Tag: Yugi

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!


Pinkie Gets Anime Powers : YuGiOh

We all have done it, wonder how our life would be inside of an anime?! What powers we would get. How would we work in an anime world? The past few weeks I have been asking myself that questions a few times. With the world in its current situation I think it’s the perfect time to resort to this form of escapism once again as this time we travel to the world of Yu-Gi-Oh

Duelist:  Yuni “Pinkie”Cohn

Character Name:
Yuni Cohn
Duelist Name:
Pinkie
Age:
24, but she has silver hair though she is often seen as much older.
Role:
Main Character
Relationships:
Pegasus Niece
Quirks:
Converses with her cards, seems oblivious to what is real and what is not, keeps quoting cartoons and anime. Doesn’t like if people call her madam or “that older woman” Sweet Tooth.


Every Yugioh main character has got to have a name that begins with Yu. At least if you watch the sub…. I am looking at you Jaden!…. Since I bet I would sound much cuter in Japanese than I would sound in english.. a name starting with Yu it is. We use this series to introduce Yugioh back into the main world of the show.. and while we are at it.. let’s make this a legacy show! I believe we are very close to the 20th anniversary so let’s create a world that can highlight some of the shows greatest moments. In order to achieve this feeling we are going to combine the latest show with the first season of the classic show for maximum callback.

Set somewhere between GX and 5d’s ..but with all the newest  card rules intact. This anime fully takes place inside virtual reality. Using technology similar to  that off YuGiOh Vrains. Our story borrows a lot of concepts from Ready Player One. Pegasus is retiring having reached the age of 65 he has decided to pass his company Industrial Illusions on to he or she who can become the next king of games, Thus the story is set about 40 years after Season 1.Pegasus will entrust his company only to someone who can beat his “video game” Duelist Kingdom 2.0. A completely virtual world. In this game he created several “bosses” based on actual duelists of the old world.To challenge one you have to pay starchips which you can acquire from challenging other players.  If you defeat a boss, you gain a golden millenium item card. The first 8 who show up at the pharaoh’s tomb with all the 7 items can duel each other in the finals for a change to beat the true king of games. If you beat him…become Pegasus successor.

I based a game on my favorite book yu-gi-boy!.. Yep Defo can see Max do this sort of stuff.

Yuni lives with her adoptive family in poverty. Pegasus is her last known  surviving blood relative and all pleas for help to his address have so far been unsuccessful. Too poor to even own a deck, Yuni spends what little surplus money she has, on sweets. Her owner of her favorite sweet shop, and older lady named Ryndia one day invites her to share some tea with her. She explains that she has been invited to the tournament..but can’t. No one will look after the shop.. and her old bones would ache in the vr pod. She tells Yuni she knows she is Pegasus niece and offers her a chance to finally be acknowledged. Handing her her own personal deck as well. Yuni agrees.. thinking this could save her family and finally make her connect to blood, as she would enter the virtual world of Duelist Kingdom 2.0.

I did not feel like hours of photoshop today so instead we get a rough depiction of how she would look like more or less.

Taking the duelist handle of Pinkie in the virtual world, she is a bit of an odd girl. Unlike other YuGiOh characters she starts completely alone, so Yuni starts to talk to her cards and begins to develop a friendship with them. Giving them personality and voices in her head.
This way we can bond with the cards a lot more… which can help card sales.. it’s YuGiOh after all. Throughout the series we see Yuni develop her own “heart of the cards” ideal, where she relies on her friends to come through for her. As her bonds grow, she also begins to feel this world is more real.  Going into a bog to save a drowning animal, risking herself for holograms. However this often results in her finding new cards.. as if the world rewards her for caring. Her weird approach to this..makes her hard to befriend as people think of her as delusional.

