Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards

"Konami can do a lot better..."

The absolute worse Duel Monsters game for the GBA. When DM7 was announced, we heard of wonderful things such as a new, easier duel system, the ability to use the superpowerful god cards, and a RPG aspect. Then, it was announced that there would be new promo cards available, including cards that had attack and defense stats higher than the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon, Five God Dragon, and the Dragon Rider. Unfortunately, the cards were the only good things about the game. When the game was finally released, man veteran GBA duel monsters players were highly disapointed. You were fitted into the Battle City arc of the anime, but still, this game is incredibly short. When you first duel, and you start to understand the system, one game comes to mind, Dark Duel Stories. The system is the same as Dark Duel Stories except that instead of only have one magic/trap card space, you have five. Well, there goes the long awaited RPG system and new duel system, but wait, we can still use the God cards right? Well, I'm not going to mention anything about this, because I don't want to spoil any of the ''fun'', but you will be highly disapointed by this as well. I was able to beat this game in a matter of days. Another bad point about this game, there are less cards than there were in DM6. Yes, you heard right, LESS. There are exactly 900 cards in this game, even less than the number of cards in DM5. We do see some new art on the cards such as a new Red Eyes Black Dragon, Red Eyes Black Metal Dragon, and Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Also, we see new ritual cards, which aren't actually real, that can summon some of the stronger monsters like a Gate Guardian Ritual. However, this does not make up for the fact of how many cards were taken out of the game. So after, hearing all of this, I'm sure you want to hear more about this disapointment of a game right? Well, guess what, there's more. The elemental advantage is back from Dark Duel Stories. You may think this a good thing, but let's see how you like it when you sacrificed 2 monsters to bring out your Blue Eyes White Dragon and your opponent brings out a level 2 shadow type monster to take it out. Also, an annoying card shop has been put into the game. You put in a card code, and you have to pay to buy the cards. The problem is that the shop always restocks on cards, so there is no satisfaction in saying, ''I finally got 3 BEWD!''. Everyone can do it in this game. Some of the trap cards have also been transformed from being traps to turning to magic and vice versa. For example, the Dragon Capture Jar and Metalize have been turned into magic. Also, the effects of some magic and trap cards have been changed. The deck capacity and deck level returns as well, so don't expect to put strong monsters in your deck at the beginning unless you duel a lot to build it up. Also, the great booster pack system that we saw in DM5 and DM6 has been taken out...Instead of getting booster packs, you have to bet a card to get a card back. Another thing, let's say you set a trap. Now, let's say that your opponent plays a monster. Well, with the stats of the monster, your trap allows you to destroy this monster. In past games, you would have the chance of choosing to use this card or passing up on the opportunity. Well, guess what? You have to use it in this game. Now, the worse thing about this game in my opinion, there are no flip effects! Yes, you heard right, no flip effects, meaning you can forget about your Black Forest Witches, Magicians of Faith, or Man-Eating Bugs, they are just normal cards now. This makes combos extremely hard to pull off now.Also, some effect monsters' effects have changed. For example, Time Magician now turns all the Baby Dragons on the field into Millenium Dragons. And some monsters that didn't have flip effects lose there effects as well such as the Devil Franken(Cyber-Stein in english). Some normal monsters now have effects, but they aren't very useful. Take the Battle Ox for instance. The Battle Ox has the effect of destroying all pyro monsters on the field, but if they have pyro monsters on the field, they would probably have more in their decks. So what's the problem with this? The Battle Ox is a forest monster, you do the math. I know its a lot, but I just felt that Konami just got lazy after the success of DM5 and DM6. Instead of having a sequel to DM6, we got a sequel to Dark Duel Stories. Buy DM6 instead.

Graphics: 7 Although the dueling fields look a lot worse than they do in DM6, I gave this area a 7 because of the card art. The card art is even sharper than before and we see different version of the popular cards like Red Eyes Black Dragon and Blue Eyes White Dragon.

Sound: 6 The music once again gets repetitive, however, in this game, we can actually hear the voices of the japanese voice actors of Yu-Gi-Oh! in some of the scenes. One of the only welcome changes to this series.

Control: 3 Editing your deck takes way too long. A lot more rough than DM6 and even DM5. Involuntary trap cards make this game even worse. Also, there is no multiplayer abilities. No multiplayer trading or dueling. I didn't know where to put this, so I decided to put it here.

Difficulty: 3 This game was pathetically easy. You should really be able to blast through your opponents. You should be finished with this game completely in a couple of days.

Replay Value: 1 You might say, well 900 cards are less than the other two games, but they are still a lot right? Well, you will have a surprise when you beat the game. The credits roll, and it ends on a picture of Yami Yugi. Guess what? You cannot go on. This is it, resetting it won't do any good...

Overall: 3 If this was one of the GBC games, I would have given this a much higher rating, but we have already seen that Konami can do a lot better with a Duel Monsters game on the Gameboy Advance.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/08/02, Updated 07/08/02