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 I've never seen a franchise quite like Yu-Gi-Oh. It all started with one manga author's idea for games with stupidly high stakes, which turned into card games with stupidly high stakes during the Magic: The Gathering craze, after which said author desperately tried to move away from card games, but that didn't work out, seeing as you can't market anything else quite as well. And then Konami got a hold of it. The Sacred Cards and Reshef of Destruction are the seventh and eighth entries into Konami's Duel Monsters line of Yu-Gi-Oh video games. Typical of Konami anime-licensed video games, they are largely cash-ins. There are so many Yu-Gi-Oh games on the GBA alone that it's rare to find one worth your time. There are a couple of really good ones, of course, like Duelist of the Roses and Capsule Monster Coliseum for the PS2, and if you're looking for a simulation of the TCG, there's the Tag Force series for the PSP. However, there are also plenty of mediocre installments like Dungeon Dice Monsters and the infamously awful Forbidden Memories. And oh god, you don't even want to KNOW what they've done to the TCG itself. Or the show. So where do Sacred Cards and Reshef stand? Well, they certainly have a lot of production value, with high-quality graphics and even voice acting, and if you're a fan of the show, you'll love the various nods and homages to lesser-known facts about the series. Sacred Cards even uses the original, Japanese card artwork for many of the cards, even in international releases. However, these games do not follow the TCG's ruleset. They actually use an older, experimental ruleset from Dark Duel Stories for the GBC. There are a LOT of differences from the TCG, so you might be bashing your head on a wall trying to figure it out, but in my opinion, this ruleset isn't ALL bad. There's some appeal in what they tried to do here. Thing is, the difficulty is highly unbalanced in both games. In Sacred Cards, the game is completely broken in your favor and you can blitz through it in about 4 hours, tops. This leads to the game not taking long at all to beat, and with no multiplayer or bonus bosses, Sacred Cards ends up being average by virtue of not offering a lot of playtime, even though what's there isn't outright bad. Fans took notice of that, and asked Konami to bump up the challenge a little for the sequel. FREAKIN' IDIOTS. Reshef of Destruction is a complete farce. It's terrible to the point that I have to wonder if Konami wasn't playing some sadistic prank on the fanbase. Not only was it harder, there was a massive emphasis on grinding and the gameplay was slowed down to a crawl. This is not outright incompetence. EVERYTHING that happens in Reshef seems to be intentional. It was so bad that I decided to ROM hack the game just to prove that the changes they could have made to make the game less awful wouldn't have been hard to implement. But that can wait, because I'm going to play both games, as well as go over the history of the Gameboy Duel Monsters series, because believe me, the early Yu-Gi-Oh games were loving nuts. I know more about these games than I probably should, so it's only natural to document it all so Konami never lives it down. Contents Sacred Cards Part 1/4 Sacred Cards Part 2/4 Sacred Cards Part 3/4 Sacred Cards Part 4/4 Duel Monsters on the GBC Reshef of Destruction Part 1 Reshef of Destruction Part 2 Reshef of Destruction Part 3 Reshef of Destruction Part 4 Reshef of Destruction Part 5 Reshef of Destruction Part 6 Reshef of Destruction Part 7 Reshef of Destruction Part 8 Reshef of Destruction Part 9 Reshef of Destruction Part 10 Ephraim225 fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Apr 30, 2017 |
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Feb 20, 2017 05:51
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Sacred Cards Part 1/4 Here we go. I'd like to point out two things right off the bat: This game has a language select option even in the USA release, and Imgur has removed the ability to sort images by filename. Ugh...this is already going to be painful.  Ye olde name entry screen has Kuriboh hovering over the OK button, which is cute. I figured I should go with a name starting with "Yu" since every Yu-Gi-Oh protagonist has a name starting with "Yu". And we are the protagonist in this game. Forget that Yugi person.  We begin in our room where we get a visit from said not-protagonist and certainly-not-a-protagonist.  Wait, Battle City?  SWEET! I thought for some strange reason they were making a game about a card game tournament, but a tank battle tournament?! I'm down for that any day!  Deck? You don't need cards in a tank battle tournament! What are you gonna do, slice the cannon off with a paper cut?  ...Oh. The plot really is about a card game tournament. God dammit. Well, let's not go into it with a negative attitude! What else could you do with a game/show about card games, anyhow? This game follows the plot of the Battle City arc, and that's fine, even though I don't like that particular arc of the show all that much.  Blink animation timing strikes again! Anyhow we probably should check out the deck the game saddled us with.  