Yu-Gi-Oh! - Destiny Board Traveler Review by: EX Palen - 5/10
Different, but not betterYu-Gi-Oh!. What started being as a manga named Magic & Wizards back in 1996 has seen an astounding expansion in nearly two decades. The first season of the anime, lasting only 27 episodes, started airing on early 1998. Later that year, Bandai released the very first cards in real life, of what would be later known as Original Card Game, OCG, in Asia. The Trading Card Game, TCG, as its sold in the rest of the world by Upper Deck Entertainment, wouldn't be a reality until 2002. Although nowadays is one of the best selling card games in the world and also a very popular game and manga/anime (more than 700 anime episodes have aired in Japan, distributed in five different shows, the latest one being the still on air Zexal, and more than 500 manga chapters, distributed also in five shows, two of them still ongoing).
Yu-Gi-Oh! also entered the world of videogames in the late 90s. In Japan, the first videogame was for the PSX, released in mid 1998, although the first games never went beyond Japan. The first games to be released outside Japan saw the light in 2002, as did the TCG, both for the PSX and the Game Boy Color. Throughout the years, Yu-Gi-Oh! has visited almost every console and handheld of its time: all PlayStation consoles, including PSP, Game Boy and its successors up to the 3DS, Nintendo GameCube and Wii, and finally Xbox and Xbox 360, without forgetting some PC based games and also the Facebook application called Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM.
However, not all videogames are what we think they are. A lot of them has the rules from the anime, manga and TCG/OCG changed in one or many ways. This is further reflected in this game, Destiny Board Traveler, where the main goal of defeating an opponent through a duel is completely removed. The only rule of the TCG/OCG that this game follows is the need of tributes for high levelled monsters. True is that, for example, Pokemon has tried many different things that deviate from the main goal of catching them all, but that doesn't mean that it's a good idea to deviate from the main goal this much. Let's see what this game can offer.
Graphics: Nothing much to say to graphics here. We just have four characters from a rather small
selection on a 5x5 board, or more than one if you choose so. The background animations are non-existent at some points, like meaning that the game can't work properly with the animations still going, which sounds really preposterous. In-battle, the cards are very bad depicted, and the stats of the cards and the texts outside of battle are hard to read. Very bad designed, and that's why graphics earn a 4.
Sound: There's nothing much to say here either. We have a bit of menu songs, the background songs unique to each board, and the battle song, which together make, more or less, ten songs. Almost regrettable. It's true that I like one or two of the background songs, but I feel that it's a very few amount for a modern game. The character's voices are those of the second season of the anime, and I have to admit that the English voices aren't the best ones out there. All in all, sound earns a 4.
Addictiveness: There's nothing much to do on this game, nor your skills will matter in how much you take to unlock the remaining maps. This game is pure luck, with no strategy whatsoever. All is totally random: the opponents you face, the cards you draw, the results of the dices (obviously), the chance of getting a superpower and the set cards the board may have prepared for you. More like addictiveness, I would say that, after a few tries when the game lasts longer, there's a tiny feeling of repulsion for your bad luck and how you are helpless against that, since there aren't any ways of changing it unless getting lucky all of a sudden or starting again. I give addictiveness a 5.
Story: Absolutely nothing to say here. There isn't even a reason as to why you're playing in these boards instead of dueling. maybe some explanation like the Mario Party series would make things easier.
Depth: Well, completing the game does take a bit, even if you're the luckiest man on Earth. As you keep progressing, the games last longer, needing more turns, more stars, more time and more luck. Also, playing in separate boards makes it easier so you aren't bothered by someone destroying your monsters one after another, although that also applies for the NPC. Some boards are also needed to unlock, in my opinion to send there a troublesome NPC so the board's special features can get rid of them or give it a hard time. For all these things, depth earns a 6.
Difficulty: I should rate this high, because relying on pure luck to win is difficult as hell. However, difficulty here means if it's hard to play or master the controls. Well, the only thing you must know in here is that, up to four stars, nothing happens. Five or six stars mean a tribute is needed for its summon, so you will be deducted the stars of the tributed monster first and, if you manage to successfully summon the new monster, its stars will be added to your total account. For seven and beyond, two tributes are needed, so be careful, because tributing two monsters with four stars, somewhat common when dueling normally, here is a waste of time, because you lose eight stars to win seven. Many NPCs suicide themselves trying to play high levelled monsters when having no tributes to offer, so be careful with the monsters you summon and their levels. From here on, everything is on the hands of luck. For this, difficulty earns a 5.
Overall: Not the most brilliant creation from Konami, as were other games which deviate from Duel Monsters. A game where you bet the success of your turn to rolling a dice and obtaining a monster sounds more like a casino. And even then, be careful, because most of the time you'll have to fight an already summoned monster. Usually, they're very weak, but even then, luck plays a role by rolling a dice which, 1 out of 3 times, will gift you with either 500 ATK and DEF points loss or changing your battle position. The first one isn't much trouble in the majority of situations, just having a monster above 1000 ATK would be enough. The second is troublesome, because a defense position monster will never steal a space, so the summon will be unsuccessful, and you can easily waste one or two tributes with a high levelled monster beaten this way. Next are the boards, since some have good effects, like restoring life points or increasing your star total, while others limit your existence to nine turns or make you skip a turn, and also, of course, there are random effects depending on a dice roll. Finally, the superpowers. Some are more common to get, while others only happen once in a while. Of course, the latter ones are very powerful, like destroying cards in your hand or taking them, while the first are usually random, like a dice re-roll or relocating all players. Using them doesn't allow for any strategy, except for a few bunch, like taking the cards, destroying them, stealing a random monster on the board or making all players lose a turn. That's pretty much all, so, as you can see, luck has an overwhelming power in this game, and that's why it sucks so much. Having a deck editor, for example, to make your own deck or editing the preset ones would be a nice adding to the game, at least to control the amount of monsters of each level. Even then, luck has so much power in this game, the deck editor wouldn't change many things. In my opinion, to make this game better, luck should have a less important role, and superpowers are a little out of place, at least without a proper explanation about how often can we use that superpower. It's a good thing that the latest game that will be released few days from now returns to the original theme of Duel Monsters. Konami has already made more than enough experiments into new styles of playing Yu-Gi-Oh!.
Graphics
4 Sound
4 Addictive
5 Depth
6 Difficulty
5
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