Fantasy Flight Games: Anima RPG

Jorjowsky schrieb:

I haven't read it fully yet... despite having had it for a year now. Please note this has much less to do with the quality of the game than with my gamer ADD ; I only mention it so you know the following opinion is only useful as a generic first impression (even if further attempts at reading it have all reached the same conclusion).

-- It's a very pretty game, that's for sure. Full colour, glossy pages, good (but not striking) layout, plenty of nice looking illustrations. That said, the illos have a certain "generic fantasy manga" looking to them, in the regard that they don't *seem* to be made ex profeso for the game, but rather hand-picked from pre-existing artists' portfolios so the game has that kind of feel (not saying it was done that way, only what it feels to me); most of them have a sort of caption tying them to the section of the book they appear in, but these captions often sound a bit artificial and shoe-horned. Still, the purdiness can't be denied.

-- The writing style is what I would call half-professional (concise, easily understandable, to the point -- as all rules explanations should be) and half-amateurish, with some convoluted, ackwardly written phrases that try to make sure you understand what they want to explain, but which sound too much like the writer is sitting next to you trying to explain the game ("it's like, you see, average intelligence for a human is this, and that would be you and me, unless you are very clever, haha, but now imagine, I dunno, Einstein. He would be like that, because, you know, that's the human limit, or maybe even a bit more, you see, because the average was just this as I said before, you got that? Good"). It's perfectly understandable, but I think the editor could have told the writer "simple and to the point, simple and to the point" a few more times. This could be just me, though, since I'm one of those rare individuals that like the rules explanations to be written like textbooks (setting info is another animal entirely). I know many fellow RPGnetters disagree on this, so take it with a few teaspoons of salt.

-- Content-wise: it's very crunchy; I don't know if "rules medium" does it justice (in the sense that, if you call this "rules medium", I'm not sure what would you call "rules heavy"). Has quite a few D20-isms mixed with quite a few of Rolemaster-isms. The Rolemaster bit doesn't come from the fact that it has three million tables to check in combat (it does have one big table you seem to use all the time, though) but from the general "roll a D100, add modifiers, compare to difficulty number (which has its own modifiers) to see if something happens, then maybe roll again to see what is it that happens".

-- The corebook is of the Omnibus variety. It has *everything* plus three or four kitchen sinks. Charapter creation, combat, equipment, more equipment, some more equipment, more combat, magic system, another magic system, martial arts... Every chapter is like a whole new sub-system within the game. I find it a bit overwhelming and disjoined, but you can't accuse it of not giving you enough bang for your buck. It has plenty of bang, that's for sure.

-- Setting: I can't comment much on this. The setting chapter (quite smaller in comparison to the system information, but that's easily fixed with the World of Gaia supplement that is already out... in Spanish as well) puts me to sleep every time I try to read it. Again, this has lots more to do with me than with the game -- setting information has that effect on me. Others will have to fill you in on that.

-- Overall it doesn't feel, to me, like an Asian-based RPG (in the sense that, say, Exalted or Weapons of the Gods have a certain Japanese/Chinese feel to the whole thing) but more like a very detailed western system applied to an Asian aesthetic, if that makes any sense at all. Not a criticism of what the game is -- just a warning about what it isn't. I just don't want people to think Anima is another Exalted, because it isn't. To me, that's a plus, mostly because, with all its complexities, I can see myself running Anima one day (which seems like a very competent and solid product, depending on your crunch tolerance level) while Exalted isn't my thing at all. But your mileage may vary a lot.

EDIT: Re-reading that, it looks like in general I'm trashing the game. I'm not! It looks like a very well made and though-out game, but also one that won't cater to all audiences. As I say, I really want to play it one day, as it looks like my kind of thing (or at least what would be my kind of thing if I still had the capability to sit down and read big books like I used to ). Most of what looks like harsh criticisms above are not "this *****" but more "this won't be your cup of tea if you are looking for a simple system that you can use to play games based on anime series", because that's certainly NOT what Anima is about. No more and no less.

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Tellurian schrieb:

Smells like fail...

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Ehron schrieb:

Die Suche ist Dein Freund: http://www.blutschwerter.de/f18-andere-rpg-systeme/t18810-fantasy-flight-games-anima-rpg.html

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