Yu-Gi-Oh! The Falsebound Kingdom

"Possibly the worst Yu-gi-oh! game ever made..."

Awhile ago I got ''Yu-gi-oh! The Eternal Duelist Soul'' for Game Boy Advance. It was entertaining for awhile, but really, playing a mindless repetitive card game against opponents with very bad AI stops being fun after the first days. Remembering an ad I saw for some Yu-gi-oh! game with an actual plot, I ventured forth to play Yu-gi-oh! on the big screen...

Apparently, I got this game mixed up with Duelist of the Roses. This game is not what I expected, not what I wanted, and not what should have been made. Oh, sure, you can play as Yugi or Kaiba and you get to see the monsters outside of their cards, but really... this isn't what Yu-gi-oh! is about. Sure it's a bold step in a new direction, but Yu-gi-oh! without cards just IS NOT Yu-gi-oh!

Story 3/10: The story was long and boring, so I skipped a lot of parts and I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but here's what I understand. You play as either Yugi or Kaiba, and you show up at some gaming company. They show you their prototype product that looks exactly like Kaiba Corp.'s duel disk. This disk thing is supposed to transport you into a virtual reality world where you compete with duel monsters in a strategy game, which, I might add, does not involve cards. This ''sounds like some sort of network game or something'', according to the characters themselves. After you enter this world, there is still more story to go through (which you can't skip, by the way). You are stuck in the virtual reality world, so you must attempt to beat the game to free yourself, because your characters are convinced that all games have an ending.

Gameplay 1/10: The actual gameplay is horrendous. This doesn't deserve to be called a Yu-gi-oh! game, as it isn't one. It's like some weird war game with Yu-gi-oh! characters. It's very boring, you trade blows with your opponent until either all monsters on one side are defeated or you run out of ''battle power''. If you are attacking an enemy castle/town thing, you can't win by fighting better than them and ending when you run out of battle power; instead, you have to continuosly fight them until you kill all of their monsters, which is a huge pain in the rear end. And the way this game determines who wins a battle is confusing as hell. I never understood what was going on...

Graphics 9/10: The graphics are fairly smooth and nice, one of the only good parts about this crummy game.

Sound 8/10: Eh, the background music is ok. The sound effects are superb, but really, sound effects and graphics don't make a game.

Controls 7/10: I found the controls confusing. Man, it took me forever to figure out how to play this thing.

Replayability 2/10: I only rented it and didn't spend much time on this piece of trash, so I wouldn't really know, but the only thing I can think of that might count as ''replayability'' is doing the entire game over again with the other character.

Rent or Buy: It depends really. If you are looking for a Yu-gi-oh! game, neither. This is a strategy/war game, and is definitely not what your looking for. If you want a strategy/war game, I suggest you rent it. If you are crazy enough to really love this, then buy it. But you should rent it first. Personally, I'm sad I rented it. I feel like I wasted part of my life... *sniff*

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 12/26/03