Toggle Background Color
Children's Card Games with more rules than MTG - Let's Play Yu-Gi-Oh! video games!
As of 2011, there were over 25 billion Yu-Gi-Oh! cards sold worldwide. This makes it the most popular trading card game of all time. A lot of people regard it as a children's game, and while the average player is aged lower than the average Magic: The Gathering player, the average age of a Yu-Gi-Oh player today is 14-19 years old, depending on the area (The most recent World Champion was even a college student). Of course, being so popular in real life, video games of this franchise were inevitable - but how did these games play compared to the real world? Did they have some crazy-advanced AI allowing the console or PC to actually think their way through battles? Did they have extensive cardlists allowing you to pick the deck you have in real life? Are any of these games any good?
Well, that's what we're going to find out. Starting with the second official English release of a Yu-gi-oh console game (I am not doing those god-awful GBC/GBA games without a request), I will be presenting progressively more modern games until I'm asked to stop, or I run out. The modern games do get more authentic to the real life version, but that does not mean they are better games. And sometimes deviating from the real game makes for more fun. So let's get started with
Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories
Known in Japan as Yu-Gi-Oh! True Duel Monsters: Sealed Memories, Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories was the second release of a Yugioh game in America (To my knowledge). It was released in 2002 for the PSX alongside the anime, but due to the time in which it was developed, Forbidden Memories uses completely different rules than the actual OCG/TCG, the first season of the second series anime, or the manga, giving us a grand total of three semi-official rulesets in addition to the real rules.
For those of you unfamiliar with how the card game works, here is a brief explanation. There are three types of cards: Monster, Magic, and Trap. Players (or, ?Duelists?) are only allowed to Summon one monster per turn (known as a Normal Summon) But can summon any number of monsters to their field via different means (known as Special Summons). Magic cards are generally for support effects, and trap cards usually interrupt your opponent and stop them from doing something, and/or give you something as well. You can play as many Magic and Trap cards as you want during your turn.
Forbidden Memories, of course, completely ignores these rules, as the OCG had not been invented yet. We?ll get into this later.
This game is bad. Horrible. It was developed on a shoestring budget with a shitty, barely existing storyline and loads and loads and LOADS of padding. As with most Yugioh games, Forbidden Memories contains more grinding than actual gameplay, but the ratio in this game is far higher. This is why I?ll be using a gameshark, because fuck that shit. The soundtrack, however, isn?t so bad.
This game is also short. Chip Cheezum said that he recorded his Zone of the Enders LP in two sittings - Forbidden Memories isn?t as long as that if you ignore all the grinding. I beat this entire game in a few hours in one sitting, and I can pretty much tell you there will be about three, maybe four updates before we move on to Falsebound Kingdom, with how horribly we?ll be breaking the game via cheats.
Here?s the beginning ?cutscene?. It?s got to be the shortest intro cutscene ever.
As you can see it starts with a very evil-looking ancient-Egyptian dude with a blank text box.
Then we get some text, which tells us nothing. And then the Title Screen!
We?re jumping straight into this because I?m sure nobody wants to watch me spoof password entries for 20 minutes while I copy save files to other virtual memory cards and trade stuff around. I?ll explain cards as they come up.
We start by naming our character. Those of you familiar with the series know that the Pharaoh's name isn?t revealed until the last season, so I won?t be spoiling it here. Not that this game will be any reason for anyone to jump into the franchise.
Sorry, no name suggestions for this game, but I will be taking them for the next game, Falsebound Kingdom.
After naming our dude, we find this jerk, named Simon. He?s the caretaker of the prince, who we are playing as. He just caught us trying to sneak off in commoner?s clothes to go dueling with other kids. With actual cards. In Ancient Egypt. Printed trading cards.
I would be too if I had to run away to play with my ancient egyptian trading cards.
The options here are to duel him or run off. He?s boring to duel, even with the starter deck, so we?re running.
I love this shot of him. If only our options weren?t to join up with our other anime cameos and play card games.
The place on the lower left is dueling area, which is where we have to go, but I want to point out another area.
This fearsome man runs the card shop. It?s where we save or go back to the title screen to switch saves or do whatever you can in the main menu.
There?s also a gimmick to this card shop. Notice anything missing in the options there?
...That?s right, the card shops in this game do not sell cards.
The way to acquire cards was pretty spotty in the first few Yugioh games, but at least in this one, there are only two ways to get cards (or just one way from a different perspective). The first is to duel people. A lot. Like, more than you would ever want to. Every time you beat an opponent, in the story or otherwise, you get a random crappy card. However, if you beat someone ten times in a row, you get a special, more powerful card from them. This is okay when you?re dueling people like Jono (which is who we?re supposed to be looking for) who normally use low level cards at this stage, but give you a really really good card for beating them a lot (Red-Eyes B. Dragon) but not so good for people like Seto, who sometimes pull out the card they give you (Blue-Eyes White Dragon).
The other way to get cards is to put in a password at the main menu. Each card has an eight-digit serial number on the lower left corner in real life which you can input into games. If you put that in as the password, you can get that card. Except, they cost. After every duel you can get up to 5 Star Chips based on how well you did. The problem? All of the best cards cost ONE MILLION STAR CHIPS. And only some of them can be acquired by dueling NPCs. Needless to say, I have already spent a few dozen million cheated Star Chips.
It?s also worth noting at this point that the password system was changed in later games. You could still put in the serial number and buy the card in-game, but here?s the kicker: you could only buy the card if you?d found it in random card packs already. So even if you owned an awesome deck in real life, you had to grind and grind and grind for money to buy packs in the hopes that you?d get the cards you already had.
