Like almost all FFG books, the production values are top notch. The content is... well, it's both good and bad. The mechanics are solid and thoroughly vetted, like the Genesys core rulebook and undoubtedly thanks to the predecessor Star Wars books. As such, it comes with all the benefits and flaws of the narrative dice system. If you don't like Star Wars, you won't like this much. Conversely, I enjoy the hell out of SW and Genesys so this is right up my alley. The expansions on Net "running", cybernetic modifications, and genetic modifications are well thought out and streamlined so as not to drag the game down when a character leverages those mechanics. The archetypes are decent, if a bit narrow, and typical of the genre.
The setting is where the book stumbles. Android clearly has years of development behind it as a setting, and a lot of creative depth that does not adequately come through in the SotBS book. To be fair, that's understandable given the book's size constraints and the need to address the game mechanics. What's frustrating is that the editors basically did a half-assed job at choosing what to present of said setting, and how to present it. There's a depressing lack of maps to put the district descriptions into better context. There are small write ups of one or two "notable" denizens per district but they mostly miss the mark. There's a surprising amount of text repetition (not concept repetition, but text), typos, and an overall lack of clarity ("L-platforms" are only explained, with one sentence, about 150 pages in, for instance). Given the futuristic cyberpunk setting, you don't need the authors to walk you through every neologism and slang term right off the bat as that allows the reader to gradually immerse themselves in it, but better editorial vision and cohesion would have made reading this less of a burden.
There's clearly a need to pair this with the Worlds of Android book; that's fine. I'd be more than happy to pay for it since, despite the above criticisms, it's a good book and a great setting. It's just not really designed for people who are new to the Android world, like myself. Unfortunately, the Worlds of Android book doesn't exist as a PDF -- I'll nonetheless pick up a hard copy, but since I bought the SotBS PDF here that's a bit of a pain in the ass, to be frank.
Edit: The Worlds of Android book is out at DriveThru Fiction; it's a much needed addon and makes this purchase well worth it.
|