The Deck: Madolche Archetype

The deck that Yuni would use would reflect her love for sweets and look cute. After all I have to stay on brand for my blog. Desu Nee? The archetype I have chosen to use is the one of Madolche. Which is a combination of both sweet and viable. It also works well because of Yuni’s belief that these cards are her friends and would never abandon her. Now this is not a tutorial on how to Madolche but it is an extremely powerful deck with One Turn Kill possibilities and insane combos. Madolches get send back to your deck instead of your graveyard when destroyed by your opponent and help each other be summoned or revived should you tribute them. They work together to banish the opponent’s field while striking with 5 or six of them combined (yes six is possible now if you follow master rules 4.0 … long story)


As in all my powers, there is a theme of love and friendship somewhere and I believe Madolche can produce the idea of this feeling. Of course for the anime this deck has to have a lot added to it to provide a new gimmick of the week…but hey by completing quests in the duelist kingdom or beat some holographic minibosses… like Weevil or Rex , Pinkie obtains new cards. So at least it will be way less male-cow-manure like than 5d’s or Zexal where cards magically poof into your hands. Pinkie’s signature monsters still would be the current deck aces. Madolche Queen Tiaramisu has the power to banish monsters from her opponent’s field. Pinkie would imagine her as a Tsundere or as she jokingly calls her Tsundessert. Her “bestie” would be Madolche Puddingcess Chocolat-A-La-Mode.. and if you think think that is a mouthful.. her card effect is almost longer than this post. She can use XYZ materials to summon friends though.

For those who do not know… and I assume that is just about everyone reading this XYZ cards are a special summon from your extra deck by stacking two or more of the same level monsters on top of each other. After summoning the player can than remove those stacks from the card to conjure up powerful effects.

Link summoning will also still be a thing for our heroine’s deck. Link summoning is like a complex form of tribute summoning..which do not have levels but ranks, (equal to the number of creatures used… or creatures used + any older rank card used) these blue cards have arrows and whatever the arrow is pointed at can be targeted for effects. During Master Rule 4.0 you can only have 1 special summoned monster active…BUT you can also special summon into zones your Link Monsters point at, which sounds way complexer than it is. However in the upcoming format that rule should go away. As this paragraph hopefully made clear.. it’s kinda hard to explain how such a deck would work..besides in YuGiOh we need the power of flexible rule interpretation anyway.

Screw the Rules , I have imagination!

As is custom in these YuGiOh series your main protagonist has to have some super powers. We have seen Yuma turn super saiyan to create new cards (like the character actual becomes blond and super powered) .. we see Yusei turn gold and launch his motorbike into space.. where he finds a new card and Playmaker literally can surf… (yes they surf in the newest yu-gi-oh)  into a storm to pick up a new card mid duel… like an item box in Mario Kart. I do not want something as stupid for Pinkie, it will only happen once and with reason, but more on that in the next paragraph. Pinkie just talks to her deck and she asks if a certain card can come out to play. We see a animation of her reaching for a card and then the right cute confectionary girl or critter takes her hand and the duel proceeds. It’s heart of the cards..but cast with love and friendship instead of hope or trust. 

New cards can be obtained at the end of an episode..but each yugioh series introduces a new form of Kuriboh as well. Kuriboh, Winged Kuriboh, Kuribbon, Kurainbow and others have been introduced to the show in various weird ways, or they have been used to cheat… a lot. Since Pinkie’s deck is sweets based her Kuriboh variant would be called Kuribonbon, which basically looks like a chocolat Kuriboh. By banishing it from your hand it can negate any chosen action of your opponent’s turn . (Negate an attack, negate a summon, negate a trap card activation, Negate a magic card etc, in trade your opponent can not gain any battle damage… but Kuribonbon can only be played on your opponent’s turn). She will find this card by eating some candies while dueling when suddenly one talks to her and turns into a card. She is dealing with a card cheater at the time so will use it still but later out tells it to never cheat again.

Nawww.. 5 minute photoshop well spend!

The Power of Harmony

Each new season has a new summon mechanic ..which she will all use..(except for maybe pendulums.. in which you set two level scale monsters in your spell and trap zone and than can summon EVERYTHING, that falls in between those level increments from your hand ..and even graveyard in certain conditions) as this will be a legacy show. Fusions, rituals, synchro, links, and xyz will all feature. I guess I will include pendulums as well or I would feel bad for them.. but just in an episode or two! Of course Yuni also needs a new summon mechanic of her her own. I chose for a technique I shall dub Harmony summons.

