Yu-Gi-Oh! DUEL LINKS | a Review
originally published on 13/12/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the master duelist and genius strategist, G.E.M.Simov, a collector of cards and believer in the heart of said cards, and I am going to present the cautionary tale of “Yu-Gi-Oh! DUEL LINKS”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
This game starts off dreadfully by being a bad mobile-game port that requires the executable to be running to download necessary data, thus making it deceptive. Downloading and installing this through Steam should just install ALL the basic data in the language that the Player’s Steam program is running in.
Instead, it decides to download everything after the game is launched, creating a grueling wait time of around 30 minutes (which could have been averted easily, if only the game was ported better, or if it were better optimized.
Purely off of that experience, the game sets a precedent that is vehemently adhered to. Everything, nearly, is done at the expense of the Player’s time and enjoyment.
When the game ACTUALLY starts, after the Player is forced to spend thirty minutes waiting for it to download itself, the Player will be barraged with a torrent of garbage - “celebration campaign X! (log in every day for 6 consecutive days and get FREE things!)”, “monthly login campaign (log in every day for the whole month and get FREE things!)”, “new things!(informs the Player of what’s new), “NEW PACKS YOU CAN BUY (features a lengthy advertisement, IN GAME, for the new packs that the Player can buy)”, “new event exclusive character!”, and so on.
So, after spending 30 minutes waiting for the game to get installed (after installing it already), the Player is forced to go through nearly 5 minutes of pointless stuff before being allowed to play - and that’s if the Player already has an account! The New Player experience is different to that, and is even more overwhelming (and unpleasant), because initially there are only 60 files that need to be downloaded, and the game can be played nicely for a while. Then, however, the Player is BOOTED out of the game (forcefully) and must spend the aforementioned 30 minutes of waiting to download the files.
That all stems from the fact that Yu-Gi-Oh! DUEL LINKS (Henceforth just Duel Links) is a mobile game designed with the idea of squeezing out as much money from the Player as possible, while providing as little in the way of gameplay as possible. Fortunately for the game itself, it is just Yu-Gi-Oh! (the card game), which has a very neat foundation, as a result of which it can be a very entertaining game to play.
It can, of course… But it also features a plethora of roadblocks. The way the game works is that there are 4 “spaces” where duelists can be found. Whenever a duelist is clicked, a duel can be initiated. After the duel comes to a conclusion (be it a win or a loss), the duelist disappears. Unfortunately, the duelist is not replaced by another duelist, meaning that if the Player decides that they want to play the game, they will run out of duelists in less than thirty minutes, after which they will be directed to the shop to buy items that can replenish the duelists that are present.
This is a classic mobile game move. Limit the amount of game that is accessible to the Player with an “energy bar”, with energy being needed to do EVERYTHING in the game, and then make that energy replenish at a snail’s pace. However, be generous - allow the Player to buy items that restore energy or increase the rate at which energy replenishes!
Amazing, EVIL design! Create an artificial problem that has no reason to exist other than due to the fact that you want to make money at all costs. Fortunately, Duel Links is not as horrible in this regard as possible, because there are other things that can be done, which feature gameplay, which do not require the presence of a duelist. Keep in mind, however, that it takes around 150 minutes for 5 duelists to reappear after being defeated, so there’s a lot of down time, as that’s 30 minutes per duelist.
One of those other things that can be done is to play Duel Trials - those feature some tutorials and also some funky situations in a match that require a lot of thinking to get out of. Those puzzle-esque situations are very entertaining to deal with, as they not only allow the Player to interact with cards they would otherwise be very unlikely to have, but they also showcase the best aspect of Yu-Gi-Oh - those wild strategies that were so appealing in the anime.
Unfortunately, there is a limited quantity of Duel Trials available to the Player. Those are gated by the Player’s Stage - which is essentially their level. The Player’s Stage is increased by completing all of a given Stage’s missions, which range from buying cards to fighting in duels. Upon completing all of a Stage’s missions, the Player progresses to the next Stage, unlocking a number of new things - such as new Duel Trials, new duelists that they can encounter, new items in the shop and new gameplay opportunities.
