Tag: Retro game

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Sadness

POSTCARDS FROM PARADISE

Recently I’ve been traveling off the island quite a bit. The pools have maintained their chlorine freshness with the help of my faithful companion, Cookie. For a few fish and cigarettes a day he doesn’t mind cleaning out the filters and even performs a little Sea Lion show for the guests in the afternoon.

So on these long turbulent flights back home to try to take my mind off of Monsoon season I usually comb through the movie section aboard each flight. Most flights have the same movies and almost all of them are bullshit. They know it and you know it. But what are you going to do? Not watch them? Stare at the suspicious guy two rows over for eleven hours? Sleep? HA! Right.

But on a red eye back to Paradise from Siberia West I found myself basically alone in the cabin with drink in hand and my headphones plugged into the auxiliary jack. I had found an old favorite. A movie that I fell in love with so many years ago. (A movie I actually paid for on Pay-Per-View back in the day). The feudal Chinese fantasy, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Let’s spend this space celebrating Ang Lee’s cinematic achievement, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon based on the novel of the same name written by Chinese author, Wang Dulu.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is actually book four of five in Dulu’s Crane-Iron Series. Crane-Iron being named after the first characters in the first and last installments of the series. The series’ five novels chronicle the struggles of four generations of youxia (simplified Chinese: 游侠; traditional Chinese: 遊俠), often translated as wandering heroes. Each novel contains elements which link it with the others. (Wikipedia)

He did not write the novel for it to become this game

Wang is not only considered a pioneer of the modern wuxia genre but a writer that perfected it. Wuxia is a genre of Chinese fiction that literally translates to, “Martial Heroes”. Usually blending fantasy with martial arts and romance – characters are often from lower social classes and are driven by chivalry or righteousness.

Born Wang Baoxiang 王葆祥 in Beijing 1909 he was said to have written as many as fifty novels between 1931 and 1949. Thirty six of those novels being wuxia novels. Sadly after the Chinese civil war Wang was denounced as “reactionary literarti” by the ruling Communist party and sentenced to hard farm labor where he would die from an unknown illness.

Wang’s legacy in the west was cemented by Taiwanese screenwriter and Director Ang Lee’s adaption of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Ang Lee OBS is a cinematic powerhouse. Born in Pingtung County, Southern Taiwan he was educated in both Taiwan and the United States. His works have found international acclaim and he is a critically and commercially celebrated writer and director. His notable works include: Life of Pi, Sense and Sensibility, Hulk, and Brokeback Mountain. Aside from winning a multitude of awards he has also been awarded the Order of Brilliant Star – the second highest civilian award bestowed on citizens by the Government of Taiwan.

He did not direct the movie for it to become this game.

In 1995 the LA Times named one man, “The coolest actor in the world”. It wasn’t Samuel L Jackson or Speed Star, Keanu Reeves. It was the face of Gun-Fu. Total-stoic-badass-John Woo-regular, Chow Yun-Fat.

Chow Yun-Fat did not come from nothing to be in this game

Born in Pok Liu island, British Hong Kong, Chow Yun-Fat SBS was raised by his mother Chan Lai -Fong, a cleaning lady and vegetable farmer and his father Chow Yung-Wan who worked on a Shell oil tanker. He grew up in a farming community with no electricity waking up early each morning to help his mother sell herbal jelly and work in the fields during the afternoons.

At 17, he took odd jobs to help the family any way he could. It was around this time his actor-trainee application was accepted by the local television station. He was signed to a three year contract and made his acting debut in 1980. Working his way through TV as a rising star and heart throb and on to the silver screen with John Woo Chow Yun- Fat has carved himself an extraordinary career. Even being awarded the Silver Bauhinia Star – the second highest rank star in the honors system of Hong Kong. Awarded to those who have taken a leading part in public affair or voluntary work for a long period of time.

Starring alongside Chow Yun-Fat in the film is the dazzling, Michelle Yeoh PSM. Ranked the “greatest action heroine of all time” by Rotten Tomatoes in 2008 – Michelle Yeoh – known for performing her own stunts and fight scenes has been dominating screens for nearly four decades.

Behind that smile is a stone cold killer that has already killed the game’s developers and soon me for bringing the game back up.

