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Yu-Gi-Oh! - World Championship 2004: Reviews

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Game Score: 7/10

Anyone who knows card games knows Yu-Gi-Oh, the big card game with a silly name. It's the biggest card game there is right now, surpassing even long-standing Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon TCG in popularity. Though the show, toys, and merchendice are all popular, it's the card game that's the heart and soul of the franchise. The only part where this is challenged is in video games, specifically GBA games where the card game has recieved multiple incarnations on the handheld system. The most recent game in this long-running series is Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters Expert 3, known in North America as Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Tournament 2004.

-=PRESENTATION=-
Yu-Gi-Oh games for the GBA are meant to give every Yu-Gi-Oh fan something to play for. For fans of the cards, they get a faithful recreation of the card game, with over 1000 cards represented, many never done on the GBA games before, with all the rules and regulations intact and all the favorite cards available. Previous games have had some popular choices left out to make programming easier or to keep the game from being overpowering, but I was pleased to see most of my first choices all intact. For fans of the show, you get a cast of characters from the show as your opponents, all representing their cartoon counterparts well... to a point.

The presentation carries flaws in these areas. Card-wise, this game is the best of the series available. A much better range of cards are offered and it can recreate tournament-level matches easily with all the tactics available. It's the character department where this game trails off. Though each duelist is supposed to reflect a character from the show, you only see one sprite of each, when you select them for a duel. After that you go into the duel where you lose any idea of who you're playing. For instance, in the show, the duelist Weevil is always portrayed as a weak duelist who always uses bug monsters and bug-based strategies. In the game, I've gone entire duels with him where he used more generic monsters than bugs and his strategies from the show were completely lost behind cards of a calibur he'd never have in the cartoon. In the context of the game, this is understandable, he's more of a challenge than he would be normally, but it still detracts from the illusion that you really are playing against the characters from the show. It would have helped if all the characters had backgrounds that suggested who they were, but instead the duel backgrounds are based on the level of opponent you're playing.

Story-wise, the creators didn't feel they needed to do much, this game is all about the cards. The story follows the same one they always fall back on for the GBA games, Marik and his Rare Hunters going after rare cards with the player replacing Yugi as the main focus of their attacks. In the format of the game, this story is paper thin and really just a gimmick to get you to play other duelists and add some surprise to the game. This works to a point, though you will get to a point where you have to find and play them to advance, so that element is lost soon, as well.

Also, there is a reason this game is called World Championship. All versions of the game come in 6 different languages and because of the style of the game's engine, any language can play against any other and on each other's screens everything is in their own language. It allows anyone who can play the game in the world to link up and play with anyone else, which is an awesome feature. Though you might not get to use it very often, it's something to take note of. Should Konami ever want, this would be the way to do international tournaments.

-=GAMEPLAY=-
Gameplay depends on being able to consistently defeat opponents and getting more cards to make a stronger deck. This is literal, as your success determines your pool of opponents. Some are unlocked by beating certain groups of opponents a number of times, some by opening a certain pack of cards enough times, some by having certain cards in your trunk where usually they also can't be in your hand, as well. You start with 5 opponents, you get to unlock 20 others, with difficulty ranging from child's play to "please let the suffering end". This sounds good, but it gets teadious and quite frustraiting. Why? Because the game gives you no information on what circumstances need to be accomplished in order to get all these various opponents. You're left with no choice but to keep playing over and over until finally by accident you come across the correct circumstances and most often you'll only get one more opponent each time. Once all are unlocked it's good, but by the time that has happened you've probably played most of them so many times you may be tired of them.

As far as the game's duels go, however, this game surpasses the previous ones. The duels are as close to heavy tournament play as you'll get. Unlike previous games where some monsters had their effects stripped and some magic cards were removed completely to make duels more balanced, all the over powered cards are here with their effects intact. That's the cards, though. The game's AI has been changed to be more challenging, but it's flawed. The computer might set down a strategy that keeps it safe for 10 turns then for no reason change it and ensure his own defeat. Playing one character of the game, I find often that he trades his usual combo that prevents him from being damaged for one that removes all his own monsters and leaves him open for attack, even if the combo had been effective throughout the entire match, and he loses every time. The AI also seems to have an element of cheating. For instance, it sometimes acts like it knows what cards you're playing face-down. It could attack and destroy 5 face down cards in a row then suddenly if you put one face down down that would damage it, it stops and goes to defense itself. You could chalk it up to simulated instinct, but since it never fails, it's closer to cheating. This is further shown when later opponents have three of some cards that are normally restricted to one per deck. Among all this, one saving grace is, unlike some of the previous games, you can choose to have more than 40 cards in one deck and have up to 3 decks at once to allow you to try new strategies and make a deck or two just for fun. But that's why the japanese version has Expert in the title, this is supposed to be hard.

The part where gameplay doesn't live up to the previous versions is in how they go about getting the duels together. In the previous game, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards, they made a move that was long overdue, using sprite characters and an RPG feel of exploration and movement to the game to go from duel to duel. This added some gameplay elements lacking in these games usually, there were puzzle elements other than constantly dueling other characters and it was a refreshing change. The flaw with it was it made the game go too quickly and you couldn't play any duelist you wanted at any time even at the end of the game like you usually can. The game would have been flawless if some of those elements were retained while keeping some of the length elements in this game, but instead they returned to the old formula rather than salvage their new one. As it goes, this makes the game more or less an upgrade of Worldwide Edition.

