Street cred. |
I
love card games. Correction. I love card games that involve sweet
looking monsters/characters. I also enjoy traditional card games like
Euchre, Spades, and Poker, but never really got into them beyond a
social thing. Now let me get more specific. Over the years I’ve enjoyed
playing these Trading Card Games (TCG’s): Pokémon, Digimon, Magic: The
Gathering, and Yu-Gi-Oh!. If I would’ve had access to friends that
wanted to try Naruto or Dot Hack, then chances are I would have loved
those as well. There’s just something about collecting rare cards and
putting them together in a unique way. I used to think I loved playing
TCG’s because of the competitive nature, and sure, that was one reason.
However, I think the main reason I’ve always loved TCG’s is because it
enables artistic expression. As you build your deck, you get to create!
The rules are your boundary, and it’s up to you to figure out how to
create something that can win. How you go about winning is completely up
to you.
As soon as I saw the years listed, my Spider-Sense started tingling! |
XrossMediaBar. Oh, is that how you spell it? Stupid. Fucking. Name. |
That takes me to the atrocious audio in the game. The only good thing about the audio for the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s Decade Duels Plus Demo is that you can mute it and put on something else without effecting your gameplay experience. The only music present in the demo were obnoxious instrumentals. There is no voice over. I turned the volume way down and listened to the CheapAssGamer Podcast while playing through the single player.
The demo, limited as it is, arguably does what it’s supposed to do very well! It is a great simulation of playing the actual card game. Gone are the days of games with Yu-Gi-Oh! in the title that obviously didn’t understand all the rules and decided to fill the holes with bad ideas (I’m looking at you Duelist of the Roses). In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s Decade Duels Plus you’re given the actual card game with access to over 23,000 cards, though the demo limits you to a 40 card deck. Duels play out just as if you were playing the TCG. Of course, you’re losing the social interaction and everything that comes with playing a person in real life with your real cards, but you’re gaining the comfort and ease of playing any time you want at the click of a button.
In the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s Decade Duels Plus Demo you start out with a basic deck, and by basic, I mean it sucks. I’m an above average TCG player, and I was having trouble winning 50% of my matches. A couple of times I lost due to a misunderstanding or wrong button press, but generally it was because I just didn’t have a good enough deck. In the demo you are rewarded even if you lose, but Konami did a pretty terrible job with balancing the difficulty level. After playing two tournaments, I could tell which opponents the developers never wanted me to beat and which ones they did. If I’m playing a balanced TCG and I have decent cards, I should never feel as if I’m automatically going to lose, and that’s how I felt. This goes tenfold in a video game. This goes one-hundredfold for a demo trying to convince me to buy the full game after I’m done.
I have no idea why Konami can’t make a Yu-Gi-Oh! game with a cool story mode and cast of characters. If you watch the anime, it’s quite entertaining! I believe it was originally intended to be an add-on to the TCG experience, but the anime for the most part can stand on it’s own. It wouldn’t be hard to just pull specific segments out of the anime or create a generic story about how your character is playing the TCG in his own neighborhood! Instead, it’s obvious Konami wanted to cash this Yu-Gi-Oh! game in because, among other problems, the story in the demo is soulless. In the demo, the single player attraction is nothing more than a three round tournament with side characters. Even the dialogue that happens in between matches means nothing. Some of the text I read could have been put between rounds of any competitive game and still made sense. They didn’t try at all.
Am I being too harsh? |
Yeah... this got me excited for what’s to come. |
The Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s Decade Duels Plus PS3 Demo receives a 1/10. I obviously had very high hopes for this game. Looking back, I don’t know why. I’ve almost always been let down by TCG video games in the past, especially when it comes to Yu-Gi-Oh!. This demo follows that trend and is only worth playing if you’re seriously thinking about purchasing it or you’re wanting to learn how to play. It’s the same Yu-Gi-Oh! game we’ve been playing minus the heart of the cards.
I would never buy this game. If Konami gave me this game for free I still wouldn’t play it.
- lvl 99
You must suck at dueling. I win 50% of the time and i'm a bellow average duelist. even staring down two stardust dragons 10-20 duels into the game, i took control of one dragon and attacked with it, then used swordsd of revealing light to buy time. there you have it. a win. you get large amounts of cards for winning too, which makes it worth it. If you aren't that good, please use a deck more than 5-6 times before considering that you have real talent and the deck just sucks (though i do admit, the starter deck leaves u up shit creek without a paddle). as u win a few times u get more cards which gives u a gradual build up of strategy rather than starting you out with god cards and black hole. It is more for those looking for a challenge. if you want fun, buy the game and I'm sure the world expands a lot (and your cards u win don't disappear mysteriously... ;_;). just thought i would reply to this obviously biased review in hopes that those curious about the game read this after. I guaruntee u the review above was written by a guy who played maybe 45 minutes, an hour tops. (do not be mistaken, the demo deserves a 4/10 if that, but that's only because of progression termination and rage quit syndrome after your first few battles)
ReplyDeleteP.S. ITS A DEMO! STOP RATING IT LIKE A GAME!
DeleteI don't suck at dueling, but I'm not about to get into that argument.
DeleteSadly, I played this game for longer than an hour, which would have been a waste of time if I wasn't writing a "DEMO" review.
- lvl 99