Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories Gameboy Color 2000

🌟 Starshipping Week 2023

☆ Day 2 : GAME

For @starshippingweek *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

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Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG set analysis #2: Dark Duel Stories (& game review)

In the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon was the first set released, on March 8th 2002. The next set of cards released was… no, not Starter Deck Yugi and Kaiba, but the cards that came with the Game Boy Color game Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories, released on March 19th 2002.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories, actually the third YGO game for the Game Boy released in Japan (and taking its title from the second game probably because the third game had "God" in its title), was part of the first major promotional push for Yu-Gi-Oh!. It seems like the promos came in two sets though I'm not sure about the timeline. The first set included Secret Rare variants for Blue-Eyes, Dark Magician, and Exodia the Forbidden One, reprints from LOB. The second set has Secret Rare first prints for Acid Trap Hole, Salamandra and Seiyaryu. I think I've heard the set with the reprints was only part of the first printing or something but it seems they were both used at the same time. Anyway, the second set all originated as promos for Japan's second YGO game, Dark Duel Stories. That Japanese game actually had promos like Crush card Virus and Harpie's Feather Duster as well, but either which way it's neat that the promos all originate from being promos for the game that was the namesake for this western release. Acid Trap Hole is basically Nobelman of Extermination in a Trap card, so it's actually a pretty great card for the timeframe it was released in the TCG.

Now enough TCG analysis… that's right, I actually already wrote a review for this video game, so I don't see why not include that here while I'm at it. This was written over four years ago which kinda blows my mind but whatever.

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While it was by no means the first Yu-Gi-Oh! game released in the world, Dark Duel Stories was the first Yu-Gi-Oh! game released in America. It was also the first Yu-Gi-Oh! game I ever played, as well as the first I ever owned. So let’s talk about it.

THE BORING PREAMBLE

First of all, this game doesn’t have the normal mechanics we’re now familiar with in the YGO TCG. I’m not going to bother saying much about it because it’s boring and you get the point.

GOOD STUFF

I like the card art. Some of it is different from how those cards actually appeared in the TCG/OCG, which is fun. This game has a pretty good soundtrack. Making your own custom cards using parts you get after winning a duel is both odd and kind of fun. They end up being pretty useful in the early game and can look cool. There isn’t any charge for using passwords unlike most later games. Uh… I thought it was cool that the characters had blinking animations.

BAD STUFF

This game sucks. Don’t play it.

I hate the whole ‘duelist points you increase over time so you can put better cards in your deck’ thing. It’s dumb.

This game is literally nothing but grinding. You grind for cards. You grind for card parts. You grind for duelist points or whatever. This plus the jank as hell game mechanics (including a totally stupid rock-paper-scissors approach to card type which I hate) makes the game a slog. Progression is as simple as beat everyone on the current level 5 times then you get to access the next one. There’s no overworld, just a menu where you select a duelist to battle. There’s no card shop and no pack opening, you just get 2 cards and 2 card parts whenever you win a duel. I think there’s most likely a better card pool as you go up in duelist level, meaning you can’t just beat Tristan and expect to get Blue-Eyes. [Update: each character you duel has different card droprates from a wide pool]

I also do not and will never like the cryptic as hell contact fusion bullshit in these early games. Summon this card on top of this card to get a stronger monster. This would be fine… if there was a list of fusions you could do. Like, if you could consult a menu that tells you which fusions you can do right now with your current hand of cards and board or something. Nope, you just have to either do the patented ‘summon and pray, then write down ones that work’ or ‘just look it up online’ approaches, which sucks. Hate that.

Adding to the hell of grinding which makes up the entirety of this game is that the battles, especially at first, take too long, and the game just doesn’t have the best interface. I get it’s a Game Boy Color game, but I’m SURE they could have done it smoother. By ‘it’ I mean everything. Deck building and editing, as well as dueling. Just look at the Pokemon TCG game, it’s much cleaner in all respects. DDS feels archaiac, like you should be typing in text prompts in green text on the a black screen. It’s usable, but it isn’t any fun. Oh yeah, back to battles taking too long. Battles take too long.

