VTM: 20th Anniversary is a classical game and should be played by everyone at least once. It hits home hard the "A beast I am, lest a beast I become" feel that it wishes to portray. Yes, you are a beast, but what are you willing to do to contain it and keep hold of your humanity? With amazing writing, little tidbits everywhere, amazing art, it's a complete game in itself without the need of sourcebooks, although I would recommend those as well.

A lot of media tries to portray Vampires as best they can but nothing hits home quite like the world of Vampire the Masquerade does. And with the ruleset, there is not a single skillroll you can't make easily, especially when it's simply up to you and the GM to determine together what skills and attributes are needed for the moment. Would spinning your revolver in a flashy way to woo a girl a Dexterity + Firearms test, or a Charisma + Performance? Everything from regular checks to combat feels easy to get into, and most of the rules are clear and concise in this 20th anniversary edition.

I bought the hardcover, and it's certainly a sizeable lad of a book, and the quality of the pages and binding is excellent. It feels wonderful to simply skim the pages and look through the chapters. Easy to find most things with a good index in the back, a sorely lacking feature of many modern games.

As World of Darkness games goes, this is by far my favorite and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in playing something darker.

As rules goes, it's a streamlined experience over 2020. However I feel that with this streamlining, there's a lot of charm that's been lost to the setting and the general feel of the game. 2020 had a lot of personality as games go, and RED plays it a bit too safe and shallow with things. It has a lot of major advantages over 2020, of course, one of the main ones being the new Netrunning system. Now it actually feels viable for a Netrunner to join a group and not just hang back or even be an NPC for the group. After testing out the system with some friends, the Netrunner had as much active ability during a fight as the Solo protecting them while they broke into a computer network.

The setting is somewhat all over the place. Partly, it feels like it wants to really dig into the Post-Apocalyptic feel of the Time of the Red, with night markets and bazaars but at the same time, there are still clinics that can gladly install new cyberware for you. Some interesting things has happened in the lore since the year 2020, of course, but for bridging the gap between 2020 and the 2077 game, it feels lacking. In my mentioned group, we pushed things ahead and played a few years prior to 2077 and still had a great time.

Overall, I like RED, and would recommend it, but it's so close to being great rather than just good. Still a great purchase, and at $30 it's a steal.