Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links Review

Before I named myself the Shonen Otaku, I grew up on a lot of the shonen anime for the younger audience in the 90s and 2000s with 4Kids and Saban dubs.  The Pokemon anime in particular took the world by storm and while I was definitely a big fan of that for a while, the series that stuck with me the most was the original Yu-Gi-Oh, or at least the original for America, since season 0 wasn’t dubbed.

I loved the fun dubbed dialogue, the monsters battling each other through the finesse of a card game (even though rules were loose in the anime), the way each character’s deck reflected their personalities and the high stakes with the magic and sci-fi elements that kept me wanting to see what happened next.  Even today I can watch it and enjoy it and I highly recommend giving it a watch either on the official Yu-Gi-Oh website or Netflix.

I have tons of cards I collected up until midway through the GX generation, including the amazing Japanese Pegasus structure deck.  I watched every anime sequel until midway through Zexal, including every single movie when they were in theaters.  Even after I stopped buying the cards I always bought the games.  From the Game Boy Color to the Nintendo DS I have always loved me a good Yu-Gi-Oh video game and sunk hundreds and hundreds of hours into the DS games in particular, with World Championship 2010 being my favorite.

When I heard about there being a Yu-Gi-Oh mobile game sometime back I wasn’t very interested.  This is thanks in part to the most recent 3DS game being disappointing as hell, me not being into the most recent anime series and the fact that both free to play mobile games and Konami have extremely bad track records in recent years, especially now when you consider Metal Gear Survive’s bullshit.

Learning the game was greatly reduced only furthered my disinterest.  Only three pairs of card zones?  20-30 card decks?  No Main Phase 2?  4000 life points?  I guess that last one is more accurate to the anime, but it still sounded very watered down.  It got my interest back when I caught wind of something else: voice acting.  Specifically David Brimmer.

You can count on one hand the number of Yu-Gi-Oh games with actual voice acting.  The Tag Force games on the PSP had voice acting in their Japanese versions, but English voice acting for any Yu-Gi-Oh game is rare so having a game with a heavy use of voice acting is kind of a big deal.  For me that’s especially true if it has David Brimmer.

I like most of the 4Kids alumni because despite working on things that have to be made for a younger audience they do understand what makes for a good story and good voice direction and it’s not like they can’t do anything for older audiences.  If you need solid proof check out Gundam Unicorn, an anime with ADR direction by none other than Yugi himself, Dan Green.  He’s smart enough to know Keith Silverstein should be playing the villain and that David Brimmer is the man.

Yes of all the actors they have on speed dial my favorite is David Brimmer, usually credited under the pseudonym Michael Alston Bailey when he’s voice acting.  I’m not sure why he uses a different name, but my guess is it’s so people don’t keep asking him about it in his day job, that being fight choreography.  If you look up his name on Youtube you’re less likely to find voice acting and more likely student fight rehearsals crediting him.  He’s a classically trained actor who’s been doing this a long time and given his line of work it’s no wonder his favorite voice acting role is Berserk's Nosferatu Zod.  Having David Brimmer in a game is enough to make me want to play it.  It was that easy to get me into Duel Links because I am that much of a sucker for some actors.

Going into Duel Links, one thing not to expect to carry over from the DS games is a plot.  Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links has a story, but only by the strictest definition.  It takes place in Duel World, a virtual reality world created by Kaiba Corp that acts as sort of an MMO where characters from the series are recreated from data.  It’s ambiguous which characters are real ones dropping in and which are just data.  The real plot boils down to “everyone is dueling each other.”  Character interactions with lots of call-backs to the series are the most the story goes.

When I say everyone is dueling each other I do mean everyone.  The character count is impressive and has only been added to with updates.  Every character that has dueled more than once in Yu-Gi-Oh is there and more.  Rex Raptor, Weevil, Bandit Keith, Ishizu and even the Paradox Brothers are all in the game in addition to the usual main characters and villains.

As mentioned, what really makes it so awesome as opposed to the other games they’re in, is that every character is fully voiced when dueling, calling out every action they take.  They get specific dialogue for certain cards, usually the ones they use in the series (both the anime and manga).  For a fan it’s neat as hell to hear characters call on monsters to attack by name at your command, like Dark Magic Attack and Flaming Sword of Battle.  They even call out what monster effects are supposed to be or briefly explain their effects like they would in the show.  It adds an amazing layer or immersion to the whole thing.

