Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories

"Embarrassing"

The score can't go lower than 1! Oh well...

I've always liked Yu-Gi-Oh, from buying trading cards to watching the anime. When i first heard of this game, I thought," Wow! A Yu-Gi-Oh video game!" As it turned out, this game was a real disappointment, i recommend going out and buying EDS. This game by Konami could have been better.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is nothing like the real-life TCG. This is not a good game for newbies because they don't know the rules in this game don't apply to the real card game. Now, there is only one Magic and Trap card zone and if you don't use it the turn it's played, it is automatically destroyed. Also, if some card gets sent to the graveyard, it's gone, forever. I was annoyed when I couldn't find Monster Reborn and some good real-life effect monsters don't have their abilities in this game. For example, Man-Eater Bug is went from feared throughout the Yu-Gi-Oh world to a pathetic, weak monster. Only about 10 cards actually have effects, but they are useless, anyway.

Also, there is also a pretty useless deck capacity system. This means that if you enter a passcode to get a good card, you have to wait until you can fit it into your deck. That means you have to duel so many times before you can add a powerful card. It can get boring very fast, you may not even want to complete the game. I exchanged the game before I played 20 duels. If you somehow manage to win a duel, you get one card. Usually, that card is garbage, so you have to duel another hundred times to get one you need. It takes forever to complete one duel, so there is no replayability.

Something else I find annoying is that the computer cheats. For example, you can only have one Raigeki is your deck. The computer has three. Suppose you manage to summon the best card is your deck. The computer can steal it forever with a Change of Heart, or blast it away with Raigeki. That also makes each duel much too long. In this game, your hand is limited to only five cards, and there aren't any continuous trap cards.

A small and faint light at the end of the tunnel is that now you can construct your own monsters with card parts. To me, this was pointless and made me more disgruntled instead of happy.

Something completely new I see in this game is the monster type advantage. For example, Light beats Fiend and Shadow beats Light. Therefore, your Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon can be shut down by a mere Kuriboh. So a Shadow can beat any Light in the whole game, no question. With three Change of Hearts, three Raigeki's, and different type monsters, no monster can live for more than five turns.

Story:

What story? Does this game even have a story? All you have to do is beat a guy five times and thats it, no fun at all. No story at all makes this game pointless and a waste of money.

Sound:

The sound is just embarrassing. I turned the music down because i couldn't endure it anymore. This is nothing to be proud about. What's so great about hearing the same tunes over and over again?

Graphics:

This is a mere Gameboy Color game, so you can't really expect anything fancy, but they could have done a lot better. The duelists look like they are pasted on a wall. Actually they are just strange card board cut-outs that blink and move their mouths. It might take a few moments to realize who they really are. Also, they say the same thing everytime and some characters haven't even appeared in the anime yet! The ones that do have some strange names, though. The picture on the card is done so that you can barely recognize it. The dueling field is just a big, white piece of cardboard and the actual cards are nothing but weird, little squares. You don't even get to see the monsters fighting. Two cards placed next to each other and one vanishes. How boring.

Playtime/Replayability:

The game takes at least a few months to complete, if you have enough patience to even get past the first level. This game has no replayability. There are more than 800 cards. If you get one card per win, than means you have to fight over 800 duels, assuming you don't get any doubles. Even the passwords take too long to input. Not a good game you want to remember at all.

Rent or Buy:

This game is so bad, you shouldn't rent it or buy it. I played it for about an hour and I wanted to throw it out the window. Even though I am a big fan of Yu-Gi-Oh, this game is a disgrace and should be avoided at all costs. I wasted $25 on this game. In conclusion, go out and buy Eternal Duelists Soul, it's much more like the real TCG, making it by far a better game. However, if you are only buying this game for the free cards, don't, because the cards are as bad as the game. Konami could have done a lot better with this game and they have hit subzero with this game.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 08/24/04, Updated 09/01/04