Yu-Gi-Oh! Online

"This game may not be for everybody"

The best thing about this game is that you are dueling actual human opponents. No more dumb A.I. here, although you may find some less than smart moves played online and I have to admit that I have made a few. If you can get past the 50-200 MB patches you need to download every-so-often (do not bother if you do not have a broadband connection...sorry, don't blame the messenger) then you're treated to a decent game with some major flaws.

There seem to be more frustrating than fun aspects in this game, but this is only one gamers opinion though.

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Gameplay

Playing Yu-Gi-Oh online is a great idea, but there are a few flaws that might make a player think twice. A new player may have a tough time with the starter deck they receive, but while playing against opponents that have been playing for a couple of months can be very difficult. The cards you receive at the end of each match (3 cards) or single duel (1 card) are random in terms of the rarity of them. Getting the cards you need to create a good deck can be very difficult if you're unlucky. It's difficult to tell which players are new because at the beginning of each month each players level is reset to 2.

Overall Gameplay: 5/10

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Playability

Playability refers to the bugs that can occur and the unethical strategies your opponents may use. I experienced a bug today in which I was prompted to go through an opponent's deck and search for a field spell card. There was no field spell card and I could not get out of the screen. The game timed out and I lost. There are other bugs out there that can screw your game up, but this is the first one that I experienced personally. Thankfully, most of the opponents you face will play ethically.

Overall Playability: 6/10

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Interface

The lobby is the area in which you can create or join duels. Currently, this lobby does have some major problems that can make playing a duel fairly difficult. The lobby does not exist in real time and you have to keep refreshing the screen. You see a duel that looks open, you click on it, and you cannot get into the duel because 1) another player is requesting a duel or 2) already dueling. Although it may be difficult clicking on another opponents duel you can create your own duel and hope that somebody will click on it.

2 of ten points were lost for the lobby area.

The in-duel chat interface could be a lot better. 1) You cannot type fast in the chat interface because it will not keep up on all of the keystrokes, 2) words that are not obscenities keep getting blocked out, and 3) you cannot easily click back and forth to the game screen and the actual duel. My experiences: 1) I am a fast typist, but it seems the game cannot keep up with my typing. I am not the only person to experience this so you can get confirmation on this elsewhere. 2) "good game" appears as ***d game and "looking" appears as ***king. Wow I never knew that goo and loo were bad words. This can easily be bypassed by capitalizing the first letter in these words so "Good game" and "Looking" would appear as normal, but this can also be used to bypass normal bad words and I don't think GameFAQs would want me to mention those words. 3) In-duel chatting is pretty bad. Once you open the chat in duel you cannot toggle back and forth to see what is going on. You would have to close the chat screen mid-sentence to respond to a move. You can easily loose because of this.

6 of ten points were lost for the chat interface.

Overall Interface: 2/10

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Graphics

The cards look like normal but there are no 3D monsters. This can be a good thing because there would be less of a lag with slower computers and the use of 3D monsters may take up more room on your PC. This would be especially true when you download the patches that are needed. The spell animations are sometimes interesting. The cards are well done and the dueling are look good.
Overall Graphics: 8/10

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Sound

The music may seem cool at first but the lack of variety (one main theme) could drive you crazy. There is only one option to turn the sound down and this affects both the music and the sound effects which could be a bad thing if you do not hear the various "bells and whistles" that occur to signal something in-game.

Overall Sound: 3/10

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Final Score
24/50 ---> 48% ---> F

There are some problems with this game, but if you're an avid duelist then you may not care of some of the shortcomings of this game. This is a decent game with some very noticeable flaws.

FINAL WORDS: Caveat Emptor: Let the Buyer Beware This game has a few problems and it is difficult to create the deck that you would like so do not expect to be able to immediately be able to create a really good deck at the start. If this is a major issue then stick to the card game or duel PvP on your GBA or DS. Another option for playing Yu-Gi-Oh online is for you to find one of the downloads out there that will offer the same experience, but for free. The free game will may not be perfect but some of the games out there will allow you to create a really good deck at the beginning. The deck you may have for the actual card game could be fairly easily replicated on one of the free games out there.

This review was created on June 21, 2006 and at this time I cannot recommend this game. The game may or may not be improved by the time you read this review. Depending on the amount of time that has lapsed between the creation of this review and the current status of the game things may have improved.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/22/06