They can also taunt, and readers should know how much I love taunting in games.  It’s one thing to have a set of pre-set messages to communicate with the opposing player, but it’s quite another to have a set of fully voiced lines tailored for each character.  Many of them are taunts or evil laughs (Yami Bakura especially in the latter case) but some are also reaction phrases to make the duels feel more alive.  They’re fun to throw out at each other online and makes the communication feel somewhat natural and expressive.  I chortle like crazy when I’m goading with Odion or Pegasus’ smarmy remarks.

I’m kind of impressed they got almost every single voice actor back to reprise their role too.  I expect the usual actors that have been in every Yu-Gi-Oh series, but they even got Sam Reigal back for Arkana and Para.  I haven’t heard him in many 4Kids productions in recent years.

Only a few actors needed to be replaced.  Jimmy Zoppi doesn’t return as Weevil, possibly because he’s so busy with Pokemon, and Andrew Ranells didn’t come back to voice Mako, presumably because he’s too busy being a super famous broadway star.  Their replacements do serviceable imitations though.  I think Mako might actually sound a little better this way, to be honest.  His actor is the one who played the villain in Dark Side of Dimensions and he’s excellent.  I hope they make him a series regular.

Mai is also still voiced by Erica Schroeder, who for over a decade used the name Bella Hudson and still replaces Megan Hollingshead, her original actor.  I didn’t think Schroeder was nearly as good as Hollingshead in the anime (not liking the filler she took over in didn't help), but I think she’s gotten a lot better for Duel Links and that can be attributed to solid voice direction.

Further adding to the presentation is signature card summons.  Each character has a signature monster except Ishizu, who has a trap.  When the monster is summoned to the field, the game plays a badass 3D intro sequence for the monster that ends with a pose displaying their name and level, again much like the show would do for the big guns.  For Yami Marik, Yami Yugi and Kaiba they also get one of these intros for their Egyptian god cards in addition to Lava Golem, Dark Magician and Blue Eyes White Dragon, respectively.

These all add a lot of punch to the duels.

The in-game graphics themselves are kept simple past all the bigger summon spectacles.  Similar to the DS games, monsters are floating artwork on the field that ram into each other to attack, but that’s par for the course.  If it got too show-offy, duels would take forever and that doesn’t translate well to game format.  There’s some extra spice in a variety of unlockable (and buyable) card sleeves and game mats you can give each of your decks.

To top off this game’s high production value is the great soundtrack.  Yu-Gi-Oh games have had some great music if you really listen to them and this one stands with the very best of them with high-quality orchestral themes that fit each character, including a few that are remixes of their themes from the Japanese version of the anime.  It makes every duel feel epic and all the aspects of the sound design, the voice acting and the visuals comes together for a satisfying experience every time you play.

A lot of time, money and effort was put into the presentation of Duel Links alone and that is extremely admirable, especially for what’s designed as a mobile game, a format not typically known for effort on this scale.  The gameplay is more in line with what to expect from a mobile game, however.

To start, you don’t actually explore the game’s virtual world per se.  There are four areas to switch between, each with a central building for the important stuff, like the card shop and online play.  Scattered around those areas are ordinary duelists that refresh at certain times of the day.  It's more or less a glorified series of menus, but well-designed ones.

These ordinary duelists are also fully voiced, but they don’t get the special dialogue the “legendary duelists” do.  Legendary duelists occasionally show up in the crowd, but your primary means of dueling them is through the game’s dueling gate, a structure that lets you spend collectibles called gate keys to duel them.  Each one has a different deck for four different levels (you won’t see the fourth for quite a while) that ramp up the difficulty of the computer’s AI and the chances of getting one of the duelist’s cards from the series.

That’s right, there’s a grind for the privilege to fight them, which I don’t really mind because dueling is fun, you can still fight them in the overworld for free when they show up and the game is pretty generous with gate keys after every non-gate duel.

One of the goals of the game is to level up your world level, which is done through a variety of challenges, like activating a certain number of cards in one duel, beating a certain legendary duelist at a certain level or inflicting enough damage on enemies.  With each objective fulfilled you’re given something so the game rewards you with going for the main objective and it can be a side activity if you’re satisfied with what you have unlocked.  Eventually you get character unlock objectives you need to fulfill in order to unlock a legendary duelist for use.  The whole game is all about unlocking stuff and playing the card game that forms the core gameplay.  I like both.

