It's hard to go wrong with the standard duel simulator games from this era. Walking around the Duel Academy with my avatar was pretty fun, but I wasn't initially making the most of it. At some point, my friend was like, "When are you going to do the dating sim portion of the game?" and I decided he was right and boy was that some icing on the cake. At the end of the school year, when I had to pick a tag duel partner, the tough decision needed to be made between the two sexiest characters, whom I was simultaneously courting: Alexis and Zane (I went with Zane; he has Cyber Dragon).

I revisited the game and proved that my loving it back when it came out was no fluke. The main story is short and satisfying, and the post-game is seemingly endless to the point where the amount of content is dependent on how dedicated (hardcore) you are as a player. I'll never forget how as a kid, I was at my aunt's house, playing through the 99-floor Lugia dungeon (there are so many 99-floor dungeons lmao), and my partner killed Lugia and thus prevented me from recruiting it, and I just went "welp" and immediately started the dungeon again and recruited Lugia before the car ride home. What tenacity we often had as children. Great game.