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

"Yu-Gi-Oh Is Back For More Dueling Fun!"

When I was about ten or eleven, I was really a hard-core fan of the Pokemon card game. I played and played, thinking it was one of the most complicated card games I had ever played. But gradually over time I grew out of it and moved onto other card games and enjoyed them too. Recently my brother got into Yu-gi-oh and once I played a few games with him, I thought the game really had promise. Instead of spending oodles of dollars on cards, I decided to purchase this instead. I was not disappointed. This game very much lives up to the Yu-gi-oh name.

Story
5/10
This is kinda disappointing, even for a card game. The show is really good at making the story interesting, and thinking back to the show is what even keeps this department alive. If you've watched the show lately, you know what the gist of the story is, and should probably skip down to the next section. At the beginning of the game you are told that you're a duelist in Battle City as they call it, and should duel and collect cards, and to become a good enough dueliest to earn the title of ultimate duelist. Same old stuff. But the story ''heats'' up as new, unexpected characters come to ruin your fun.
Ultimately the Yu-gi-oh story is lacking in about every area imaginable. Then again, a video game version of a card game based of a of a TV show couldn't and shouldn't have to have the same plot as a RPG for instance, but it would help to have a decent plot twist here and there.

Sound
7/10
This is actually pretty good for a card game. There are several different kinds of music styles to the sound track. They all change depending on which duelist you are facing. The music that plays when you are viewing your cards is my personal favorite. Neat sound effects play whenever you summon a monster to the field. When you sacrifice a monster, cool sounds play.The ''You Won!!'' sound is pretty well done. Even though the sound effects aren't exactly CD soundtrack quality, they do add some value to the game as a whole.

GamePlay
10/10
This where the game really steps up in production and long-time value. Any fan of the game knows how much fun it is to slowly torture your opponent by teasing and slowly taking out their Life Points, or to quickly finish them off with a powerful combo. Also any fan knows how many different strategies can be implemented with such ease. The actual pictures of the cards are exactly like the ones in real life. They didn't sacrifice anything picture wise. Most of the time for the better, some of the cards' abilities and effects have changed from the real card game. Most of the time, actually all the time in my opinion, it's changed for the better. The changes tend to make for more fun and less frustrating gameplay. Also some of them allow good strategies to be played easier, making the game both easier and harder for the player. You'll really only notice the changes if you're a hard-core fan of the actual card game.
Near each duelist is a win-loss record. That's real nice for posterity and/or to show off to your friends how many times you're beaten a specific duelist. The players tend to try the same strategies as they do on the show. That's always a nice touch for any game that has been transferred from a card game/TV show into a video game. Fans of the show will appreciate seeing players like Yugi and Kaiba playing their same old tricks.
At the beginning of the game, you're only allowed to pick from a certain number of packs to get cards from when you win, but as you progress through the game, you can unlock more packs. Some rare cards can only be found in one pack, so that adds some challenge in collecting all the cards. I think the final number of available packs is around 25 or so. Selecting the right cards for your ''side deck'', which is something you can pull cards out of between duels to better match your opponent, is a neat feature of the game. Every once in a while you are invited to battle in city tournaments. This are alot of fun to do, and they get very challenging. Sometimes when you try to duel somebody, a Ghost or Rare Hunter comes and battles you instead. This duelists are generally more challenging, and if you lose they take your rarest card! Once you have beaten all the Ghosts and Rare Hunters, something neat happens...

Challenge
7/10
This is kinda of an iffy section. Beating and conquering all the duelists' strategies is fun. Unfortunately once you accomplish so, the challenge from the duelists shrinks away. That's bad news, since all you do is duel duelists. Getting all the cards is no easy task, but who would really want to collect all thousand plus cards? I had collected almost all of them before I stopped playing, and it was kinda boring. I just starting collecting cards to give me something to do until I got my next game. Making your perfect deck is no easy task either, but it's much more fun than trying to collect all the cards. As a final note on challenge: Dueling with friends adds alot of challenge to this game and gives you real reasons to make the perfect deck. Overall don't expect the challenge to last forever. Dueling with friends can make the challenge better, depending how good your friends are.

Replay Value
6/10
Not alot here either, sorry. As I've mentioned before, once you have managed to conquer all of the duelists and you know their strategies inside and out, the challenge goes out the window. That's the reason I gave the Replay Value such a low score. Replay Value could probably shoot up to 8 or 9 if you have a friend or sibling to play with. As in my case, my brother isn't very good so I beat him too easily. A hard-core player will find that the challenge goes away almost abnormally quickly, but the casual player will see it last a much longer time. As you've probably concluded, it's much better to play this game once in a while, for example in conjunction with another game, than all the time.

Story - 5/10
Sound - 7/10
GamePlay - 10/10
Challenge - 7/10
Replay Value - 6/10

Final Score - 7/10

Rent Or Buy? I would say rent this game and see how you like it. If you really like it and have some people to play with, then go ahead and buy the game. If you have nobody to play with, I would suggest not buying it, it's not worth the money over the long term. Just rent it and see for yourself.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/19/03