Born in Malaysia, Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng PSM to Janet Yeoh and Yeoh Kian Teik, a lawyer and MCA politician respectively. At an extraordinarily young age Yeoh was keen on dance and began ballet by the age of four. In her teens her parents and her would move to the United Kingdom where she would attend UK’s Royal Academy of Dance.

A natural beauty at the age of 20, Yeoh won the miss Malaysia beauty pageant and even move on in competition to win an international, “Queen of the Pacific” pageant. But she is hardly a delicate flower. She has cultivated a reputation for a legendary work ethic, and expertise in choreography. She would become world renowned not only for her acting prowess but her physical capability as well.

I was going to go even further on about the lovely accomplishments of both Zhang Ziyi and Chang Chen but do we even have to? Did either of them work their entire lives only to have their likeness exploited in this dumpster fire on disc?

The answer is no. No they didn’t and none of these people deserve this. These are real human beings with real feelings and aspirations. They don’t deserve this. No one does.

FANCY VIDEO INTRO

There really isn’t that much I can say that I haven’t already said about really sad games before. What is extra infuriating about this game is that:

1.) It’s actually based on a good movie. Most aren’t.

2.) The movie’s fight scenes are breathtaking. The movie literally has done everything for you. All you have to do is take a super entertaining movie fight to watch and add buttons.

I mean.. HOW can you fuck this up?? They’re like three back drops in the entire game.And yes I understand that a majority of the film takes place in the same area but is it so absurd to ask a room full of writers – whom I would have assumed enjoyed the movie (before I played the game) to use their stupid imaginations and get creative with the game’s plot??

Instead of playing the same exact three areas with three different characters like nine times maybe we could branch out a bit? Like say I don’t know – make the game about Jen’s eventual trek to Mount Wudang? Boom. There ya go, guys! Make a game about that. Fucking idiots.

But fine – say they had to follow the film to a tee. That’s fine to. Just do a better job at it. When the game begins it doesn’t introduce anyone – or anything. It assumes you already saw the movie and thrusts you into a hoard of stupid AI ninjas that constantly swarm and overbear you because the controls are fucking impossible.

Even when you do somehow learn how to defend yourself and awkwardly jump from wall to wall – none of it is remotely fun. I spent hours with this game and aside from mounting frustration I felt absolutely nothing at all. I’ve had more fun sitting at the DMV next to crying children.

In fact this game was so bad – I have felt nothing since. It has taken all of my abilities to feel anything away. Maybe it’s for the better.

SHOP TIL YOU DROP

If a general overwhelming sense of sadness isn’t quite your enough then fear not! Like most things the internet also has overpriced copies of the game – the perfect way to find yourself on that long road to financial ruin completing your self loathing sadism.

But really- the game can be found at bargain bin prices – around $3-5. The insane part to me, however is the DVD of the movie itself can be found even cheaper! Which is a crime against humanity.

If you absolutely must – I suggest buying the DVD of this film and holding a game controller while you watch it.

DESERT ISLAND SONG

PERIWINKLE’S LOWING HANGING FRUIT PUNCH INGREDIENTS

1.) A small chunk of fur from Parka (Cold Winter)

2.) A thimble of Jack Bauer’s sweat (24: The Game)

3.) A can of Reservoir Dog Food (Reservoir Dogs)

4.) A handlebar mustache (American Chopper)

5.) Blood of a Backstreet Boy (American Idol)

6.) An impossible to control Q-Tip (CSI)

7.) The tooth of a terrorist (Fugitive Hunter)

8.) One Mona Lisa Smile (The Davinci Code)

9.) One Copy of, “Night Rocker” by The Hoff (City Crisis)

10.) One blood stained trucker hat. (Silent Hill: Origins)

11.) One handful of crushed Peony petals (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)

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It’s Impossible! … Not To Have Fun! Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair Review

Konichi-what a satisfying feeling, to treat yourself to a game for your birthday and have it be as good as The Impossible Lair is to me! For those who read my rambling and store them in their head a bit , it might not come as a surprise but one of my favourite Platforming franchises of all times was Donkey Kong Country.  I adored those games. So the Sequel to the already amazing Yooka Laylee came out.. and it would mimic the classic Donkey Kong Country games rather than the Banjo Kazooie franchise. I was more than hyped to play this. I figured content would be a bit lacking though so I bided my time to find a good sale.. I sure as heck got my money’s worth now!