Naturally, it's total junk. But we can fix that. Sacred Cards has very different mechanics from the TCG. Chief among them is Deck Capacity. The 900 cards in this game each have a Cost, and the total Cost of the 40 cards in your deck can't exceed the player's Deck Capacity, which increases with every duel you win. I kinda like the idea, though not a lot of people did. It forces you to, at first, come up with a good combat plan without being able to use the best cards right away. Personally I think the concept was put to best use in Duelist of the Roses, which features Fusion Summoning. Sacred Cards, despite every other game at the time having Fusion Summoning, does not. Very odd.  This is the stats menu. One mechanic I'm not at all fond of is the Duelist Level. It, too, goes up whenenver you win a duel. If a card's Cost exceeds your Duelist Level, you can't use that card AT ALL until you level up. Unlike with Deck Capacity, where you might have to take a bad card in addition to a good card to balance it out, Duelist Level outright stops you from making a choice like that at all. Not a good idea. It won't bother me too much, though. On with the plot!  We head outside into the town square. This place is called "Domino City" for some reason. I'm pretty sure it's not a real town in Japan.  Tournament organizer and resident rich corporate executive Seto Kaiba lays down the tournament's rules: Contestants roam the city, and if two of them bump into each other, THAT is when a duel occurs. Pretend it's The Hunger Games, only the odds actually ARE in your favor this time. And you don't die if you lose. Maybe.  No borrowing Yugi's deck for a duel allowed! I guess? What a weird rule to have.  Obligatory "Gambling is good for you, children!" joke. Well, the card game WAS originally a Magic: The Gathering homage, so I suppose it's only natural.  Not only are we wagering trading cards, we're wagering specially-made Locater Cards. These are pieces of a map of the city, like a puzzle!...somehow? A-anyway, get six of these and you'll know the location of the tournament finals.  Yugi, Joey and the player all agree to enter the finals together, which probably kills the spirit of the competition, but who cares! We gain control after this scene. You can challenge any NPC to a duel by talking to them with R instead of A.  Bizzarely, however, the game expects you to attempt to challenge every future opponent in the town square at the moment before the plot moves on. None of them accept duels until you do that.  Then you walk south on this screen. I don't get it either. Anyways, let's find someone to duel. Though you can challenge any NPC, only a select few of them have Locater cards you can win from them.  There are three duelists in this alley, and we need to beat one of them to move forward. Let's do it!  Before a duel, you can wager one of your other cards. You don't actually have to wager anything, but there are some great cards you can win from opponents, so I always do it. Also, some of the weakest cards in the game are treated as "Low-level" ante cards. If you wager a low-level card, you can only expect a low-level prize for winning. Don't worry, though, most of the cards you start with are not low-level.  Here's what the playfield looks like. Since the mechanics of this are different from the TCG, I'll explain them from the ground up. You start the game with 5 cards in hand and draw one at the start of your turn if you don't have 5 cards in hand already. You may play one Monster card per turn, and you can play as many Spell/Trap cards as you want during your turn.  Monster cards are played in the front row of your field. Note the monster's level: If it's 4 or lower, you can play it for free. If it's 5 or 6, you must sacrifice one monster you already have out to play it. If it's 7 or 8, two monsters are required, and 9 or above requires THREE monsters. Monsters enter the field face-down, as indicated by the green "R". During your turn, monsters you control can either attack your opponent, switch to defense position, or activate a special ability if they have one. However you can only use special abilities while the monster is face-down...for some reason. Let's attack the opponent's monster. If he had no monsters, I could make a direct attack on his Life Points. Naturally the first to reach zero Life Points loses.  When two monsters battle, the attacker's Attack Points are compared to the target's Attack or Defense points, depending on what battle position they were in. If the target was in attack position, the weaker monster is destroyed and its controller takes damage to their Life Points equal to the difference in power. (Both monsters are destroyed if it's a tie.) If the target was in defense position, the attacker isn't destroyed if they lose, but the target's controller won't lose LP if their mosnter is destroyed. (In this case, if it's a tie, nothing happens.) However, monsters also have one of eleven Attributes. These have a rock-paper-scissors mechanic to them. If you attack an enemy with a monster whose attribute beats that monster's attribute, they die instantly. No stat calculations or anything. This will not cause anything hilarious in the future.  