Neptunia: Sisters vs Sisters / YMMV

Adorkable: Maho is an air-headed yet friendly girl who has her own set of cute quirks, like her obsession with phones and free-to-play mobile games, namely Gacha.
Base-Breaking Character: Maho is either loved for her cutesy, bubbly Genki Girl personality, her relationship with Nepgear, and her cutesy voice courtesy of her Japanese and English voice actresses, including the moments were they are capable of displaying the more subdued and emotional side of Maho, or is hated for being a Replacement Scrappy to the universally-beloved Uzume from the previous game, in addition to being responsible for the many hurdles that started the story in the first place.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Did you know there was something going on in Gamindustri beyond the "Trendi Outbreaks"? Well Compa would like to rant at you for a little while about the various conspiracy theories she has to deal with about a vaccine for a pandemic that's going on right now. And no, this mysterious virus and its vaccine are never relevant to anything else in the plot, nor are the alleged nanochips hidden in it for mass mind control.
Broken Base: The shift to action RPG gameplay. Some may find it more streamlined, while others may feel that it dumbs down battles.
Common Knowledge: Thanks to the Word of God confirming that Sisters takes place after VII, the game is often erroneously cited as the fifth mainline title in the series (or the fourth continuity-wise, since the original game takes place in its own universe and had its own story). In reality, Sisters is actually the thirteenth spin-off game, and despite taking place after VII, many plot points and characters from the latter are either gone entirely or Demoted to Extra in the case of the Gold Third, with Kurome only being mentioned in passing through the opening narration by Nepgear. This was only further compounded with the release of the next spin-off title Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution the following year, where the protagonist of that game, Older/Adult Neptune, is heavily stated to be the same character from VII, resulting in even more confusion from fans who were hoping for an "official" mainline title. Ironically, director Hikaru Yasui stated in an interview on October 2023 that they would be developing a mainline entry sometime in the future.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Due to being based on a very popular doujin game, Shanghai Alice became an instent fan-favorite among the fan base despite being a side character who doesn't have much of an effect on the story aside from being one of the survivors of the Trendi Outbreaks alongside Higurashi.
- Higurashi herself is also beloved for her Cute and Psycho personality (given that she's an Expy of the poster girl of the trope herself, Rena Ryuugu) despite also being a supporting character
Game-Breaker: Ram's Freeze Spike is a skill she learns at Level 9, costs 2 AP, and can dish out thousands of HP worth of damage against a foe before other characters are likely to easily break three digits regularly. It can easily be buffed when paired with Dagger Spikes as her first attack in a combo, pairing Rom as her Lily partner, and when adding a few Disc-based abilities. Proper usage of it not only makes it possible to clear out the Arena as soon as it unlocks, but allows Ram to easily solo the entire game!
Harsher in Hindsight:
- The many jokes within the Western fan base that centered around either a) Uni locking herself in her room in response to PSVita's discontinuation, or b) Noire's and Uni's Aloof Big Sister and "Well Done, Son" Guy characteristics, respectively, being a possible reference to Sony's treatment of the Vita after its lackluster sales compared to the Nintendo DS and 3DS, become this when, after seeing Noire for the first time in two years, Uni becomes distraught after seeing her sister become cold and distant of her, to the point of locking herself in her room out of betrayal and anger for her sister's change in behavior.
- Possibly overlapping with Hilarious in Hindsight depending on your stance on the matter, but the Bastard Sword's Flavor Text in previous games mentioning that Neptune likes using it because it lets her get away with swearing becomes this trope after IFI released a patch that Gosh Dang It to Heck!-ified most of the foul language in the English translation, even going so far as to rename the Bastard Sword to "Brute Sword".
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The Deity of Sin returns as the Big Bad, with the finale once again taking place in the reconstructed Gameindustri Graveyard. This is especially odd after Victory II, in which Neptune complained about the franchise overusing her (and she at least wasn't the Big Bad in that game).
Like You Would Really Do It: The initial premise is that Neptune never returned from the PC Continent before it was annihilated, leaving Nepgear as Planeptune's "final" CPU. But of course, they're not really going to kill off the protagonist, are they?
Moment of Awesome: After regaining some of her memories, the friendly and nihilistic present day Maho transforms into Grey Sister for the first time, much to the shock of her, Arfoire, and Nepgear.
Nightmare Fuel: In the Bad Ending, after Maho and Grey Sister fuses into a single entity in order to defeat Arfoire, Nepgear and co. are finally sent back to their home world from the now-destroyed PC Continent. However, when Nepgear tries to wake up the rest of the party, she notices that, with the exception of Maho, none of the other party members are able to wake up. It is later revealed that Maho, who had also fused with Arfoire, had put them in an eternal slumber, and with them out of the picture, she can be "friends" with Nepgear for the rest of their lives.
That One Achievement: The Japanese version's Purple Reaper trophy requires killing 10000 enemies. A single playthrough might see you killing about 1000 of them. Attempting to grind it out in the Colosseum is the most ideal method as the F4 and D4 fights have 14 and 15 enemies respectively, but you can't just button mash while doing something else as you are set a few steps away from the NPC to get into the fights and you have to scroll through the menu to get to either of those fights. Even doing it this way, this one trophy tacks on an extra 15 hours or so to the game mindlessly grinding. IFI lowered the requirement for the English release to a mere 2000, making this much easier to accomplish.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- The Transformation Sequences in Victory II had a lot of charm, so it can be a bit disappointing to see them stripped to the bare minimum.
- Fans were upset when Idea Factory International released a patch for the English localization that dials back or outright replaces all of the swear words to something more "suitable" (such as renaming "Bastard Sword" to "Brute Sword").
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- The CPU of the PC Continent, who is also Maho's older sister. Despite Maho creating the IS Crystal in the first place to save her, she's never seen or even named. She simply serves as Arfoire's initial host, getting unceremoniously killed off so she can switch to Maho.
- Despite having combat models and tagging along with Nepgear and the others at various points, Anri, Grey Sister, and Maho never actually become playable, even for a fight or two where it'd make sense. Strangely, Higurashi and Alice are playable despite being far less relevant to the story. Maho and Anri would eventually be Promoted to Playable in the Switch port that was announced on April of 2023.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The game ultimately sacrifices a lot of potential worldbuilding by getting rid of the PC Continent without ever really giving the audience a chance to see it.
Win Back the Crowd:
- After years of So Okay, It's Average at best spin-off titles that deviated heavily from the series' initial premise of parodying the video game industry with characters based on video game products/brands/companies, the announcement that Sisters would not only return to the latter format, but also expand on it with the inclusion of PC and mobile gaming, topics that were briefly touched upon or outright unmentioned, was met with universal praise from fans from both sides of the pacific, especially the West.
- The return of the Candidates after being Put on the Bus for so long ^note was also met with approval from fans who thought that Compile Heart and Idea Factory permanently wrote them off of the franchise entirely like what happened to the Makers and Oracles that weren't IF, Compa, and Histoire.

YMMV / Neptunia: Sisters vs Sisters

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