Don’t Worry BEE Happy

The Impossible Lair is the second Yooka Laylee game by Playtonics Games, published by team 17.  It enjoys moderate success on Meta-Critic with about a 7.7 user score consistent out of 78 positive reviews, 17 negative ones and 9 mixed ones. I’d say the grade is slightly low.. but that is because this game comes with a bit of a warning and unique concept.  The game has a self imposed style difficulty level, with a rather steep drop in the deep at the end.  It is a game without difficulty settings but instead, you as the player are more or less free to determine your own difficulty level. This however.. does not apply for the final level.. which is a very harsh stage. One life.. and if you lose.. you get booted out of the level.. and since it’s a 30 minute level… it isn’t easy!  Lots of people do not like this system and think the last level is unfair.. but I honestly don’t believe it is. It’s a very natural evolution of the old school difficulty system that blends in perfectly with the ban on traditional stock of lives. Most people play this game the wrong way I think.. and I might have found the perfect way to do it!

The entire concept of this game is that the final stage of the game is also the very first stage of the game. A small story tells you how Capital B, the franchise enemy uses a device called the Hivemind to control all the bees in the world. This leads the queen of the Stingdom to be overpowered and her precious shield gets stolen. Yooka and Laylee but in the fight and get to play the Impossible Lair stage from the beginning. In theory.. you can beat this game  in about half an hour.. if you are a god tier gamer..  there even is an achievement tied to it.. YET people think.. because there is an achievement for it.. it should be doable.. but this game takes a different approach.. it shows you through the achievement it is near impossible to do this. Like.. offering a money fee to people who can hack into your new security system.. it’s not like you want to hand out that price.. you are confident that your thing is impossible to crack!

This rubs a lot of people the wrong way with this game.. but I , who was born without the ability to give any fudges about prestige like things such as achievements or victories over others.. and is just here for the fun,  love this idea. Based on what type of gamer you are you can immediately see if pursuing “platinum” is something you can do.. and I can not!  .. But I am getting a bit of track here! Once you die in the first stage you get booted out and the overworld opens up.. here you can travel to twenty five-ish chapters by exploring the overworld and exploring the stages.  Using T.W.IT. Coins you find in stages and beating special stages you unlock more and more areas in the overworld and learn more about the game.  Inside the stages  you try to make it to the end and free.. one of the 48 beettalion bees. Why? because they become your hit points for tackling that final stage! Man I love that concept!

To BEEt or not to BEEt that is the question

Yes I know I spelled that wrong

Here is how most people tackle this game.. okay so I need to free all the bees.. and then go tackle the final stage.  Most negative comments I’ve seen are of people trying to rush things. Just beat all the stages and gather the bare minimum of T.W.IT. Coins to go through the final stage without any disadvantages or advantages.. This however is the WRONG way to go about that.  The game technically is fairly hard.. though with infinite lives all stages are beatable.. so many people delude themselves that just by beating the game you are good enough for that final stage.. then they plunge into a half hour gauntlet of grueling challenges completely unprepared for what is to come. Most negative reviews say “I was having a lot of fun with this game, then I reached the final stage and could not beat it.. what a fricked up game 0 out of 10… Well first of all if you have 90% fun… just don’t like the last stage.. it is NOT a 0 out of 10 game. This game makes it fairly clear it’s not about beating it. In fact I would have been perfectly content with getting across the finish and just enjoy playing in some very fun stages. See how far you get!

Yet I think if these people played the game the way I play it.. they would have had a lot more fun!  You see.. beating an area , instead of going to the next one first I take a crack at the Impossible Lair first.. to see how far my current Beetalion will get me!   Usually that isn’t very far.. because the final stage REALLY is hard.. but this means I slowly make my way through sections of the stage.. getting a feel for the layout of the place. If I get tripped up by a section with a lot of buzzsaws .. I then will make sure that I 100% complete a stage (as in find all T.W.I.T. Coins)  as a practice for that section.  I then move on to get the next batch of bees and repeat this process.  Yes I failed a few times in the last stage.. but this way I am not going in blind and in the end have to do a 30 minute stage blind. I notice I am keeping my bees with me for longer as I go as well. But here is the truth.. YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE… just like retro games gave you a game over resetting all progress.. this game mimics that by just yeeting you out the final stage without checkpoints. You get good by losing.. not by beating stages.  That’s how these games always worked.. Now there is just a lot of stuff built in to have fun with.. without beating the final stage.