Here I've drawn a Spell card. Their effects can be activated during your turn. There are also Trap cards, which can be placed on the field and activate under certain conditions during your opponent's turn. I should mention that any action during your turn can be carried out in any order. There are no "Phases" like in the TCG. This makes the game much more fast-paced, but you can abuse this in a few ways, too. For example, that Spell Card there is called Dark Hole, and it destroys all monsters on the field, on both sides. However you can Sacrifice a monster, then activate Dark Hole, then play a Level 5 or 6 monster from your hand and get a free hit on your opponent's LP. Very curious.  Anyhow, that opponent wasn't hard to beat, and neither are a majority of the opponents in the early part of the game, so don't expect much play-by-play. Winning duels lets you take their domino collection. Okay, okay, "Domino" is actually currency. What kind of currency "Domino" is, I don't know.  Beating one of the duelists in the alleyway makes this guy appear in the conveniently located cemetary in the back.  This guy is named "Bonz" in the anime. Western anime dubbers love their terrible pun names, it drives me crazy.  Bonz uses Zombie monsters, which aren't much to speak of. I was able to demonstrate another mechanic this game has though, and it's a really terrible idea. That blue card there is a Ritual card. If you sacrifice two monsters, then activate the card, it will transform one particular monster into a stronger monster. This one turns Mask of Darkness into "Mask of Shine and Dark".  Well, 2000 is a lot of attack points for this early in the game, but I was already winning by the time I had summoned this mosnter anyways. It's worth noting that all Ritual monsters carry the Divine attribute, which isn't weak or strong against any other attribute. To take down a Ritual monster, you've got to do it the old-fashioned way. Still, though, you're sacrificing three cards for one with Rituals, and it's almost NEVER worth it. They're not as good here as they are in the early days of the TCG, and in the early days of the TCG, they were barely any good at all.  Anyhow, we beat Bonz and earn a good chunk of Deck Capacity in the process, and his rarest card!  Aaaaand I can't use it yet. Great. Well, the picture alone makes it worth getting!   One down, four more to go! Let's check out the other alleyway.  We find another duelist who goes down just as quickly.  The tried-and-true solution to all your gaming problems: get big brother to do it for you.  The same line. Oh well, let's see what card I win from him  ...Woah. I wasn't kidding when I said Sacred Cards doesn't alter most of the original card artwork. Here's some other examples:  Mystic Tomato was changed to not look like a Jack-o-lantern in the English TCG,  Monster Reborn had this ankh redesigned into a giant crystal (though I've seen versions of Sacred Cards where it DOES use the English artwork?) and as for Dian Keto the Cure Master...  ...OH GOD. Why wasn't THAT censored?!  A-anyways! Beating big brother causes him to call in HIS big brother!  This is Espa Roba, and he wants a Locater card. He doesn't feature in the anime all that much. I don't know what's up with the "Pipipi" thing he does, it probably has something to do with his alleged ESP. In the show, his "ESP" is just his brothers peeking at his opponent's cards.   He doesn't really need that, though. Espa has a Spell card called The Inexperienced Spy. It reveals all cards in the opponent's hand, which is more powerful than it looks. Remember, effect monsters can only use their effects while face-down. If they're revealed like this while in your hand, they'll enter the field face-up.  Still, he's not that hard and we get a VERY good card from him. Jinzo is famous for his ability to destroy trap cards, and a healthy attack stat for a monster that costs only one sacrifice makes him very nice...but that high Cost makes it so we can't use him this early in. Argh.  I'll take Locater card number two, though!  If you re-enter the alleyway you can listen to Espa's sob story. If you're a dick to him he won't re-match you ever again, if you care.  I once asked how you could possibly shut somebody up with a playing card. Then I remembered I won a Titty Kitty from one of them and came to my own conclusion. ...Let's move on.   We see that Bonz has suddenly been kicked out of his hangout by someone even more goth than he is.  Oh goody it's this guy. This character was nothing but a random "bad guy's minion" in the show and he isn't much more than that here.  He uses the five "Exodia" cards in his deck. The gimmick here is that if he draws all five of them in his hand at once, he wins instantly. In this game, it's near impossible for him to actually do that, especially since in this case he put one on the field, where it can't instantly win for him. But in the TCG? Oh god. Many, MANY players really hate Exodia players because they do nothing but stall until they get all five cards in their hand, making the game boring for whoever happens to be Exodia's next victim.  So we kick this boring loser out of the cemetary.  Uh...thanks? I'm gonna go get my next Locater card.  