Hmm, well, the #1 thing I have to say about the review would be that you reviewed the wrong game.
"Stairway to the Destined Duel" is the GBA game that came after "Eternal Duelist Soul". They are the best Yu-Gi-Oh games made to date (or so I've heard, but I haven't played all of them). But Stairway is like the
sequel to Eternal, and nobody should have to just jump into Stairway. Konami should really do more to illustrate that, but then again, they want people to stupidly buy games like "Dungeon Dice Monsters", "Dark Duel Stories", and "Duelists of the Roses". Of course, Nintendo never stopped anyone from picking up "Hey You Pikachu" when they could've gotten "Pokemon Yellow".
Anyways, "Eternal Duelist Soul" is a much better game for a beginner. Even one who's watched the anime a lot (since the anime often uses various "customized" rules, to put it mildly). The game starts you off with weak cards, and all your opponents have weak cards too, and you learn the basics that way. As you get better monsters you can add them to your deck. You get to see how they work, and you learn about them, one at a time. If you cheated, and just tossed a few Blue Eyes White Dragons into your deck at the start of the game (you can do that, with passwords), you would completely wreck the balance of your deck, and probably not be able to play those cards.
If you can, please put down Stairway and try to find Eternal. Play Eternal, and then go back to Stairway and do a follow-up review. Many little Yu-Gi-Oh fans will probably thank you for it.
Just a warning though. When Konami made Eternal, they focused entirely on the card game. Which is apparently why they got it right, and why people consider this to be one of the best Yu-Gi-Oh games. The complaints you had about stuff like "story presentation" are even more pronounced in this game (they were already Eternal complaints that Konami slightly addressed for Stairway). But the game being more playable will probably make up for them. I mean yeah, when someone pulls out a terrain modifier card, it doesn't look like much (brick background changes to something like sand), but you're more supposed to be awed by the devestating effect it can have on your well-laid plans.
Oh and, here's a little bit about the anime. I've heard Yu-Gi-Oh described as having part of the "Incredible Hulk effect", for adolescents. A little kid (Yugi Moto) gets possesed by the spirit of an ancient Egyptian Pharoah (known as "Yami Yugi", or "Dark Yugi") which was trapped inside a puzzle, who's a master gambler (or more precicely "King of Games"), and makes Yugi taller, stronger, oozing with confidence and power, and able to speak with an over-the-top elequence in a much lower voice.
In the anime world, the cards of the "Duel Monsters" game were recreated as vessels for the souls of giant monsters that once served people like the spirit of the puzzle. As a result, some duels are infused with magical powers.
So Yugi and his friends spend most of their time in tournaments, defending the world in ways they don't entirely understand, in over-the-top card matches where they end up drawing cards in combinations that are seemingly impossible.
At first I thought the anime was utter crap. Just a 30 minute advertisement to sell cards to kids. But a friend of mine told me that if I
really gave it a chance, it'd grow on me. It was on before DragonBall Z (in Canada), so I ended up watching it a fair bit. And it really did grow on me. Right now, I'd actually say it beats Pokemon and Digimon. And that's before you factor in that I'm kind of tired of those two. If you can appreciate the style and escalating power levels of a show like DBZ, then I'd say the Yu-Gi-Oh anime is a good match.
Topic: Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide: Stairway to the Destined Duel Review (Read 1537 times)
