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Yu-Gi-Oh!
is a strange game, many people herald it as the unofficial-sequel
to Pokemon, or simply another one of those Trading Card
Games made for kids. Other people insist it’s been going for ages
and only now becoming popular and that it’s a true rival to Magic
The Gathering. The Pokemon Trading Card  Game entered the
UK in 1998 and has been hard to dispose of since; with it’s
incredibly flexible strategies and uncommon take on the Magic
The Gathering formula,
it’s become an added addiction for the videogame series for both
kids and adults and was the first Trading Card Game to
simultaneously outsell Magic
The Gathering in the
both the UK and US. Having had an opinion of Yu-Gi-Oh!
pre-constructed similar to those already caught-up in the Pokemon
phenomenon, I wasn’t expecting a complex series of exchanges,
relays and trading… more just the trading.
All those that have played the Trading Card Game will know
the trials I went through when first starting the title. To begin
with I was happy to just play this game like Top Trumps; lay down a
card and see if it beats the opponents’ attack or defence –
depending on whether the cards were in the defence or attack
position- if it did, I was winning, if not, try again with the next
card. This is a great plan, until you start careering head-on into
the likes of Magic Cards or Trap Cards.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Nightmare Troubadour is the first Yu-Gi-Oh!
game to be released on the NintendoDS, but there have been many
others on all of the other formats, four on the PlayStation2, four
on the GameCube, countless releases on the Game Boy Advance and
just a solitary release for the Xbox. Being the first Yu-Gi-Oh!
game released on a console borne with Touch Screen the game has a
lot to live-up to, as if this doesn’t appease the fans of Yu-Gi-Oh!
and the Touch Screen playing system, virtual Trading Card
Games may be set to only ever appear on the home consoles.
This game does use the Touch Screen in a big way; everything
you use in-game can be activated with the Touch Screen, from 
choosing the things you do at home to moving your cards around in
your deck, from shopping for more cards to the actual Duel Match.
When you first start in your house you are given access to Your
Computer, which you receive E-Mail on, access Duellist Info - which
shows you who you’ve battled, how many times you’ve won, lost
and drawn and whether they like you - and then you can also access
the Network where you battle with the NintendoDS’ Wireless
Multi-Card Play. In your house you can also access your Duel Disk
where you make you Deck, Side Deck, view your Recipes, Card List
and the Cards you have in your Trunk. You will be spending a lot of
time in here, a lot. The house is where you totally
customise how you play your game, and there’s also a bed where
you sleep and a Save Point in the shape of a little keepsake-chest.
Once you get outside on to the map you will start doing what
99% of this game is made up of, Duelling. Your Dueldisk which is
apparently very fashionable to wear on your arm as you’re out and
about, is equipped with a Duelist Finder, you use this by holding
your Stylus on the Touch Screen and moving it around, as you come
close to a Duelist it will turn from a Blue Crosshair to a Green
one and as you come really close it will turn from Green to a Red
Flashing Crosshair, then a Duelist will appear as a small coloured
icon on the screen, to Duel simply double-tap on them, taking you
to a paper, scissor, stone match to decide who goes first. Then the
whole thing gets just a little bit heated and complicated and would
be very hard for me to explain with out a large amount of diagrams
with annotations, but I shall give it a good go.
To
start we have to imagine a playing board separated into two sides
– one for player one the other for player two - on each of these
sides there’s two rows of five card spaces, the ones closest to
the relevant player are the Spell Card and Trap Card spaces, the
ones closest to the opponents side are the Monster card spaces.
When the duel starts each player has their Deck (consisting of all
their chosen cards) to the right of the board, to start they draw
five cards from the top of their facedown, shuffled deck. Then the
person who won the paper, scissor, stone game starts going through
the Phases that make up the game. The first is the Draw Phase where
the player draws one card from their Deck, the next is the Standby
Phase where certain card effects and conditions are enacted –
though there’s no direct player control in this Phase – the
next is the Main Phase, this is where the strategic thinking starts
coming into play. During this phase you can lay any of your Spell
Cards and Trap Cards facedown to their respective space on the
board, but be careful there’s only so many spaces and a lot of
cards to come, you can also summon one Monster to the board from
your hand during this Phase. Then we get to the Battle Phase this
is where (pardon the pun) the damage is  done, each Monster you’ve
summoned that is in the attack position – facing the opponent –
is allowed one attack, when you attack you choose the opponents
Monster you want to attack, if it’s in the attack position you
take away your Monsters attack from the Monster’s attack you’re
attacking, a minus figure as a result takes the amount in health
from your opponent (both starting with 8000 Life Points) and
destroy the Monster, if it’s a plus you take damage to your Life
Points. If the Monster you are attacking is in the defensive
position – sideways to you – your Monsters attack is taken away
from the defence of your opponents Monster and, if it’s a minus
figure, as a result just destroy the Monster, if it’s a plus take
the figure from your Life Points. If there are no Monsters on your
opponents side of the field you can attack their Life Points
directly. Once all of your Monsters in the attack position have
attacked you go onto the Main Phase 2, here you can lay more Spell
or Trap Cards or summon a Monster if you have not done so already.
Spell and Trap cards can be used at any point of any Phase as long
as the specific card allows it, for instance you could not use a
Trap Card that counters an opponents direct attack until your
opponent does a direct attack with one of their Monsters, Spell
Cards can be used whether in your hand or on the board but Trap
Cards have to be laid on the board before their use. Once you’ve
done attacking and laying cards you can go to the End Phase, which
will end your turn and give control of the board to your opponent
to have their Draw Phase. All very simple yet fiendishly complex,
there are many small variations on the types of card like Monster 
Effect Cards and Field Spell Cards, but if you want to learn more
on the intricate complexities in this game there is a place you can
go.
The Shop, is on the Main Map not too far from your house, in
here you can buy new Card Packs with the KC Points earned in
battle, go to a Tutorial and Puzzle Mode - for all you learners –
and access the Password Machine which allows you to Create Cards
from the numbers on the Official Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Cards,
though this isn’t available right from the start. You will find
as you go through the game, more and more Yu-Gi-Oh! Card
Packs become available to buy from the shop.
The graphics on this game really aren’t too sharp, it’s
a nice touch that they’ve put the effort in to show all of the
Monster Cards in 3D, but the monsters aren’t animated in any way,
except for the changes to attack and defence positions. The sound
quality is also quite poor, with only set sounds for each of the
different Cards and effects you can have, but little else.
The title has clearly been developed to bring the best out
of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, but whether this game
will appeal to everyone regardless I don’t know. The game looks
and feels good; it’s enjoyable to play, uses the Touch Screen
well and does everything it needs to well enough to work. This game
is definitely enough to please every Yu-Gi-Oh! fan and
everyone who wants more Touch! on their NintendoDS, but the
general public may have to think and ponder a while before making
this their first NintendoDS purchase. |
