Images courtesy of KONAMI
The Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION will release on the February 27th, 2025. Fortunately, for those who are hungry to get some more details about the
game, Card Gamer has been granted a preemptive peek at it prior to its official release.
I was given several hours to try out three of the fourteen games in this curated card game collection. I collected some creatures in Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule, I battled my way through Yu-Gi-Oh! 7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005, and I experimented with the wacky world of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelists. Here are some of my initial thoughts after trying out three very different Yu-Gi-Oh! digital game experiences.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule
Of the three titles that I played, Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule was the highlight. This game isn’t even about the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, instead players collect capsule monsters from vending machines and use them to fight their way through a series of grid-based strategic battles. Don’t worry, these vending machines only use in-game currency; there are no microtransactions here. All of these “capsule monsters” are iconic Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG cards like Celtic Guardian and Feral Imp.
The plot involves rescuing Yugi’s friends who have been turned into dolls by Kaiba, who at this point was still a villain with hair so vibrantly green that it puts One Piece’s Zoro to shame. The game has pretty high stakes; if you fail to rescue Yugi’s friends, they remain trapped as dolls, and you’re forced to continue the game without them. Additionally, any of your capsule monsters that fall in combat are gone for good, and you’ll need to recruit new ones to replace them. This element of threat gives the game some real weight. At any moment an enemy critical hit could take down your Torike, so you’d better make sure that you keep them safe.
Random encounters occur slightly too frequently, but beyond that, there’s very little to complain about here. The script has some solid jokes, the gameplay has plenty of depth, and the soundtrack is absolutely killer. The boss theme had me bopping up and down in my seat. If you’ve ever wanted to see what it would be like if Yu-Gi-Oh! crossed over with Fire Emblem, then this game’s worth a look.
Yu-Gi-Oh! 7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005
This game is an early installment in the Yu-Gi-Oh!: World Championship series which ran from 2004 until 2011. It’s a roleplaying game where you start out with just a basic deck, and you gradually build your collection up until you’re strong enough to take on characters like Yami Yugi and Kaiba without breaking a sweat.
You begin the game by buying a deck and some packs. The three decks on offer are similar to the Yugi, Kaiba, and Joey starter decks which were real-life products released in the early 2000s. I owned the Kaiba deck as a kid, so naturally, I picked it here. Tributing my Battle Ox and Pale Beast to bring out a Blue-Eyes White Dragon made me feel a warm wave of nostalgia, and just a touch of giddy glee. There is just something inherently satisfying about slamming down a giant 3000 ATK Dragon. If it’s good enough for Kaiba, then it’s good enough for me.
In the game, you travel around Domino City challenging characters to duels. You can play games against anyone you want to. I really do mean absolutely anyone, I
challenged a dog on the street, and they accepted; they were even using a deck made up of Beasts and Beast-Warriors, which was an adorable touch.
If you’re looking for a time portal to play some 2005-era Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG then you’ll want to give this game a go.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelists
If I were to summarize Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelists in one word, I would say it’s “quirky.” Anyone who thinks that modern Yu-Gi-Oh! is too speedy should give this game a go. At a whopping 800 Attack Points, Beaked Snake was legitimately one of the most powerful monsters in my starter deck. When Rex Raptor tributed one of his monsters to bring out the 1750 ATK Sword Arm of Dragon I broke out in a cold sweat and, at 2200 ATK, Weevil Underwood’s Insect Queen was a boss monster beyond compare.
The game doesn’t quite follow the rules of Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG as we know them today. Beyond the obvious fact that there are no Syncro, XYZ, Pendulum, or Link monsters to be found, many of the cards work differently from their TCG counterparts. Hiro’s Shadow Scout lacks its flip effect, and Jinzo #7 can’t attack directly, to name two examples. Your hand size is capped at five, and you can’t draw any new cards if your hand is full. Although you can manually discard as many cards as you want to at any time.
On the whole, the game was undeniably a bit clunky. The interface was slightly awkward to navigate, and the campaign was just a series of battles. All the same, as
a window into Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG’s past, the game did have a certain charm. Like anything that’s a bit quirky, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelists was
far from perfect, but it’s these imperfections that make it so memorable to play.
Are You Excited for Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION?
Ultimately, I came away impressed with the Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION. I only got to scratch the surface of three out of its fourteen games, and I was left
wanting more. While Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelists was slightly rough around the edges, ultimately even if I hadn’t liked the game at all, there
would still be 13 other games here ready for me to enjoy. Yu-Gi-Oh! 7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005 and Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule were both a blast. The former for being a window to an older era of the game’s history, and the latter for its surprisingly intense strategic gameplay.
You can expect a full review of the Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION from Card Gamer in the near future, once we’ve gotten our hands on a copy of the final game. Personally, I’m pretty excited to try out the remaining 11 titles.
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