Japan OCG: September 2001
NA TCG: February 2003

Formats don't really matter for this game anyway since most of the cards here are just the old stuff under a completely different kind of game, but anyway.

This game is so fucked up, I don't really know how best to go about it. It's probably the best of the non-traditional games so far but it's got some perplexing as hell design decisions and progression. Only did one of the two paths admittedly but I might save the other one for a later date.

Basic rundown is that it's like Yugioh but on a strategy game grid, using the same 'fusing from comboing cards' shenanigans from prior games. Main problem comes from how whack getting a proper deck is, it's very hard to tell whether or not the deck im using actually makes sense or not. The 3 starter decks that are presented to you at the start (still only pick 1 of said 3) is based off the player's name, kinda like DQ1, which is neat. First playthrough i tried this on I got the 'Thunder Nyan Nyan' deck leader, an apparently terrible starting choice and that became all the more apparent during the first battle. Upon a restart, I was presented with the Robotic Knight deck leader, a much stronger starting deck. Even still this game does not hold its punches at the start, as the forest based 'Weevil' insert for the campaign just sends out a bunch of stat-boosted bugs and sits by in the corner waiting for his cocoon to hatch.

And that's the bizarre part of this game. Certain later levels felt like an absolute cakewalk, hell some took about 3-4 turns of just getting to the opponent and walking over their stuff. Primarily, during the Ishizu stage where the arena is covered in water (i.e. aqua monsters gain bonuses, but machines take a debuff) and 'Crush' (any monster over 1500 atk instantly dies) tiles I just trounced her? Whereas Weevil even upon rematching him later to get certain cards from his win drops was still a pain to get through. I guess in general games such as this would be prone to certain decks just having a better time on certain stages than others but Weevil is deceptively difficult in my experience. Secondly, I can't really imagine how obnoxious this might have been had I stuck with that Thunder Nyan Nyan deck.

On top of just how weird the new concept of 'tile based' Yugioh is, there's a few new mechanics tied to this gameplay that are just odd to tackle. Every card has a 'rank' that can be promoted up to Colonel and as a card obtains certain ranks they get better abilities and bonuses to ease things. Problem: I only had like two of my cards ever rank up. My main cards were fine enough as is so I didn't re-fight characters too much outside of a few times I need a particular card from someone. Rex, in contrast to Weevil, was actually pretty tame and got me the dinosaur half of my Machine deck. This culminating to my non-stop barrage of 'Cyber Saurus' which still only got that card ranked up to First Lieutenant. Thankfully if you are having troubles with a deck build it doesnt seem like there's much limit to what passwords you can put in. I did put in one Dark Hole which proved rather useful, otherwise most of what I had was all I needed.

There's some interesting ideas for fights and concepts but it mostly just feels like a really gimmicky and awkward way to combine Yu-Gi-Oh into a strategy game. Certainly a lot better than Dungeon Dice Monster though.

Utilizing the terrain is definitely the neatest part of the tactics, especially once you have terrain cards of your own to even the playing field.

Also goddamn, the soundtrack though? Like Yu-Gi-Oh usually has some pretty good tracks to listen to throughout the series but this might be the best so far, with a good array of great battle themes and 'story' tracks. Banger intro too.

Overall its a neat ass game but it takes some time to get used to how the game expects you to build a deck and also how the AI's behavior works because they can be admittedly pretty stupid.

An amazing game that was actually more enjoyable than the original trading card game, with its grid based system.

I would love to see a spiritual successor or a remaster with online play, new AI opponents and new cards.

A great story as well, retelling the War of the Roses with the cast of original Yu-Gi-Oh anime.

One of my favourite games of all time. The pinnacle of a TV show tie-in game.

surprisingly short, but a lot of fun despite the jank. tons and tons of soul, incredible soundtrack, and a fun concept and art direction. the ai cheats but is really dumb, and i really hated having to constantly kneecap my deck whenever i dueled someone new because of the power limits. i also really wish deckmasters got exp and ranked up faster so the player could realistically use more than just their rank 1-2 starter for the whole maingame. still, once you get the hang of the gameplay it's a real enjoyable time. unfortunately unlocking cards is really slow, but if you don't mind using passwords you can get quite a few to improve whatever strategy you're going for. i still don't know if i can call this a notably 'good' game, but by yugioh standards it's definitely one of the better and more interesting ones.

again though i gotta emphasize the soundtrack cause it's legit beautiful. give it a listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kueiI2TTQnI