Yu-Gi-Oh! Milenium Duels for the PS3, not quite sure if the exclamation mark always has to be there but, there we go. Milenium Duels is a card a card game brought out for both the PS3 and Xbox live arcade and features cards up-to and including the current generation, you’ll forgive me since the last time I played any kind of Yu-Gi-Oh! Game I was in primary school and thought spitting over the school gate with friends to see who could get the furthest was a fun activity, which I guess was great in those young simplistic days (until a crazy guy with a wrench gets out because one of your friends accidentally got his car) but, enough with the past Yu-Gi-Oh! And on with the new Yu-Gi-Oh!
The story… well huh, kind of is none…. Nope not here, I mean there’s a tournament mode which lets you battle characters I believe from the old and new series but this only serves to unlock characters that you can play as and cards to customize your deck, and by “play as” I mean in a purely aesthetic way as it does not affect the game at all, not giving any sort of perk or added side story.
So on to the mechanics, the games mechanics stay true to the Yu-Gi-Oh! Card game (seriously, the “!” mark makes it sound like I’m getting far too excited about it). With the ability to set cards face down in defence mode or summon face up in attack mode on the field with the aim of whittling the enemy’s health points of eight thousand to zero. Other things such as the use of tuners to summon a monster by sacrificing the monster cards on the field who’s levels equal that of the monster you want to summon and other cool neat special summon tricks such as synchronising summoning , fusion summoning and ritual summoning.
However I did find some issues with the system as the game does not allow you to redo a move, this may not seem to bother people however after accidentally summoning a monster in defence instead of attack just as I was about to win only to give the opponent a break to come back and beat me becomes frustrating especially with the spell chain enabling you to effectively accidentally destroy your own spell card. This may sound kind of stupid on my part however when you know the opponent is going to use a spell card to counter yours and you use it to ensure your initial card is safe only to be destroyed by your own card it kind of starts to erode the games good points and turns it into an exercise of how long can you last until your controller becomes a twisted wreck of plastic.
Music wise, it’s pretty bland and the background you fight on remains the same through your matches, in-fact that’s probably my main issue with this game. It has no atmosphere. The game just feels like a generic card game, I mean in some respects I enjoyed the rage mini-card game a hell of a lot better, sure it was simpler and lacked as much depth as the current Yu-Gi-Oh! System but, you actually felt awesome when you won. Probably one of the hardest battles I had was the third battle in the first tournament against some stupid brat, after defeating him I didn’t feel any kind of accomplishment I just felt I was going through the wheel to get more cards and get it over with. The game lacks another way to motivate you, with no story or cool shiny graphics it is only the cards that matter. I mean the kid might have been a real snotty nosed brat that picked on other people or even spat on my car in which case I would gladly get out and chase him with my shinai however I don’t know that, with the little to no dialogue I can’t even tell if the persons even there or some kids pretending to be them as they’ve just stuck up a cardboard cut-out and gone to lunch.
I feel I have been quite harsh so far so it’s time to reveal the shining feature of the game that really stands out. It’s multiplayer. The multiplayer lets you duel other people (duh) in either standard or tag mode, unlike the tournament mode the challenges feel very real and rewarding when you beat people and make you want to get a stronger deck in order to crush your opponents giving you that motivation that its single player compadre is lacking.
Overall I feel the games probably made in service to the fans and unless you’re a slight fan it’s not going to keep your interest for too long but, with the massive amount of cards, special summons and possibilities its worth checking out if you’re a fan of card games too. The tournament mode may feel like a bit of a slog but it does sharpen your tactics and gives you a reasonable amount of them to play in multiplayer along with a bunch of awesome cards to try out. Now if only I could find my blue eyes red dragon thingy card.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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