I seem to have found the local anime ninja hangout! I can see Yuffie, Naruto, and...  ...Rex Raptor? Okay then. Rex doesn't want to duel you unless you have two other Locater cards already. In the show, Rex was the original user of the Red-Eyes Black Dragon, a powerful card that he wagered in a duel against Joey Wheeler and lost.  His duel introduces an annoying gimmick. There are a set of Spell cards that alter the terrain of the field to benefit certain monster types. In some duels, the terrain starts already altered. This Wasteland board raises the stats of Rock, Dinosaur and Zombie monsters by 30% (in the TCG it's just a flat 200 extra points). And with a name like Rex Raptor, I wonder what type of monster he uses!   Unfortunately Rex doesn't put up much of a fight, either. A lot of these early duels are just me running over the enemy with my stronger monsters - not a lot of need for Spells and Traps quite yet. Rex, oddly enough, has Red-Eyes Black Dragon despite him canonically losing it to Joey earlier in the plot. Found another copy, I guess?   Optionally, if you go east of that screen you can find Kaiba Corporation and their new Duel Computer, which you can duel. You earn a LOT of money from this opponent, so it's a duel worth repeating, and the computer is supposed to scale to your own Duelist Level. At least, I think it does.   Anyhow! Beating this ONE NPC out of everyone in the entire city triggers an event flag! How you're supposed to know it's this one is beyond me, but he tells us something's going down at the card shop. What a coincidence! I was just about to go get some new cards. We'll see what this is all about next time! Ephraim225 fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Mar 6, 2017 |
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Feb 20, 2017 05:51
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Nice to see a player who's approaching the game on its own terms. There's a lot of neat touches that I hope you can show off. The Mai Valentine sidequests, for instance.
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Feb 20, 2017 06:04
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Why the hell would you use imgur while the perfectly fine lpix is available for everyone in this subforum, and made for that purpose by our very own baldurk? Register with your forums account, get one of the multi-upload tools, and that's it.
Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Feb 20, 2017 |
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Feb 20, 2017 07:27
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Carbon dioxide posted:Why the hell would you use imgur while the perfectly fine lpix is available for everyone in this subforum, and made for that purpose by our very own baldurk? Register with your forums account, get one of the multi-upload tools, and that's it. Well you know I thought Imgur would be fine. Clearly that was a mistake.
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Feb 22, 2017 06:44
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I was gonna comment on how Thunder Nyan Nyan actually is censored in this game, since I distinctly remember a Japanese artwork where she didn't have anything covering her chest, but I couldn't find it. Did I just imagine it? Anyway, happy to see another Yugioh LP here. Hopefully if we continue to advance chronologically, someone will some day make an LP of the Tag Force series!
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Feb 24, 2017 15:54
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I've never used LPix because I've never made a screenshot LP, but I think that site is easier to upload a lot of pics in a given update and that's why people use it. Having watched the Forbidden Memories LP, The Sacred Cards looks tame by comparison. The fact that you can't use the powerful cards that you get right off the bat makes sense, although the rock/paper/scissors thing looks ripe for abuse by the computer. I was upset that I never got a physical GBA copy because it contained the best combination of cards packaged with one of the games, including Harpy's Feather Duster which was just Raigeki for trap and spell cards. I know nothing about Reshef of Destruction because by the time that was released, I stopped caring about Yu-Gi-Oh. The TCG is like if Wizards of the Coast released a new Onslaught block every other year- the game's equivalent of creature types seem dominant.
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Feb 24, 2017 22:14
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serefin99 posted:I was gonna comment on how Thunder Nyan Nyan actually is censored in this game, since I distinctly remember a Japanese artwork where she didn't have anything covering her chest, but I couldn't find it. Did I just imagine it? my dude we ain't gonna judge you but keep the porn you look up to yourself
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Feb 25, 2017 09:58
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Dabir posted:my dude we ain't gonna judge you but keep the porn you look up to yourself It wasn't porn. I swear it was on the Yugioh wiki. It's not like it would be the first time the Japanese art for a card was super skeevy.
