Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters

Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters is an awesome board game, but it just doesn?t fit on the Game Boy Advance.

As a board game, Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters is brilliant, the kind of intellectual diversion that kings in fantasy novels would play in high towers while they watch their armies clash on the battlefield below. The rules are complex (the manual is indispensable) but extraordinarily well thought out. The strategy is deep; and luck, skill, bluffing, and careful planning all play equal roles in determining your success.

But great board games do not necessarily make great video games?and Dungeon Dice Monsters is far more fit for the real world than the Game Boy Advance. Dueling against the CPU gets old fast since there?s no story mode to draw you along?just duel after duel after duel. And?in a move that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever?you cannot save your game mid-tournament, meaning you have to have an hour and a half (or so) of uninterrupted gaming time to devote to your GBA. It?s not as if there?s no battery in the cartridge?there is. Having no ?sleep? or ?field save? option is just baffling.

The graphics are very utilitarian, the only frills coming during the battle animations?and you?ll likely turn those off after your fourth game. The sound is purely 8-bit NES quality; in short, the music needs to die. The control interface, however, is quite inspired?especially on the ?dice selection? screen, which offers a very handy feature for automatically selecting the best dice to achieve your goal. Still, despite the deep design dwelling in the dungeon, this is only worth it if you have a friend with a link cable and an equal devotion to playing the game.

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