Product– Gates of Krystalia
System- Gates of Krystalia
Producer– Top Notch International LTD
Price– $34.00 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/534717/gates-of-krystalia-ttjrpg-core-rulebook-english-version?src=hottest_filtered&affiliate_id=658618
TL; DR-Would you like Konosuba or Goblin Slayer as an intro RPG? 93%
Basics– IT’S TIME TO D&DUEL! Gates of Krystalia is an isekai style RPG. Isekai is a genre of anime where a person from the “real” world dies and is offered the chance to go kill the demon king/bad guy in a fantasy setting where a god bestows power upon them to do so. It’s a power fantasy, but it is fun! Let’s dig into this game’s materials before the breakdown.
Base mechanics– This game DOESN’T use dice! It uses a standard deck of 52 playing cards. What’s interesting here is the number on the cards and the suit. The suits are tied to the four different ability scores. When you do a thing you draw a card and add your ability score to the score on the card. You beat the required number, you succeed. Don’t and fail. It’s an easier way for the non-dice goblins among us to get into the game.
Criticals- If the card you play matches the suit of the action, you double the result. Hearts are charisma, diamonds agility, spades intelligence, and clubs toughness. Want to rip down a door? It’s a toughness action, and if you draw an 8 of clubs, you get a 16 plus your toughness attribute. In combat the ace doubles base damage. And if its the suit you choose at character creation of your blessed suit, it doubles again!
Combat- Combat basically works the same way. Everyone including the Deux(Game Master) draws cards and adds modifiers for each character. High goes first. Now, this is not a tactics RPG. Think more Dragon Warrior and less Final Fantasy Tactics. Players and major named monsters draw a hand of five cards. Low ranking monsters just draw and hope for the best. When it’s your action, you choose a Combat Technique, and do it. If it targets someone else, players play a card from their hand at the monster. From there, characters and major monsters can play cards from their hand to create combos. Basically, can you make a poker hand. And whoever has the higher score based on played cards wins and has their action occur. This means you might get to attack during a monsters turn, but you will have less cards when it’s your turn. Once everyone has a turn, creatures with multiple cards draw up to their hand and you continue.
Damage– The interesting thing about this game is the deck. You take damage? Discard cards from your deck. Rest? Draw up cards from the discard and shuffle. You NEVER gain more cards/hit points.
Character creation and advancement- This is not a deep game. At character generation, you choose a race and one background power, a class, a class specialization, four combat techniques, and a blessed suit. It’s pretty simple. Levelling up is also simple as you now get to when the Deux decides. There is no XP to track. There are also a total of four ranks.
Additional Things- The base game book has a ton of other small things that you can add into your game. Like any good anime aimed at teens, you can get a haram of men or woman who you can romance. There is also mechanics to level up your base. There is madness and trama. This game can be as dark or a light hearted as you want.
Ok, let’s dig into this game.
Mechanics or Crunch– This is an intro RPG for someone who loves anime. The mechanics are simple and you don’t require any crazy complicated dice. I don’t hate anything that’s here. In fact, I want to run a game of this. The thing that is annoying is the lack of depth and the lack of XP. The game doesn’t get deep as you end up with less than 10 total abilities at the end of the game. It’s not really a deep crunch game. Not bad, but it’s a little simple. If your GM is a great person, then you will level up and kill the demon lord at a solid place. If your GM isn’t then you will end up with a slog of basically filler episodes. However, the rest of this book has solid materials for the players to have a blast playing and experiencing. I honestly want to build up a base in this game. It’s solid fun, but a bit simplistic. 4.5/5
Theme or Fluff– The writers knew their audience. From Sword Art Online to That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (yes, non-anime fans, this genre gets weird faster than the titles get long!) there is tons of stuff for the players to do. Heck, I didn’t even go into crafting. You can go gather materials from monsters and use that to build stuff. You want to play the Legend of Zelda food crafting part in this game? You absolutely can! And that’s awesome. This is exactly what the anime geeks are looking for. 5/5
Execution– This book is good, but it makes two cardinal sins. There are solid layout, great art, and hyperlinks to make navigation easy. Everything that’s here is good. What’s not here is an adventure. The adventure is a separate purchase for an additional $14. That’s not good! Next, there are no pregens, or at least none I could find. Give me a free intro adventure and 6 pregens for me to play with. For such a new system, you need this. I know its about five minutes to make one, but don’t make me! That’s a major sin in 2025. 4.5/5
Summary– I like what’s here. I honestly want to play this at my local anime/gunpla store. There would EASILY be a group who wants this exact game. They are not the most inclined to RPGs, so this would hook them easily and draw them in. The art alone coupled with the presentation of everything makes this a solid book. My issues are from a person who owns over 200GB of RPG books that I’ve kickstarted. I need a bit more depth for my go-to rpg. I also need a bit more intro for my intro game. Give me the tools to hook those players easily, and without having to drop another $14 on a one shot PDF that doesn’t even come with pregens. It’s not unforgivable by any means, but its a minor annoyance. But, if you are spending time putting together robots with friends as you watch japanese cartoons from the 90s like myself, then this is definitely the book you should pick up. 93%
Throat Punch Games 