Another year means another Yu-Gi-Oh game. This game is once again based on the 5D’s universe that features Yusei and the gang going up against the Dark Signers.
In Reverse of Arcadia, you don’t play as Yusei but rather a custom character. Not being a follower of the anime series, the story made little sense to me at first, but being a kids show, it wasn’t that hard to follow. Just know that, like in last year’s game, in addition to regular duels which consist of two to four people battling cards on a field (though you will still find plenty of that in the game) there are added Turbo duels as well as Race duels, which ironically have nothing to do with card dueling.
In older Yu-Gi-Oh games, the game was made up of a map screen and duel screens. It is definitely refreshing to see that the series has evolved and added player movement. As your created character, you will be able to run around, solve environment puzzles, such as moving boxes around in a room to be able to get to a blocked door, and talk to people, often resulting in duels, even in the most ridiculous situations. Imagine you’re walking down the street while bumping into a school bully. Instead of him beating you to a pulp and stealing your lunch money, he yells at you to get your Yu-Gi-Oh deck out and decide who the bigger man is through a card game.
At heart it’s a kids game though, so ridiculous situations aside, the combat is quite fun and rewarding. As in all previous Yu-Gi-Oh games, duels are played relatively the same way. You have monster cards, spell cards and trap cards. Monster cards can have effects when played, or certain, more powerful monsters must first have another monster be sacrificed in order for them to be summoned. Spell cards are able to be used to inflict damage or status ailments onto the opponents monsters. Trap cards are the most strategic element in the game. They are set down during battle, and then activated when certain conditions are met. For instance, I was just about to finish off another duelist with two of my monsters on the field, while he had none. He activated his trap card and since one of my monsters had an attack of more than 1500, it was destroyed, giving him a chance to retaliate on the next round.
It’s these kinds of situations that make dueling deceptively strategic. Though anyone can pick up and duel, players who will spend time getting to know the cards and their abilities will benefit from them even more while dueling. Even when the odds are completely against you, there are ways to completely even them out. The game has training rooms which put you in these types of situations, and teaches you how to successfully deal with them. What also makes the game fun by adding re-playability is that it has over 3,500 cards, so there is quite a lot of customizing when it comes to building the perfect deck, though acquiring them can be quite a chore.
One thing I didn’t like about duels is that when it was the opponent’s turn, they took an oddly long amount of time to make their moves. Though it simulates a real player’s thought process, I felt it made the game drag at times. While the computer is thinking, the game also has odd lag issues. When I tried to press around the screen, to look at my cards while this was happening, the game would freeze at 1-2 second intervals, until the computer was done thinking about its turn.
Turbo duels look like regular card duels, but have a different rule set, dealing with speed points rather than magic attacks. A lot of the time, damage is done by accumulating more speed points rather than having the most powerful monster on the field, though this type of dueling didn’t hold me over for long.
Race duels lean more towards actual racing than dueling. Races take place on high-tech bikes that are featured in the 5D’s universe, but unlike the Wii version, you don’t actually duel while you are racing. Instead, there are cards to pick up as power-ups, hazards to dodge, and turbo boosts to go over for short bursts of speed. Although race duels are cool in the anime and the Wii version of last year’s game, they just don’t translate all that well onto the DS. It’s a nice break from straight card dueling, and the overall handling is decent, but they just aren’t that much fun.
Aside from the regular 5D’s story mode, there is a World Championship mode that lets players have free duels against the CPU, buy new cards and edit their decks. Wireless and Wi-Fi modes are also included for players looking to show off their skills online. An in-depth tutorial is also included for the uninitiated who are ready to learn all the intricacies of dueling. The main menu also has a duel calculator, for those who want to play with real cards. It includes a life point calculator, a simulated dice and coin toss.
The game itself looks like a standard DS game. The 3D models look decent, and the actual dueling screen remains almost identical to last year’s game. The big draw to playing Yu-Gi-Oh games, besides its strategic dueling mechanics, is to actually see the monsters summoned. Unfortunately, they are just cut outs and only the synchro-summons (really powerful monsters) show up in an animation.
Yu-Gi-Oh World Championship 2010 Reverse of Arcadia is a fun dueling game for people on the go. Having over 3,500 cards at your disposal is any dueling fan’s dream, and the inclusion of an online multiplayer is a welcome addition.