It is a technique that is quite like the classic fusions. Where you need a very specific combination of cards to tribute. Cards that harmonise with another.  For example this could be having Madolche Queen Tiramisu, Madolche Puddingcess and Madolche Puddingcess Chocolat A la Mode on the field and tribute them for Madolche Grande Dessert. (No idea how it would look yet) A bright red card (Pink is taken unfort) that functions as a sort of boss monster. All materials needed get placed under the card like overlay materials however instead of using them to trigger effects, sending one to the graveyard can prevent the monster from being destroyed or send back to the hand.. these are monsters you are going to need to hit multiple times.


Their effect at base is a useful combination or at least themed similar to the cards that are used to summon it, however their effects increase as their life cards are lessened. For example cards gain 300 attack per life card that got send to the graveyard, or per card send to the graveyard they can lock up an opponent’s spell or trap zone, maybe even a monster zone. When a Harmony monster is destroyed you take triple battle damage that turn. I think the concept of using boss monsters could really work well in YuGiOh, especially in the anime.  It’s a mechanic we do not have yet, while plenty of other card games do use this trope. Cardfight Vanguard and Pokémon amongst others.

Playing your cards well

All in all I think this could make for an interesting anime show, the risk of having a lonely protagonist could make battles stale, but of course we will occasionally see a battle of the rivals  some she will be rooting for others she won’t. Secondary characters oftenly exist to lose or function as an inferior to the protagonist. As a result a great many of these duels become throw-away and inconsequential. By focussing on Pinkie as a solidarity character we can focus on others when it’s their turn to shine.. the other characters have their own fight and should not be written in a way just to assist the main character. Sometimes path cross and we can harmonize.. cheer for each other to give each other strength to make it to the next battle..or we see how are battle styles do not match and how they would use the game for evil!

All in all I think this could be a solid concept for a very different YuGiOh show. Instead of focussing on some characters that aren’t going to make it far we focus on one girl and her cards, making those cards matter as well. In the virtual world we could bring back some homages as well, such as bringing back Deck Master duels, from that Noah Arc.. in the middle of the Battle city finals. We can young Kaiba functioning as one of the key holders.. while old Kaiba makes his return to finally own both Kaiba Corp and Industrial Illusions.We can  bring back other main characters from unconnected series simply as programmed bosses… “Master of this technique”or so and we have plenty of opportunity to make this show as long or short as we want depending on how many cards we want to introduce! So Konami if you are reading this…let’s talk! I am cheap!

If you want to talk more about anime powers, write me! Remember guys and gals I love you all! Keep smiling and stay positive!

XO
Pinkie

https://ko-fi.com/pinkiesparadise

Previously on Pinkie Gets Anime Powers:

My Stand
My Zanpakuto
My Digimon

Next time:

It’s time to D-D-D-Duel already? OWLS Tour: Visions

Welcome my sweet island guests. It’s time for me to spread my wings again and take you on a little flight tour. It’s gonna be a hoot! That’s right it’s another OWLS Tour. By now you have read the prompt plenty of times in other OWLS post plus it feels really wrong to wish you a happy new year this late in the year. I always wish you a happy life and happy days. Prompt or no prompt though in the month January we talk about visions. How is the future depicted in our favorite anime, manga, movie? How do we see ourselves in the future?

This is what the Otaku Warriors of Liberty and Self Respect discussed this month. To read more about them click on the cute owls cocktail! To me the future can be uncertain and waiting for it can feel keep quite bad . Perhaps something you really want is locked behind “the future”. In the future people might be more accepting of who you are. In the future I might get healthier. When we envision the future it always seems very far away. We might not live to see those moments we envision. It might be not for us. Yet one anime we all know is kind of becoming living proof that sometimes the future isn’t as far off as it may seem and it shows us we might have a big role to play in realising it.

Pegasus Wings

When we first saw Yu-Gi-Oh  appear in the early zero’s we never would have believed that we could ever play Yu-Gi-Oh like in that show Plenty of us thought ‘wouldn’t it be cool if one day we could duel like that?’ A lot of people still think do. What plenty of people do not realise is that that future is basically already here. I shall highlight a few technologies that we deemed impossible or stuff in the far far future but that is here already.I would like to begin where it all began.  The Duelist Kingdom.

