We are going to be talking about Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide edition Stairway to the Destined, but before we get to the review I am going to go over the rules (this will be the rules for this game NOT the current Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game rules). This will be just for people who are not familiar with Yu-Gi-Oh, so if you already know the rules or have any experience with the game you can skip over this part.


   (Building your deck) A Yu-Gi-Oh dueling deck has a min of 40 cards and a max of 60 cards. You will need Monster, Magic, and Trap cards in you dueling deck (We will go over those cards later on). You should take time building your deck. Look at the cards and try to find cards that work better together. If you just throw random cards into you deck you will not have a good chance of winning in a duel.


   (Life Points/How to Win or Lose) You and the person you are dueling will start out with 8000 life points. The persons Life Points that drop to 0 loses. You can also lose by running out of cards, so if you cant draw you lose. How do you lose Life Points or make your enemy lose Life Points? You can attack your enemies Monsters that are in atk position or there Life Points directly. Some Magic and Trap cards also have the affect of inflicting damage to your enemy. You can protect your Life Points by placing your Monster cards in def position.


   (Start of the Duel) When the duel starts you will flip a coin to see who starts first. If you go first you can not attack. You will draw 5 cards into ?your hand then another 1 card every turn. Ok now lets talk about your turn. Each turn has 6 phases. Phase 1 is called the Draw phase and it is ?where you draw a card. Phase 2 is called the Standby phase, some cards effects only work on this phase. Phase 3 is your Main Phase 1, you will set your Magic, Traps, and Monsters during this phase. Phase 4 is known as the Battle Phase, You will do your attacking during this phase. Phase 5 is Main Phase 2, This is to do any action that you can do in Main Phase 1, so if you forget to play a card you have a second chance to do so. The last phase is ?End Phase, The End Phase is pretty self explanatory.


   (Monster Cards) Monster cards have Attributes such as earth, fire, dark, light and so on. Some Magic or Trap cards will on work with one type of Attribute, you can see what Attribute the monster has in the top right corner of the card. Monsters also have levels represented by stars. Monsters with 4 or less stars can just be played but if they have more then 4 you will need to make a sacrifice to summon them. Lets say you have a level 5 or 6 monster in your hand and a monster on the field you played on your last turn, you can summon that monster by sacrificing your weaker monster to the card graveyard. Cards with 5-6 stars need one sacrifice, 7-8 need two. You can only normal summon one monster per turn. Monster cards also have types, like warrior, spell caster, fiend and so on. Just like the Attributes some Magic and Trap cards only work with one type. Some monsters have effects. Each effect will do different things so look at a monster carefully before putting it into your deck. All monsters will have an ATK and a DEF. In ATK position (face up and upright) your monster can attack, in DEF position (face down and turned to the side) they can defend your Life Points. Some monsters will have "Flip effects" if so you will want to put that card in face down DEF position and when it is flipped it will trigger its effect. Monsters will have numbers that represent its ATK and DEF. Lets say your monster has 1900 ATK and your enemies monster has 1800, your monster could attack and send it to the card graveyard inflicting 100 points of damage to his/her Life Points.


   (Fusion/Ritual Monsters) Fusion monsters can only be played by fusing 2 or more monsters together with a Magic card that has the effect to do so (like polymerization). You must have the Fusion monster in your Fusion deck and the monsters needed to make it on the field to bring the Fusion monster to the field, for example if you want to summon the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon you would need 3 Blue Eyes White Dragons on the field and a magic card with the effect to fuse them. Fusion monsters can't attack on the same turn they are played. Ritual monsters need the Ritual Magic card to summon them. You would have to have the Ritual monster and Ritual Magic cards in your hand and enough monsters to sacrifice to summon a Ritual monster.


   (Magic/Traps) Magic cards normally have the effects to power up your monsters, hold off attacks, and bring cards back from the card graveyard. There are lots of Magic cards out there with many different uses. Traps normally have effects that send cards to the graveyard, inflict damage to your enemy, or weaken the power of your enemies monsters, yet again there are many Trap cards out there with lots of different effects and uses so choose carefully what ones you want to use in your dueling deck.


   (End of rules) This is the basics of what you will need to know to start playing. Now lets get on to the review already!