-=GRAPHICS=-
Yu-Gi-Oh games are known for blending colorful graphics and animation with the serious feel most of the game's cards represent. This game holds true to that and manages the look very well. Outside of duels, the menus look nice, the character pictures are anime-perfect, the backgrounds have a good, smooth animation flow to them. In duels much of the same can be expected. Backgrounds are animated and changes depending on the opponent's level. The duel board looks like a table you might see in a professional tournament and adds to the feel that there is importance of some kind in each duel.

The cards themselves look as much like the real things as the GBA can manage. Unlike the rest of the game that reflects closer to the show, the cards aren't meant to reflect the characters you see in the cartoon, rather they're true recreations of the real cards, down to the background textures of the cards. Some of the detail is lacking in exchange for making the cards fit better on the screen but it's understandable. The only flaw with them is the occasional glitches with long names, some spill into the card's stats and some try to move down to a line that doesn't exist. It's just a small glitch, more funny than troublesome, and it's the only flaw the cards have.

While all the graphics are really good, there are no surprises. Again this is where using the same old game engine so often without any changes comes back to bite the overall quality of the game. The card transitions, effect animations, everything has been ported from the previous games. While the graphics are very good and suit their purpose, they could easily be improved upon or changed in style to make the game a little better and feel more like a new game. Instead, the game comes off with a cheaper feel to it as very few of the graphics were done new for the game. It also hurts the atmosphere of the game in that if you've got any of the previous games, you could literally be dueling in this one and forget which of the games you're playing.

-=SOUND=-
Sound is an odd category to judge on. On one hand, the music in the game is very good and does it's job of setting the mood for whatever is happening in the game. Playing the first level players, you get the music of a friendly game of Duel Monsters, something to ease you as you play. Just a casual game between friends. As you go up and opponents get harder, and meaner, the music changes to something more aggressive, setting the pace for more heated battles and heavy competition. Now it's a competative game between rivals. And of course by the time you face Marik, the music has gone to dire situation-style music like you'd hear in the final stage of a long RPG, we've gone to good vs evil. This is actually all fine as it progresses well and the music sounds good.

On the other hand, we have the sound effects that have been the same ever since the first GBA game. The sounds themselves are good, there's nothing technically wrong with them, except for the fact that if you've played the other Yu-Gi-Oh GBA games, you'll have heard them way too many times by now. And it's not like Mario games where a few sound effects from the previous games are always the same and it's kinda nostalgic and traditional. In this game every sound effect is the exact same as all the other games. Go back and play the first GBA Yu-Gi-Oh game, listen to all the sound effects. Come back here, and they're all the same. The games are all run on the same engine so it would have been a nice addition to change these sounds to kind of refresh the game, with everything sounding the same I couldn't help but feel like I was playing the same game they've been offering since they started releasing the GBA games in the US.

So how do you judge the sound? It is good, it does it's job and sounds nice doing it. But on the other hand, other than the music, you've heard it all before. The sounds didn't need changing, really, but a change would have been nice, even if it was the same sounds but cleaned up a little bit. There aren't any real surprises, either. There's just music and sound effects, nothing in between or beyond. The presentation might have benefited if the characters had voice clips somewhere, even a single brief one, just anything to break up all the old stuff.

-=LIFESPAN=-
Possibly the game's strongest point. Because of the system Konami used to unlock everything, you end up playing this game for a good long time. Since you'll go through hundreds of duels before everything in the game is unlocked, this game can last for what will seem like an eternity. And with over 1000 cards to collect, you have a lot to find in the game to keep an interested player coming back often. The game also gives players some extra incentive to collect all those cards as a complete collection can unlock a new feature to the game, not to mention connectability to trade and play against friends.

This is a game that you literally have to love to be able to play to it's fullest extent. Since the duels are done over and over and are the only actual playing you do in the game, only someone who can't get enough of this game will last long enough to unlock all the duelists, all the card packs, and collect all the cards. For pure Yu-Gi-Oh card fans, this shouldn't be a problem, even if you just use the virtual recreation to test your real-life deck. More casual fans won't make it, though, and just beating the last duelist once might be enough for them to call the game done. Either way, there is so much to collect and unlock that dedicated gamers will always be busy with this game and no matter what you'll get all the replay value out of this game that you want.

-=OVERALL=-
For presentation, this game suffers in numerous areas but still portrays the card game well and there's the added benefit of a game engine that translates between versions. Gameplay as a card game is very solid, but the AI is still flawed and since the only action in the game are the deuls, it may become tiresome to some. Graphics are all solid and well tuned, nothing to wow anyone but all do their job very well and they look good doing it. Music in the game is great, easy to listen to and appropriate for setting the needed moods. Sound effects, on the other hand, needed a change they didn't get. The game could also last gamers forever, no matter who you are or how long you play, you'll always have something else to do after you put it down.

Simply put, if you love the card game and want the cheaper alternative, this is it, there are no better alternatives but be aware of the flaws before buying. If you have the previous games, especially Worldwide Edition, think carefully before investing in this game as it's essentially an upgrade to that title and other than some cards, you won't find much new.

Rating: 7/10