Original Release: Konami, 2000, Game Boy Color
The first Yu-Gi-Oh game officially released in English, this one continues the unique gameplay style that the prior Japan-only Game Boy titles established
Yu-Gi-Oh: Dark Duel Stories (GBC, Konami, 2000)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
This game was my first-ever venture into any sort of Yu-Gi-Oh and uh … boy was this the wrong one to pick.
I wasn’t expecting a detailed tutorial from a GBC game, and I’ve played enough similar card games to figure I could just pick up the particulars by messing around with it for a bit … nope. It’s not even so much the rules of the game as just how the basic interface works, which is not explained at all. How do you attack? Defend? What are the rules governing all these exchanges? Who knows, find out somewhere else I guess. Really brought me back to the 1980s PC days where you’d better have the manual sitting right by you or you’re getting nowhere. More doable on the home computer, not the best choice for a portable handheld game you’re supposed to play on the go.
The only real gameplay mode seems to be a “campaign” which is actually just picking from five characters (I assume from the series) to duel over and over and grind out better cards / “construction” parts for making Super Cards. These guys have some great portrait art but when you get into the actual battle, it’s like warping back to the original Game Boy all the sudden. Extremely threadbare presentation. No real story, no RPG mode a la some other card titles of the time.
Other than campaign mode, the other solo options all appear to involve diddling around with your deck … really seems like Konami put all their cards on Link Cable play and trading with this release. If you’re totally new to Yu-Gi-Oh this is too rough of an introduction … but even if you’re familiar with it, you may well find it too basic between the spartan presentation and the very limited modes of play available. And apparently the game rules are based on some prior Japan-only Game Boy games rather than the trading card game, so even if you’re a real-life duel master you might be nearly as confused as I was.
Links
Videos
Good explanation of basic gameplay starting about 9 min. in