Rest in Peace, Kazuki Takahashi
Was planning to save logging this until a little later, maybe after the first year anniversary but I figured it was as good as ever to write up some thoughts about Master Duel and, in particular, how it led me to rediscovering my love of the card game.
Prior to me downloading it, I had only ever played the card game via Dark Duel Stories, Forbidden Memories, a few casual battles i played as a kid, one GBA game I downloaded a rom of and a bit of Duel Links which is a different, speedier format from the norm.
Needless to say, much of my enjoyment in getting back into Yugioh through my college years came solely from the anime rather than the actual card game. I kinda assumed if you missed out on years of TCG history it'd be a pain to catch up so I never bothered until Master Duel. Even downloading this was basically a whim as I saw there was a free bonus for psplus owners on 50 tickets (these end up sucking), I figured I might as well check this out in case I was interested at a later date.
Upon doing the tutorials the game just bombards you with a deluge of gems and it was easy to get suckered in from there. This on top of the mobile version coming out a week or so afterward meant that I'd be spending most of my downtime at work (and admittedly time i was working) on this app.
What kept me hooked was doing the other solo training tutorials and learning the few summoning mechanics i had not yet understood. All this time I thought XYZs and Links were this extra layer of nonsense and yet they end up just being these pretty cool mechanics that are pretty easy to combo/integrate into a deck, it felt super rewarding finally understanding what these meant (pendulums are still weird). The solo decks/campaigns are also a nice touch as they give you a good look at the various legacy archetypes and also fuses some of these stories with other similar archetypes, like a loaner deck with a mix of Gladiator Beasts and Tri-Brigades.
This also being based on the OCG (Yugioh's 'Asian territories' division as opposed to the western TCG formats) makes this an interesting game as you run into cards that are banned or more limited than western tournament play. I'd be lying if I didn't say I love the Maxx "C" mindgames.
The look and music to the game are also extremely appreciated. As the battlefield become more destroyed as a sides' life points drop, both players have a little buddy that cheers them on (thanks sangan), various key monsters upon summon will play a summon cut-in with high-res animated/tweened art of the monster...and the current track playing shifts into a much more upbeat version of the song. Yasunori Nishiki did an excellent job with the dueling music, as each theme puts me in the mood to duel and as the battle progresses the theme gets tenser and tenser.
The game does need a lot to integrate a lot more modes/formats that anybody can try out on a whim. Right now its just ranked modes, solo campaigns and the monthly 'event' formats. While I dont have too much problems with ranked (admittedly im not good enough to stick around platinum or higher for too long), I do wish there was a format/mode better suited for decks i build that I know aren't suited for meta specifically. There's also a lot of bot problems that arise every now and then, which always ruins the mood.
All in all this is the best official simulation of the game currently and even with its F2P/MTX nonsense and meta-power creep shenanigans, ive been putting a lot of time into this as a downtime game. You do get a ton of gems at the start but I do wish getting the optimal 1000 was a bit easier as dailies are kinda lackluster. Not helped by the fact there's a ton of different archetypes I want to check out. Been mostly using plant archetypes and Harpies but I've been wanting to check out Spyrals, Darklords, Toads, Burning Abyss, Marincess, The Weather, way too many archetypes.
I think the moment everything started to click and I began to fall in love with the game was upon building my Rikka deck. A waifu deck certainly, but as this 'secret' card pack was one of the first to appear for my account I thought I'd try it out since it looked more unique at first glance. As it turned out they weren't half bad- but not meta shattering, which fits into my playstyle just fine. What really made me fall in love was running into intimidating boss monsters with effects like 'Cannot be destroyed by battle or card effect' or 'Cannot be targeted', etc. As it turns out Rikka's have a lot of effects that wipe monsters off the board but their effect text specifies Tributing rather than destroying monsters. This one difference means the difference as cards like 'Rikka Flurries' mean once I tribute a monster from my side of the field (easily done with this archeype's playstyle), I can activate Flurries to have my opponent 'tribute' a monster of their own choice. This card isnt OP and can be countered fairly easily, but its those loopholes and combos in card effects that make this game that much more engaging to me.
I'm hoping Konami does a lot more to fix some of its rewarding issues, expand its format options and do a lot more to encourage unique deck building, as I've had a blast returning to the card game through this.