BEE a Hunter

The story in this game is practically non-existent ,  an evil guy causes trouble. .you have to travel to his castle to beat his ass… and that is exactly why I love this game so much. Never did I feel compelled that I needed to see the ending, it’s just a part of the skeleton that can help you have fun.. but even if you miss a single bone  somewhere.. you can probably still have fun! Finishing this game is a cherry on top of a sundae.. or for me.. a chocolate pudding as I don’t like Ice Cream.  It’s not the ULTIMATE goal needed to enjoy the game. There is so much to do that can give you satisfaction.. beat all the  48 regular stages! Find all the tonics in the overworld.. solve all the pagie challenges. Open all the Paywalls (These are the names for checkpoints you open with the T.W.I.T.  coin resource).  There is cute dialogue from familiar and unfamiliar NPC the overworld is colourful and creative and allows you to use all your platforming skills in a 3d setting.. almost in a zelda-esque way.  There is so much to do!  This is a 12-ish hour platform game and that is a lot for the genre!

Tonics make your life easier or harder.. you find them hidden in the overworld, once found you unlock them with feathers, you can carry three at the same  time and these provide modifiers to the game world, some make your life easier.. for example I used the “do not lose T.W.I.T. coins after death”  one.. This one makes sure I keep my coins even if I do not bring them to a checkpoint in time! This means I can leap to my death to obtain some of these.. saving me a lot of frustration. This does mean however that the feathers I collect at the end of the stage get reduced.. to compensate for that I use a tonic that sticks googly eyes on the enemy making them look more cute.. but gives them two hit points instead of one! Which increases my feather count.  Then I use a tonic that makes Laylee the bat.. more tranquil..
In this game you start with two hitpoints. In phase one you have Laylee riding on Yooka but once you take a hit she begins to panic and flap about.. if you can  collect her before you take another hit or you are fine you regenerate that hitpoint.. if she flies away.. your can not be hit anymore or suffer your demise.  So having her more stable allowed me to try some zanier stunts. There are a lot of fun modifiers, such as inverted controls for more feathers, more invisibility frames for less feathers and lots and lots of visual modifiers for no other reason than just to have fun!

“But wait A minute Pinkie.. did you not just say there were 48 bees to collect.. but only 25 chapters.. how does that work”… well my sharp eyed friend.. or people pretending to be clever to the insight I just provided…  Most stages have two varients.  You can unlock a second mode by interaction with the overworld. For example a book on a pond might indicate a stage featuring lots of water elements but by eating an ice fruit and having Yooka spit it at the stage portal.. that same stage is suddenly frozen solid.. which completely alters the stage layout and path.  These alternate stages are very fun and it’s always a surprise to see what happens. There is a stage where the book gets covered in sticky honey suddenly turning a horizontal stage into a vertical stage. There is also a certain book you can read the wrong way.. suddenly you have to backtrack this level.. chased by deadly lasers.. but since there is so little time.. you more or less travel atop of the first stage.  Think of these as the reversed levels of Yoshi’s crafted world.. but done a lot better. It’s not just beating the stage that is a challenge.. it’s also finding a way to unlock the counterpart in the overworld that is a delight.

Finally there are the Pagie challenges, the collectable/Jiggy variant from the first game is back in this game.. not to be collected by you but to use that power you unlocked before in your favour.. but you have to prove your worth to them. The challenge is simple .. beat all the enemies in a single screen without dying and the pagies will reshape the overworld. Allowing you to find more tonics, unlock more alternate stages, get more hit points for the final stage.. or even just find hint signs that provide you with clues where to find a particular type of treasure. Most of the time you can choose what you want to focus on to make progress.  You will need to collect some coins in the stages to get past paywalls in the next areas but I never had too much trouble getting enough of those things without straining myself or feeling I was forced to do this. Even if i did .. feel like “I really should get extra coins in this stage” I either made it training for the final stage OR I decided to reward myself with a vanity tonic and would use my hunt for the coins to reward myself with vanity! It’s super fun and motivating that way.. everything just reinforces each other.