Yes I know there is a season zero but that is something I choose to omit. When Maximillion Pegasus created the Duel Monsters card game it wasn’t much more than the tradable card game we see played in our own world championships. Just some guys playing cards. To earn more money… and  to gain all the millenium items in an evil plot … he had to make it a bit more spectacular. So the big holographic machines in the first season came to be. Back in 2001 this seemed like some star wars level of sci fi. Yet in 2017 a group of geeks like us . but waaaay smarter than me personally, managed to created some very impressive hologram table that basically puts Pegasus ones to shame.In fact one bigwig of Namco was so impressed that he joined the team to ready it for gaming purposes mostly for the arcade.Dragon Ball Heroes shows us we can already make cards interact with arcade cabinets very well. So already what seemed like it would be  ages away is right around the corner.

The theme of future being closer than we might think is present throughout the series as well. Virtually every Yu-gi-oh character grows up way faster, after an unforseen event . Yu-gi learns from a maturer version of himself, only to find out he surpasses him way faster than he would have thought. Yuki/Jaden has to merge with Yubel which makes him a much more mature character. Yusei had to grow up fast to survive in Satellite and we see Yuma grow from a bumbling fool into a hero that saves the world mere days after disovering Astral.  Yusaku lives roughly 10 years into our future, showing us that the noble creators have seen how close we are of having his world in reality. Yet also he was captured and shaped into a grown up faster than would have been normal. Yuya is the one I missed out on but he lost his father and had to step up….sooner than expected. Sometimes the future is closer than you think, for good OR for bad.

When we talk about the future we tend to envision it at a fixed point in time. We imagine where we will be in 10 years, we don’t imagine where we will be when we have a lucky windfall. Yet progress is like a snowball. The further it goes the larger it gets the faster it moves. This means that the future is often not 10 years away but only a series of discoveries. A chain of events once set in motion becoming a fast moving force. Whether you are waiting for your favorite trading card game to become reality or the acceptance of your subgroup becoming widespread. we do not need years..we need events and people starting the motions. While it may seem like a waiting game, in our own way we are the architects to the future.

Kaiba is real

Why are WE the architects of the future? Who is WE anyway? Well with we in this case I mean us geeks. I think geeks have a significant impact on the future. Wether we just buy 7 versions of Skyrim and support Todd coming up with new ways to play it, or if we actively imagine the idea of a star wars droid coming to live. All of us geeks do something on a nearly daily basis that is an absolute requirement to make the future happen faster. That key elements all geeks have in common is that we prefer to enter fantasy worlds on a daily basis. As such our imagination is significant larger than that of those who, let’s saysit in the gym everyday and binge Just Tattoo of Us. While normies contribute in their own way , I think in shaping the future we take a more crucial role. They however serve as the control that keeps us in check. To realise the future I think we need 3 sorts of people. We need a Yugi Muto,  we need a Maximillion Pegasus and we need a Seto Kaiba. 

(“Where’s Yugi Boy in this picture?” “Pinkie was to lazy to edit him in he is right below”)

For this comparison let’s take Battle City Dueling  as their future becoming real. Yugi serves the role as the believer of an idea, the one who fantasises, the “nerd” if you will. Yugi is like us. This is shown throughout the show as well, Yugi is being picked on, a telltale sign of being geeky unfortunately, or at the very least how we are depicted. Yet the spiky haired protagonist is also the one who believes in his cards. He sees them as his friends.He trusts them. Talks to them. Like I talk to my pokémon! In fact basically the entire world they live in is geeky. People would rather watch these complex duels than people trying to take a ball across a field.

Every single duelist practicing their pro sport has some sort of geeky hobby or connection. Weevil  collects bugs, rex collects fossils and is into archeology and stuff. Bones is crazy about zombies. Even the Bear Grylls of their world Mako Tsunami is heavily into the children’s card game. Every single duelist who has a connection to their deck is a geek in one shape way or form. Duelist Kingdom even shows this in Yugi’s style of thinking when he destroys the moon. That’s some video game logic style thinking right there. Troughout the entire world everyone is in love with the cards in their deck and has a connection to the fantastical creatures.. Let’s compare this one with star wars fan and also the writers who come up with the story
Then there is Joey and Tristan.,, not sure where they fit. .