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Feb 25, 2017 19:06
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Sacred Cards Part 2/4 Welcome to the world map! ...Okay it's a map of just the city, but you know. You enter the world map when you take the west exit in the town square. We'll be checking out what's going on at the Card Shop.  Don't worry, unnamed NPC, I'll be telling everyone how to win at Sacred Cards in no time at all. It's much easier than you'd think!  Really, Mr. Cashier? The game's only been going for like an hour...though I did pick up four locater cards already.  When someone says that to me offline, I'm usually REALLY suspicious, but your outfit is crazy awesome, so I'll stick around.  Okay, now I'm REALLY suspicious. This guy is called Arkana. He was a one-off villain's minion in the anime. Sacred Cards follows the anime's plot pretty closely, except a player character added in. And since you're the main character now, you replace Yugi in all of his duels. In the anime, Yugi vs. Arkana was an epic battle because both duelists use the Dark Magician, arguably the game's most famous monster.  Before we take him on, we could probably use a deck upgrade. Money you earn in duels can be used to purchase cards. I don't know why you have to do it at this shop, and not the one Yugi's Grandpa owns, which is a location you can go to, but wherever we get cards from, I'm happy to be able to get them.  Kinda wish the interface was a bit less cluttered. Whenever you win a duel, about 20 random cards get added to the shop's inventory for you to purchase. Bosses in this game give giant truckloads of money, so it's very easy to afford whatever you want to buy, especially if you sell the junk cards you don't need. Funnily enough, you can also purchase Ritual Monsters. Not the Spells, the actual monsters they summon, which makes me wonder what the point of the Spells was. Well, the monsters do have a Card Cost of 255, so that won't be going in your deck anytime soon, I guess, but if they are in your deck, they function just like regular monsters, and still have the Divine attribute. Anyhow, the shop is a MUCH appreciated feature. I can purchase what I want and not have to deal with random booster packs like in real life, although if you want a particular card, you have to get lucky and hope it shows, and boy, was my luck good on this run - I got the best monster in the game!  ...What? She's great, I tell you! 2000 attack points for only one tribute! I mean Toon Summoned Skull has 2500, but his Card Cost is like three times Toon Dark Magician Girl's. Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, the infamous Toon monsters don't have any special powers compared to their normal versions in this game, aside from some of them changing to the Shadow attribute. Speaking of which! Let's talk attributes! Every monster has one of eleven attributes. If your attribute beats their attribute, you kill them instantly regardless of stats or battle position. Here's how it works: Shadow beats Light Light beats Fiend Fiend beats Dream Dream beats Shadow Fire beats Forest Forest beats Wind Wind beats Earth Earth beats Thunder Thunder beats Water Water beats Fire Divine is neutral Here's the secret to success in Sacred Cards: Make a Shadow deck, it's the best attribute. Dream monsters can one-hit kill Shadow monsters, but Konami made a serious error when designing Sacred Cards. In my entire playthrough of the whole game, I encountered a Dream monster in an enemy deck ONCE. You don't have to take this elemental crap, just use the one attribute they don't counter that often! And it gets better! The starter deck comes with Witch's Apprentice, a monster that has the ability to raise the power of Shadow monsters by 500 points - they're ENCOURAGING you to do this!  I also pick up Hourglass of Life. This card lets you raise the power of all your monsters by 500 points at the cost of 1000 Life Points, which is a pretty fair trade in practice. It also goes well with a monster called Hoshiningen, who can raise the power of all Light monsters by 500 more points. I don't use Hoshiningen in this playthrough, though, because he also weakens my Shadow monsters.  My other notable purchase is a simple Spell card that destroys the strongest enemy monster. Very handy.  Also located in the shop is the Password Machine. You know those eight-digit ID numbers on the real life trading cards? You can punch that into the Password Machine to unlock the card in the game. You don't RECIEVE the card, it just shows up at the shop for purchase. But you can enter any code you want, as many times as you want. This, however, is cheating. You'd have to be the worst card player in the world to have to cheat at Sacred Cards.  We enter the basement, and Arkana challenges us.  And it seems we don't have a choice, either. Is it just me, or do fictional stage magicians always end up being big jerks?  