Broken up into five chapters, it provides not a lot of game mechanics per say, but a lot of advice and information on how to incorporate this material into other genres or build whole campaigns around the five genres included.
How does it do this? Well, Chapter One, The Martial Arts Genre pulls together the classic bits of martial arts like swearing revenge, dueling schools, and other timeless plots. If you're not into a full fledged martial arts campaign, notes on incorporating this material into other settings ranging from the grim and gritty Dark Champions to the classic combination of East Meets West ala Western Hero, are provided. These are real brief bits, less than a page in length, but provide a good frame of reference which is built on latter.
The book is really a hand holding guide in some ways to those completely new to the genre. If you've been playing Street Fighter or Mortal Combat for any length of time while watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, then many of the character archetypes are going to seem like no-brainers to you. Ideas for character creation are similarly somewhat obvious. Jumping is important to martial artists? Martial art skills are the standard for a martial art campaign? The best part of these sections is the example powers and even then, you might not agree with the standards listed. For example, the “Wave Motion Blast” is a 20d6 attack with extra segment and increased endurance cost and gestures that cannot be bounced. Now perhaps I'm just old fashioned but this definitely seems more aimed at the Dragonball Z crowd and in such a setting, the chances of getting that reduced cost with gestures are slim to nil. Like I said, a matter of taste.
Where the book shows its innovation, at least to me, if under Blood & Steel. Here the author provides a lot of options for speeding up combat like “An Army Of One” where if the character hits a DCV by twice the number needed, the minion is taken out in a single shot. Rolling damage dice once for an autofire attack. Variant rules for Knockback. Another favorite? Having the unbeatable boss. The first time the players fight this character they get a -8 OCV and -8 DCV to represent the unbeatable style of the master.
Other good things included are the Contests of Power. Ever want to have two energy blasts meet and let the winner take all? The rules are pretty simple and cover a wide range of advantages and disadvantages and provide some additional flavor that could be swapped with hardly any changes for other styles of campaigns.
The section on game mastering these types of campaigns repeats a lot of information from earlier chapters from the GM's point of view. Know how I mentioned that it talked about classic bits? Well, here you get how to use those bits as a GM. Remember how I talked about character archetypes? Here, we get campaign archetypes.
One of my favorite sections, Deadly Enemies and Flashing Steel, has something I can never get enough of; Maps. The floorplans are a vital part of running combat in Hero. Long before D&D came out with attacks of opportunity that practically screamed for maps, Hero combat always benefited from visual aids. Here we get two dojos, and a tournament fighting ring. I'd have liked to see more in this vein like a hidden island fortress or an ancient castle of China but hey, I'll take what I can get. The maps are a little on the small side but crisp and clear.
The campaign ideas that cover the different genres, realistic, cinematic, wuxia, video games and anime, are very brief and more like bare bone structures than anything resembling actual campaigns. Those interested in fleshing out such campaign seeds though will get a lot of NPCs to augment those efforts. Of course the ninja is listed with various power levels including one Steel Ninja, perfect for a standard Champions campaign.
Another useful resource is Appendix B, Names. I've always had a hard time coming up with authentic sounding names of anything other than corny standard fantasy of over the top super heroes. Here we get Burmese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese names.
A lot of material like this needs an index and hero doesn't let us down with it's massive two and a half page index.
One thing I personaly enjoyed was the quotes that started off the different sections. Heck, just look at the back. "My kung fu can beat your kung fu!" Still, I know some fanatics who aren't going to like this humor filled approach to martial arts. Oh well.
One of the book's failings is that it references Ultimate Martial Artist a lot. And it's not referencing a paragraph or a page, but pages and pages in the UMA. Not a bad thing in and of itself but having a little more self contained utility would be ideal in a genre book. Nothing more aggravating than seeing, “For a more detailed look, check here.” This isn't an inexpensive book.
Another issue I had with the book was the repetition. When talking about genre elements, murder comes up. It's a classic after all. Who hasn't seen Bruce Lee claim vengeance for the death of one of his teachers? Why then does that same theme show up again under Revenge and later under NPC's who seek the same?
A third problem with the book isn't really a problem with this book, but this book in the current market. Silver Age Sentinels and Mutants & Masterminds are both illustrated in a top notch fashion with tight layout. This book has some less then professional illustrations that can't compete. It also uses a three column layout similar to GURPS books for holding additional information. When it's used, it works great but it's only used about 1/3rd of the book through. That leaves a lot of white space.
A nitpick occurs when looking over the Appendix, Film and Books. While Dragonball is listed under the manga, and Usagi Yojimbo under American Comic Books, no reference is made to the older, classic Jade Man company with its wide range of comics, nor to the classic Lone Wolf and Cub nor to the many comics coming out under various publishers that include Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, in full color no less. No nod is given to Exalted under Roleplaying Games but GURPS Swashbucklers is listed?
Ninja Hero by itself isn't going to give you all the martial arts mayhem that you hunger for because it's mostly flavor but combined with Ultimate Martial Artist, it's a combination that can't be beat.
