Yu-Gi-Oh: Early Days Collection Review: Part 4

A player might notice something around this time of Yu-Gi-Oh game releases; there were no new characters introduced in them and, barring the game-original Reshef of Destruction, there hadn't been for a while.  That's because Battle City was the last part of the manga to center around the card game.  After that came the final part with exploring the pharoah's memories, where only two card games would be played for the rest of the story, none of which was between any new characters.  By 2004, in Japan, at least, the original manga ended.  This means the games had to start using the same roster of characters in new ways, but as Battle City was starting to conclude, Japan released the sequel to what Americans know as Eternal Duelist Soul.

Yu-Gi-Oh Expert 2 is the only game in the Early Days Collection that has no translation, at least for its original version.  After Eternal Duelist Soul borrowed Expert 2’s dueling system for the English release, Expert 2 as a whole would get a revision released for international audiences.  I call it a “revision” and not “updated version” because it takes a handful of cards out, changes some art and tweaks a few things that could be considered either for better or for worse.  I guess Digital Eclipse threw the original version in there for the sake of thoroughness and for the Japanese gamers that care.  The game we got in America would be titled Yu-Gi-Oh: Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel.

Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel

I didn’t play this game growing up and for the longest time I thought the “Worldwide Edition” title referred to traveling the world participating in tournaments or involving other nations in a grand event, like the Kaibacorp Grand Prix the anime later had.  In actuality it refers to the fact that the game has 6 different language options.
 
That may not seem like the kind of thing you’d try to market a game off of, but back in 2003 it was uncommon to have two language options in a game, let alone 6, and on a Game Boy Advance cart, of all things.  Plus, having that many languages makes the game more accessible to a broader demographic and it means every nation got more or less the same game cart without having to manufacture significantly separate versions, although the European version replaces the American flag with the Union Jack.

We are AMERICAN here!  We're the nation of Crackhead Donny!

Anyone playing this coming off of Eternal Duelist Soul is going to get major deja-vu because, again, EDS lifted the dueling and music from the game Worldwide Edition is a revision of, meaning the dueling part is identical.  There are some small changes here and there, like the faster speed being the default, the animation for declaring a direct attack being shortened and the chain activation screen only being shown when something is actually chained, but 90% of it is exactly like in EDS.  I already sang the praises of how well EDS plays and that still applies to Worldwide Edition.

It’s everything around the dueling that changed from Eternal Duelist Soul.  The manual says it takes place during Battle City, but even though it features the characters from that story arc, there’s no plot.  Things happen, but there’s no storyline to follow except for one story event that is triggered after certain conditions are met.  One of the recurring occurrences is card tournaments.  Am I expected to believe people are competing in a tournament while a separate tournament is going on?  The overall premise is that the player is in Domino City and everyone’s out dueling people.  I won’t think about it beyond that.

Worldwide Edition ditches the traditional tier system and opponent select screens for something more integrated.  The player can travel to an adjacent area of the city and either challenge a duelist in that area or talk to a random, faceless passer-by who gives some kind of gameplay tip or observation.  It’s kind of like a randomizer the player has some control over and the initial character roster starts out strong with over 10 characters from the get-go ranging in difficulty from the usual entry-level fodder to higher tier duelists like Kaiba and Ishizu.  It makes it much easier for the more advanced players to get straight into the challenge if they’re inclined to.

Like in EDS, days pass when characters (civilian or duelist) are interacted with, but Worldwide Edition cuts down on the number of menus and that means the calendar is out.  Only the days of the week are tracked because, with a couple exceptions, all the game really keeps track of is the weekly magazine handouts and the weekend duels and tournaments, but the tournaments are optional in this one, in case the player doesn’t feel like doing a best 2 of 3 match.

In Worldwide Edition, players are given a choice in what they want to do as they partake in the dueling and that’s a great design decision, but it’s made even better with how Domino City and the characters come alive.  The sprite work for characters still look great, but the attention to detail given to them, like their ace monster materializing behind them, adds that extra bit of spice to the presentation.

