Long story short: This game is what the OSR is/should all about, it's well worth a look to anyone remotely interested in innovation and game design rooted in TSR D&D mechanics.

The long is me going through every section of the book and talking about it in general terms:

Art, layout, and chosen color schemes are fantastic. It keeps the same tone thoughout the book which is very laudable. I expected this because A&A1E was also like this, If I had one nitpick it would be that the chapter heading is at the top of every page, I might have had the even pages have “chapter x” instead of the chapter heading. This is very small in the grand scheme of things.

Full blown modular design: Races are segmented into two categories, civilized and barbarian, including usual demihumans alongside less usual monster categories like dark elves, hobgoblins, goblins, lizardfolk, and orcs. More interestingly, this edition makes elves and halflings barbarian, while dark elves and hobgoblins are considered ‘Civilized”. There’s an explicit mention that you can restrict PCs to one of the two categories, and a heavy implication that the categories themselves are definitive but races malleable; there’s no reason Elves can’t be Civilized or Gnomes Barbarian. The switch up brings this implication to the forefront, and honestly intrigued me even though I’ve had and enjoyed the original edition for years.

Races themselves are pared down to a minor set of benefits and a page of flavor, very good flavor. This is fantastic because it does a good job to limit pigeonholing a specific race into a specific class. The only race that gets an ability bonus is the Human, and you get to pick the bonus so you aren’t pushed a specific direction.

No monks, bards, druids, and other bizarre nonsensical classes. It’s obvious this class list was chosen with a specific purpose in mind for each. The one that seems the least like an adventurer type is the Enchanter, but after looking at their spell list it’s another very well done stylized form of Magic User with a diverse litany of spells. It’s not often I see a class called Enchanter that I would be totally fine playing.

As an aside, I must say the Savage class is great. I love seeing Barbarian-style classes that aren't just berserking rage-monsters.

Every class is broken down into more than just “the way I murder things”. Each has unique expertise (basically an inherent skill your class makes you an expert in), can uniquely identify something based on what the class should be able to identify, and while spellcasters get spells, non-spellcasters (called mundanes) advance in a limited set of ways. This isn’t the trap that Feats were with 3E, every choice is useful and there are a limited set, not a series of doors to open in the system that are locked with Feats as the keys. Other than the standard benefits of classes there’s also unique followers for each class that are not merely 0-level peons, of the same class, but have their own intrinsic benefits and a shade of domain-level play.

It's here where I found a typo: The Zealot class followers are called "Curates", but the statblock for a standard Curate is labeled "Zealot". As the class didn't exist in the previous edition I'm assuming it was originally named something else and it's followers were named Zealots, and the statblock never got updated when things changed.

Encumbrance is simple and based on pounds, and is informed by Constitution. Movement speed is simple and based on feet, and is informed by Dexterity.

Weapons section is great too. HPs aren’t determined by race or class, this game uses a d6 HD standard for all characters (which is different from 1e but not a bad change). Weapons don’t seem to have changed since 1E. I’m specifically very glad multiple dice aren’t used for weapon damage (2d4 warhammers, etc), opting for the flat rate of one die damage where any weapon can roll a 1 and just not be a very effective hit. Nitpick 2: The only disagreement I have with it is the idea that crossbows have less range or do less damage than bows, but it’s fine as long as one both has longer range and does more damage, it’s never made sense that one gets one perk and the other gets the other, as the power of the weapon grants both damage and range. Historically the benefit of crossbows was the ability to keep a bolt nocked and that any idiot can fire one with decent accuracy, unlike the bow which takes more training, but is generally a more effective ranged weapon in all regards. Otherwise I don’t see any problems with the weapons.

Armor: Ascending Armor class system, which is great. It appears there are no class-armor requirements, but armor can penalize stealth abilities and has strength requirements to wear (later I learned it can interfere with casting and require a roll to complete a spell while in armor). It also takes up weight, which is at a premium for magic users due to material components.

Two pages of Fast Packs for those that don’t like shopping at character generation, which is great and should be a standard for every RPG.

Material Components: For the first time in OSR history, a game gives a shit about material components for spellcasters, basically giving them a bonus to have “quivers” of material components to shot their spell “bows. Simple and flavorful and makes casters have additional resource management should they want an extra bang for their buck.

Trophies is the master stroke of this entire game, It appears every monster has pieces of it that have a useful purpose that isn’t immediately obvious For example you can fashion an axebeak’s beak into… an axe. Assassin Vines have fruit with interesting properties, etc.

Advancement seems to top out at 13th level, follows the 3E advancement scheme (which 3E stole from Fallout, to be frank). There are various ways to gain experience, a usual mix of monster murder and treasure acquisition, and it includes a good takedown of “RP experience” which is well deserved.

Death is treated in a measured way, not immediate death at 0 HP, but a decent chance of immediate death at 0 HP, which is a great tradeoff for grittiness sake.

Ten skills exist in the system, all specifically tied to “important to the game” actions, which is a good mindset to have. No silly basket weaving or half a dozen weird semi-investigation skills.

Six classes/traditions of magic, and it looks like every spell is usable by two of them, so there’s a lot of good spillover. I haven’t looked at every spell but Fireball is much more grounded than it’s D&D counterpart, even if you cast it using the material components to boost it.

The section on campaign building is very practical and aims at what the party will see, rather than the pie-in-the-sky stuff these sections generally aim for.

Monsters: the section on monsters is large, has a quick reference section, monsters are easy to find, and it appears all include artwork.

Enchanting items: There’s a great set of sections on enchanting weapons, armor, even other wonderous items. Essentially it’s framed as PC rules, but the GM could easily design items with it. This might be part of the reason the Enchanter was named the Enchanter.

Lastly treasure tables – six tables including 100 unique entries (each), at differing levels of ability. Some of the magic items are either intentionally or unintentionally funny, and all come with a GP value. Very functional.

Throughout this work I marveled at how much thought and care was put into EVERYTHING in this game. Regardless of my minor issues mentioned here and there, this was a masterwork with clear vision through and through.