This might STING a bit

Is this a perfect game? No!… Yet in sale I only payed like 10 euro for it and King Coconut and the Shy Coconut helped the blog get some funds for reviewing projects like those..as well as the Buddy Coconut.. so I was super content.  I do have a hand full of grips with the game though. First of all I find the music slightly forgettable.. I love the overworld team and for good reason. It’s Grant Kirkhope. It is fantastic. He made music for both the original and for Banjo Kazooie and it has that distinct feel.  He doesn’t do stuff for the 2d stages and that is okay.. because his style fits the overworld more.. that feels a bit Banjo-esque.. The 2d stages feel like Donkey Kong.. and two people where put  in charge of this Matt Griffin, who does a very good job at capturing that DK spirit but making it feel original and  David Wise.. who makes every stage he designs the soundtrack off sound like that Royalty Free Ukulele music that is everywhere on YouTube… Can you guess which one is the one I consider a downside?! A few stages in and you can really tell who is who and that kind of irked me a bit.  On the one hand we hear how good the music can be.. on the other hand we see what I as an anime fan would call.. musical filler episodes. Blegh! Luckily half of the music is still good!

The second issue I have with the game is it’s level design.. well that is the wrong worth.. the level “assets” and esthetics.  While it is nice that zones are themed we do not get that many themes and it all has this really familiar aspect. The buildings in the desert world look different from the ones in the forest world.. but it feels more like a skin change than an actual change in the assets.. The best way to describe this is.. that everything in the background feels a bit “Little Big Planet ” You know that game with sackboy! There are loads of assets to make your creation look unique but it is all tied to a very similar style. So a tree house looks the same like a cactus house.. the cactus house just has .. hacienda style wallpaper.  It makes the stages a little less exciting than the original game or it’s big inspiration Donkey Kong.  There we have a volcano world, a theme park world.. a swamp world (Okay that is the second Donkey Kong but it’s just so good)  and here.. you’d get.. a Roller Coaster going to the same forest assets.. some hue shifted wood textures to make it look a bit darker.. to signify we are in the swamp.. maybe there is a pool of water.. but all in all I always kind of keep expecting sackboy to come stumbling through. The stage challenges and level design as in.. how to get from A to B is fantastic though. The set dressing is a bit stock.

The final gripe I have with this game is the tiniest one.  There is not enough interaction with NPC’s .. mostly from Laylee.. I loved how bold she was in the last game. While I do get that there is less dialogue in a 2d platform game, plenty of elements in the overworld and sometimes even in the stages talk to you through a small text balloon. It would have been funny to give Laylee a bit more flavour and would make everything pop.  If a Pumpkin tell “hey you are not support to be here” .. it would be fun  to say Laylee tell it to shut up or  she will eat squash tonight..or even give her some 4th wall breaking humor.. that once you encounter the living fans in the overworld Laylee would comment, they are really running out of ideas.  Simple stuff like that could help the game pack that Yooka Laylee flavour a bit more.  THe rest is there.. but the two main characters don’t shine as brightly as I would.

BEE Plus

Time for me to score this game! It is tricky to do this for everyone else so do take note that this is just for me personally. I do think fun, challenge level and time needed are all self imposed. What do you define as beating the game, what do you think is fun to do within the confines of this game?! I really like this.. it has that shovel knight.. feeling of picking your difficulty, there are plenty of ways to make it easy.. there are plenty of ways to make it hard.  Neither should be a gripe as you can choose not to use it.  I will admit that the plunge into the final stage is a bit too steep and I would not call the final stage a great success. It might have been better if you had a few sub tiers and chose to continue  at the last checkpoint with the amount of bees you had left when you got there -1 for each try or go back to the beginning if you lost too many bees in that segment.  Had they done that I would have been perfectly content with this game despite it’s minor flas like generic music from Mister Wise.. and a lack of unique polish here and there. Controls are tight..graphics are fine and in sale it is super affordable.

