Yu-Gi-Oh! 7 Trials to Glory:
World Championship Tournament 2005

Genre: Turn-Based Strategy
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Release Date: February 14, 2005

Yu-Gi-Oh has been one of the most successful anime franchises of recent memory, possibly even replacing Pokemon as the most popular strategy game on the Game Boy. There have certainly been a ton of Yu-Gi-Oh games released on the Game Boy Advance over the past few years, and the latest title, Yu-Gi-Oh! 7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005, updates the series with the latest cards and mechanics.

Despite the fact that there have been a total of eight Yu-Gi-Oh games released on the GBA, I've never played a single one of them. I've never been particularly interested in the series, although I have nothing against it. Taking this latest iteration of Yu-Gi-Oh, and playing it as if it were the only one in the series, I endeavored to enjoy and appreciate the experience. What started out as an exercise in frustration eventually ended up being a bit of fun.

Yu-Gi-Oh is essentially a card-battling game, similar in style to Magic: The Gathering or the Pokemon trading card game. Players collect the different types of cards, and follow the established rules in matches against other players called duels. These duels can play out in different ways, depending upon the cards a player has in their deck. Cards can be purchased at the card shop in the game, and if you have your own cards, you can spend some game points to enter a code and get that card in the game without going through the trouble of purchasing multiple packs of cards to trying to complete your collection. With 1,000 cards to purchase, it could take quite a long time to get them all, which is, of course, part of the allure of the game.

After turning on the game for the first time, you're thrown into the card shop and told to buy some cards to start your deck. You can purchase some initial starter decks, which is probably the easiest way to go, or you can purchase individual packs to try and get some good cards to make your own deck. Once you're done compiling the deck, it's time to duel. There are four different areas to duel: outside of your house, at two tournament areas, or outside the card shop, although there is no indication of how good your opponents are at dueling, or what kind of cards they have. You can even duel with animals, for crying out loud. By walking up to any person (or animal), you can press the R trigger and initiate the duel. If you have any forbidden cards in your deck, or limited cards that can't be used at the moment, you'll have to take them out. After this is completed, however, the real game begins.

This is honestly the most confusing and difficult part of the game. Being a self-professed Yu-Gi-Oh noob, I hadn't the foggiest idea how to go about dueling. To make it worse, the game had absolutely no in-game tutorial, help, or any indication of what I should do in order to win the duel. I resorted to studying the manual and reading up on internet FAQs to find out everything I needed to know to duel successfully. Unfortunately, this felt like a wasted hour and a half of my life. The game is complex and deep, to be sure, but not even providing the simplest bit of help in the game hurt things considerably. If you're a Yu-Gi-Oh fanatic, you've already got the skills necessary to play the game well. If you're a card-battling strategy junkie, it will definitely be worth the effort to learn the rules of combat, as you'll be rewarded with a lengthy and fun experience. For everyone else, I'm not sure there's any real reason to purchase this game.

Basically, battles boil down to a series of drawing and playing cards. You build a deck of at least 40 cards, but no more than 99, and there are slots to build up to 20 different decks, so there's plenty of room to accommodate any strategy that you can think of. In certain battles, you can build a side-deck of 15 cards to help you out, and once the duel begins, the goal is simple: reduce your opponent's hitpoints from 8,000 to zero before they do the same to you. It sounds simple enough, but there is certainly a lot more to it than is initially apparent. Trap cards, different battle phases, the graveyard, side deck, fusion monsters and all manner of other strategies and functions litter the rules of the game. It'll definitely take some practice before you win your first duel, but the payoff is completely sweet; when you first "get it," you'll want to keep playing on.

The only real problem with this game is the complete lack of story. The game takes place across the days of the week, with tournaments being held on certain days, and on particular days, there are forbidden cards that you can't use in your deck. When a tournament is not taking place, you can go back to your house to pass the time, or challenge the people on the street. Unfortunately, there's really no motivation to go onward except to win the tournaments and to collect all of the cards. However, the game stands on its own merits well enough, and anyone who has played Pokemon knows how strong the urge to "collect 'em all" can be.

Graphically, the game is pretty stunning. The overworld graphics are well done, and the characters represent their anime counterparts perfectly. The real graphical draw of the game is the accurately recreated graphics for all the cards in the game. Each card is realistically portrayed in the game beautifully; you can view every card, and the artwork is pretty stunning. The actual battlefield, however, is pretty bland, consisting only of outlines of the cards on a pseudo-3D plane, and unfortunately, this is the screen you'll be staring at most often. However, if you need a graphical boost, you can always take a look at the cards in your deck.

Sound is also fairly average. There are some of the usual musical backgrounds, but the sound effects aren't anything special. I ended up turning the sound off after a while and just listening to some music or watching TV while I played. It ended up being a lot more satisfying.

There is a multiplayer option that can be utilized via the link cable, which is a great option for those of you out there who just don't want to lug your card collection around and still want to battle each other. You also don't have to worry about getting your cards dirty or bent up, which is a great incentive. However, as soon as new cards come out, this version of the game will quickly become obsolete. This is probably a huge strike against the game, as evidenced by the eight games already released on the GBA for this series. If you're one of those people who doesn't always need to have the latest, this game will last you quite a long time. All of the tournaments, cards, and battles will take you quite a while to complete, and the link cable support just further increases the replay value.

Overall, I was pleased with my first foray into the realm of Yu-Gi-Oh. After the initially painful learning curve, the game suddenly snapped into place, and things got fun; collecting the cards and participating in tournaments had great appeal. The strategy involved is amazing, and with a thousand cards to build a deck from, you can spend a really long time forming your own style of playing. Yu-Gi-Oh fans will certainly be pleased with what's available here, and those of you with patience and who enjoy card-battlers will also find a deep and fun title in Yu-Gi-Oh 7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005.

Score: 8.0/10