Oh yes, that's right, he's going to chop the loser's legs off with that giant saw! This is how it happened in the anime, but the English dub censored the sawblades and changed it so that anyone that touches the "Dark Energy Disc" would have their soul sent straight to hell. Um...not sure how that's an improvement, but this is a video game, so there's no censorship to "save" you this time. Back in my day we didn't need no censors to save us. We had cartoon magician girls instead!  Arkana's duel, and several others in the game, start with a Yami, or "Darkness" field, which raises the stats of Spellcaster and Fiend monsters by 30%. As it happens, a number of great Shadow monsters are also Spellcasters and Fiends. Here, Toon Dark Magician Girl jumps from 2000 to 2600. This allowed me to run over Arkana just like everyone else.  Our prize is Arkana's version of the Dark Magician himself. You might remember that Dark Magician Girl has an ability that raises her power if Dark Magician is in the graveyard (which is what the "discard pile" is called in Yu-Gi-Oh.) In Sacred Cards, using this ability is highly impractical. The Graveyard in this game only tracks the most recent monster sent there, so you'd have to use Dark Magician Girl's abiltiy immedietely after a Dark Magician is sent there. And she has to give up her attack on that turn...and be face down...and...you get the point.   Arkana almost gets chopped, but we save him because we're apparently a pretty compassionate guy.   Then he says some weird stuff and collapses. Uh...what plans are we impeding, exactly? This event can happen the instant the game starts...  Our next destination is the Park. Locater card number 5 awaits us.  A stranger seems to be there, but he says nothing if you talk to him.   We find Weevil Underwood here, who has the locater card we want, but most annoyingly, he forces us to duel all three of his "Disciples" (that was the word he used) before we can duel him.  These duels all begin on a Forest field, which powers up Beasts, Insects, Plants, and Furries. Not enough to pose a threat, mind you. They have some attribute variety, and while I know of one Insect monster that carries the Dream attribute, nobody ever played it. Hm.  One of them gave me this as a reward, ironically enough.  ...I just noticed, have I been spelling "Locater" wrong this entire time?  Yeah, this duel wasn't much of an issue for me, ahaha. Weevil does have one trick you need to be aware of, however: He has a monster called Petit Moth. It's incredibly weak, but if it survives a turn, it turns into Larvae Moth. If that survives a turn, it turns into Cocoon of Evolution, and if that survives a turn, it turns into Great Moth, who has 2600 attack points and will gain 900 more if it survives one more turn. It isn't hard to prevent Petit Moth from making it that far since a Fire monster eliminates any of these in one shot, but if you happen to have Petit Moth yourself, it's a strategy worth considering. Plenty of cards let you stall while your bugs are growing, and Petit Moth stays face-down during all of this if it's in defense mode, which enables you to mis-direct the AI from attacking it, in a way.  Just one more to go! If it feels like I'm blitzing the game, well, that just shows how not-difficult Sacred Cards is.  The only other location open at the moment is a nondescript Art museum.   It's not open, but you can find another character from the anime. This is Bakura and he's more of a tabletop RPG guy than a card game guy. You can duel him now if you wish but it isn't necessary.  Now one thing about Sacred Cards is that it's not very good at telling you what you're supposed to do to advance the plot. One of those "explore everywhere, talk to everyone" situations. In this case, after the fifth locater card you're supposed to go to the game shop in the town square.  And you talk to this guy, which sets an event flag. HMMM, SOMETHING ABOUT HIM LOOKS FAMILIAR.  Three more locations open up when you talk to him. First let's check out the Bridge.   We arrive just in time to see Seto Kaiba wasting a nameless NPC in a duel.  Sidekick? I'm the main character, buddy!  I feel so unloved.  If you exit the screen and come back, you'll find Kaiba has his very own fangirl. Sorry, girl, his heart already belongs to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. I'm not kidding.   The weird dude from earlier appears and challenges us. This guy is simply called Strings. That alone should say everything that needs to be said. He attempted to use one of the most impractical cards of all time against Yugi, and lost. In this duel, he's going to use one of the best cards in the game against us. And lose.  Oh, actually no, he didn't draw it in this duel. This is where enemy monsters start to get tougher, though. You'll notice this one has 2000 defense, making it a nice big wall. Any time the computer does that, just send out a monster with an attack stat lower than theirs, they can't resist coming out of defense mode to attack it.  