Starting off, the book contains a large amount of information, and is not specialized in applying toward other RPG's made by Monte Cook Games. In this respect I can draw an analogy with Savage Worlds and Hero system in that the Cypher System attempts to be an "catch-all" system for any genre of game you can think of.
Now in the art of writing, critiquing is comes with talking about what you like, then after that you gotta talk about where you felt it stumbled.
The book has a lot of information, and provides an interesting alternative other RPG's because of its unique rule set. You don't have the standard array of ability scores you may have for characters in other RPG's, and instead you have 3 stats: Might, Speed, and Intellect. As you take damage, it is applied to one of these stats, reducing its pool of points. On the other hand, some actions you take will also reduce these pools as well, such as using "effort" to improve on a die roll.
Character's do level up, and they sort of have "classes" but these are called "types" and are generalizations of certain builds that a character can fall into. These types are: Warrior, Adept, Explorer, and Speaker.
Time is given to each genre of play that you can mold your game to, covering Fantasy, Modern, Sci-Fi, Horror, Romance, Superheroes, Post-Apocalyptic, Fairy Tale, and Historical. Some optional rules are found for each genre as well, such as Horror having optional rules for Shock and Horror Mode.
The rules are interesting, but you cannot expect to start your game with an array of powers and abilities that you may find in other games. And even as you progress in level, don't expect to be able to do all the same things that a D&D character can do. Is this bad, not overtly. The game seems to want to take a more cinematic or comic book like focus. The story that the GM weaves is meant to wrap around the characters. Your playing the heroes after all. In a superhero game, the story is focused on your characters, not any other characters but yours.
In all this is an interesting game system, and I feel that it was well worth backing.
But...but I do have a few problems with the system.
First issue that I have is that the book is missing a specific walkthrough on making a character. Now don't get me wrong, there are examples of the different "type" builds that you can do, and they sort of walk you through the process. But what is lacking is a more comprehensive step-by-step process to making a character. More over I'd like examples of this process being applied to a character being made in different genres. Since the different genres add optional rules for characters, you have to sort of figure out how this all applies.
This is a bit moot however. With some trial and error you can figure it all out. Moreover you can easily find examples of fully made characters to reference online, or just hop into a forum and talk the process over with other gamers.
Another issue that I have, and this is due to my unfamiliarity with using the system, is the scale of power. Levels going only from 1 to 6 doesn't seem like it's enough to grasp some concepts and broad genres. For example, can you make a character like Superman? Or what about characters like Rand Al Thor in a fantasy setting?
These questions bring a degree of intrigue to my mind.
I'll have to experiment, learn the rules well enough that I can work with them. Of course it will mean needing to make a form fillable PDF out of the character sheet in the book.
Ultimately, I feel that this was a good investment. but as I'm on the cusp of potentially joining a new gaming group, so in all likelihood we'll be giving this system a try in the future. I also picked up a bunch of the Numenera books from Humble Bundle, so there's ample chances to game with this system.
If you have the chance, check out the free preview PDF of the game book. Make your own decision. But, ultimately, I think that it's worth the buy.