The currency to get more cards in Duel Links is gems.  The more special objectives and dueling reward you with gems you can spend in the card shop.  Packs are 50 gems each, they each have three cards and there are 500 gem structure decks available as well.  Gems are often given away for events as well as the usual objectives so it’s not quite as much of a grind as it looks either.  Besides, grinding for cards is a Yu-Gi-Oh game staple and 3 cards isn’t such a small number when you consider you only need 20 cards in a deck now.

That is of course where the microtransations come into play.  Gems can be bought for a few dollars in real money and the booster packs can be bought in bundles with it, most notably a one-time-only deal where you can buy three packs and get one of its ultra rare cards guaranteed.  A master gate key that gives you unlimited gate usage for half an hour can also be bought, but it doesn’t seem worth it.  As I’ll get into, the game plays faster, but not that fast.

Outside of the card shop is the card trader, taken straight from the card.  In exchange for materials you get from duels and converting cards, you can trade with the card trader for specific cards.  It’s very useful when you’re looking for a particular type and don’t want to bother with the grab bags that are booster packs.

You’ll definitely want to utilize every resource you’re given because in another Yu-Gi-Oh game tradition, every character’s starting deck sucks like Relinquished.  They’re made up of the weakest monsters possible that the real life game abandoned long ago, with maybe a magic and trap card or two.  The only thing of value you get with each deck is the character’s signature card.  If you want a good deck you’re going to have to work for it.  Once you make a decent deck you can plow through the early competition relatively easily.  It’s after those opening levels when the depth Yu-Gi-Oh players expect shine through.

With the card gameplay almost cut entirely in half in every aspect you would expect Duel Links to be a lot more shallow and less interesting.  As I said before, that’s certainly what I thought.  To my surprise, it feels less like cutting down and more like keeping focus.  This “Speed Duel” format was used before in the Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Terminals, which I sadly only got to play at Comic Con years ago and then never again (got my prismatic Cyber Dragon from it too).

Life points are at 4000 instead of 8000, decks can only have 20 to 30 cards, the extra deck can only have 5 cards in it, you start with 4 cards in your hand instead of 5, you don’t get another main phase after the battle phase and there are only three zones each for monster and magic/trap cards.  The removal of Main Phase 2 is unnecessary and hinders the game a little for me, but the rest helps prevent duels from dragging on.  Duels only take about 5-10 minutes tops and sometimes not even that.  With only three monster zones you can’t stall with swarms of special summoned monsters and with a smaller deck you can only stall for so long anyway.  This also makes it feel a little more like the show, where the full extent of the field was rarely covered unless they were using a card made for swarming like Scapegoat, which is thankfully not present in Duel Links.

Duels can be made even faster with the game’s auto duel option.  You can toggle between it anytime during a duel and it makes the AI take over, speeds the game up and skips all the dialogue, potentially making a duel only a few seconds long.

The AI that takes over has the strategy of purely steamrolling the enemy, summoning the strongest monsters, powering them up and playing every trap face down even when there’s no need at the moment.  This works early on if you have a monster with higher attack than any monster in your opponent’s sucky deck, but once the duel world gets to around level 20 that becomes less practical and mainly useful to speed things up when you know you have the upper hand or you want to attack with all your monsters in quick succession.  Auto duel is disabled when fighting legendary duelists from the gate, so if you’re expecting to grind for their cards easily you’ve got another thing coming.  I don’t really mind that part because I only ever duel the legendary duelists for fun.

One of the ways Duel Links retains the series’ more classic feel is through keeping the cards in the game under control.  A lot of the staple cards that have a deck limit or ban in the actual game are not present.  To my knowledge this includes Mirror Force, Sangan, Mystical Space Typhoon, Premature Burial, Pot of Greed, Raigeki and others like them.  A lot of cards that can instantly remove a monster from the field are scarce, usually ultra rare cards and require a cost or specific condition so they’re not just a free shot.  For example, Dark Core and Tribute to the Doomed are in the game, but they require the user to discard a card, a bigger cost with a smaller starting hand.