The prize is Revival Jam, one of two monsters that can clone itself (I have the other one, Doron, in my deck.) 1500 attack points is pretty good, too, so when my duelist level is high enough (Hrrrrmph.) I'll be using it. This card also forms an amazing combo with Darkness Approaches, a Spell that flips all your cards face-down. Remember how you need to be face-down to use monster abilities?  I don't see how I'm meddling, I'm just trying to get into the tournament finals.  Got it memorized!  Hm. I guess he doesn't like Kingdom Hearts jokes.  Next, we need to set another event flag, so we enter the nondescript Building.  It's a game center! I always wanted to visit one!  To the surprise of nobody, there's a DDR cameo here. We also see Joey Wheeler SLACKING OFF.  He runs off somewhere, and we follow.   He went to the Aquarium. Why are duels taking place in an Aquarium? Because it's Yu-Gi-Oh, that's why.  These duelists don't have portraits, but the boy is named Takeshi. You need to beat him and his girlfriend to set more event flags.   One screen north, we see Mako Tsunami (These dub names...) beating Joey Wheeler. Huh, I'm pretty sure Joey won that duel in the anime. Mako, of course, won't duel you until everyone in the Aquarium is beaten, including Joey and that random NPC next to him.  All duels in the Aquarium start on an Umi or "Ocean" field, powering up Fish, Aqua, Sea Serpent, and Thunder monsters. Most enemies here have the Water attribute, and they tend to be much stronger than what you might have when you factor in the field bonus, so you need a different approach. You could change the field with a Spell to take that advantage away, or you can use Thunder monsters.   I added these to my deck. Electric Lizard even has an ability that lets him stun one monster, stopping it from attacking until your next turn. If you use Thunder monsters, however, there's one dick move you should be careful of: These guys have Penguin Knight, which for some reason, has the EARTH attribute, which is strong against Thunder. Really comes out of left field. I mean it's a PENGUIN, geez.  They had to pad the length of the game somehow, I guess. Now we duel Mako.  Here, I get to demonstrate the Dark Hole strategy I mentioned in the previous update. Tribute your monster...  Activate Dark Hole to destroy all monsters on the field...  Then play a level 6 monster and score a free hit!  Of course I'm so loaded with powerful cards that I could probably do it without being cheap. Anyhow, that's all six locater cards! What awaits us next? Ephraim225 fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Feb 26, 2017 |
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Feb 26, 2017 00:08
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Shame. It looks like you skipped the optional duels with Yugi and Mai. At some point in the game, probably determined by Locator cards, Yugi is hanging around in the game shop. Beating him at this point earns the Beaver Warrior card. In the Park, there is a guy looking for Yugi to duel, and he won't duel you unless you tell him. In exchange, he also tells you that that Mai Valentine is at the building. She'll bet a Harpie Lady, but no locator cards. She's a change of pace, as one of the few duelists to use the Mountain field. After this, you can drop by the game shop to hear about how he got his rear end kicked.
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Feb 26, 2017 00:50
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MightyPretenders posted:Shame. It looks like you skipped the optional duels with Yugi and Mai. ....I legit never knew you could do either of these. Cool tip though! I might go back and show them.
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Feb 26, 2017 01:18
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I only played Eternal Duelist's Soul when it came to Yu-Gi-Oh video games. It was also pretty easy, but I prefer that to some of the absolute bullshit that Konami gave players in games both prior to and after The Sacred Cards. You also get to fight characters from the anime, but it's not in an overworld RPG-like theme- you get to choose who you duel, and you get more characters to play as you beat them enough times. It also has the rules of actual Yu-Gi-Oh: no resistances or auto-kills, no weird ritual stuff like in Forbidden Memories. In EDS, when you put in the code for a card, you automatically get it. The catch is that you can only use the code for a given card once.
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Feb 26, 2017 03:15
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God, Reshef of Destruction is the bane of my existence when it comes to YuGiOh games (Forbidden Memories II not withstanding). I thank you for the rom hack Ephraim as it is the only way I could even reach the final boss.