I can’t speak for how good the translation is for the other languages, but the English script does a good job having characters speak in a way unique to themselves and there are interactions between characters and the player that makes choosing an opponent more dynamic than getting a couple of lines of text before the duel starts.  For example, each character has their own unique dialogue during a weekend or tournament match.  Yugi and Bakura switch between their Egyptian alter egos and their normal forms between match duels, with Yugi even referencing the mind shuffle he used on Pegasus.  I’m not sure what it changes in the gameplay, but it’s fun to see play out.  The backgrounds being nicely drawn recreations of locales from the series that are dependent on the map location is a nice touch too.

Nice alliteration.

With slightly more characters, the same kickass music and overall better game design, it seems a no-brainer that players can ignore Eternal Duelist Soul and just play Worldwide Edition.  That’s mostly true, but I think EDS has its place as a better introduction for newcomers.  The starter decks in Worldwide Edition aren’t garbage, but they aren’t as powerful as the ones in EDS that were rocking Mirror Force and Swords of Revealing Light.  In EDS, having the extremely powerful cards worked as a crutch so that even bad players stood a chance after making a few mistakes, but later opponents with cards just as good forced players to be less reliant on them.

In Worldwide Edition, most opponents other than the easiest ones almost always have at least one of those powerful cards and it can be hard if the player is new and doesn’t know how to play around that.  This might be the only Yu-Gi-Oh game I’ll ever play where having card-specific counters like Anti-Raigeki or White Hole is a good idea because it seems everyone has one of the cards they counter.

You don't get a harder counter than this.

For anyone who knows how to play the card game, Worldwide Edition is a better, more complete package, probably the best in the whole collection, and Eternal Duelist Soul can safely be skipped, even if it’s great on its own merits.  For newcomers, I recommend playing Eternal Duelist Soul for a while until they’re comfortable with the game and then they can move on to Worldwide Edition when they think they’re ready.  Regardless, both are a great time.

World Championship 2004

Talk about a total 180.  This is the worst Yu-Gi-Oh game I’ve ever played in my life.  With any other Yu-Gi-Oh game I’ve played, even the Power of Chaos games, I at least have a few good things to say about it.  Not this time.  World Championship 2004 does everything wrong and I do mean everything.

The presentation sucks.  There are no more moving and detailed character portraits or dialogue to give them personality.  Now you choose from a series of poorly rendered still images of the characters.  Backgrounds during the duels don’t change with the field spells anymore and the whole thing is sterile and boring to look at.  Music is a limited selection of short, repetitive loops, but at least I can say they fit quite well with the boring visuals.

That would be forgivable if the game played well, but the gameplay sucks too!  Like in Eternal Duelist Soul, you have to hold down a button before the duel to make it run at a faster speed, but even that faster speed is noticeably slower than that game!  None of the animations are quick and snappy like they should be and yet somehow the game has slowdown!  I doubt that slowdown is an emulation problem on Digital Eclipse’s part either because every other game in the collection runs just fine!

If one can tolerate the slower speed then the opponents themselves will kill whatever joy they could get out of dueling. I doubt anyone making this game cared about the still image duelists because their decks have no personality either.  Every other deck is loaded with the same handful of powerful cards, especially Slate Warrior.  Virtually everyone uses Slate Warrior or Torrential Tribute in the game whether it makes sense or not.  I think the ultimate symbol of crappy deck design is that Bonz, the zombie duelist, doesn’t have any zombie cards!

Maybe they had to give everyone a universal deck boost to make up for the game having the worst computer opponents ever in a Yu-Gi-Oh game!  I stated before that there’s something endearing about the opponents making dumb moves every once in a while, but WC2004 has computers making the most mind-bogglingly stupid moves at every opportunity!

They’ll use Axe of Despair, an attack boosting card, on a monster in defense mode.  They’ll use Change of Heart to take control of a monster and then give it back without doing anything with it.  If they use Mystical Space Typhoon, a card that destroys a spell or trap, and there’s no target to use it on, they will destroy the MST itself, which, by the way, isn’t legal!  Apparently most characters have a copy of Snatch Steal, a powerful monster-stealing card that is now banned, but, because of a glitch, they’ll never use it!  My favorite example of supreme stupidity is that if you use Imperial Order or Royal Decree, cards that render spell and trap cards useless, respectively, the computer will throw away all their spell or trap cards trying to use them!  This isn’t like dueling someone who makes some goofs.  This is like dueling Onlyusemeblade after he’s had a few too many drinks.  It isn’t fun.

