Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel

"An above-average game, especially for people who haven't played EDS"

If you're reading this, you probably already know a lot about Yu-gi-oh, a popular anime show that focuses on a card game called ''Duel Monsters''. Yu-gi-oh! Worldwide edition the second game to GBA to simulate game of Duel Monsters, called ''duels''.

Gameplay: 9/10

As I said above, WWE, like EDS (Eternal Duelist Soul, the first Yu-gi-oh GBA game), focuses on simulating the duels you see on the TV show like the real-life card game. It's up to you to create a deck of 40-60 cards and use it to win duels against other opponents. After you win a duel, you can select a booster pack, which may contain cards that can improve your deck. The different possibilities for decks is mind-boggling. You can make a beatdown deck, which focuses on playing powerful monsters quickly to win by force, a stall deck, which tries to get your opponent to run out of cards to draw, or an Exodia deck, which attempts to win by summoning the ultimate monster, Exodia. Yu-gi-oh! Worldwide Edition has quite solid gameplay, but it loses a pont for being so much like its predecessor, The Eternal Duelist Soul. See below for what HAS changed between the two games.

Changes from The Eternal Duelist Soul: 7/10

This is the main reason I only gave this worthy game an 8. WWE is not especially recommended for veterans of the previous Yu-gi-oh GBA game; there are not exactly an outstanding number of changes, and not all of them are even good. Here is a rundown of the new features. Firstly, there are several hundred new cards to duel with, one of the game's best improvements. Because the game is a ''Worldwide Edition'', you can select to play the game in 1 of 6 different languages. Another new feature is duelist (Duel Monster player) selection. In EDS, you had 5 different tiers of opponents you could select to challenge. In WWE, however, there are no definite tiers and several new opponents. Because it's based on the Battle City season from the anime, everything is found in various areas of Battle City, including duelists. While this does add realism, it can sometimes get frustrating trying to find a specific opponent or tournament. And speaking of tournaments, there are several new ones. There are ordinary championships, and two special cups to compete in. After you beat a certain challenge in the game, you can unlock the Limitation Tournaments, where you are limited to a certain type of deck to use. There is also a ''Target Week'', where you are challenged to find and beat 2 specific duelists in a week. And finally, the only other cool new feature I can remember is the Card Limit. Once you manage to unlock it, you can turn off the restrictions placed on some powerful cards, like ''Dark Hole'' or ''Witch of the Black Forest''.

Control: 8/10

Since it has no real-time action, WWE has to have very excellent control. The game is mainly menu-based and the control pad almost always does a good time of navigating the menus and duel options. The only control problem is that when you lay down some traps like Call of the Haunted, the game will ask you if you want to activate them nay times a turn, which can get VERY annoying.

Graphics: 9/10

Since WWE focuses mainly on gameplay, you shouldn't really expect its graphics to be anything much. The pictures of cards are colorful, cool-looking, and taken straight from the real-life cards. Still, there is not much to be said about gameplay.

Sound: 6/10

Evene for a game with low sound expectations, WWE has pretty poor sounds. Most of the music is pretty boring, with a few exceptions for certain duelists. There are not many other sounds besides the music, so don't expect much.

Story: 7/10

To fully understand the story of WWE, you really have to watch the anime. Otherwise, you probably won't understand who many of the people you see are, since not much of the story is explained in the game.

Buy/Rent: Buy if you like dueling and don't own EDS

If you own EDS, strongly consider only renting this game, unless you want the 3 promotional cards it comes with or a card only in WWE. If you greatly enjoy dueling but don't own any other Yu-gi-oh gamers, you should probably buy it.

Final Score: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/15/03, Updated 06/15/03