With this being the first DS Yu-Gi-Oh game, it was also, I think, the first game that had sprites of the monsters on screen when they were on the field, an aspect that continued for most, if not all, DS Yu-Gi-Oh games. I always loved this, and it's such a shame that even the most modern games don't do it.
As far as gameplay goes it's a very grindy game. You're kinda just forced to repeat duel the same opponents over and over until a plot thread shows up randomly. You don't get much currency per duel to unlock packs, so getting enough cards to try new decks is a slow process. There is a decent selection of cards at least, it's not my favourite stage of Yu-Gi-Oh! (which is around 2008-2010ish), and actual card archetypes are lacking, but there's enough in here to make decks on specific themes, whether that be monster attributes, types or even ideas such as burn or more interesting ideas I can't properly implement like forcing opponents to ram their cards into a high attack monster. Plus some specific cards will have enough support to build a deck around, like Dark Magician.
Unfortunately along with a slow progress of currency the way card packs work means that cards needed to make any deck are usually split into at least 2, if not more, packs, and they're usually spread pretty far apart. For example the first Toon cards you can get are in pack you get by finishing a story event you'll be about level 8-10 for. The second pack of Toon cards doesn't unlock until level 14 - which doesn't seem like a big jump, but there's quite a lot of duels between levels (you'll finish the game around level 18). This kind of thing will just happen all the time - unlock some pieces of a deck in one pack, then wait a long time to actually be able to unlock enough cards to make the deck usable.
There were a couple of duels that implemented something interesting to their mechanics. The building you're in is about to explode and you have a timer to win the duel, but instead of a literal timer it's a turn timer, and specifically the card "Final Countdown" is automatically played at the start of the duel. It's a fun way to use card gimmicks as in-game mechanics. It just doesn't show up nearly often enough, meaning the majority of story battles are just regular duels. Well, technically a lot of them are shadow duels, but shadow duels happen randomly outside of the story too when you run into a bad guy at night. If you lose a shadow duel you get an instant game over, so it just encourages saving often.
What you want from this game will more or less determine how good it is for you. Do you want to relive 2005 Yu-Gi-Oh against a set list of AI opponents over and over while slowly being able to make new decks? Then it's a pretty good game. Do you want a game with a rich story, fast progression and ability to make any deck you want as fast as possible? Bad game. I actually went in to it both expecting and kind of wanting the former, and I was still somewhat disappointed just because I felt the grind was too much. Like I'm fine dueling AI opponents a few times, but they could have easily cut the game time in half while doubling the amount of currency you get, thus leading to less needing to face the same people repetitively and more chances to make fun decks. The post game is just basically an infinite amount of dueling who you want and unlocking more and more cards, so there's no real reason to hide the credits behind so much of this exact thing.
As far as gameplay goes it's a very grindy game. You're kinda just forced to repeat duel the same opponents over and over until a plot thread shows up randomly. You don't get much currency per duel to unlock packs, so getting enough cards to try new decks is a slow process. There is a decent selection of cards at least, it's not my favourite stage of Yu-Gi-Oh! (which is around 2008-2010ish), and actual card archetypes are lacking, but there's enough in here to make decks on specific themes, whether that be monster attributes, types or even ideas such as burn or more interesting ideas I can't properly implement like forcing opponents to ram their cards into a high attack monster. Plus some specific cards will have enough support to build a deck around, like Dark Magician.
Unfortunately along with a slow progress of currency the way card packs work means that cards needed to make any deck are usually split into at least 2, if not more, packs, and they're usually spread pretty far apart. For example the first Toon cards you can get are in pack you get by finishing a story event you'll be about level 8-10 for. The second pack of Toon cards doesn't unlock until level 14 - which doesn't seem like a big jump, but there's quite a lot of duels between levels (you'll finish the game around level 18). This kind of thing will just happen all the time - unlock some pieces of a deck in one pack, then wait a long time to actually be able to unlock enough cards to make the deck usable.
There were a couple of duels that implemented something interesting to their mechanics. The building you're in is about to explode and you have a timer to win the duel, but instead of a literal timer it's a turn timer, and specifically the card "Final Countdown" is automatically played at the start of the duel. It's a fun way to use card gimmicks as in-game mechanics. It just doesn't show up nearly often enough, meaning the majority of story battles are just regular duels. Well, technically a lot of them are shadow duels, but shadow duels happen randomly outside of the story too when you run into a bad guy at night. If you lose a shadow duel you get an instant game over, so it just encourages saving often.
What you want from this game will more or less determine how good it is for you. Do you want to relive 2005 Yu-Gi-Oh against a set list of AI opponents over and over while slowly being able to make new decks? Then it's a pretty good game. Do you want a game with a rich story, fast progression and ability to make any deck you want as fast as possible? Bad game. I actually went in to it both expecting and kind of wanting the former, and I was still somewhat disappointed just because I felt the grind was too much. Like I'm fine dueling AI opponents a few times, but they could have easily cut the game time in half while doubling the amount of currency you get, thus leading to less needing to face the same people repetitively and more chances to make fun decks. The post game is just basically an infinite amount of dueling who you want and unlocking more and more cards, so there's no real reason to hide the credits behind so much of this exact thing.
Isidoro23
6 months ago
These games don't respect people time or reward you for your efforts thus feeling like chores.
Do you know a good card game for the DS or GBA? PSP is fine too.