(
Joey is a weird duelist, his deck is basicly gambling and stuff he took from other players…..I guess he is ad D&D geek)

Next we need the realist. Someone who  sees these people’s needs and gives them what they want….sort off. The people that give us the semblance of an idea we try to achieve. Pegasus fills this role in the yu-gi-oh world. He creates a card game that pleases everyone.  From a Chad that uses his machine cards to power trip. to a woman who lives out her sexual fantasies through her harpy cards. From the boy pretending to be an Esper to a tomb keeper of ancient egypt. No matter who you are, there is always a deck for you. You will have to spend a fortune on packs though. Pegasus showed that people that play this sport, want to live their fantasy and that there in fact is profit and glory to be had in making these fantasies as real as possible.

In the real world the game companies fill this function. With current technologies they want to provide something for people either to make a point or to gain a few bucks. The toy companies selling you a fake lightsaber so you can pretend to be a Jedi would also be in here. In a way even the OWLS are part of this category of people. We see xenophobia, alienation, exclusion towards people who don’t have to be shunned or degraded in any way. We see a world where we unite trough our fandoms and with what means we have right now we try to get the message out. Our blogs are the toys we can pretend with that the world is already a great place, we can offer an escape from the harsh reality that we aren’t there yet..
Even though Pegasus could not make his world’s shared fantasy fully real, nor can we reshape the world simply trough blogs and youtube, we inspire the risk taker, the visionaries, to go above and beyond.

(Such a fitting card.. either we crash and burn .. or we jump to the future!)

Kaiba is the final person we need to bring the future alive. We need a dreamer to come up with an idea, a realist to show this idea is not just a whim and a visionary to actually bring the future alive. Usually the visionary is at least in some shape way or form part of the dreamers as well. Most visionaries are at least somewhat geeky. Like Kaiba they have a love for that idea of the future as well. Kaiba is crazy enough to build a dueling system that works everywhere just because he is in love with the game so much he wants to be able to play it anywhere. Well that and to proof that he is the true king of games.

He loves his cards so much that he builds jet’s shaped like his favorite cards. He hosts tournaments so people can see other people duel and he even pays for a school that inspires people to choose a profession in the world of duel monsters. He doesn’t even own Industrial Illusion’s which make the cards. He just sells the hardware. Yet Kaiba Corp did not start out making what is effectively that world’s most popular console. It started as a weapons company led by his adoptive father. It took courage, bravery and a belief in a different future to make Battle City happen. He also had to scheme his father out of his market shares to make it possible. 

Our world has exactly that same type of visionairs. Maybe they are not as edgy as the rival of Yugi but who knows. Elon Musk might have long white trench coats with studs all across in his wardrobe. I bet he’d love to shape his drilling machines like his favorite kaiju or pokémon..with some luck he might one day even make a Gurren. He might conference call with other car CEO’s when he works for Tesla and be like “I am gonna destroy you Audi’ and then people finally will realise I am the king of cars. I can totally see him making a jet for himself shaped like a dragon as well…or something else he really likes.  Back to my point, we have visionaries, Elon Musk is our Kaiba and we have other people like him. These people will take huge risks to bring the future of tomorrow into today but nearly all these visionaries are rather unpredictable so again.. the future may be just around the corner.

(Elon summons Blue Eyes without tribute because.. screw the rules… he has money)

Get your game on

Yu-gi-oh to me is a great metaphor for how close the future is. Plenty of season show us how the past, present and sometimes future are interwoven. We create our own future! Like how Atem was able to stop Zork. He was able to summon the egyptian gods because he had learned their names in the the future. So by simply imagining things we take huge steps in making them become real. For many transgender, the progress of physically becoming yourself might seem painstakingly slow and far away in the future but by simply knowing you signed up you already give of a signal to the world. I am ready! I need this. Doctors and Visionaries will see this and see more and more people desire to be their true self. This will allow our world’s Kaibas to invent new techniques, better techniques and allows our Maximillions (the plural thing on a surname and Pegasus is kinda tricky) to get who process more streamlined. Dare to take that step even if it seems to take ages! People get information and inspiration from your courage.

