Nothing short of a masterpiece when it comes to being a Zelda-like.
The combat is extremely fun (though at times too easy), the puzzles are very well made and use my two favorite items from Twilight Princess, the exploration is great, specially since it's hard to get lost, the time limit adds some great tension, and it's the only Zelda-like I've seen where you can just speed through dungeons by buying or unlocking items that serve the same purpose as the dungeon item.
My only real complaints are that that the story is only okay, it is forced on you a bit too much; crafting feels really out of place; and the character designs are fine when it's not pixel art, but look like something out of a cheap "how to draw manga" book when it is, which is a shame because everything else in the game looks fantastic.

Octopath Traveler was a game that took me by surprise with how much I enjoyed it. Initially, I wasn't interested in the game due to it resembling Bravely Default and because I got filtered by both Bravely Default & Octopath Traveler's demos when those were released. In retrospect, I went into them hoping for and expecting them to be games that I could play and keep my brain turned off. Before & during my playthrough of the first Octopath Traveler I realized I was a total idiot. When I finally gave the game a proper chance, I found the strategy required in taking down bosses and enemies to be one of the best parts of the game. Octopath Traveler II keeps everything good about the first game and improves upon its shortcomings to deliver a fantastic RPG that is sure to become a classic in due time.

The gameplay is mostly the same with all of the primary jobs from the first game coming back. Even the new secondary jobs share some similarities to the ones in the previous game. However, they added one new mechanic and it is one that can become a game-changer in tough situations, Latent Powers. Each traveler has a unique one with different benefits. A few examples would be, Partitio's latent power that allows him to have max BP, Agnea's which allows her single attack moves to attack all enemies, or Hikari's & Ochette's which give them access to special attacks. I can't count the number of times this mechanic saved me from what would otherwise have been a game over had it not been added. There are also EX skills that grant you access to more powerful abilities but I didn't use them as much as I probably could have. They may not have been vital additions to the game, but they are welcome ones that make the game a little bit easier and each character more unique.

The biggest issues with the first game were the story and the 8 travelers you play as barely interact with each other. While there were a couple of travelers from the first game whose stories I ended up enjoying more, in most cases the stories were more interesting and an improvement over the first one. The pacing for each story was better too. Some chapters are split into two parts that give the game a little more breathing room to flesh out the story a little more compared to everyone in the first game where they only had 4 chapters. They fixed my biggest gripe with the first game's story and that was the lack of connection between each traveler's quest. The final chapter unites all of the characters together in order to save the world and also adds some lore that pieces some events in their respective stories together.

The travelers interact with each other a lot more and in a handful of others ways than they did in the first game. There is the banter dialogue which is a lot easier to find than it was in the first game (I didn't even know it existed in Octopath 1 till the end of the game), the crossed paths chapters that involve two of the travelers going on an adventure together, and the final chapter that unites them all. Seeing all your party members interact with each other might seem like a small, unimportant oversight, but it comes a long way in enhancing the experience.

While the first Octopath Traveler may have a special place in my heart, Octopath Traveler II is a game that surpasses it in pretty much every way. If this game is an indication of what is in store for the future of the Octopath Traveler franchise, then its a series that has a bright future ahead of it.

A truly disposable spinoff of the Neptunia series, and it's just an odd one. The main reason to play Neptunia is the fanservice and self aware 4th wall breaking dialogue. Ninja Wars takes its stupid plot seriously, but to an annoying degree.

There is so much god damn dialogue in this game, and the story is so bland. Its a 6-8 hour adventure not counting very generic typical Neptunia side content, half of that is just characters blabbing about the typical "bad guys", and ancient scrolls and ninja honor and shit. Luckily, its skippable, but if you skip the dialogue in this game, you're basically paying for a C-tier 3D brawler that lasts about 4 hours.

Even if you love both series, this game is way too stingy with its 4th wall breaks, instead choosing to put a spotlight on these characters, who are essentially acting out a middle schooler's creative writing ninja epic with some very shoehorned in gaming themed winks to the camera.

The other Neptunia beat em ups are just as bland gameplay wise, but they also have the Sister CPUs and more goofy dialogue. Ninja Wars has very few good qualities in comparison. Cutscenes got a lot of CPU talk and much less Nep talk.

Full video review: https://youtu.be/wV6-3ozOKkU

It’s important to set expectations here. This may be a crossover, but this is ultimately just another Neptunia spin-off and it brings pretty much all the usuals associated with that label. The gameplay that has a good base, but some flaws on top of it, the story that takes up around 75% of the game’s play time, and the overall “not really taking itself seriously”-kind of attitude. This doesn’t make it a bad game though – just a Neptunia game.

Gameplay
Ninja Wars is a full-blown action-based combo brawler that is kind of reminiscent of the Ys games. You have your one basic attack string per character, but then a handful of character abilities that can be comboed together in different ways. The core to the combat here is fine – there’s a good amount of feedback and it’s not as weightless as it appears.

That said, the flow can be a bit iffy. The basic strings feel great to use and the character abilities too, but I was not a fan of how the game is effectively paused when you’re selecting which ability to use. That and I also did not like the fact that these abilities cannot be canceled mid-animation.

I guess it’s a way of balancing difficulty, but most of them have so much ending lag that it’s like the game is actively encouraging you not to combo them together. The entire combo system is effectively useless against bosses anyways since they do not stagger like regular enemies and you only ever have enough time to really get off one ability before the boss starts attacking again.

Bosses/Difficulty
And on the topic of those bosses – they’re actually pretty good. Multiple unique attacks, cool designs, and some surprisingly high difficulty. I won’t deny, some of the bosses took me multiple attempts, but it never reached the point of outright frustration. What started off as a relatively easy game became less so as it went on – granted, I also was a bit of a pro gamer taking on dungeons that were higher level than my characters.

Level Design
The dungeons are just okay. It is a Neptunia game, so I can’t say I was expecting much, but it’s pretty much just the usual long hallways, bigger rooms to accommodate enemy fights, and only a couple branching paths along the way. The loot you find is mostly healing items and the occasional weapon upgrade – beyond that the exploration is extremely limited.

Content
This can be seen in the overall game loop as well. You basically: enter level, watch cutscene, kill some enemies, take on a mid-boss, kill some more enemies, take on dungeon boss, and then watch another cutscene. Repeat this for about ten hours and you’ve completed Neptunia x Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars. It’s a fairly barebones overall package and the extra stuff on top of that isn’t really all that exciting either.

Customization
You can’t change character appearance and the only customization you gave is with your two equipped ranged weapons and your two charms per character – basically passive upgrades. The most advanced it gets is with the spirit gem feature, which allows you to align spirit gems on a board, each providing some passive buff that is only increased depending on how you lay them out on the spirit board. It’s a nice feature to have, but again, nothing too major here.

Story
At least the main story is fine. I wouldn’t say it’s… great, but if you like the usual Neptunia comedy-adventure duo, that is on full display here – just with the Senran Kagura girls as a bonus. The setting is this neat mix of Japanese history, but with that classic Neptunia sci-fi/video game twist and it kinda reminded me of Cyberdimension Neptunia. Par for the series – the story does not take itself seriously and you will get the usual bad guys turning good and other predictable plot developments.

Overall
Ninja Wars takes elements that make both series great and combines them into something just… okay. The combat is pretty involved as far as those two series go, but it doesn’t flow all that well. The boss fights are cool, but the aren’t enough of them and the game is over in just 10 hours – of which roughly only 2-3 were actual gameplay. The story, which makes up the rest of those hours, is also nothing special beyond the typical Neptunia fare. It’s not bad, just average.