Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Tournament 2004

The video-game version of the collectible card game still doesn?t get it quite right, but the card game is still fun.

As a collectible card game, Yu-Gi-Oh is a picture of elegance: well designed, fun, addictive, cool to look at, and more strategic than it really has any right to be. As a cartoon, well, it?s barely more than an ad for the card game. And as a Game Boy Advance video game, it?s essentially a way to participate in the YuGiOh! CCG phenomenon without spending a fortune?one $30 cartridge buys 1100 cards, free digital booster packs, and as many duels as you like.

Does it look and sound good? No, not at all. The board is dull, and the cards are simply bland, pale replicas of the real thing, but the visuals and audio are totally secondary in a game like this. The real shame is that the interface designers didn?t take more time tightening up the game flow since the last iteration. The game really needs options to make the turns go faster (does the current phase really need to fade in and out every time?) or to speed up the time it takes to examine the cards in play. There?s also a major problem with the save system, and you can?t stop in the middle of a game if you suddenly have to shut off your GBA, which is a bad thing when battles can take over 30 minutes.

Digital Yu-Gi-Oh, like the card game itself, is smart, challenging, and fun. Just imagine how cool this game would be if it were wrapped in a nicer package.

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