Finally, a Yu-Gi-Oh game I can say I enjoyed and had lots of fun with without any asterisks or mental gymnastics! There's still plenty of room for growth, but this is absolutely where the Tag Force series finally becomes notably good.
This game is the step up from 2 that I desired. The card pool is finally at its peak for its era. The part of the story the game is at is, along with part of 2, around its show's peak as well. Each character's story is truncated to 4 heart events rather than 8, significantly speeding up not only the time it takes to unlock the ability to edit their deck, but also the time it takes to complete a given story! This sounds like a pretty neutral point, but one must keep in mind that these games have literally dozens of characters you can partner with; having each one be short enough to finish en masse on a handheld gamer's day-to-day schedule is great. Unlike the first two games, I felt motivated not only to complete one run with a first page character, but also a run with a second page character as well as starting with one from the third page! There's a massive amount of replayability added here that feels significantly less sore and misguided than previous games. It's truly a slick experience and doesn't feel like nearly as much of a dull grind (which I think is a very nice point of comparison toward other YGO games, not just Tag Force ones!).
Beyond what I described above, there are some very minor QoL changes that continue the trend of piling more improvements upon each entry. Hearts fill up at a rate that feels reasonable to the point where you don't wind up just trying to grind for golden eggwiches at the shop like in the previous games. Further, DP seems to be acquired at an all-time high rate, with the game even offering a large free sum of it to the player from the beginning. The challenges from the second game return and are helpful to complete even if some are masochistic in nature. Finally, the actual quality of packs feels greatly improved and getting actual usable cards is something you can expect rather than dream of. This even includes the random cards you can pick up off the ground, with heavy hitters like Elemental HERO Stratos and Book of Moon being random cards you can just... find. It feels much more of a nice little reward than what 2 offered.
One thing I very highly recommend is seeking out the downloadable update content this game received. The previous games had it, too, but this game is where it's at its most significant by far. With cards such as Test Tiger being locked behind it as well as updated banlists, it's an absolute must if a player wishes to build decks to their fullest potential during their time with the game. I must say I had a blast putting together a Gladiator Beast deck in my second run, with a cool Lightsworn deck in my first and a burgeoning Synchro good-stuff deck for my third.
Oh yeah, did I mention Synchros? Yeah, this game actually added some 'cards from the future' like the previous games, only instead of weirdly translated late GX cards they instead added in Tuners and Synchros, including cards from several early 5D's era sets. It's awesome, and even if they barely ever come up in practice in your first run or two you can pretty easily put a little something together once you've gotten further in. It really feels like a nice cherry on top of everything else this game has to offer, being one last additional layer of novelty serving as a reward for dedication.
The character stories themselves are pretty whatever, but they serve their purposes just as well as they did in previous games. If anything, they're helped by their brevity since things are no longer stretched thin. They're fine enough fluff content and string things together adequately, but I'd hardly rate the game's writing as a strong point. Still, it's fun getting to interact with the various cast members of GX as well as getting to duel one last time with the students whose decks you've gotten to know over the past couple games.
The game does still have an occasionally shoddy translation job though it's nowhere near as abysmal as the previous two games. It's also just as slow as them in terms of the in-duel engine, as well as having a very repetitive soundtrack with such a limited amount of music that I wound up muting it eventually as with the previous ones. Except for the shop-shop theme, that is. That one's lovely. Listening to that while cracking open packs ingame was great.
Anyway, the presentation in general feels a little stale by this third entry, almost amateurish in a way to contrast its relative sleekness and freshness back in the first game. I'm hoping the remaining games will do a little something with the UI and HUD at the very least. The portraits are fine enough, but everything looks like a random 00s doujin PC game at times and not in a particularly flattering way. Again, the keyword is 'amateurish'. The one other complaint I have is that the packs feel a bit more tiresome to unlock in this game and the second game compared to the first simply due to how the character selection system works, but it's not really much of a problem for how understandable it is.
There are still some things that I think these games can improve upon to feel more whole and truly stand head and shoulders above the rest of Yu-Gi-Oh's other TCG/OCG video game offerings. Duels with extra bonus rules would be nice to have again, as they were seemingly ousted randomly after the first game. Structure decks, starter decks (maybe selectable at the start of the game), or at least more curated themed shop items, would be great. For that matter, cosmetic items would be great too since I'm guessing it wasn't particularly difficult to edit the main character's relatively plain sprite. Finally, sidequests and more compelling character stories would be great. Even if the payouts for the sidequests are just an exclusive card and some DP, that would be great. As it is, even with all the improvements Tag Force 3 has made the Tag Force formula is still very bare-bones and needs more to entice the player to continue. As arcadey and fun as the gameplay loop finally is, it's still clearly not at its full potential in terms of sheer options. This isn't to take away from how relatively impressive this game is, but I do hope it sheds some light on my thoughts that led to this rating despite my generally positive perspective on it overall.
Even with its series' shortcomings, for the length of its run Tag Force 3 was a blast to play and I do see myself actually going back to it again sometime. Indeed, after finishing my runs I still feel the need to finish that third run and maybe even complete the whole first page of characters. I'm not sure if I'm going to run the 5D's era Tag Force games for a little while yet, but I'm sure when I do they'll be fun too. I don't at all prefer 5D's to GX as a show in general, but it's at least got a lot of potential with its world at points that I could see at least Tag Force 4 having a lot of fun atmosphere going for it. I suppose I'll just have to find out.
Until then, though, I'm impressed with this series now. I've spent a while trying to find Yu-Gi-Oh games of relatively high quality, and this seems to finally be it. I wholeheartedly recommend this particular entry to any fan of the franchise who's looking for a fun time-waster, and especially to fans of GX and its respective TCG era.
