Forum - View topicGAME: Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection Game Review
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LinkTSwordmaster
 Posts: 604 Location: PA / USA |
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My thoughts on this as a pretty solid Yugioh fan is that the review is almost spot-on, but I'd elaborate and add that buying this collection is largely ONLY worth it if you are a fan of the early Yugi, Joey, and Kaiba era of the series - more for narrative purposes than gameplay purposes. It's neat seeing the various styles of gameplay like Capsule, Dungeon Dice, or Sacred Cards, but if you're not specifically invested into the darker tone and the general worldbuilding of older Yugioh, if you're really only here to play the card game you know, then Master Duel is going to be the better pick for the gameplay, and Duel Links is going to be a better pick for the sheer roster of characters.
The Early Days Collection is a good first step to hopefully seeing a Playstation and PSP series of games released later - similar to what Konami did with Castlevania, but be warned that one of the top-superior titles in the Collection is only in Japanese, and not every title has been given online multiplayer - I'd even been hearing there was some desync problems for the title that can be played online. Konami has a VERY bad track record -especially when it comes to Yugioh games- of dropped post-launch support like a hot sack of shite, and the worry is that we're never going to see each title in the Collection get its polish it deserves by the end of this thing's life cycle. So with that said, if you can catch it on a sale and you're into the vibe, this is a very cool package for fans and I hope they do more, but it's imperative that before buying, you're aware that there's some hidden pitfalls, and we don't know yet if some benevolent individual is going to come along and remove them. |
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FireChick
 Subscriber Posts: 2561 Location: United States |
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I used to be OBSESSED with Yu-Gi-Oh as a kid, but stopped after the Orichalchos arc. I did own a few of the GBA games, Sacred Cards and Reshef being two of them. Man, Reshef by itself is insanely hard. I'm glad the Early Days Collection gives you the option to max out your duelist level and give you access to every card ever, mitigating the difficulty somewhat. I've already put a little over 20 hours in the collection in general, so I've really been enjoying this.
Now if only Nintendo/GameFreak would do this for the Pokemon GB/GBA games. I'd buy that in a heartbeat. Seriously, if Konami can do this for their early Yu-Gi-Oh games, what's stopping Nintendo and GameFreak from doing the same? They'd literally print money! |
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EmeraldSaucer
 Posts: 105 |
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The likely answer is that they can make plenty of money doling out individual releases of the games every once in a while, no reason for them to bunch them all together and lose out on all that potential cash But as for this collection, it's definitely a bundle of mostly bad games. Will echo that I will happily jump on a Tag Force collection immediately whenever it comes out |
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BalmungHHQ
Posts: 500 |
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My favorite aspect of the collection is honestly just the fact that the earlier games on it are a true snapshot of a different time where what Yu-Gi-Oh! was and what it represented is completely different than what it eventually became just a few years later.
Games like the first Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters came out before the Duelist Kingdom arc in the manga even finished, and before Konami's real-life card game launched. It wasn't just the manga, but this game in particular that helped shape the ruleset and card pool in the earliest years of the OCG when it would launch a few months later. Furthermore, characters that would later become erased/ignored after YGO's brand identity shifted still had a presence in some of these games, with characters like The Ventriloquist making an appearance in the first two DM games because they came out before the 2000's anime adaptation erased his existence. Games like Monster Capsule GB are an especially fascinating piece of history because the structure of the game is based on a combination of the Capsule Monsters game (from the early Mokuba chapters) and the Monster World arc (where Bakura debuted) from the early manga pre-Duelist Kingdom, with a storyline that is borderline fan-fiction with spoiler[the Spirit of the Millennium Ring taking possession of Kaiba, still catatonic after Death-T, and using his body to go after Yugi again.] Some of these games and ideas are things that can only exist at the specific time in history they were made, when the original manga was still on-going each week in Jump. Duel Monsters 2 featured an appearance of Ishizu before she debuted in the manga. Her design and personality are slightly different, and one can only wonder what limited information Kazuki Takahashi gave to the game staff about this character since he hadn't properly written her into his story yet. (It feels pretty clear that these video game creators were desperate to get to exclusively debut Millennium Item holders before their manga appearance.) Plus Simon Muran... Oh Simon Muran. A character that is the true icon of this era of early Yu-Gi-Oh! and the culmination of the video game team being given a rough character concept years ahead of time, and running with him as their own character they could do whatever they wanted with. Is he a character from ancient Egypt, or does he live in present time? Is he the young Egyptian prince's attendant, or a hermit living in the mountains? Is his name Simon/Shimon or Paradox? Is he an early-game scrub with the weakest cards, or an end-game secret boss with some of the best? Is his skin blue or not blue?! The answer is yes. Yes to every question. For what a prevalent character he was in the era, it's kind of a shame that his canon manga counterpart who ultimately debuted toward the end of the story wasn't really anything special. Anyway, I understand if not everyone has the same eye for this collection as I do. But for anyone who cares about Yu-Gi-Oh!'s history at all, and seeing with your own eyes how the series got shaped from a Shonen Jump manga into what it eventually became, having these old Game Boy games (many of them available in English for the first time ever) in one collection is an absolutely amazing privilege. As long as you understand what it is you're buying, it's something I can't help but recommend. (... Now let's just hope they fix the save bug in DM1 that makes it impossible to reach the secret boss, Yami Yugi.  )
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6492 |
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Well necessity would be one reason. Logistics another. And when as mentioned they can simply rerelease every title individually on the Switch especially when not everyone has the kind of time to play through multiple text heavy games in a big ass collection. |
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psh_fun
 Posts: 123 |
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I remember hating a lot of the early games like Forbidden Memories because they made no sense and were just completely awful. I think I started liking the games with stuff like WC2007. The Tag Force games are my favorite though since I always loved the concept of tag duels and it was like a mini-VN when you could pick your partner and build up a story/relationship with them. I like the GX era of games the most like Duel Academy too.
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Nionel
 Posts: 441 Location: Nebraska |
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Man, I remember looking for a copy of Dark Duel Stories when it launched on the GBC. So much nostalgia in this collection and it including games that never released in the US is pretty cool.
I'd like to pick this up, but I think I'll grab it on my Switch for the portability. Should be fun to relive these games. |
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FishLion
 Posts: 376 |
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I remember the weird elemental weaknesses. They were pretty frustrating because you could do a ton of legwork getting something powerful on the field and something wth less than 1000 ATK would just wipe it out. I think it would have worked better if you got a power boost rather than saying even the smallest dude of one attribute could takeout the biggest of another. It was especially confusing beccause I played the game and was not expecting that sort of thing. Strange times for sure.
Glad they released a collection though, it's definitely a neat time capsule of history. |
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Tenbyakugon
 Posts: 803 Location: Ohio, United States |
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This review matches my feelings. A game I definitely want because this is from the time of Yu-Gi-Oh! that I appreciated and had all the games from, but only when it goes on sale. The demand for it isn’t immediate for me, but I am keeping an eye on the prices.
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Gem-Bug
 Posts: 1363 |
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I've been playing loose carts of a bunch of the GBA games for years now(Mostly Worldwide Edition and it's harder older brother, Duel Monsters 6). It's great that we got some of the games we never had, but I'm content just playing the ones I love in the manner than I am.
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Nyren
Posts: 724 |
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What I personally want is a collection containing Forbidden Memories, Duelist of the Roses, The Falsebound Kingdom, Dawn of Destiny, and Capsule Monster Colosseum. Those games shaped my childhood experience with Yu-Gi-Oh beyond the anime and TCG. Duelist of the Roses in particular is one I got back to quite frequently because it never stops being fun to replay. |
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