Now, due to the fact that going up a Stage is not directly tied to fighting duelists, at least not always, there is a funky means of dodging the wait time by saving up the Stage advancement until there are no available duelists and then going up a Stage, because that brings out all of the possible duelists back onto the zones where they can show up.
There are also many other means of getting into duels - there’s a “Gate” that requires a set of special currency items, which drop from fighting normal duelists, in which the Player can fight special duelists to get special currency items and cards. There’s the Arena, wherein the Player can play Ranked games against other Players (and get melted by meta decks courtesy of the patented “pay to win via buying packs with gems” scheme of any Free-To-Play card game).
But what are those “Gems”? Well, that’s one of the many currencies on offer - and it is the premium currency that is used to purchase almost everything in the game, and can indirectly be used to get loads of every other currency in the game. That is so, because by buying cards - which is what the Player does with Gems - the Player gets a lot of cards. These Cards can then be destroyed and turned into the other currencies, thus allowing the Player to get everything they want with the appropriate amount of money funneled into Duel Links.
It is important to note that Duel Links is relatively generous with the amount of Gems it gives out - allowing a beginning Player to accumulate almost 4000 Gems over the course of the first 5 Stages - but not only is that enough for only 20 packs (with each pack containing an insultingly small number of cards, as an example: 3), it is also misleading, as a beginning Player will generate a lot more Gems over a far shorter amount of time than a player who is grinding through the missions of the later Stages.
Naturally, the game starts cracking when one starts looking at it not through the lens of it being a Yu-Gi-Oh game, which would mean that the focus is set on the playing of the card game, but, rather, through the lens of it being a Trading Card Game. That means that the card game itself is an important aspect of the game overall, but the even more important aspect is the acquisition of cards.
Well, let me explain how that happens - by completing Stage missions and other, weekly or lifetime missions (that are not defined by the Player’s Stage) or by winning Ranked Player versus Player games or by taking part in funky events (that also feature missions that require an indeterminate amount of grinding to complete).
In addition to that, a lot of cards and other miscellaneous items (the other currencies) can be obtained through the Gate - which, as mentioned, is something that can be played outside of the duelist restriction - but requires the investment of currency that is obtained THROUGH fighting duelists. Not only that, but there are special shops in which one can only buy things with these other currencies, earned through… Exactly that! Gates and normal duelist fights.
Well, if I were to tell you that duelist fights award the Player a number of random rewards (that can be the desired currencies, cards OR borderline useless coins) based on the number of things done DURING the duel itself, would it be shocking that the longer a duel takes, and the more things happen in it, the more efficient and rewarding the duel is?
Take, for example, a quick duel that ends within 5 turns of starting. This one can yield up to 3000 points, maybe 4000 if the Player was lucky with what cards were drawn. 3000 points awards the Player with 3 random rewards. However, if the duel lasts considerably longer, and the Player does a decent number of things during it, that number of points yielded can go up to 5000, 6000 and even reach, or surpass, 8000. Ironically, there is a cap on how many rewards can be obtained through duels (8), but getting on average 6 rewards from a duel (which can only be repeated once every 30 minutes) is clearly better than getting an average of 3 rewards from that same duel (repeatable once every 30 minutes).
Now, here’s another kicker - the game decides to scale the complexity of the decks that the duelists use with the Player’s Stage. That means that lower Stages feature significantly easier duels, which means it is significantly easier to set up a specific deck that is designed around meeting all the conditions that grant points during a duel, so that the Player gets the highest amount of points possible and, thus, gets the highest bang for their buck - for no matter how slowly and carefully a duel is fought, it will not last 30 minutes.