Now I do have to conclude that not everything in the game is as fun as it can be. Honestly if I have to give advice to people who liked the Donkey Kong Country games.. I’d say the best way to play this game is to pick it up on sale.. play the stages until you had your fill.. try the impossible lair and if you did not reach the 50-70% marker (depending on how many of the bees you got)  and just end it right there! Quit while you had fun, this is a game to have fun with not one I’d say you really need to beat. It’s a neat achievement to check off your list but there is no big epic ending you would need to do it for. It’s the classical video game ending with a story wrap up.. in the vein of those classics.

There is no deep lore you will miss. No secrets that will be needed to play the third game if there ever will be one.. which I would hope mixes the two playstyles.  This is a game to have fun with.. and the game knows it!You can literally put glittery effects when you defeat an enemy, or put googly eyes on an enemy to make them cuter.. sometimes those eyes are on their bumholes! Teehee! Cinematic filters, Dramatic Sepia.. tonics that make you have to play this game like a bat.. Everything screams that this is just a game to have fun with and that’s what I did ! Strawberries all around!

I tribute summon this Retro Review: Yu-Gi-Oh Stairway to the Destined Duel

I like older games! So I write a lot about older games! The game I am replaying today is one of those games, you just sink so many hours into.  I truly adored this game when I was a little Pinkie, nothing made me happier than just wailing endlessly on Mokuba with my Slate Warrior and Harpie’s Brother! Which now is named Sky Scout! Yu-gi-oh changed..so has my perception of this game? Let’s find out!

Back to Battle City

Stairway to the destined duel is a Gameboy Advanced only game that came it mid April 2003 around the world. In this game you play a nameless protagonist without any sprite of their own.. as you see through their eyes in a visual novel esque way. You  travel across Battle City to defeat duellists and compete in tournaments hidden all over the map. Each day of the week you can travel a bit, and interact with one location. Each duellist you have beaten gives you a choice of a card pack to improve your deck with.These opponents usually are the series staples such as Yugi, Joey and Kaiba. Of course there is also a number  the famous opponents such as Rex Raptor, Weevil Underwood and Mako Tsunami. In total the roster contains 23 opponents you can face and everyone of them uses their themed decks.. which gradually improve like yours as time goes on. Your goal is to find and duel all five Ghouls before having a showdown with Marik for the faith of the world.. but there is so much more to do.

Unlike the story driven GBA games  “The Sacred Cards”  and “Reshef of Destruction” there isn’t much plot to follow. By winning duels and by being  at certain spots on the map in particular days you unlock stuff. New duelists become available if you win or lose against opponents or get specific cards, Rare Hunters, show up at certain days in certain areas. It is all very random and casual. You pick this game up , not because you want to complete it or rush to the ending you pick it up because you want to play a few duels. It should be noted that this is in the classic Yu-Gi-Oh erra. When I say classic I do mean classic. This game doesn’t go much further than the Labyrinth of Nightmare Booster packs which was only the fifth ever series of booster packs ever to be released. It was really the age of the anime and as such I think it works better if you see this as an anime game than a yu-gi-oh tcg game. At least nowadays there are plenty of “more expansive” games to collect cards in. While the options feel quite limited today I must say some elements really pleased me. More so than some later instalments of the series. 

It’s time to D-D-D-Duel

What makes this game stand out is how fast it actually plays. With only 1000 trading cards and effect monsters , and your extra deck being limited to fusions thi game has to make very little checks! It shows.. these duels are paced so nicely! Coming of Reverse of Arcadia, on of the alleged best Yu-Gi-Oh games I must say that dueling in this classic game feels so much snappier. The quick play spells or constant monster effects are sparing so we do not get that “AI”  lag later games have to reveal that they have something activatable on their field or in their hand. Later games have this prompt you press to skip activation points for a certain card. For example the spell card Rush Recklessly can be activated anywhere in a battle. Mystical Space Typhoon is a quick play spell and Solemn Judgment can negate any cardplay. When you know a bit about the card game you can tell when a trap card is not going to be something scary like “Mirror Force”  if your opponent stalls.  While the player can skip triggers.. the AI can not and you see it think to activate a card.  It can result in matches feeling very stally!  So pacing wise..with maybe an exception for Legacy of the Duelist, this is the game to play.

