Notepad's Little Opinion on Fabula Ultima in about 6 Minutes 

I have yet to try the game in action, but i have to say that in the introduction the author says that the system is partially inspired by Ryuutama, not that it's trying to be its spiritual successor. The feeling i get from your review is that you came expecting it to be Ryuutama 2 and got disappointed because it wasn't. Not saying that the game is perfect or anything, but most of your criticism was on the lines of "Ryuutama was focused on this, Ryuutama has this" which I think doesn't really tell much about FU in itself. Another thing, the game seems to be a lot narrative and roleplay focused, which is probably why there is no battle map. Rolls are there to tell you if you can do something, but it's you who have to say what you want to do. Yes you have damage and HP and stuff, but it's there mostly to work as a baseline for narrating what happens.

For the most part, it sounds to me that your problem is what with Fabula Ultima is trying to do, rather than whether it does it well or badly. But your point about Ryuutama's battle maps and travel system being weird omissions seem like good points. Ultimately, I think I'm going to love this game as much as you hated it, but I'm still upvoting this review because those two points might improve my game.

Fabula points can be used to "force-change" the story as a player tho. Add details and so on (which may be over bearing for masters who need a precise ruleset to go by)

TLDR: You don't like this game because it is not Ryuutama

It doesn't matter to me whether a reviewer does or doesn't like something. What matters is that they offer an insightful critique, and not just, for example, a thumb-thru of a rulebook while pointing out the obvious and not really saying anything. So I appreciate that you took the time to explain your perspective. I like what I've seen of *FU* but Idk Ryuutama, so I'll have to look into it too now.

>admiration and affection but not loyalty John Anime has more than one waifu

Cannot say anything about this game but I genuinely like clocks and think they can really add tension to a game when used correctly.

These two things didn’t get an official TTRPG but should. Ultima game series and Fabio.

Sorta dumb comment but what was the ending song? I don't think the cyberpunk song in the description is right?

Have you done a video on 13th age? have just discovered your channel while searching for videos of fabula ultima, nad have been interested in the unique takes and niche

2:06 I knew there was something odd with that picture... Dang man

A JRPG/TTRPG in development, that shows a lot of promise is Last Arc: Tactics Analogue. Tactics is in the name and it is VERY focused on combat.

Do Sword World 2.5 another jrpg style ttrpg that could use some attention

Hmmm, interesting. Myself, everyone I know who's read it, and every reviewer anywhere ever ... besides you ... seems to lavishly worship this new game. Hell, it even won gold at the Ennies. Still, it's certainly nice to see a dissenting review here and there. By the way, for reference, the one JRPG this game does NOT emulate is in fact FF14. FF14, being an MMO, has a ton of positioning elements to it. It's the single player console JRPGs, where battles are just the good guys and bad guys staring across from each other in a straight line that it tries to emulate. That's the reason why positioning doesn't matter. I've heard good things about Ryuutama so I'll buy that one too eventually. But that's not a JPRG in the traditional console sense. That's more of a wonderlust Miyazaki family friendly adventure. Different ball game.

0:59 if you are implying that the game requires you to pick a background for your character from a closed list, you are really off the target here... 2:28 I'm not sure if I really understand the criticism of the class/level system... There are many classes and you are supposed to have multiple, anyway, so the fact that classes have 5 skills each really isn't an issue. 3:09 "it's not Ryuutama" 4:46 okay, two points on top are okay... ...but again, this "tragic loss of Ryuujin" is nothing more than your Ryuutama bias. FU IS NOT RYUUTAMA. 5:01 ...the first point is, again, the Ryuutama bias. Although I must say, that, while FU does provide a hint of including something other in combat than exchanges of attacks, it requires the GM to set up everything for such non-standard combat to take place. Ryuutama, by providing the Battlemap, does make making such encounter easier... but it's really not necessary for a good game. Each class has few options... but you have several classes, so it balances out. A player does need to be a bit careful to not pick options that will be useless to them... but I don't think there are any real trap choices other than context-based, like a skill that won't see use because of the character of campaign, or taking a skill that requires putting multiple levels in it to have an impact, only to not level it up later. Slow progression with minimal payoff... that's YMMV. JRPG-only: yes. But it's hardly a flaw. FU is literally made to emulate jRPG. Bonds/Traits being tacked on: ...I've seen systems do this thing better, correct. But Bonds and Traits still either function, or at least don't ruin anything, although they really cannot match the beauty of the Karma mechanics of one Japanese TTRPG, Tenra Bansho Zero. FU is it's own thing... just because FU borrows from Ryuutama the idea of stats being defined by dice, and using two dice for tests, doesn't mean the game is modded Ryuutama.

Fellow Ryuutama enjoyer you dropped this 👑

John Anime: Fight Man should really be a real anime title

I just recently discovered Ryuutama and Fabula Ultima, and I must say that it feels like Ryuutama is to Fabula Ultima, what OSR is to 5E... Simple in it's design, yet easy enough to add upon it, and muuuuuch easier to run and play! I'm glad I found out about Ryuutama after I noticed FU was a thing, because damn I would rather run something like homebrewed Ryuutama instead of FU anyday lol.

Over the last couple weeks since the microcase I've spent a lot of time looking at Fabula Ultima, and I have come to a final conclusion. It wants to be narrative-focused action adventure over the top anime combat, but it also wants to be based on Ryuutama. It doesn't do anything to justify its own existence, let alone its popularity in the weeb TRPG community.

So your mainn criticism seems to be that it's trying to be a JRPG and you don't wanna play that. Have you perhaps considered that is not an issue with the game but with you trying to make it fit into something it's not? I have never played the game nor do I have any stakes in it but this video told me nothing useful about it

I’m confused are you reviewing Fabula Ultima or Ryuutama? I don’t think they are trying to be the same thing. Basically from this review my take is: “I don’t like this game because it isn’t Ryuutama”.

Honestly the biggest thing that turns me off from even trying this is knowing the exact kind of anime fans I would have to play with. That and the fact when hitting 0 HP you can just decide whether or not to die. That just kind of kills any tension for me, but whatever. I guess it would suck if your character, with a long weeb backstory, dies before fighting his long-lost brother that's been corrupted or something.

Mean-spirited gate keeping review as usual. You should look at other reviewers and learn something of humility and kindness to developers. Bashing on a product like this serves no purpose. Wastes everyone's time. Yes, its not Ryuutama. Anything more? What about th3 class system? The villains? You just score points with hatred and that can only take you so far on the internet. If you wanna grow, you also have to grow up.

Lil bro doesn't know how to use clocks 😭😭😭

Obnoxious.

ive seen a lot of TRPG reviewers and you're the best so far, because it's way too easy to give a game lee-way for its efforts and all the pretty pictures they put in the book when the game itself kinda stinks. You're doing good work here, bc literacy for TRPGs is in really short supply

I totally disagree every single word of this review. Honestly If rather Ryuutama (amazing game) than Fabula Ultima I respect that but have you play even at least once? Hope you so, be cause if you don’t that will make low the quality of your review. I’ve mastered two campaigns and none of my players made a complaint. But I do, you should specify in yours next reviews that it is your personal opinion and make a review more objective and less “meme like”.

Have you heard that fabula ultima won the ennie gold award for best game and silver on best product? I feel like you should at least give it more chance ^^'

Was enjoying until you dropped all the pointless profanity. What a completely useless way to turn off viewers.

This is going to sound really bad, but I checked Fabula Ultima because I was feeling like I wanted ryuutama to have a little bit more meat and potatoes, but when I saw that the character sheet in fabula ultimate contained pronouns... No, I couldn't take it seriously or in good faith