Ultra rare.  Far surpassed.

This means some cards that we take for granted in the real card game are considered much more valuable.  Take Sonic Bird for example.  All it does is let you search for a ritual magic card and yet this one simple effect warrants being an ultra rare monster card.  Even Axe Raider is an ultra rare card because of its high attack in the game’s earlier versions.  Duel Links reigns in all the excessively powered cards that built up over the card game’s history and takes it back to more of the basics.

To further give the playable duelists more of a unique edge there are rewards you acquire as you level them up through dueling with them.  That way you get gems, cards they use from the franchise and skills.  Every character has a unique set of skills they can equip that give them a special ability in battle, such as a boost to their starting life points, starting the game with a field spell in play or skills that guarantee drawing a certain kind of card in your deck.  They mix up the game really well.

A lot of these skills are direct references fans should recognize.  The common ability to draw a certain card you may need is on its own pretty accurate to the show already, but there’s also Mai’s aroma trick that lets you see the top card of your deck and Bandit Keith even has a skill that lets you get a free 7 completed, among others.  While these skills probably look incredibly imbalanced, in execution they’re actually kind of fair.  Their effects are mostly nominal and the ones that require activation almost always only work after you’ve lost a certain number of life points, making them more like lifelines.  Given that the life point count is lower, losing the amount needed to activate them probably means you need it.

Close-up cut-ins are badass when you're a shonen character.

My favorite skill is Pegasus’ Mind Scan.  From the third turn onwards, as long as your life points are above 3000, you can see every one of your opponent’s face down cards.  When a single well-played trap getting the jump on you can lead to a very quick defeat, seeing what to prepare for is incredibly valuable.  It’s also fun as hell to be able to maneuver around your opponent’s traps and tricks, exploiting limits to them or forcing them to use one at an inopportune time.  It really makes me feel like that cheating bastard Pegasus himself, doubly so if the opponent doesn't seem to be aware of what exactly the skill does (the game only gives the name during a duel).

Duel Links gives players a lot to play with thanks to the characters and card variety, but there’s even more content to spice things up like online multiplayer, loaner deck duels that let you try out pre-made decks and challenge scenarios like the DS games have.  To make matters even better, this game is being supported very nicely, with regular content updates and events, the most recent at the time of this writing being an April Fools event in which the game is taken over by Tristan and the addition of GX’s Jesse Anderson and Zane Truesdale.

And since he’s at level 40 with a Cyber Dragon deck, Zane is pretty much the bonus boss from hell here.

Scottie Ray is a tragically underappreciated actor.

Although Duel Links does have enough content to make it worthwhile, some of it seems to be missable, and that's a problem.  A useful feature shows you in what ways you have to get a certain card, be it leveling up a character or from a specific pack.  Some cards were only available for certain events that only last a week or two and there is no other way to get them.  On one hand, I understand that there are cards like that in the real life card game through promotional tie-ins for events (I have a lot of those) and that it makes them have more of a sense of value, but to make it that way in a game seems to be cheating out the latecomers.  Apparently a few characters have to be unlocked in these events too.  Some of the characters from the events have been brought back to be unlocked later down the line, but to my knowledge the cards haven't.  There are plenty of cards to go around, so it's not a huge loss, but it's a tad disappointing.

Even so, for a free game I never spent anything on, I have gotten a lot of fun out of Duel Links and I’m always taking it out, be it for quick fun or a long session, both on my phone and Steam.

On Steam it’s the exact same game, just with a few interface tweaks here and there.  It can look better on the bigger screen, but the narrow view of the mobile version is used and only takes up a third of the computer screen.  In a wise move, the other two thirds aren’t dead space.  They display full card details and a log of the progress of a duel without having to take up the main screen space like in the mobile version (shown above).  When making decks the Steam version also displays the cards you have outside the deck separately rather than the screen real estate the mobile version has to share, making the PC version ideal for deck construction.  As long as you make a Konami ID you can have both versions use the same account, which I highly recommend along with this game as a whole.

If you lost interest in Yu-Gi-Oh sometime back, this might just renew it.  Like the best games in the franchise it’s got everything that makes Yu-Gi-Oh great and enough charm and depth to keep it interesting, not to mention the content still being added to it.  I give Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links an 8 out of 10.