"A console-like Yugioh game turned portable."

I've been a fan of Yugioh for a long time, and played all the games for the Gameboy Advance system. However, what disappointed me in those Gameboy Advance Yugioh games was that they were hard to control, and the lack of good graphics. When Yugioh Nightmare Troubador came out for the Ds, I grabbed a copy immediately.

Story:
Unlike some of the GBA games, Nightmare Troubador involves you as a duelist, mostly competing in tournaments, but what I like about Nightmare Troubador is that every so often, a fellow duelist gets kidnapped and you have to save her, or a crazy man tries to take over the world and you have to stop him by beating him in a duel. Hilarious isn't it? Nightmare Troubador includes all characters from the popular TV show up to and including the Marik saga, which will excite many fans of the show.

Gameplay:
The Yugioh games for the GBA have been different, some involve you walking around challenging people and others are just an overview of a map, you choose where to go and who to duel and the game immediately takes you there. Nightmare Troubador is more like the latter style. However, Nightmare Troubador is improved by the fact that there is a Day and Night function, which means some duelists only appear in the day while others appear only during nighttime (obviously, the easy duelists appear early and the harder duelists are in the night). An addition in Nightmare Troubador thanks to the Day and Night function are the Shadow Duels. Remember when I told you about crazy people in this game (kidnappers, etc.)? Those duelists only come out at night, except there's a catch, THEY challenge YOU, not the other way around, and you can't refuse their challenge. And if that isn't bad enough, you'll actually DIE if you lose the so-called "Shadow Game", meaning you lose all your experience and records since the last time you saved. So in Nightmare Troubador, the stakes are much bigger than the GBA Yugioh games.
But random dueling isn't all in this game, there are tournaments that you'll receive notice about via the Mail function in the game, and also, there is actually a well-weaved story in the game, which I like. For example, you enter a tournament, dueling to win the championship, but the world gets turned topsy-turvy, and instead of dueling children for fun, you'll be dueling difficult, Egyptian monks for your life.

Graphics:
Yes, finally after all these years of watching the TV show where monsters come to life via holograms and attacks each other with unique attacks, this feature comes to the handheld Yugioh games. Monsters actually pop out of the cards and have their own "born" animation. For example, a Summoned Skull will have lightning come out of him and stretch out his arms. The bad part is that monsters don't have attack animations, but it's still better than having two cards lie side by side until one cracks. Also, the pictures on the cards have improved from the GBA games, it is now easier to make out the pictures on the cards.

Sound:
The music in this game is a huge improvement. Thanks to the Day and Night feature, you won't have to listen to one song for the whole game, the song for day is happy sounding, and the song for night is dark and mysterious sounding. I personally like the music, it's not as good as Castlevania music but it's better than nothing and it doesn't affect gameplay.

Replayability:
Yes, it's a card game, enough said.

Overall: 10/10
Dearly hoping for a WiFi enabled sequel, that would freeze hell over.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/14/06