Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories

"Feel The Power Of My Millenium Puzzle!"

Yes, it's Yu-Gi-Oh, and it's spreading across the nation, far and wide. I know what your thinking. ''Oh no, not another Pokemon spinoff''. Well your wrong. Dead wrong. Yu-gi-oh is much more complicated than pokemon, and a lot more mature. Your Charizard is my Blue Eyes White Dragon. Your Alakazam is my Dark Magician. Your Magikarp is my Sea King. They may sound like pokemon, but the monsters in this game compare more to those of Dragon Warrior Monsters.

Plot: 2/10
Agh. This damaged. There is absolutely no plot at all, but to beat all those that challenge you 5 times in a row. Sure, it's not all that great, but the rest of the game more than makes up for it.

Animation/Graphics: 7/10
Ok, your going to argue with this one. The characters themselves have mouth motions and blink, but that is not why I give this such a high rating. What's the deal? The cards themselves. The detail in them is very surprising, and shows the fine quality of GBC.

Gameplay: 10/10
You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll never go to the dinner table without this game in your hands. This game is fun. Pure fun. I hardly ever give a category a 10. This game will have you stuck battling the little league to get cards for your deck, so you can expand your points, and stock up on more powerful cards. There are A TON of cards in this game, and your going to have one doozy of a time getting them all.

Secrets: 4/10
Meh. This game doesn't have many secrets. You can unlock Yugi's Grampa, all the Yami versions of certain enemies, and I guess you can consider entering codes in for cards secrets. This really hurt. But hey, no game is perfect.

Replay Value: 4/10
Again, this damages. Once you beat the game, all there is to do is to get all the cards, if you haven't already. This can be very tiring and boring. Unless you like doing that, put this game on the ''Game's I've Beaten'' shelf/drawer/whatever.

Buy Or Rent?
Buy. This will take you more than a few days to beat. Don't believe me? Go and see for yourself.

Overall: 8/10
The only thing that saved this game is the gameplay. Otherwise, I would throw it in the trash. But why limit your dueling skills to this game? These cards are real. Yes, real. Special packages of this game come with 3 cards:

Exodia
Dark Magician
Blue Eyes White Dragon

So you can challenge those in real life, and show off all you want. And remember this one thing:

It's Time To Duel!!!!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/28/02, Updated 06/28/02