"Dimension the dice! (if you're lucky that is...)"

If you haven’t seen the Yu-Gi-Oh! cartoon series, four episodes were dedicated to the Dungeon Dice Monsters game. In these episodes, Yugi battles the creator of DDM, Duke Devlin, in order to save his grandfather’s gaming store. In the last episode, after Yugi defeats Duke, the characters spend about 10 minutes talking about how great the game was. “Wow that new game is something”, “I wish I could learn to play”, “This game is really going to take off!” and so on. Shameless advertising, clearly. Does this game live up to the hype? Read on and find out.

Story: (N/A)

There is no real story that occurs in this game. You play the role of yourself, and enter tournament after tournament, presumably to become the Dungeon Dice Monsters Champion of the World, or something to that effect. No set storyline in this game, so let’s move on.

Gameplay: (7/10)

If nothing else, this game is unique. It’s sort of a pseudo board-game, in which you try to get your monsters to the other side of the playing field to attack your opponent’s heart points. That might be difficult to understand, so I’ll try to clarify. You pick 15 different dice for each match, and each dice represents a different monster. On each dice are various crests; summoning, movement, attack, defense, magic and trap. You roll three dice per turn and if you roll 2 summoning crests, you can summon one of these monsters to the field. Your dice unfolds and makes a path for your monsters to travel, and you can then use the various crests you rolled to move your monster, attack your opponent etc. It’s a new idea, but there are some problems with the gameplay. One is that you always have to rely on luck. Rolling the summon crests or other crests you need is purely the luck of the roll. It can also make the game somewhat tedious at times, because you and your opponent may be stuck in the same position for several turns in a row, trying to get that all important movement or attack crest. This can be avoided somewhat by choosing the right dice with the right crests, but the problem does sometimes come into play regardless. Another problem is the AI, which really isn’t good. The comp seems to have little concept of strategy, which can also make games pretty boring at times. All in all, the overall gameplay is very good but the few kinks that exist prevent the game from being truly engrossing.

Graphics: (7/10)

The graphics in DDM are good, but not near the best I’ve seen on the GBA. The colors are crisp and the graphics are smooth, but there isn’t really too much detail in the monsters, backgrounds or game board. The battle animations, are OK, but nothing spectacular. They also get repetitive, as each individual monster has only one battle animation for all attacks. However, this is a step up from Eternal Duelist Soul, which had no battle animations.

Sound: (7/10)

Not much to say here. I never do really notice the sound, which is fine. Nothing memorable, but nothing to complain about. Let’s leave it at that.

Length/Replay Value: (9/10)

There is no real end to this game. There are several tournaments which you must beat, which are not too difficult. After that, the goal is to beat all the opponents (and there are many) and collect all the dice. Trying to complete these two tasks is not easy, and it will keep you playing this game for quite a while. Also, if you have friends with the game, you will want to continually improve your dice pool for link-battles. Actually, the length of the game is quite good.

Buy/Rent?: Buy

I’d probably rent it first, if you can, to see how you enjoy it. After that you can decide whether or not you want to buy. Don’t expect to “beat” the game in the few days you rent it, though.

Overall, Dungeon Dice Monsters is a fresh new idea, and it definitely can be a lot of fun. I’m not quite sure it lives up to everything Yugi and his friends claim it does on the show, but it’s worth a look nonetheless.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/18/03, Updated 02/18/03