Konami.
Anyway, back to our game.
This is Teana, one of our commoner friends. She kinda creepy, as you can see. We have an option to duel her while we wait for Jono to get here.
Let?s do so to finally show off the game mechanics.
People familiar with the card game will notice two things right away:
1) There was no decision on who goes first. In this game, the player always takes the first turn. It doesn?t really matter here, but in real life going first can actually be a disadvantage, depending on the deck you run. (I have a deck that can perform a ?First Turn Kill?, which is me winning before the opponent?s second turn, also known as my first turn. But it only works if I go second, since the first turn player can?t attack.)
B) There are no Effect Monsters in my hand.
Effect Monsters are monsters that have effects like Magic and Trap cards. However, in this game they are absent. Sort of. All effect monsters are still here, but they have no effects. Every monster in this game is a Normal Monster. Another thing to note is that I have B. Skull Dragon in my hand. B. Skull Dragon is a Fusion monster, meaning he must be formed between at least two monsters with the card Polymerization. However, All Fusion monsters in this game are also treated as Normal monsters, and are just cards in your deck (they are normally separate from the deck in something known as the Extra Deck, which was known as the Fusion Deck before Synchro Monsters were introduced).
However, I can still fuse the proper materials to form B. Skull Dragon (Red Eyes B. Dragon and Summoned Skull). This means I could technically have up to six in play (You?re only supposed to have three, but it doesn?t matter because there are only five monster slots anyway). Way to go, Konami.
There?s one more thing people familiar with the card game will notice about that video. In case you couldn?t figure it out, Forbidden Memories only allows you to play one card per turn. This is a huge restriction and turns into a major disadvantage later in the game. But even worse than that, you?ll notice that I draw to 5 cards every turn. This is because the game forces you to play your only card per turn. Yup, even if playing something is to your disadvantage, you HAVE to play something before you can attack or give up your turn. Great job, Konami.
Anyway. Teana is a complete joke at this stage, with or without our mega-deck. After beating her, we get this:
Apparently this is where Jono went. Let?s follow him.
This is what we see at the festival. Heishin is that dude we saw in the beginning cutscene. How she even deduces that statement at this point is beyond me.
Oh look who it is over there.
The guy couldn?t even be bothered to come over to the normal dueling area. Or maybe he has McFly syndrome, I don?t know. Who the hell is this guy he?s dueling, anyway?
This is Priest Seto. According to our friends, he?s the right hand man of Heishin. Why we don?t already know that as the prince of the royal family, I don?t know. We are egged on to duel him by Jono and Teana but then:
Daddy wants his little boy, so the duel is postponed. Let?s head back to the duel area to wait for him.
Joey offers us a duel while we wait. We are obviously WAY above the level we should be.
Eventually, Seto shows up.
I wonder if that is in any way related to what anyone looked like in ancient Egypt.
We creme Priest Seto, as usual.
You may have noticed by now that only being able to play one card per turn is a crushing disadvantage if the other player has monsters stronger than yours. Even if you play, say, a Raigeki (Which destroys all of your opponent?s monsters at no cost to you), if you had no monsters out at the time your opponent can just bring out another monster next turn and be unopposed. Most of the duels later in the game become completely based on luck because of this.
After we beat Seto he give us this:
But it does make sense that someone who has ties with the Royalty would recognize us as the Prince. Is this the first logical thing in the game?
I don?t like either of the poses in this image. Jono looks like he just had an orgasm and Teana looks like she wants to give us one.
Anyway after this we had back to the palace.
I like to think that Simon was standing in the same exact spot while we were off doing that. Waiting.
Random Guard: ?Lord Simon Muran! We?ve got trouble!
?Lord Heishin and his men have appeared!?
?They wield a strange power... They?ve invaded the palace!?
Oh shit what is going on.
Heishin has come to take ?his? throne, because he found this one secret somewhere. Unfortunately we never see what this power is.
Also, he looks too much like Jafar from Aladdin. And yes, you do look mad. Crazy mad.
We are awoken by this random girl. We never learn her name or what she does here. Also, I don?t show it, but the still portraits do have blinking and speaking animations. Heishin speaking looks legitimately scary.
We go out of the room but are immediately found by none other than...
...This jerk. Again, I don?t like how the girl is drawn in this one. She seems to be enjoying this.
Seto takes us outside for some reason. He talks to us about handing over the Millenium Item, but of course we don?t have it. Oh wait what?s this.
Simon gives us the Millenium Puzzle right in front of the Bad guys. Then Heishin shows up and starts threatening us.
Of course, the only logical thing to do is have a duel in a children?s card game.
Err... Oops. You did get to see how Fusion monsters are properly summoned in this game, at least.
This battle is supposed to be unwinnable, and it?s the only duel in the game in fact where losing does not give a Game Over. But if you do manage to win, he just challenges you to another duel. Apparently, we?re too strong for him, though.
...oh.
The game never shows it, but Heishin activated a Trap card against me there. This specific one was Bad Reaction to Simouchi, a card which negates any effect of healing your opponent?s life points and instead deals the same amount as damage. It?s one of the few cards that does what it?s supposed to in this game.
After you lose (You have to in order to proceed, he just keeps challenging you to duels) We get this:
Bullshit, you only won that last one by luck.
He is about to attack us at this point, but...
You now have to shatter the Millenium Puzzle to keep it out of their hands. If they do get it, they?ll rule the world. Once you do, you are somehow absorbed by it.
Simon?s in here too, for some reason. He says that maybe someday, someone will be able to help us get back to our world, and screen fades to black...
Wait what the hell is this?