   (Overall) Yu-Gi-Oh Worldwide Edition Stairway to the Destined was a Gameboy Advance game made by Konami and released in 2003. This is a game based on the popular anime Yu-Gi-Oh. The Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game is the biggest selling and best known card game of all time so you know Konami had to make video games! Oh boy did they ever make video games. You will find more Yu-Gi-Oh games then you can shake a stick at. Even to this day they are making Yu-Gi-Oh video games. Now some of the games they made seemed way to rushed and just plan bad. So how did this one turn out?Yu-Gi-Oh Worldwide Edition Stairway to the Destined is one of the best Yu-Gi-Oh games I have ever played! It really feels like they put a lot of time and work into this one. You start out with only a few cards and have to work your way up in till you are the king of games. You will find most of your favorite (or least favorite) characters from the anime to duel. Some of the people you will see is Joey, Yugi, Rex, Marik, and Kaiba. You can get more cards from packs, you get packs from dueling, you also get a promo pack once a week. How you move around or dual in the game is very simple, You have a map and you can click on a character to duel or a spot with out a character to move to a different location where other characters will be. When moving from location to location you might find yourself ambushed by the Rare Hunters! The Rare Hunters are Mariks mind controlled and or brainwashed men that want your rare cards. You can try hiding those nice shinny cards in your socks but if you lose to them they will find em! After you beat five Rare Hunters a new spot will open up in the game, I will not go into any detail on that, you will just have to find that out all on your own. There are around 1000 cards in this game so you will have a lot to work with when building your deck. If there is a card you really need and don't want to wait on getting it from a pack you can punch in the number on the card and boom its right there in the game!


   (Graphics) The graphics in Yu-Gi-Oh Worldwide Edition Stairway to the Destined are top notch. The people look just like they do in the show, the cards look very nice and overall its just a nice game to look at. The only problem is that not much really moves. By that I mean you pretty much look at cards just like the tcg. The monsters don't come out of there cards or anything like that. The coin flip before the duel is the most movement you are going to see during your duel. When you do attack the is a slash across what you are attacking but that's about as fare as it goes.


   (Sound) I really do love the music in this game. The battle theme is my favorite track from the game and its a good thing because I have to hear it a whole lot! Some of the action noises get a little annoying but that's ok. One of the songs in the game reminds me of Pokemon for some reason. The music is a lot better then some I have heard on the GBA but still not perfect.


   (Addictiveness) Yu-Gi-Oh Worldwide Edition Stairway to the Destined gets very addictive! With all the different cards and people to duel it makes you want to keep playing. I can play this game for hours and still want to play it some more. If you are looking for a game to get hooked on this is the one for you.


   (Story) The story in this is pretty much the same from the anime. Marik wants the God cards you gotta stop him. I really wish they would have had a new story for the game. So if you have seen the show you know what the story is. Other then the whole Marik deal you are trying to win the tournament to become the king of games. I am not going to go any deeper into the story, if you want to know what happens go play the game!


   (Depth) There are lots of cards to collect, people to duel, and tournaments to win. This should keep you busy for a long time. There are a few theme tournaments where you will have to make your deck conform to what the theme is. You will not be able to beat this game in a day, so if that is what you are looking for you better keep on looking!


   (Difficulty) Yu-Gi-Oh Worldwide Edition Stairway to the Destined is not a hard game. If you know how to play you really shouldn't have much trouble winning duels. After you start getting better cards from packs the game gets easier and easier. You may have trouble winning against a duelist or two. I lose to Joey a lot for some reason.


   (End) There are a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh games out there but this one really stands out. If you are a fan of the show or trading card game you should really give this game a look. Make your deck and prepare because its time to......... Da da da da da da da da DUEL!

Good work here. You gave a good clean breakdown as always, and it was easy to read and entertaining. Keep it up!

Eirinn : Thank you Eirinn. I really tried to step out of my comfort zone for this review. This is not my best work but I am going to keep pushing what I feel comfortable doing and hopefully get better at reviewing games like this.

I admit, I was surprised to see this one. You really did do a good job on it though. I look forward to seeing you post more reviews! They're just fun to read. lol