The story based games often also have save points while in this game you can just pick up your GBA,  play two matches while you wait for your pizza to come out the oven and put it away. This is what I loved so much about the game and this is why to this day I love it so much still. There is a simplicity to it that Duel Links used to emulate, but in a much more greedy money hungry way. If you want a good and nice old classic deck..You just have to pick it up and play! Within a minute after booting  the game up you are already in the first turn of your duel and can play some nostalgic matches and little by little improve your deck! All duellist differ enough from each other to also play for a bit longer if you say prefer but the monotone basic graphics might make that a bit of an underwhelming experience in the long run. Dealers choice though! With just 1000 cards to collect this is also THE Yu-gi-oh game to start with when your new to the game. Yes you mis Xyz summons, yes they haven’t heard of synchro’s and hell no there aren’t any pendulum or link summons.. so there is still more to learn.. but this game off all the Yu-gi-oh games I think is best equipped to teach you the core mechanics in a very easy way. I had no rulebook but I learned to play Yu-Gi-Oh just from this game alone bu looking at all the visual clues and text you can get far. 

Obviously knowing how to play will let you get further. For example the character Mokuba is unlocked by losing five duels. Tiny Pinkie unlocked him right away , as she stumbled to learn the rules she took quite a few losses. Nowadays Pinkie however has much more insight in how to play cleverly. Sending Dark Magician to the graveyard seemed bad when I was young.. but now with Premature Burial in my deck and Monster Reborn, I rather have it in the grave than in my hand. Now I know with Change of Heart I can steal a monster.. but I should not just swing in with it because after one turn I lose control! I better use that stolen monster to tribute summon. I am only one Hunter or maybe two away from facing the “final boss”  and I have yet to unlock Mokuba in my current run. Which does bring me to the downsides of the game.

Trap Hole

This game was made in a time that people didn’t completely understand the whole mechanics behind Yu-Gi-oh yet! It was fairly new and there wasn’t t THAT much of a Meta. You played a deck because you thought it was cool and you made it work. Now people realise to keep their deck very small and utilize your graveyard. It isn’t bad to have monsters be in your graveyard. Combos like stealing a Maha Vailo (who has an effect to gain 500 attack when he is equipped with something)  with Snatch and Steal.. weren’t familiar yet.. but they are now!  As a result I find this run to be somewhat too easy. I only lost to Kaiba, Joey and Ishizu so far and have almost five victories on everyone so far. And that was upon my first writing this post Since my margins have increased a lot further. The Duelists do get stronger as time passes.. but I can’t help but feel they are meant to grow alongside you.. if you are already grown they do seem a bit amateurish. To be fair Joey, Yugi, Ishizu, Kaiba Odion, Pegasus  Bandit Keith and Meric.. heck even Tea for some reason can give a run for your money but if you understand how their deck works , which isn’t that hard..it is pretty easy to build in counters.

Tiny Pinkie for example used to love to play “The Bistro Butcher” which is a 1800 attack four star beater card, which meant you can summon it directly and in 2003 there weren’t a lot of higher beaters out there. It had an effect as well which was super cool! Butchers forces your opponent to draw two cards, which could lead to decking out! Deck destruction in the anime was always depicted as something really brutal and all, but giving them +2  is actually great for them. It’s like paying 1800 life points for Pot of Greed…which is still legal in this game as well., But while it dealt massive damage it also boosted my opponents hand. Now that I know to avoid it and play seven coloured fish instead I take almost to little of a beating. It doesn’t mean I flawlessly win all the time (though my deck is approaching that point)  but yeah.. I know how to play Yu-gi-oh and getting a pack with a chance of good cards after every match is quite a lot like the easy mode. Later games like Reverse of Arcadia. give you money from which you can buy packs! I have a lot of trouble beating that game! Mostly because of the plethora of useless cards to pull with a more finite resource!

I am not sure if I want to call the card reward a negative though.. it does mean I can really see my deck get better after a particularly lucky duel and that made me a lot happier than the lucky draws in later games ever did. It makes the game easier.. but now each duel feels so much more rewarding..So I will keep this as a pick your poison. If you want a challenge you are better of elsewhere! If you want to have fun with deck building and feel like a bad-ass for whooping Kaiba’s butt! This is your game! It is really rewarding for playing and I do really love that about this game! It lacks a bit of love in the translations though! There are a few weird dialogue lines, there are typo’s and Tea gives her sub Japanese name as they forgot to change it. I kinda chuckle at the these.. old retro games did this all the time and I am happy to see it on occasion! But if you want a sleek experience..Legacy of the Duelist once more is the better option. I find these flaws.. to give it some soul!