To make things even less fun, some of the opponents fucking cheat!  Data miners found that they will draw exactly the overpowered card they need when they need it, overriding the randomizer.  The computer opponents are so shit they need to cheat to stand a chance!

Even the deck construction got worse!  There’s now 3 different decks the player can have, which is a step in the right direction, but there are fewer filters to parse through all the cards and there’s no more password system to get the cards you want!

It’s a shame that this crap was the one chosen to get online play for the Early Days Collection and it’s the only game with the official rules that was given that feature.  The only reason for that is likely because it has the most cards out of any game in the collection.  Maybe it can be a little better if played online because then there are no stupid, cheating, cookie cutter computer opponents, but I don’t like playing this game in any capacity.  Fuck this game.  It’s the worst in the collection.  I’m sure someone is going to disagree because the game that often gets the title of worst Yu-Gi-Oh game ever is…

Destiny Board Traveler

While often considered one of, if not the, worst games in the franchise, I’ll nip that accusation in the bud now.  I had nothing nice to say about World Championship 2004 and there are some things to like about Destiny Board Traveler so right out of the gate it does not win the “worst ever” title.  It’s still not that good, but unlike WC 2004, someone gave a shit making it.

Destiny Board Traveler is a Yu-Gi-Oh spin on a territorial control game where the goal is to use monsters from a character’s deck to take control of spaces until either the combined level stars of monsters controlling spaces reaches the set point goal or a player is the last one standing, because there's life points.  Each character has their own deck of monsters and a special ability that is readied for players at random.  It’s a neat premise for a smaller-scale game.

The graphics alone puts Destiny Board Traveler above the sensory deprivation chamber that is World Championship 2004.  Some board maps are original, but several are based on places in the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise, be it the manga, the anime or even the games, featuring lots of cameos.  There’s a map depicting a scene from Reshef of Destruction, a map with the classic Domino City water fountain in the middle and even a Death-T map (still renamed Doom-T) with an appearance from the Chop Man.  It’s a good thing he’s just a background cameo because if he did anything this game would not get an E rating.

There’s also voice acting for an extra hit of fan-pleasing.  All the game’s many characters have a few surprisingly clear voice lines from their English actors just for this game and I can always appreciate a little Eric Stuart and Dan Green shouting their special character abilities.

The actual gameplay though is not anything to write home about.  There is some fun to be had with Destiny Board traveler, but in order to get that fun it’s very important to be aware of the space-to-victory point ratio.  Setting up the maps for the game is customizable and the player can have as many of those 5 by 5 maps interconnecting with each other as they want, but more maps means more spaces to control and, depending on the point goal set, means less need to fight other players.

Destiny Board Traveler is at its most interesting in the late game, when the spaces controlled by the initial weak monsters are running out and players have to start strategically picking fights with each other and making tricky decisions.  If there are a lot of spaces and a low victory condition, players can go the whole game taking spaces with little resistance or player conflict  As long as the game is set up right to keep it from going for too long or too short, it can be fun, but the sound direction puts a damper on that in extended play sessions.

I'm not getting that space.

The music on its own is already unimpressive, but when playing on interconnected maps, the music for each map resets whenever the view switches to it and that happens every few seconds because the camera is constantly switching to show players being affected or the battle screen.  It’s downright headache-inducing hearing the same starting notes over and over and over again.

In the 2 decades since Destiny Board Traveler released I’ve played board game simulators leaps and bounds better and more worth your time, but even when it came out DBT didn’t have a lot to offer.  The core gameplay is ok, but it had no business being a full retail release.  Sure, there are a healthy number of maps and characters to choose from, but there’s no single player campaign and the different maps and characters that can be unlocked aren’t that transformative of the main gameplay.  Use a cheat to unlock everything for this one.  DBT is a game that should be included as a bonus side game in something like Danganronpa V3, which is probably why Konami re-released it in a dual GBA pack with Dungeondice Monsters.

It’s kind of neat to play once or twice as a side game, but it’s forgettable and I’d rather play The King of Fighters: Battle De Paradise for my board game spin-off fix.

It’s crazy how much the games rose to such high highs and then fell right after, but I guess that's what happens when there are so many games released in the span of just a few years.  There is still one more game in the Yu-Gi-Oh Early Days Collection to go over before I assess the value of the package as a whole.