Good adventure, good characters for HeartQuest/Fudge.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

A surprisingly different approach to role-playing that embraces both slam-bang action and the more mundane struggles of everyday life (The sub-genres of Shoujo Manga being almost as diverse as the entirety of American comic books today). It also manages to have an interesting feminine world-view that isn't anti-masculine, where most RPGs are strongly male-oriented and at best indifferent to any female outlook. And it's flexible enough that you can run a campaign that engages the interest and enthusiasm any age-group from pre-teen through adults, lightly comic to deathly serious, without any tweaking of the rules (this, probably, is a bow to the FUDGE core rules that it uses). <br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Unique story-telling perspective, diverse possibilities for plots and characters, easy to understand rules, lots of background material about the subject matter and ideas for adventures and campaigns.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This is a very good sourcebook for HeartQuest. The genre details are filled out expertly and completely. If you own HeartQuest this is a must have. <br><br><b>LIKED</b>: There is a definate feel and style that is captured excellently. The book is a joy and interesting to read.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The graphics were simple but still seemed to add to the bulk of the file. The pdf is a large file that prints slow.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

I got this product to have a look at how someone else had adapted Fudge for use with big mecha. To be honest, I wasn't that impressed. It's not that it's a poor product, but it's just not very useful in terms of information it supplies. But maybe it is just too dependent on HeartQuest (which I don't have). My advice is if you don't have HQ, you might want to consider carefully whether you want to buy some very average ideas of implementation. If you have HQ, then you need to consider if you need help in implementing Big Mecha genre stuff or now.

An excellent resource for someone wishing to add Mecha to their Fudge games, whether using the HeartQuest ruleset or not. Surprisingly, they managed to work Mecha (which usually takes the crunchiest of rulesets to work out) and do them in something as simple and rules lite as Fudge. Don't let the shojo elements trip you up either, they can easily be ignored or moved out of the front for those who wish to run other sorts of Anime Mecha games.

I wouldn't mind a more generic Anime game with the Fudge rules, something that would give BESM a run for its money.

I've been pleasantly surprised at the quality of the HeartQuest line, and Steel Roses is no exception to that.

When I think of Mecha in Shoujo Manga, I tend to think of Evangelion even though it's the wrong Genre. Then I looked again at Magic Knight Rayearth and Shadow Lady. Who'se to say other Genres can't be done Shoujo style? Steel Roses allows you to do all of this with a highly flexible system that allows for role-play and Mecha design. The sample adventure Asuka Dangerous! (that seems to have overtones of Evangelion) shows how this seamlessly integrates with Heartquest. I recommend this to all Shoujo and Mecha fans.

Good writing, an amusing premise and some LOL moments. And cheap! What more could one ask?

Heartquest is a roleplaying game that is very different form any other. This is a game for all those fans of Sailor Moon, Cardcaptors and Revoutionary Girl Utena. The idea of playing characters in Shoujo Manga may not appeal to everyone, but then this is not a 'guy's' game. It is a game for those who love Anime and storytelling, and Heartquest does this very well.

Quite nice, although I admit I was hoping for more bishonen goodness. :-)