At some point Ronnie Edwards defined the term Fantasy Heartbreaker. But he's dead (or just an asshole) so let's redefine it to be something actually useful when it comes to describing a game. Per his original, stupid definition the entirety of the OSR is made up of Fantasy Heartbreakers. But his main claim to fame is a VtM Heartbreaker, so who gives a fuck what he thinks.
A Heartbreaker will forevermore be defined as follows: A game written in the style or in direct homage to another game, or in continuation of the evolution of another game's mechanics, but diminishes the original core intent of said game and therefore "breaks the heart" of fans of that original game. A D&D clone that doesn't have or understand long-term campaign play options, etc.
I used that example so minimalist Trash are now all uniformly Heartbreakers. The newest version of Over the Edge is a Heartbreaker. The last several versions of Sword & Wizardry Complete are Heartbreakers. AD&D2E was arguably a Heartbreaker in spite of being an official sequel game. Look at that, a useful definition and accuracy in terminology.