The even more intriguing part is that there is no option to turn down a duelist’s level, or to select which deck they use. What is present is a way of adding a multiplier to the points received during the duel! That, however, costs an extra duelist, or an extra two duelists! So, in short, the Player can decide to fight 1 duelist, get their points in that duel tripled, but 3 duelists will disappear after the duel, rather than just 1. And, remember - the cap is reached at 8000 points, so if the Player goes for the triple boost, they are wasting time and money, due to the fact that even off of the double boost they can get up to 8000 or more points.
The triple boost is absolutely pointless, but since it is a “triple” and it is a “boost”, the designers have clearly made it as a means of incentivizing the less engaged Players(who have grown bored out of their minds from grinding duelists) to just use the triple boost constantly… Because at the same time the boosts are unlocked, the Player unlocks the “Auto Duel” feature - LET’S NOT EVEN PLAY THE GAME!
Instead of skipping the boring part - which is everything external from the card game - the game has decided to let the Players skip the main appeal of the game. This is ludicrously bad design - if we are making a game, of course - but it does not end there!
The Player is not simply incentivized to pay by some slight inconveniences and the overwhelming brutality of the game’s difficulty curve, but they are also nearly coerced into paying as a means of being able to complete missions. Missions such as the: “Win 30 times against Character X in the Gate!” which means that the Player needs obtuse quantities of the currencies required to duel in the Gate, and needs to grind their brain out to get the reward that is promised.
But what are the circumstances? Well, the Player might be able to get enough currency for 1 Gate duel for every full clear of the normal duelists that they do, meaning that at optimal efficiency we are looking at around 1 Gate duel per 2:30 hours. Upon adding real money into this equation, things become a lot more manageable.
Everything in the game works with the same principle. It starts off okay, but quickly becomes inconvenient or plainly unpleasant, and through paying it manages to become bearable again.
Let me pull back a bit and head towards the game, as well as the funky changes that are made. By the game, I mean the card game - and by funky changes I mean the “skills” that are introduced into it. Duel Links features progression not just via Stages and missions, but also via levels bound to Characters. The Player has access to nearly every named Character from the anime as a Playable Character, unlockable following a set of missions similar to those required to progress through a stage. Each Character can gain up to 45 levels, and each level awards something - be it Gems, a card, a deck slot or even a new skill. The main reason to level up a Character is so that one can either use a skill they have obtained for said Character, or so they can get access to a skill that the Character has in their reward progression.
Much like with the Stages, leveling up on a Character is exceedingly easy at the start - win one duel, level up, win two duels, level up - but as time goes on the Player will need to win 12 duels to level up, then 30, then even more.
Regardless of that funky maneuver to increase game time and to further incentivize purchasing things, the Skills are quite interesting. They range from getting to draw a particular card once per duel, through starting the duel with a certain card in play, to interact with Life Points and other things. This really messes with the already nonexistent balance of the card game itself - which has monstrous amounts of issues - though it does make things more interesting.
Alas, these slightly pleasant additions are all very meager when compared to the dreadful reality of the experience - that to be able to compete one must copy the top decks, which is available through deck copying and the existence of “deck slots” for Characters, and must have all the right cards. Going up in Stages requires more and more adherence to the meta and less and less opportunity to enjoy cards that are not 1800 attack 4 star goons.
Overall? Duel Links features an enjoyable but flawed basis and many peripheral annoyances that make the experience largely unpleasant. 1/3
Presentation
Surprisingly enough, this game features a decent amount of 3D animations, 2D sprites and a small number of “3D” environments, though what will most often be getting observed is a dark blue backdrop with white artifacts that flutter about, as well as the game board - white squares that are occasionally filled up by cards.
It’s very quaint - at least that aspect of the game’s visual salad - and it works quite well. Unfortunately, it is bogged down by the PCs constantly stating what they are doing, and on occasion, when a special card is summoned it winds up playing a 3D animation featuring the monster in the card - that’s neat the first time around, but then it becomes tedious to click through everything so as to skip it and get to playing the game.
