Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a yu-gi-oh fan, so naturally this game and its links update was going to be up my alley. What makes this game perfect is that it's an excellent gateway into getting into the card game thanks to how easy it is to pick up and play during any format of the franchise’s long history.

The way this game works is that there's different campaigns for each of the five (or six if we're talking about link evolution) shows from the franchise. While you can use any deck to duel against the opponents and thus, use any and all mechanics the game has to offer, its recommended to use the story decks in order to familiarise yourself with the different archetypes that have emerged from the series (that and you can use three copies of banned cards to screw the rules with.) Each campaign begins with a helpful tutorial to familiarise yourself with the different summoning mechanics each series relies on that you can replay at any time to better understand them. Upon defeating an opponent, you unlock their deck recipe and if you defeat them for the final time in a campaign, they offer a challenging duel in a separate mode where they use degenerate strategies to try and beat you which of course are illegal in the real-life game. You can consider this the boss stages of the game even though they're all grouped together in one mode rather than being approached as each campaign progresses. The game gives you six starting decks, each one focusing on a summoning mechanic such as tribute, fusion, synchro, xyz or pendulum (rituals and links are sadly not utilised in these decks.) You can also create your own deck by buying cards from the shop with in game currency you win from each duel, this means that you're not restricted to using the preconstructed decks that game has and are free to experiment with different strategies.

Like I said, it's a fantastic gateway into the yu-gi-oh franchise. The campaigns are faithful to their respective anime’s which also makes it a great gateway to their respective shows as well (for better or worse as they each have their individual issues.)

I consider myself a pretty big fan of Yu-Gi-Oh!, but in a way quite different from what I imagine to be true of everyone else who likes YGO today: I basically just love Kazuki Takahashi's original manga, and by extension any cards featured prominently from that series. I occasionally buy new cards, but don't really care enough to follow the game, particularly as it seems slightly "harder" to play, kinda considering it "cheating" to play online with decks composed of cards you don't physically own, nor feeling like driving to any local comics store that holds YGO meet-ups (as they're all slightly out of the way), nor wishing to purchase singles for belief they are likewise "cheating," but also hating to buy random packs and getting mostly dogshit. I did get that thing that came with Ash Blossom and the other hand-traps, in tricking myself to think I'd ever get into "serious" YGO, but otherwise the newest cards I've bought were the Obelisk and Slifer structure decks. I'm most proud of my "Legendary Decks II" set, simply because it has Yugi, Kaiba, and Jonouchi's cards, but specifically because I finally own the God Cards and Exodia. I'm a simple man.

It is because I'm a simple man that I appreciate mostly that this game's Campaign Modes just take you through major duels from the original series through VRAINS, though it has the Orichalcos stuff in DM, with which I'm not familiar, and the last season of GX, which didn't air in America, and the next three shows, which I never saw, and I'm still pretty far behind in VRAINS....

At the time of this draft, I've only played the very first chapter, a tutorial meant to be Yugi and Jonouchi as they dick around in their classroom. Yugi is given The Dragon Dwelling in the Cave, which he didn't have, but which isn't so crazy considering Giant Soldier of Stone has similar stats. What's fucked up is he has Nin-Ken Dog and Joey (it's easier to stick with the dub names for now...) has Blazing Inpachi, both of which would have fucking destroyed Duelist Kingdom, had the boys had those cards in the series, what with most early cards being dogshit fodder to release ("Tribute") in favor of still-kinda-shitty 5- and 6-star monsters (though Advance Summon wasn't really a thing before Battle City, I guess). I'm hoping future duels are more accurate to the real series Decks, but I think I at least enjoy the very fact that you can play some version of these classic games without rearranging things with a player OC like with Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards [遊☆戯☆王デュエルモンスターズ７ 決闘都市伝説].

I would recommend this game if you are an old-time fan of Yu-Gi-Oh and are looking to relive the old days.
The game has a long campaign which goes through all of the seasons of the anime, featuring the most important duels with the respective decks used in the show. You can also play them in reverse, e.g. play from the villain's point of view.

Don't expect more than that though. It's essentially a competent, but simple simulation of the card game and very little else. The UI looks cheap and dated. The multiplayer is dead. You get new cards by buying booster packs, which is kind of a nice idea, but in practice there are thousands of cards and opening the packs to get them takes forever. Also, the controls in this game are kind of weird. For example, if you accidentally click on the wrong monster to summon, you can't cancel the summon and choose a different monster, which is super annoying.
The game also isn't updated with new cards, but if you're someone who keeps up with Yu-Gi-Oh then this isn't the game for you anyways.