There’s also weird cryptic shit like your opponent being able to basically set a card in attack position because it doesn’t ‘reveal’ itself until it does something. So weird. This game just feels jank. For 2002 and being the first YGO game, honestly, it’s whatever. It was close enough to the TV show that most kids (myself included at the time) would have dealt with it. Even a year later, it would have felt aged, and it’s totally pointless to play it nowadays unless you want to do a dumb review type thing about every YGO game or something. It’s not just old, it’s pointless. Old stuff can be good. Dark Duel Stories just isn’t worth playing by anyone, ever, in 2019.

CONCLUSION

It sucks

Look What I Brought At The Pawn Shop!

I found two player's guides for Dark Duel Stories and Battle of Great Duelist's Japanese versions! :) This is also the website where I found a Monster Capsule GB walkthrough.

https://www.imasaragame.com/yugioh3/

https://www.imasaragame.com/yugioh4/

"The Sire de Roche-Pozay, having fallen violently in love with her, had on the morrow discomfited in single combat the Sire d’Amboise"

Gustave Doré (1832-1883) - The Succubus, 1855

Illustration from Honoré de Balzac's "Les Cent Contes drolatiques/Droll Stories"

rest in peace cross duel, here are my fanmade cross duel gijinkas i did donkey months ago (these two are based off kraken and penguin, my favourite fluffal and frightfur!)

the dimensional dragons are all girls because i wanted them to match odd-eyes and i even cooked up a fantasy plot for them to be actors in (more in tags)

i had a vision of green hair girl to be a harem queen a la gudako so bad

DSOD is such a funny movie. Kaiba comes on screen in his giant fucking space station molded into his company logo and I just laughed. He’s so dramatic. He misses his rival and is so obsessed with getting some closure for once in his goddamn life that he spent well over a billion dollars to excavate a cursed puzzle and build a space elevator to the afterlife but the minute anyone says anything about ‘hey maybe that’s a little unhealthy’ he’s snapping and snarling and telling them to fuck off. Except the cube guy. He’s has a duel disk and is also full of unprocessed grief so he can stay. Yugi Moto looks them dead in the eye and says “first of all, I’m only here because you both blackmailed me. Secondly, fuck you both for that, by the way. Thirdly, I’m gonna kick your ass”. Card games ensue, meanwhile Yugi tries his absolute best to show Kaiba the pharaoh is gone and maybe he needs to spend some time reflecting on his emotions and yes the invitation is still open to talk about Him BUT THEN THE NARRATIVE PROVED KAIBA RIGHT?!! AND THE PHARAOH COMES BACK AND YUGI HAS TO LOOK KAIBA IN THE EYE AND TELL HIM THAT HES SORRY FOR DOUBTING HIM?? WHAT. What Kaiba takes from all this is that a) his horrid coping mechanisms work after all, b) if he just fucks around enough and spends all his money he really can be king of the world and c) the best option is definitely to finish that space elevator and fucking. Go to the afterlife I guess. To duel his “hated rival” or whatever. Fuck off

As a Yu-Gi-Oh fanartist, it was bound that at some point I did a dark magician girl fanart

Course we’re doing it w/ Aya

Process below!

Spelling mistake///

Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories Gameboy Color 2000

Yugi Muto From Kazuki Takahashi's Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters has been added as a Secondary Muse! Verses covering both the manga and anime storylines (Including DSOD, GX, and Bonds Beyond Time) are available, and a Duel Monster AU is coming soon (Once i figure out which monster to pick LOL)!

I'm getting more and more obsessed with Orin. She's honestly my favorite villain in the whole game I love her so much-

i’ve talked so much today more than usual but can we like. look at marik and bakura in the Dark Duel Stories for five seconds

It took 3000 years, but I finally got Witch’s Strike to resolve against another player! It’s pretty finicky about what counts as actually setting it off, but it’s SOOOOO satisfying to just wipe out your opponent’s entire field and hand with it

The fact that I did this to a Magical Musket player just makes it all the sweeter, haha

TIL an early advertisement for Dark Magician Girl, released for a Dark Duel Stories event, had different artwork and a different effect than her final version!

https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Yu-Gi-Oh!_Duel_Monsters_III:_Tri-Holy_God_Advent_Official_Tournament_Street_Duel_Legend_of_Power_prize_card