The same can be said for tolerance towards whatever niche you may belong to. Show that desire, show the wish and even if it is not you if plenty people wish together some visionary WILL stand up and bring the future sooner than you might expect. Yet be wary, do not splinter yourself off to much. Our voices must be heard and for that we must join together. Do not demand rights for you! Inspire courage towards your niche, towards your desire and do not fight alone. Do not ask for a pink lightsaber that hums like the darksaber, while a regular lightsaber hasn’t even been invented yet.  In Yu-gi-oh you will have to optimise your hand, you can not go for an Exodia Strategy if you don’t have enough card drawing power. Win some games first to get the proper cards and THEN go for the endgame. We can skim of years but not ages. If we ask for to much our visionary will not arrived and the future will just stay the future. 

(The future is within our reach, the future of the futre is never in reach)

Let’s compare two Yu-gi-oh seasons that are very close to each other for example. Yu-gi-oh 5d’s and Yu-gi-oh Zexal. Say we wish one of them should become real, we still have to wish Zexal becomes real first, no matter how much we would like to play a children’s card game on motorcycles. Yuma’s duel disk comes with special glasses that show him the holograms.  Basically Yuma’s Yu-Gi-Oh already exists in the form of augmented reality. The graphics aren’t good enough and the computers are just not strong enough to create the full effect. However this is a matter of years. In fact if we look back at that VR-Table I posted above.. it’s possible now most likely.. just not economically viable. We just need the tiniest push and we are in the realm of Zexal (minus the magic eyes and weird energy sources). Yu-gi-oh can happen now! Yet we can’t really expect the technology to be fitted in vehicles yet, let alone to gain a city that will reroute all traffic because people are playing a card game (okay the worldbuilding of 5d’s might be somewhat bad).

The future seems far away at times but it is our imagination what draws it in closer. Our imagination drives others, or even ourselves to invent stuff like it. A lot of Star Trek things, people would never expect to be real yet most off the ‘secondary’ technology has become real. We have view screens, we have  virtual reality close to their holodeck, we can 3d print objects, we can communicate like them etc. With Yu-Gi-Oh we already can duel in virtual reality like Playmaker does in Vrains, although we REALLY need to debug it still. In fairness those who made it didn’t make it officially so there is that..It’s kind of a mod-like thing so imagine what an official product could do. We can kinda duel like Yuma in augmented reality as well. Sure there is no duel disk yet that shoots computer driven  hologram-projecting robot, so there is still some way to go but that is a rather negative angle. The vision is becoming more and more real. Things do actually change! We are improving, we are ready to duel! However ..like in any dystopian sci-fi vision of the future we also always want to much.

When envisioning the future it’s never bad to think big, to look very far ahead but is also not very satisfying. I could look at at those augmented reality games held at the world championships of yu-gi-oh and go like…. NOPE that is not the future yet. Yet when it will finally arrive I will be surprised and ill prepared.  I haven’t build a cool deck yet.. because that other stuff wasn’t worth it. I could also nod and smile as we move in the right direction. Start buying my Yu-gi-oh cards, because I know that it will come soon. I could have fun with the yanky vr simulations or the wooden augmented reality knowing I helped it grow.

I could focus on the intollerance I encounter, when flirting with other girls or when I say I do not want childeren or that I consider myself somewhat asexual and be like “jeez the future isn’t here yet I still feel unaccepted because there are still ignorant people.” Yet I could also feel happy because of the positive reactions I do get, the positive reaction Nikkietutorials  shows the world is becoming more and more tolerant. The latter is such more pleasant to do. While I DO look towards my desired future at the horizon, I also embrace everything that passes by. That way the future is not just a vision. It will be a journey!

Other OWL Posts (Click to visit to them)

Healing from the past – Megan – Nerd Rambles

Spiderverse – Matt- Matt in the Hat

Idolmaster Side M – Takuto – Takuto’s Anime Café

Visions of a Brighter Future – Aria – The Animanga Spellbook

Vision for a Better Tommorow- Naja- Blerdy Otome

The Vision of Escaflowne – Fred- Au Natural

BTS Music – Crimson – Cute Boys Central

Akira- Dale – That Baka Blog

Vision of Slice of Life Anime – Scott – Mechanical Anime Reviews
(article goes live on 29/01 Until then click here!)

Star Trek The Nex Generation – Matt – Matt Doyle Media
(article goes live on 31/01 Untill then click here)