When I turned on Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist on my Xbox One, I found myself not remembering anything about the animated series other than the main character has crazier than Cloud Strife hair and something about Blue Eyes White Dragon. As a preteen in the early 2000’s, I saw very few episodes of the show. It was something I flipped to when nothing else was on. I gave this game a chance because frankly, I really couldn’t recall much about it and never even played the card game, in person or electronically.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist is a compilation of five old games that recalls the events of the 17+ year old series. There’s no voice acting in the campaign mode, so I found myself reading the voices out loud like a lunatic because the text was so boring. It felt like I was reading a high school creative writing assignment. There was nothing redeeming nor interesting about what they said. Luckily, you can skip through all the cut scenes and go straight to the game which is quite fun once you understand it, however, the tutorial is way too long. It’s better to just crash and burn in-game and retry than waste an hour reading through the hard-to-read tutorial guides.
6,000+ cards are featured and you don’t need to purchase DLC to get most of them. There’s four DLC packs for $4.99 for each campaign that feature 2 additional decks and additional battles. All special cards from the show are included in the game and you can copy opponent’s decks after you defeat them in battle and then modify it however you’d like. The text on the cards is illegible, so there’s a small side area on the right and left of the screen that shows the Attack, Defense, and information below it. There’s also many symbols listed but since they never explain what they are, you have to click to view more information on the card to know.
The graphics are minimal, which is what you’d expect from a card game, however, if someone plays Blue Eyes White Dragon, a mediocre PS2-era CGI scene happens where the monster annihilates the field. It’s pretty much overkill and when you’re on the receiving end of it, it really sucks. So far, this is the only CGI animation I encountered. Other than that, the most interesting animation is the card mat on the bottom that you play on that sometimes flickers when you activate cards.
These games haven’t aged well at all. After Yugi fights Kaiba for the first time, Maximillian Pegasus, the creator of the Duel Monsters card game, sends Yugi a package. Inside the package is a VHS cassette tape. Let’s stop here. Many kids under the age of 12, otherwise known as the main demographic of this game, probably have never used a VCR in their lives. I asked my cousin who just turned 12 last week to clarify this. He asked if VHS was a file extension on the computer like a .JPG. I rest my case.
Random thoughts
When Yugi’s grandpa holds up the Blue Eyes White Dragon card, it had no text on it and the picture of Blue Eyes had the game’s logo plastered on the bottom left hand corner. What?
For those of you who are achievement hunters, when you fight Kaiba, you can put together Exodius and get that mega 100 point achievement in no time.
Why is the series still using the American dub names like “Joey Wheeler” or “Tea Gardner?”
Legacy of the Duelist is a game that should’ve been on the Wii U but for some strange reason, isn’t. I think of how much more fun and legible the game could be if there was an additional screen that could be utilized. This game is great for people who already love Yu-Gi-Oh! and want a throwback. But isn’t good as an introduction to the series at all. You’re better off playing the physical card game and leaving any semblance to the TV show behind.
