Break!! review: "A worldbuilder's fever dream of familiar anime tropes, dusted over deep and malleable lore"

Break!! is a tabletop RPG with a stark emphasis on meaningful player interaction, creative expression, and all-out weebyness. The 470 page core rulebook is a worldbuilder's fever dream of familiar anime tropes, dusted over deep and malleable lore. Oozing with inspiration from top anime titles – I've noted mirrors to Delicious in Dungeon, Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, and some of the more action-oriented Studio Ghibli movies, to name a few – Break!! throws players into a world of intrigue, heroism and companionship. It presents a rich setting full of anime-style whimsy with a masterful yet humble flick of the wrist. Is it one of the best tabletop RPGs? If you're an anime stan or someone that grew up admiring SNES-era JRPGs, absolutely.

This is a game that makes no assumptions about moral alignment based on a character's physiology or choice of magic, and it presents itself with TTRPG newbies in mind. Break!! lends itself to a cinematic tabletop RPG experience as a result, and although the roll-under mechanic blunts that a little, it's a fantastic modern adaptation of old-school pen and paper RP – one that'll see players monologuing and fanservice-fumbling their way through epic journeys built around connection, heroism, and the power of friendship.

Break!! features & design

• Explore a rich, dynamic world of anime tropes
• Homebrew to your heart's content
• Hilarious descriptions and simple systems

Presented in a visually clean, beautifully illustrated, and easy to reference tome, the Break!! Core Rulebook kicks off with character creation. While there are no pre-generated player-characters, randomizing the process knocks it down to about an hour. Here, cleverly inserted lore helps situate players, teasing some culture and ushering newbies in without heaps of exposition front-loading the experience. That's something the book excels at, too, with intriguing bitesize snippets littered throughout to lure you into the weeds. Plus, the descriptions are primed to give us weebs a good chuckle while still being mechanically interesting.

There's a host of familiar archetypes to draw in anime fiends, too – the Esakai-like Dimensional Stray and fun-size Chib both feature as Species, for example. Next to your standard sneaky, tanky, and spell-slinging Callings (similar to D&D classes), the Heretic and Murder Princess sit alongside mundane-but-just-as-important options like the Factotum, whose superpower is basically having a massive backpack. With the addition of quirks, spells, and abilities, every character lends their own unique flair to the table. It's in no way as comprehensive as Pathfinder 2e's character options, but it's far easier for new players to digest. The handful of Callings and Species are enough to ensure the party is varied, while offering some interesting combos.

Character advancement wields some exciting abilities to get players raring to level up, and the process is simple enough. It's only outlined up to level ten, but smaller numbers make it easier for the mathematically disinclined to calculate past that. There's also plenty of opportunity for players to take ownership over their advancement by crafting and imbuing better gear, using their Downtime to train one another, or building a reputation for themselves.

Included is a varied collection of pre-gen adversaries, but the meat of the prep comes in the ten-page rundown for creating your own compelling, recurring rivals. GMs are encouraged to customize and reskin premade adversaries, with easy-to-parse instructions that let you hack the game in minutes. That said, you could easily get a full campaign out of the characters outlined in the core book.

There are far fewer adventure maps and sites included than adversaries, with only one starter adventure outlined in detail. But again, there are enough roll tables for adventure hooks, hazards, points of interest, encounters, and map features, as well as a whole spread on how to invent a Saga to keep players invested across multiple sessions. Break!! isn't ideal if you want premade campaigns, but all the tools are there to facilitate wild and wonderful homebrew adventure creation.

Gameplay

• Big focus on cooperation and out-of-the-box thinking
• Roll-under and wagers mean everyone knows the score
• Mechanics don't explicitly encourage personal goals

The Break!! RPG system pushes players to cooperate and think outside the box, both inside and out of combat. In battle, Attack and Tactical Assist actions let you work together to defeat foes in interesting ways, combining powers as each side acts together, rather than rolling initiative individually. It means players can position themselves as a cohesive unit, and draws them away from the basic "I hit it until it dies" into the much more exciting territory of enviro-kills. Killing is entirely optional, too, with mechanics that allow you to spare the life of your foe at the last moment and instead knock them unconscious. All this works to make the game far more family friendly than something like Mork Borg, and since forming connections and social bonds can add some mighty boons in battle, there's a lot of incentive to roleplay within the party. The Wagers mechanic also makes for a fun GM-player dynamic in battle.

Aptitude Checks are simple enough to grasp, with players rolling equal to or under their own Aptitude scores to bag a success, though a lack of saving values (such as that of D&D 5th Edition) means contests are a little more complex to handle. Nothing too unhinged, but it's potentially a little convoluted for veteran TTRPG players. The roll-under mechanic is my major gripe with the system, and may seem counterintuitive for anyone used to Dungeons & Dragons. I can see the thinking behind it: With the goalposts constantly visible, players always know exactly what they're up against. It serves to lighten the load on the GM, too, but in the process this core mechanic drains a little of the cinematic anticipation that comes with an unknown DC variable. It also means 20 is a fail and 1 is a success, which takes some getting used to.

Should you buy Break!!?

There's a real nostalgic charm to Break!!, from re-invisioned throwbacks to old-school pen-and-paper mechanics to the familiar, starry-eyed edge of beloved anime. Practical infographics and well-linked references make it easy to generate content for Break!! on the fly as well, while the vagueness of the lore means there's loads of opportunity for emergent narratives.

Sure, some of the system's intricacies are a little underwhelming, but when it's all couched in such a vast and versatile passion project, it's hard to fault. Break!! is entirely forgiving, family friendly anime fun, but you can just as easily twist a campaign into nightmare fuel with some messed-up reskins and unholy cinematics.

Ratings

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How we tested Break!!

Our reviewer is an experienced GM and tabletop RPG player with years of experience covering the industry. Besides reading through and critiquing the book as they went, they created an adventure for their playtest group of multiple players to see how Break!! works in action.

To get a better idea of our process, see the GamesRadar+ reviews policy.