I was so worried there wouldn't be another game in this series that would rival or surpass 3, but this entry was exactly that! After Tag Force 4 was disappointing as a whole, this felt like the truly definitive Tag Force game of its era. From more interesting and well paced storylines to a wider card pool (and higher pack quality) than its predecessor, this entry came across as a finished version of what 4 was trying to be.

I rather enjoy the soundtrack in this one, which is nice considering that's one of the weaker suits in this series up until now. The game also looks and feels slick and an amusing sort of retro-futuristic, coming from a time when smartphones were still only in their infancy and had not yet fully taken over the world. The general look and feel of the game has improved substantially to the point where I did a double take when I jumped back to 2 and 3 for a minute just to see how much things had changed.

As much as I want to say this game is overall an improvement over 3, I do still think it carries with it a lot of the odd flaws 4 had. The lack of actual environments to explore is boring, and even though the number seems to have been scaled back from 4 it still feels pretty excessive. The comically bad AI partner decks have still not been addressed, and telling such an involved story as that of 5D's through various disjointed character pieces feels just as sloppy in this entry as in 4. I also still don't like the self-insert part of the 5D's section of this series as it's just as unfitting and bizarrely implemented as it had been with 4. I'd much rather just play as Yusei in this game and have a more focused story than repeat what worked for GX and clearly does not here.

It should also be noted that since this entry is the penultimate one it leaves out just the very end of 5D's, something I find pretty unfortunate since it makes the ends of most of the character stories seem hollow. It's fine enough the first few times you see something along the lines of "I'm now extra determined to defeat Iliaster and solve this mystery!" but it gets old after a while. It's especially weird because the stopping points for character stories are almost random in nature, and some of them like Trudge's and Jack's don't feel cohesive in the least.

Again, where a more character-focused and simple-track narrative like that of GX shone through the arcadey Tag Force formula, 5D's tends to falter. Like in 4, it feels less like you're partnering up with comrades and more like you're just pestering people on the same 2D straight-line streets over and over on the daily before ignoring them 4 days later. The speed of the game makes this a tad bit more forgivable... but only a bit. It feels odd, and being a self-insert character rather than someone actively participating in the canon story makes it feel even odder. At least in GX you were a random Duel Academy student living out that fantasy, but here you're just... someone who bothers the main cast for some reason.

Regardless, though, the arcadey nature of the game feels dialed up even further than it was in 3 and I really enjoyed that. I finished 7 character stories in this - a record for me on a first run - and I was having fun for a pretty good chunk of it. There was still a lot of boring busywork to level friendship like in previous games, and there were at least a couple characters I finished without dueling at all, but generally it was cool seeing hearts go up and run through mini recaps of one of the better parts of 5D's. Character stories felt snappier to run through in this game than in any previous one, which was a nice change of pace. Going back to 3 it felt weirdly sluggish even though I still found that pace plenty enjoyable, and even just going back to 4 it didn't quite feel fully committed to the speed 5 has.

I think the last thing to point out here is the lack of evolution in this series. As much as I do like that they continue to finely shape what they have in these almost yearly games, fatigue has begun to set in. By now I would have hoped for far more leaps, bounds, and new aspects of gameplay to come up in this series than there have. Somehow the small innovations of minigames in the GX era games have been lost in favor of a much more pure yet nearly boring gameplay loop. Things feel about as repetitive in 5 as they did in 2, and while the cards available make that loop enjoyable, it's just sad how much potential has been missed by now. This was a lot more excusable with 3, which at least tried to focus on the variety 2 had begun to create, than here at the near end of the whole series.

This game is a lot of fun for what it is and I may even enjoy it more overall than I did 3 due to the sheer size of the card pool and its comparative speed. Still, I do believe 3 has more heart and takes place in a generally more interesting segment of a generally more interesting anime, as well as plenty of small amenities lost in the 5D's installments. It's a toss-up as to which I prefer, but in either case I can wholeheartedly recommend these two entries to any Yu-Gi-Oh fan as well as to any PSP fan who happens to have even a slight interest in Yu-Gi-Oh. The stories in either might not make much sense, but the games are far more about the gameplay loop anyway.

I'm hoping that the final numbered entry of this series will be a good sendoff; 3 and 5 have left some relatively large shoes to fill but there's still lots of room for improvement. Guess I'll find out soon!