Outside of this “duel mode”, the game takes a very steep tumble. There are 4 somewhat 3D environments, which are just backdrops for the initiation of duels or the opening of menus (most of which are shops). Unfortunately, the relative cleanliness of the duel mode is totally absent, replaced with an incredibly busy interface that is constantly wielding red exclamation points that seek to get the Player’s attention so as to make them access a menu in which they will be advertised new means of spending money.
The sheer quantity of such options is overwhelming - everything is so busy that it is nearly painful to observe, and it does not get much better the further along into the game the Player goes. In fact, the earlier along in the Stage progression a Player is, the better the game is for looking at, because the more features become unlocked, the more clogged the UI becomes.
Then there are also the 2D sprites - which look okay, but there’s something oddly off about them, something making them look uncanny or improper. The 2D sprites appear whenever a character is talking, be it during a “cinematic” or prior to a duel. The cinematics in this game are just sprites being shown in conjunction with a text, and then replaced by another sprite with its own bit of text, over and over until whatever thing is being conveyed is conveyed - if there is anything at all that is being conveyed.
The music and sound effects of Duel Links are satisfactory, though they are nothing exceptional. The track that plays during the game’s boot-up sequence is pretty neat, but aside from that everything is relatively middling.
Surprisingly, this game features a decently comprehensive tutorial which presents the most basic information required, but due to the way the game is designed it is more than enough to handle the early duels, which makes it quite good. Not only that, but when it comes to information that the Player can access in regards to rules and cards, Duel Links does an impressively good job at giving the Player encyclopedic amounts of info regarding itself. That’s… That’s very admirable, and I love that!
Overall, though, the game’s Presentation suffers greatly from the intrusive way everything is thrown at the Player - in regards to “new deals” and means of getting their attention for “new events”. So much so, in fact, that it really bogs down the otherwise stellar presentation when it comes to the Duels - because the bothersome things, such as the animations and duelist quips, can be turned off entirely. There is also a “performance” slider that can be boosted up to the maximum for SILKY SMOOTH framerates that make me giddy with joy.
Alas, all the good is not enough to totally eclipse the bad. 2/3
Story
Seto Kaiba has created a Virtual Reality for Dueling. This Duel World is separated into a large number of stages, with the top being the “Duel World King”. Kaiba wants to use the data from the countless duels that will be fought in the Duel World to improve his skills and beat Yugi once and for all.
The story swirls around Characters from the anime coming to the Duel World and having some sort of experience in it, all of that conveyed through 5 to 10 lines of text at a time, interspersed in between ludicrous amounts of grinding. There is something that can be misconstrued as a story, but there is no overarching plot, the personalities of the Characters are based on one trait that they exhibited in the anime and are upped to 11 without consideration for the supposed growth they might have experienced during the anime itself, as well as a general messiness of chronological situatedness.
There’s, actually, nothing. 0/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? I like Trading Card Games due to the fact that there’s a lot of thought that supposedly goes into them, and due to the fact that they feature a plentiful amount of cards with art on them. Yu-Gi-Oh has so many cards with great art on them that I am enamored with them in some capacity, and with the game itself on a conceptual level.
But as the years have gone on, the game has devolved into some kind of Russian Roulette, wherein the Player wins on the first turn or loses on the second turn. That’s just not fun and it does not, at all, mesh with the idea of a card game in my head. Not only that, even the Trading aspect is horribly mangled in Duel Links, as a result of which NO, I am not giving it the Legendary Point. 0/1
Conclusion
3/10. It’s a Yu-Gi-Oh game. If you’re a fan of the Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Card Game, and are not playing any other virtual version of it, you could give this one a try, and it might be enjoyable. But for any fan of Trading Card Games in general, I would not recommend it. I would also urge fans of Yu-Gi-Oh not to play it. It’s got a decent foundation, but nearly everything around that foundation is dreadfully bad.
On the wall of shame I hang this, a reminder that mobile games purposefully make themselves less enjoyable. What a shame, indeed…