Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards

"The fourth-most accurate GBA Duel Monsters simulator"

INTRODUCTION
The best Duel Monsters simulator by far is World Championship Tournament 2004, followed by Worldwide Edition, The Eternal Duelist Soul, and then... this game. Dungeon Dice Monsters, is, well, Dungeon Dice Monsters, and therefore does not count. The Sacred Cards is an improved version of Dark Duel Stories. It remains unclear why Konami chose not to improve on Worldwide Edition, which was released earlier after all. Does a Dark Duel Stories RPG sound fun to you even if it doesn't follow the actual rules? Let's find out.

STORY – 8/10
You are a kid in the Battle City tournament of the Animé. As one of Yugi's friends, you duel for six locator cards so you can go to the finals. Along the way you will duel some ''Ghouls'' instead of Yugi. I know it sounds strange.

GAMEPLAY – 7/10
First of all, this is a one-player RPG-ish game. Don't expect to be able to trade cards and duel with your friends using this game. Anyway, at the beginning, you get to input your name. This is an improvement over Worldwide Edition. You walk around talking to people by pushing A and dueling them by pushing R. You can duel complete strangers, each with different decks. After beating some of them, they will wimp out and choose not to duel you, however. When you start your first duel, you will immediately notice that there are five spaces for your Magic (they're called Spell cards in later games)/Trap cards. This is a major improvement over Dark Duel Stories. Some Magic cards have been changed to Trap cards and vice versa for some reason. Now let's talk about the decks. Your deck must have exactly forty cards. No more, no less (there are no Fusion Monster cards in your deck). Why Konami did this, I don't know. Making a deck is a pain in the ass. You have to go back and forth from your Trunk to your Deck just to get the cards you need. Another improvement over Worldwide Edition is the ''Deck Capacity'' system. Every card has a certain number of points. Your deck total can only be a number of points. As you win duels, this number will grow. So at the beginning, your deck is filled with extremely weak cards. This makes much more sense than starting with powerful cards like in Worldwide Edition. In addition to the Deck Capacity system is the ''Duelist Level'' system. When you win duels, your Duelist Level increases. Certain cards require your Duelist Level to be a certain number before you can use them. When you win a duel you get ''Domino'', the currency in this game. Using your Domino, you can buy cards at the Card Shop. This completely takes away the challenge of opening booster packs for the cards you need. Strangely enough, there is a hand limit. The maximum number of cards in your hand is FIVE. At the beginning of your turn if you hold five cards you skip your Draw Phase. Oops, I spoke too soon. There is no Draw Phase, Standby Phase, Main Phase 1, Battle Phase, Main Phase 2, or End Phase. It's all one single phase! Drawing is done automatically, which is a relief. Then you enter your Main Phase, in which you can attack. To summon a monster, you select it from your hand, choose any place (even if it is occupied) space on the field and it is summoned face-down in Attack mode. After you select a monster and press A, a menu with four options comes up. They are switching the monster to Attack Mode, switching the monster to Defense Mode, sacrifice, or activate its effect if it has one. You can change a monster from Attack to Defense Mode and back and forth as often as you like. Sacrificing is different as well. You can sacrifice as many monsters as you want per turn. This is a good thing because it enables you to get rid of the unnecessary monsters. When you select a high-level monster and select it to summon it, a message will come up if you haven't sacrificed enough monsters that turn, telling you how many more sacrifices are needed. And remember, you can sacrifice monsters all you want. When a monster attacks or is attacked, it is flipped. And speaking of flipping, Konami was lazy enough to not include a picture for a face-down card. So all cards look face-up on the field, even if some of them are actually face-down! Another strange system is the ''Type'' system. Every monster has a type, and every type has an advantage over another type, with the exception of Divine which functions normally like in Worldwide Edition. When a monster attacks another monster and the first monster has a type advantage over the second monster, the second monster is destroyed no matter what the attack or defense points are. Damage is calculated normally if the second monster was in attack mode. In other words, if the first monster's Attack Points were lower than the second monster's Attack Points, the second monster is destroyed and the first monster's and neither player loses Life Points. Another thing about Life Points: the max is 9999, which makes absolutely no sense. Fusing is now different. Some Fusion Monsters, such as Thousand Dragon, can now be summoned normally. Some Normal Monsters, such as Minomushi Warrior, are now Fusion Monsters. To fuse two monsters together, one must already be on the field. You place one monster from your hand on top of the other and they are fused. The two cards magically disappear and you end up with a monster that you never even put in your deck. And if the two monsters can not be fused, the second one overwrites the second. You can not view either player's Graveyard, or their removed cards. You can not view either Player's Life Points unless you push B. Whenever there is a chance for a Trap Card to be activated, it is automatically activated. You can not choose to not activate it. I guess that was supposed to make up for not being able to activate Magic Cards from your hand. You need to set it on the field, then activate it. There was absolutely no point to that. Rituals have gotten worse. Instead of sacrificing monsters from your hand or field to Special Summon a Ritual Monster, you must have a certain monster already on the field, sacrifice two other monsters, and finally, the monster already on the field transforms into the Ritual Monster. Pretty strange, huh? And lastly, Effect Monsters have changed drastically. Some monsters no longer have Effects. This includeds Cyber-Stein, Witch of the Black Forest, and Sangan. Some Normal Monsters are now Effects Monsters. Take Battle Ox, for example. It has no Effect in Worldwide Edition, but in The Sacred Cards, its Effect is that it destroys Pyro-type monsters. Battle Ox is a Forest type. Pyro destroys Forest, but Battle Ox's Effect enables it to destroy Pyro-type monsters. There are only about 20 cards with Effects, most of which suck. The descriptions for the Effects must always fit into a certain limit so they are very short and therefore very vague. Instead of telling what the monster's effect is, it says that it is a monster that can do so-and-so. In fact, EVERY card description begins with an article (a, an, the).

GRAPHICS - 8/10
Oddly, the RPG graphics resemble that of Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku very much. This may sound like a bad thing, but it beats no RPG graphics. In a duel, the background no longer moves (which is a shame). You can see a card's picture and Attack and Defense Points without checking it now. When a monster is destroyed, its card is engulfed in flames. When damage is inflicted on Life Points, instead of the amount of damage dealt, the number of Life Points remaining appears and then shrinks. The graphics have improved from Worldwide Edition in some areas but are worse in more areas.

SOUND - 7/10
Extremely not cool compared to Worldwide Edition, which had happy music when you dueled a good guy and creepy when you dueled a bad guy, basically. The Sacred Cards has very simple music, and you'll find the main theme very easy to get used to.

REPLAY VALUE - 0/10
What replay value?! After you save at the end, you're stuck at your save! You can't do anything more! Worldwide Edition's replay value was infinite: inputting passwords, collecting cards, dueling everybody. Take a look at The Sacred Cards. The game is short. The duels are easy. Even Dark Duel Stories has more replay value! But then again, it has more replay value than Worldwide Edition...

RENT OR BUY?
This is a good game by itself, but crap compared to Worldwide Edition. Why buy or even rent this game when World Championship Tournament 2004 is available? Get that instead! If you can't get your hands on it, then buy Worldwide Edition (which some people think is better). Next in line is The Eternal Duelist Soul. BUY THIS GAME ONLY IF THE OTHER THREE ARE NOT AVAILABLE!

OVERALL SCORE - 6 (not necessarily an average)

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/04, Updated 02/20/04