Images courtesy of KONAMI
The Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection, which releases today, is a compilation of 14 different Yu-Gi-Oh! games from the late 1990s and early 2000s. KONAMI is making a clear appeal to nostalgia here. This collection puts the original Duel Monsters anime in the spotlight, embracing the game as it was before the modern complexities of Synchro, XYZ, Pendulum, and Link summoning.
The duels you’ll play here will be clashes of old cards like Ocubeam and Uraby. There are some great games here, but there are also some that haven’t stood the test of time, and some that are, for better or worse, incredibly weird. Let’s dive in, and give this collection an inspection.
The Good
The best game on offer here is Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule. I was very impressed with it when KONAMI invited me to preview it earlier this month, and now that I’ve experienced it more fully, it absolutely holds up. Monster Capsule is a full-on Yu-Gi-Oh! Strategy RPG, in the vein of Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics. You build up an army of duel monsters and send them charging into grid-based battles. There’s perma-death, a fresh new localization, and even some tabletop-RPG inspired sections where you go on Dungeons & Dragons-like fantasy quests.
The Sacred Cards and Reshef of Destruction are also highlights. The Sacred Cards is a reasonably direct adaptation of the Battle City story arc from the original Duel Monsters anime. Reshef of Destruction, however, has its own original story that goes out of its way to incorporate just about every Yu-Gi-Oh! character imaginable.
These two games have novel mechanics that set them apart from other titles in the collection. They both use the ante rule, meaning that you and your opponent wager rare cards against each other. Every game carries a risk that you’ll lose a valuable part of your collection but also tempts you with the opportunity to snag a powerful prize. You’re given duelist points which determine how strong the cards in your deck are allowed to be. As you gain more points you’ll gradually start swapping out the sub-1000 Attack Point monsters that you start with for more impressive threats. This makes advancement feel more like a typical RPG than a card game. Your character gradually grows stronger and you tag in objectively better cards to replace obsolete old ones. Just like you might equip a shiny new Mythril longsword to replace an old iron one in Final Fantasy.
Yu-Gi-Oh! 7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005 and Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel are also both great fun. They do away with anteing and duelist points, making them less experimental than The Sacred Cards and Reshef of Destruction. The player is inserted directly into the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, and gradually battles their way through the plot. These games both offer everything that you’d expect from a Yu-Gi-Oh! RPG, from cracking packs, to shadow games, to facing off against Kaiba.
There are several great games in this collection but, with fourteen titles to choose from, not all of them are masterpieces.
The Bad
One of the issues with the Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection is that many of the games on offer are pretty similar. Maybe that’s to be expected, after all, they’re almost all just different means of experiencing the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, but eventually some of the games do begin to blend together. A lot comes down to presentation, and what each of the games can offer to keep you engaged from duel to duel. Too many of the games here are simply gauntlets of opponents where you play one duel after another with no real story to speak of.
Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Tournament 2004, for example, is essentially just a character select screen where you gradually unlock more opponents. The conditions for unlocking new opponents aren’t made clear though; you end up battling the same Duelists again and again in the hopes that something will eventually change. Furthermore, not all of the character’s decks feel entirely authentic. It was surprising to see Rex Raptor who, as his name would imply, is a devout dinosaur duelist summon Tenderness, which is, to quote its flavor text, “An adorable fairy that celebrates the gift of love.”
While I singled out World Championship Tournament 2004 above, many of the same complaints apply to other games in the collection from Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelist to Yu-Gi-Oh! The Eternal Duelist Soul. Yu-Gi-Oh! is a fun game, but many of the titles here feel like they’re relying too much on that strength, and they aren’t doing enough to get players invested in the characters and the world.
The interface in many of the games also leaves a lot to be desired. Deck construction is particularly laborious, as your navigation options are very limited, and you’re left manually scrolling through hundreds of cards. This is even an issue with better games in the collection. Both The Sacred Cards and Reshef of Destruction make you scroll through every single card in the game, whether you own them or not, to get to the cards you want.
There are also a few games omitted that would have made great additions to the collection. Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories was released in America in 2002. This fits comfortably within the time frame covered by the Early Days Collection, which features games released from 1998 to 2004. Forbidden Memories has a plot that leaps between Ancient Egypt and the present day (well, the present day circa 2002) and has a unique feature involving Guardian Stars raising and lowering the attack of monsters. That’s not to mention Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses, a cult classic 2003 title which slots Yugi and Kaiba into a medieval succession crisis. Both of these titles offer an innovative approach to the Yu-Gi-Oh! formula, and it’s strange that they were left off in favor of other less exciting titles.
We’ve talked about the good, and we’ve talked about the bad. Now let’s talk about some of the games here that are just a bit unconventional.
The Odd
One of the more interesting games in the collection is Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters. Dungeon Dice Monsters was featured in a few episodes of the anime and briefly existed as a physical tabletop game. Players roll dice to summon Kuribohs, Penguin Soldiers, Baby Dragons, and other familiar duel monsters. These monsters are then plotted onto a field, and marched towards the opponent’s Die Master to deplete their life.
Dungeon Dice Monsters is complex and the AI, especially in the early stages, doesn’t fully grasp what it’s doing. There were a few games that, by all accounts, I should have lost, but instead of finishing me off my opponent just kept pacing their monsters around the center of the field. The game can also sometimes get quite grindy. You can’t move or attack with your monsters unless you get rolls that enable this. Sometimes you’re left rerolling the dice again and again until you get the result that you want. Nevertheless, the game offers something new and experimental, which makes it worth trying.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Destiny Board Traveler is another novel title. It’s Yu-Gi-Oh!‘s take on Mario Party that swaps out minigames for monster cards. Destiny Board Traveler is very luck-based; you don’t have a huge amount of agency over whether you win or lose, you just need to hope that the dice roll in your favor. As a Mario Party imitator, this reliance on luck can be seen as a feature, rather than a bug, as the game is ultimately a bit of light-hearted fun. There’s not a tremendous amount of depth to it, but it’s got charming chibi graphics, and crunched up 8-bit voice acting from the original cast.
Final Thoughts on Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection
For fans of Yu-Gi-Oh! there’s a lot to love in the Early Days Collection. Even if not every game is a home run, the ones that are make this an experience worth trying out. If you enjoy the anime, then Reshef of Destruction takes the characters on a new adventure that’s sure to leave you smiling. Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule is also just a great strategy RPG in its own right.
If you’re not already a Yu-Gi-Oh! fan, this collection probably isn’t the best entry point. While all of the games have digital scans of their manuals, none of them contain playable in-game tutorials. Many of the games also adjust the rules in minute ways that make applying your knowledge across different titles frustrating.
There are some games included here which probably could have been cut, and there are some games missing which really shouldn’t be. All the same, with fourteen titles to choose from, plus online matchmaking, there’s plenty to sink your teeth into. If you’re looking for some digital duels you will have enough card games here to entertain you for months.
Looking to get back into the paper version of the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG? Check out our look at the five biggest changes to the game in the last 20 years.