This game is the step up from 2 that I desired. The card pool is finally at its peak for its era. The part of the story the game is at is, along with part of 2, around its show's peak as well. Each character's story is truncated to 4 heart events rather than 8, significantly speeding up not only the time it takes to unlock the ability to edit their deck, but also the time it takes to complete a given story! This sounds like a pretty neutral point, but one must keep in mind that these games have literally dozens of characters you can partner with; having each one be short enough to finish en masse on a handheld gamer's day-to-day schedule is great. Unlike the first two games, I felt motivated not only to complete one run with a first page character, but also a run with a second page character as well as starting with one from the third page! There's a massive amount of replayability added here that feels significantly less sore and misguided than previous games. It's truly a slick experience and doesn't feel like nearly as much of a dull grind (which I think is a very nice point of comparison toward other YGO games, not just Tag Force ones!).
Beyond what I described above, there are some very minor QoL changes that continue the trend of piling more improvements upon each entry. Hearts fill up at a rate that feels reasonable to the point where you don't wind up just trying to grind for golden eggwiches at the shop like in the previous games. Further, DP seems to be acquired at an all-time high rate, with the game even offering a large free sum of it to the player from the beginning. The challenges from the second game return and are helpful to complete even if some are masochistic in nature. Finally, the actual quality of packs feels greatly improved and getting actual usable cards is something you can expect rather than dream of. This even includes the random cards you can pick up off the ground, with heavy hitters like Elemental HERO Stratos and Book of Moon being random cards you can just... find. It feels much more of a nice little reward than what 2 offered.
One thing I very highly recommend is seeking out the downloadable update content this game received. The previous games had it, too, but this game is where it's at its most significant by far. With cards such as Test Tiger being locked behind it as well as updated banlists, it's an absolute must if a player wishes to build decks to their fullest potential during their time with the game. I must say I had a blast putting together a Gladiator Beast deck in my second run, with a cool Lightsworn deck in my first and a burgeoning Synchro good-stuff deck for my third.
Oh yeah, did I mention Synchros? Yeah, this game actually added some 'cards from the future' like the previous games, only instead of weirdly translated late GX cards they instead added in Tuners and Synchros, including cards from several early 5D's era sets. It's awesome, and even if they barely ever come up in practice in your first run or two you can pretty easily put a little something together once you've gotten further in. It really feels like a nice cherry on top of everything else this game has to offer, being one last additional layer of novelty serving as a reward for dedication.
The character stories themselves are pretty whatever, but they serve their purposes just as well as they did in previous games. If anything, they're helped by their brevity since things are no longer stretched thin. They're fine enough fluff content and string things together adequately, but I'd hardly rate the game's writing as a strong point. Still, it's fun getting to interact with the various cast members of GX as well as getting to duel one last time with the students whose decks you've gotten to know over the past couple games.
The game does still have an occasionally shoddy translation job though it's nowhere near as abysmal as the previous two games. It's also just as slow as them in terms of the in-duel engine, as well as having a very repetitive soundtrack with such a limited amount of music that I wound up muting it eventually as with the previous ones. Except for the shop-shop theme, that is. That one's lovely. Listening to that while cracking open packs ingame was great.
Anyway, the presentation in general feels a little stale by this third entry, almost amateurish in a way to contrast its relative sleekness and freshness back in the first game. I'm hoping the remaining games will do a little something with the UI and HUD at the very least. The portraits are fine enough, but everything looks like a random 00s doujin PC game at times and not in a particularly flattering way. Again, the keyword is 'amateurish'. The one other complaint I have is that the packs feel a bit more tiresome to unlock in this game and the second game compared to the first simply due to how the character selection system works, but it's not really much of a problem for how understandable it is.
There are still some things that I think these games can improve upon to feel more whole and truly stand head and shoulders above the rest of Yu-Gi-Oh's other TCG/OCG video game offerings. Duels with extra bonus rules would be nice to have again, as they were seemingly ousted randomly after the first game. Structure decks, starter decks (maybe selectable at the start of the game), or at least more curated themed shop items, would be great. For that matter, cosmetic items would be great too since I'm guessing it wasn't particularly difficult to edit the main character's relatively plain sprite. Finally, sidequests and more compelling character stories would be great. Even if the payouts for the sidequests are just an exclusive card and some DP, that would be great. As it is, even with all the improvements Tag Force 3 has made the Tag Force formula is still very bare-bones and needs more to entice the player to continue. As arcadey and fun as the gameplay loop finally is, it's still clearly not at its full potential in terms of sheer options. This isn't to take away from how relatively impressive this game is, but I do hope it sheds some light on my thoughts that led to this rating despite my generally positive perspective on it overall.
Even with its series' shortcomings, for the length of its run Tag Force 3 was a blast to play and I do see myself actually going back to it again sometime. Indeed, after finishing my runs I still feel the need to finish that third run and maybe even complete the whole first page of characters. I'm not sure if I'm going to run the 5D's era Tag Force games for a little while yet, but I'm sure when I do they'll be fun too. I don't at all prefer 5D's to GX as a show in general, but it's at least got a lot of potential with its world at points that I could see at least Tag Force 4 having a lot of fun atmosphere going for it. I suppose I'll just have to find out.
Until then, though, I'm impressed with this series now. I've spent a while trying to find Yu-Gi-Oh games of relatively high quality, and this seems to finally be it. I wholeheartedly recommend this particular entry to any fan of the franchise who's looking for a fun time-waster, and especially to fans of GX and its respective TCG era.