What IS a negative though is the huge amount of RNG. For example there is a contest called the target competition in which you are given two duelist you need to face and defeat.  All duelist randomly walk across the map like you and I am not  fully sure if everyone is there every day, but whether or not you find that specific guy  or not really depends on where you decide to stroll too. The same goes for the elimination tournament.. it will be held on Fridays on a “secret” location If you aren’t on a space adjacent to a tournament on Thursday.. you can not compete. Not that winning tournaments does much anyway you just get a more “weighted” back with some chance to find rare cards. Yet again this reward is RNG. I was lucky to get a Jinzo very early on which really made dueling easier and I really want to use it against Odion just for a laugh! Yet the rare hunters that show up..start on random days and the one you do encounter is… you guessed it RANDOM! This is forgivable since the game is basically made to just pick up and play but if you want to beat Meric and get it over with.. you really should know.. in this game you are playing with more RNG than anime version Joey Wheeler.

Like i said earlier the textures can be a bit boring as well. The overworld map is  fine but its just a map with some icons on it and your duel background is just a pyramid wall. Monster art is only visual on a basic attack animation and cards are just represent as rectangles in their colour with a black square. This can make it easy to not notice a monster has been tributed and you attack into a to powerful monster or you  swap your monsters and thought Battle Ox was left and Giant Rat was on the right.. while in truth it was the opposite and you see your Rat kamikaze against Alligator Sword by accident. Again though I am not really sure if I mind I like having  to check the field and be on my guard.. it keeps my head in the duel. In Legacy of the duelist where you can see every monster crystal clear it is easy to check your messages in between an opponent thinking if it should activate Rush Recklessly on your draw phase but here.. if I look away and miss Mako tributing his 700 attack point fish for a 2300 attack ocean monster and attack into it.. it could lose me a duel. The lack of animations can get kinda boring but it also keeps the pace of the game up. This game is my favourite paced yu-gi-oh of the all.. so I am not sure if I would trade that away. As long as I keep playing this game in short bursts this is fine!

King of Games

All in all I do not think Stairway to the destined duel has aged all that poorly!  It is not a game you’ll want to play to play some modern yu-gi-oh.. but I am going to be honest here.. modern day Yu-Gi-oh is not fun to play anymore anyway. One Turn Kill Decks,  Turns that last half an hour due to all sorts of activations and combos, flooding the field in a single turn.. it has turned Yu-Gi-Oh away from a battle field where people deal blows each turn.. to people tossing stuff on the board and them making it go boom in a single turn maybe two. This to me is the Yu-Gi-Oh i like to play.. a style that would linger up until the early synchro days.
This is nothing to the actual trading card game.. but this plays pretty darn close to how the anime feels. If you want to feel like an anime character without having t o deal with stupid changing banlists, (I do not know why some games did that)  and take on the King of Games of old.. if you want to learn how Yugioh works.. this is still my highest recommendation! Jus run Seven Coloured fish over The Bistro Butcher!

It is intuitive, you keep oversight , characters look and act like themselves and there are a few hilarious glitches and exploits to take advantage of! Tea introducing herself with her japanese name but after that going back to Tea.. using cards to break the return to owner effect of Change of heart .. and other fun stuff is there for you to try.This is one of those games that might be to easy but you can just play with a more gimmicky deck! There is a lot of fun to be had with this old cartridge and I will be playing it on and off for a while I think!
I will go play a few matches and play my own Blue Eyes White Dragon! Let’s go WHITE LIGTHNING ATTACK!

Do note that this review is from a very specific standpoint! There are plenty of reasons why this game could score much much lower. For what this is however, being a callback to the purest and classic Yu-gi-oh , with a retro feel to match I do very much stand by my view! What is your favourite Yu-Gi-Oh game?! Have you even played any?! I am considering buying Legacy of the Duelist for Switc and reviewing that for you was well. Want to see that happen than please consider supporting my Kofi page!