the top it is with its combat and encounters that I can't help but adore it.

Its my favorite game of all time. All killer no filler, cuts the fat from the first game, and smartly moves the focus to what we're all here for: the combat.

It's been changed quite a bit from Black. The speed is ramped up greatly and foes are way more agressive. The game has shifted from being all about good defense and exploiting holes in enemy attack strings to you being on the offensive all the time. The game relies heavily on your knowledge of which moves grant you invincibility frames and when to use them in what situation to survive. This is ESSENTIAL on high difficulties. It's a far cry from Black's defense and counter based combat, way more fun and allows for much more free-form fighting.

Other things have been changed for the better also, no more tedious item fetching, snore inducing puzzles or weird, wonky platforming sections that killed the pacing of the first game. This game starts at 100 and doesn't let up until the credits roll. It's a non stop gauntlet the whole way through of ruthless enemies, ultraviolence and some of the most intense, high speed fighting I've ever enjoyed.

This game gets alot of heat because of how ruthless it is. Hate to say it, but it filters people like no other game I've ever seen. This game ruined action games for me, no other game since has lived up to the thrills of NG2 on master ninja mode, other games come and go, but I always find myself coming back for more NG2 as the years wear on.