Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist Review

The Verdict

Hardcore fans of Yu-Gi-Oh! will undoubtedly find a lot to love in this card battling simulator. While it is quite bare bones when it comes to visuals, its simplicity allows for faster-paced gameplay. Matches can play out in minutes, which certainly helps those that want a quick match. However when playing against others online, especially those who fine tune their decks for synergy, matches can, and probably will last a lot longer.

Sadly, it doesn't seem like I'll ever get the Nightmare Troubadour game I wanted on consoles, but with so many cards to collect, and all the various summon mechanics introduced over the years, I can't really fault the game for not including a flashier visuals for me.

I'd possibly hold off on the DLC, since each pack does cost an additional $4.99. The base game will run you $19.99 which is only about $5 more than the average starter deck, so I doubt that the extra packs are worth it, unless you live and breathe Yu-Gi-Oh!

For me, it was a fantastic way to get back into the card game, albeit in digital format. The other upside? Think of the money you'll save on not having to sleeve all those cards!

The Negatives

• The deck construction isn't as intuitive as it should be. Though filters make it easier to find cards you want, but moving the cards to and from your deck is slightly annoying.

• To my knowledge, the DS game, Nightmare Troubadour did the best job at providing a great card playing experience, while also showing the summoned monsters. It might have been an early DS game and the visuals weren't great, but still provided a fairly authentic experience. There is no such monster summoning here. Only iconic monsters seem to summon from their cards and only show up when actually attacking. This won't be an issue for most, but I would have loved to have an option to see all monsters summoned.

• Day 1 DLC is already available, and while it's not necessary, it does give additional cards to each of the four complete anime shows.

• On the topic of DLC, ARC-V has absolutely none, which leaves that campaign slot still very empty, aside from the Pendulum Tutorial match.

• Lack of voice acting is disappointing, as I would have loved to hear the original cast back in their roles. Hearing Joey spout his nonsense would have been priceless. Not to mention hearing the constant banter back and forth during actual story duels? But alas.

• I'm putting the inclusion of ARC-V as a negative purely based on the fact that the game advertises that you can duel against characters from the newest show. That simply isn't true since there is no ARC-V DLC yet and you can only duel against one opponent, and that duel consists of teaching you the Pendulum Summon mechanic.

• I'm a fan of purchasing booster packs from individual characters, I wish there was a percentage that told you how many of their cards you've collected.

• Navigating the duel area can sometimes be a pain with the controller. Especially if you want to navigate through your discard or extra pile, with prompts that pop up, always ensuring you indeed want to follow up with that action.

• No local play. Yeah, we're in 2015, and most of our player interactions are online these days, but I still have a few buddies and coworkers that I would have loved to duel against, who didn't own the game, nor were they planning to buy it.

Ok, so I realize most of my negatives are really minor things, but important enough to me to point out. With that said, a lot of these simply won't affect the overall score, since they're largely just personal preferences.

So what's the verdict?

The Positives

• Tons of cards! The game comes preloaded with over 6,000 cards to collect by winning duels in the game's campaign or by purchasing various booster packs that are all separated by the series they spawned in.

• You'll be able to fully customize your decks, giving you complete freedom to build perfect opponent crushing strategies.

• Dueling is fast paced and has a lot of assists to guide new players to make sure they're aware when to play certain cards, like Spell or Trap cards, how to tribute summon, etc.

• On the flipside, those experienced in the card game can turn off all the assists, but must stay mindful of the cards they play face down, and know the right times to activate them.

• The campaign mode which goes through all five anime seasons (though ARC-V only has a single duel which introduces players to Pendulum Summoning) has a ton of opponents to battle ripped directly from the show. This serves as a great way to get accustomed to the various decks and monster abilities, as well as new gameplay elements introduced in each anime.

• There are a total of 107 duels to go through in the Campaign, with most of them having the ability to Reverse Duels.

• You can choose to duel them with either the Story Deck, which comes preconstructed with cards that are based on what the character had at that point in the show. You can also opt to use other pre-constructed decks based on themes or use your custom decks.

• Reverse Duels are a great way to add even more replayability to the campaign, as they allow you to switch roles and play as your opponent, complete with their personal decks, further giving you the opportunity to learn more tactics.

• Winning battles yields progression through unlocks of new decks, characters to duel as, special cards, and even currency to buy booster packs with. You're even awarded with some slight compensation when you lose. Good guy Yu-Gi-Oh!

• Aside from the campaign, you also have Duelist Challenges which allows you to duel against elite players from the anime with any of your pre-built decks. These matches are really tough.

• Fans of card drafting can play using Battle Packs, which will construct temporary decks made from booster packs, This provides yet another layer of replayability.

• Tons of filters during deck construction allows you to easily find the right cards you need.

• Online play! This is awesome! While I personally never played the last game on the 3DS, one major component missing was the ability to play against others online.

Now on to the negatives…

It's been ages since I played a proper Yu-Gi-Oh! game. About four years since the last 3DS game, and probably 10 years or more since I played the actual card game. Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist excited me to once again dive into this deep card game that for some reason is still going strong, but terrified me just as much, considering there are over 10 years worth of changes and new cards to catch up with. Yikes!

This is a dueling game first and foremost, and keeps the story very minimalistic. You can however go through all five of the anime series, starting from Yu-Gi-Oh! and going through Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL and the latest Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, and battling iconic characters and their respective decks.

The premise is fairly simple. Each player starts with 8000 hit points (which is variable in multiplayer) and then battle one another by summoning monsters to do battle, defending with them, casting spells, or setting up elaborate traps. The beauty of Yu-Gi-Oh! is that despite its age, it remains a very tactical card game, filled with a ton of "A-HA!" and "Gotcha!" moments. Ten years later and it's still super satisfying to say "You just activated my trap card!" There are so many different effects and cards you can chain off one another, which is great, but also requires some basic knowledge of the cards, unless you plan on reading through all of the cards as you acquire them. Then again, you could always look up really great deck builds online as well.

There is a ton of strategy, not to mention a huge variety of different deck builds to play around with and test against opponents, giving players nearly limitless amounts of options and a ton of replaybility. Since Legacy of the Duelist is a combination of all past Yu-Gi-Oh! titles, including its cards and mechanics, players will be able to utilize various special mechanics like Fusion, XYZ and Pendulum Summons.

So without further ado, let's check out what's good, what's bad, and whether you should buy into the latest Yu-Gi-Oh! craze on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

The Positives

The Negatives

The Verdict and Score