Was planning to save logging this until a little later, maybe after the first year anniversary but I figured it was as good as ever to write up some thoughts about Master Duel and, in particular, how it led me to rediscovering my love of the card game.
Prior to me downloading it, I had only ever played the card game via Dark Duel Stories, Forbidden Memories, a few casual battles i played as a kid, one GBA game I downloaded a rom of and a bit of Duel Links which is a different, speedier format from the norm.
Needless to say, much of my enjoyment in getting back into Yugioh through my college years came solely from the anime rather than the actual card game. I kinda assumed if you missed out on years of TCG history it'd be a pain to catch up so I never bothered until Master Duel. Even downloading this was basically a whim as I saw there was a free bonus for psplus owners on 50 tickets (these end up sucking), I figured I might as well check this out in case I was interested at a later date.
Upon doing the tutorials the game just bombards you with a deluge of gems and it was easy to get suckered in from there. This on top of the mobile version coming out a week or so afterward meant that I'd be spending most of my downtime at work (and admittedly time i was working) on this app.
What kept me hooked was doing the other solo training tutorials and learning the few summoning mechanics i had not yet understood. All this time I thought XYZs and Links were this extra layer of nonsense and yet they end up just being these pretty cool mechanics that are pretty easy to combo/integrate into a deck, it felt super rewarding finally understanding what these meant (pendulums are still weird). The solo decks/campaigns are also a nice touch as they give you a good look at the various legacy archetypes and also fuses some of these stories with other similar archetypes, like a loaner deck with a mix of Gladiator Beasts and Tri-Brigades.
This also being based on the OCG (Yugioh's 'Asian territories' division as opposed to the western TCG formats) makes this an interesting game as you run into cards that are banned or more limited than western tournament play. I'd be lying if I didn't say I love the Maxx "C" mindgames.
The look and music to the game are also extremely appreciated. As the battlefield become more destroyed as a sides' life points drop, both players have a little buddy that cheers them on (thanks sangan), various key monsters upon summon will play a summon cut-in with high-res animated/tweened art of the monster...and the current track playing shifts into a much more upbeat version of the song. Yasunori Nishiki did an excellent job with the dueling music, as each theme puts me in the mood to duel and as the battle progresses the theme gets tenser and tenser.
The game does need a lot to integrate a lot more modes/formats that anybody can try out on a whim. Right now its just ranked modes, solo campaigns and the monthly 'event' formats. While I dont have too much problems with ranked (admittedly im not good enough to stick around platinum or higher for too long), I do wish there was a format/mode better suited for decks i build that I know aren't suited for meta specifically. There's also a lot of bot problems that arise every now and then, which always ruins the mood.
All in all this is the best official simulation of the game currently and even with its F2P/MTX nonsense and meta-power creep shenanigans, ive been putting a lot of time into this as a downtime game. You do get a ton of gems at the start but I do wish getting the optimal 1000 was a bit easier as dailies are kinda lackluster. Not helped by the fact there's a ton of different archetypes I want to check out. Been mostly using plant archetypes and Harpies but I've been wanting to check out Spyrals, Darklords, Toads, Burning Abyss, Marincess, The Weather, way too many archetypes.
I think the moment everything started to click and I began to fall in love with the game was upon building my Rikka deck. A waifu deck certainly, but as this 'secret' card pack was one of the first to appear for my account I thought I'd try it out since it looked more unique at first glance. As it turned out they weren't half bad- but not meta shattering, which fits into my playstyle just fine. What really made me fall in love was running into intimidating boss monsters with effects like 'Cannot be destroyed by battle or card effect' or 'Cannot be targeted', etc. As it turns out Rikka's have a lot of effects that wipe monsters off the board but their effect text specifies Tributing rather than destroying monsters. This one difference means the difference as cards like 'Rikka Flurries' mean once I tribute a monster from my side of the field (easily done with this archeype's playstyle), I can activate Flurries to have my opponent 'tribute' a monster of their own choice. This card isnt OP and can be countered fairly easily, but its those loopholes and combos in card effects that make this game that much more engaging to me.
I'm hoping Konami does a lot more to fix some of its rewarding issues, expand its format options and do a lot more to encourage unique deck building, as I've had a blast returning to the card game through this.