Yu! Gi! Oh! is a phenomenon with the staying
power of Pokemon and the mass appeal of baseball cards for a prior generation.
Yugi and his pals have parleyed a fun and deep trading card game into a vast
empire of upgrade card packs, cartoons, and video games. There is something
compelling about the gameplay with Yu! Gi! Oh! that keeps even adults engaged
and working on the makeup of their 40 card deck.
The basic premise of the card game is a one on one duel, pitting various
monsters, traps, and spells against your opponent, trying to reduce their life
points to zero. The Sacred Cards retains all of the fun, key elements of the
dueling gameplay, setting it in a RPG atmosphere which mirrors the setting of
the TV show. As with the last GBA Yugi game, World Wide Edition, the gameplay
mechanics are spot on.
Initially, I had a really difficult time getting the game to progress to the
start of the tournament, finally figuring out that you have to talk to five
different main characters before the clock will advance to 9 AM and start the
tournament. Once I got over that hurdle, it was pretty smooth sailing through
the tournament. I only lost a few matches, usually to superior opponents who
could play more powerful cards from their deck. This is a feature of the RPG
system that is new to the game, limiting the number and power of the cards that
you can include in your deck. This system is intended to make you progress
through the game at a more measured pace and to really analyze how to best put
together your deck of 40 cards from your complete collection of cards, called
the trunk.
The graphics are standard GBA RPG fare, with very recognizable characters
from the cartoon series making their appearance. With the amount of material
that is available from the cartoon, though, it is surprising in a way that they
did not include some cartoon clips, etc.
The sound track tends to be pretty monotonous and I ended up silencing the
game rather than listening to the same tune over and over throughout the duel.
There is some attempt made to match the soundtrack to the game field, but it
doesn’t seem to add much to the game. Attacks are accompanied by the same sound
effects over and over again.
Organizing and selecting the set of cards to use as your deck is the most
important part of this game. Since the manual is so poorly written, I had to
learn all of the tricks for managing and finding the cards I wanted by trial and
error. If you push the start button when you are in the trunk screen, you can
sort your trunk by one of 8 different stats, including stars, costs, attack,
defense, etc. This makes the process of finding that special card a bit easier.
If you already know the Yu! Gi! Oh! card game, the Sacred Cards should be a
good way to take it with you as you travel, but if you are new to the game,
learn how to play before picking up this video game. There are no tutorials or
helps here. A good effort that will be snapped up by Yugi fans everywhere.
Gameplay: 7.9
The dueling interface is pretty good, though they seem to have stripped the
fusion decks and other extra pieces from the game. The RPG side of the game is
limited to running around town and finding opponents to duel, but the duelist
leveling system does add a new wrinkle to the gameplay.
Graphics: 7.2
The cards tended to be hard to read, with too much emphasis on the picture
of the monster rather than it’s stats, which is what you care about. It was
very tough to tell which card was what on the game field, which can really hurt
during a duel if you are not careful.
Sound: 7.5
Standard video game loop-based soundtrack with some sound effects, etc.
Nothing to write home about.
Difficulty: Easy
Once you figure out the secret of starting the tournament, the game was
pretty easy. If you are not a Yugi player already though, this game is not the
place to learn.
Concept: 7.6
Hmmm, a tournament for locator cards to reach the Battle City finals. Sounds
like the plot for the cartoon show. No, wait, it IS the plot for the cartoon
show. Exactly. Points for adding the RPG leveling up system, however.
Overall: 7.8
Yu! Gi! Oh!: The Sacred Cards will give Yugi players everywhere the chance
to compete in the Battle City tournament themselves. It delivers on that
experience, but doesn’t add enough to the overall group of Yu! Gi! Oh! games to
be their best effort. If you love the card game, you will enjoy this game, which
has no real flaws, but you will probably not be overwhelmed.