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Feb 26, 2017 06:53
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Strangely enough, Eternal Duelist Soul came out before this game, but wanted to keep the approach that started in Dark Duel Stories on the Game Boy. Props on your playing this game and not instantly maxing your DL and getting all the cards, then complaining that the opposing duelists cards are bad. Exodia is also the most useless victory condition in this game. Destiny Board on the other hand, is a thousand times more useful than the actual TCG version. Though, speaking of Dark Hole, are you going to talk about the Restricted List the game never tells you about? (at least to my knowledge)
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Feb 26, 2017 08:58
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AmewTheFox posted:Exodia is also the most useless victory condition in this game. Sure, if you're a normal person. Heheheheh. AmewTheFox posted:Though, speaking of Dark Hole, are you going to talk about the Restricted List the game never tells you about? (at least to my knowledge) It doesn't really affect me in Sacred Cards. There are approximately 12 cards on that list, and 5 of those are Exodia pieces.
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Feb 26, 2017 09:18
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I always liked The Sacred Cards, even though people said it was too easy. A friend of mine even drew the avatar character of this game, even though you can't really see too many details of him. Also, I believe that The Sacred Cards follows the manga more closely than the anime. Pandora, for instance, was dueled in some magician's tent in the anime, whereas the manga had Atem figure out that the Ghouls were working out of the shop where the Duel Disks came from and he dueled Pandora in the basement of that building. The location in Sacred Cards is based on the latter, from all indication. Blueberry Pancakes fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Mar 1, 2017 08:21
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:I always liked The Sacred Cards, even though people said it was too easy. A friend of mine even drew the avatar character of this game, even though you can't really see too many details of him. Nice drawing. I've heard that that character appears in the GX Manga or some such but I can't verify if that's true at all without reading the whole thing. I think Sacred Cards and especially Reshef of Destruction are some kinda mish-mash of both the manga and anime, but I'm always happy when the games take inspiration from the very original Yu-Gi-Oh story.
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Mar 1, 2017 09:13
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Having read the GX manga, I don't recall seeing him at all. The only original characters in GX's manga were: * Koyo Hibiki: The guy who gets Jaden into dueling and gives him his E-Hero deck. * Midori Hibiki: The above's teacher and the professor of Osiris Red. * David Rabb: A minor antagonist mid-way through the manga that used The Big Saturn. * Reggie MacKenzie: A minor antagonist mid-way through the manga that used The Splendid Venus. * Principal MacKenzie: Reggie's dad. Possessed by the main villain, Tragoedia, and uses The Supremacy Sun. Otherwise, everyone else was a character in the anime.
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Mar 1, 2017 11:27
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Sacred Cards Part 3/4 The next plot event occurs at the game shop, but hold everything! It's been pointed out to me that I've missed out on a number of optional events! Because in this game, advancing the plot too far causes you to permanently miss sidequests, great idea right? So let's rewind for a bit. I mean you don't exactly get much that's worthwhile out of them. For example, if you have just one locator card, you can enter the game shop to find Joey there. Challenge and defeat him, and you win this:  2000 attack points? For no tributes? And it's a shadow monster? Sign me up!...oh wait, look at the Cost. 319. Boy am I sick of seeing that text box telling me I can't use it. In fact, let's talk deck capacity a moment. All monsters get their card cost from a formula. I have yet to figure out the precise formula, but I've got a good idea of how it works: The formula assigns a cost based on how big the monster's highest stat is, and the number of tributes needed. Monster effect doesn't factor in, attribute and type don't factor in. Some monsters and every spell/trap card get their cost from the formula of "however much Konami thinks it's worth". That means every other no-tribute monster with 2000 attack or defense is gonna cost 319 deck capacity. Now, see, monsters that big usually came with some kind of drawback in the TCG. Panter Warrior required a tribute to attack, Dark Elf required a 1000 Life point payment to attack, Jurai Gumo had a 50% chance to halve your life points with every attack, you get the point. But in this game, the drawback of "stupidly high cost" outright cripples their usability entirely. The Duelist Level rule stops me from using them for a LONG time, and even if I did grind out the levels needed, 319 is still a good chunk of my deck's capacity taken up by one card that I need luck to draw. Unless the purpose of this was to give the CPU an edge over the player (they don't get to deal with deck capacity, yeah) something tells me we need a new formula.  But enough of my whining about things that don't affect me. (Yet.) See that NPC with the afro? That one NPC out of everyone else starts a sidequest. I guess him standing still is supposed to be a dead giveaway. Beat him in a duel and he'll ask you to point out some easy prey for him, do that and he'll do the same for you. Naturally, we tell him where to find...  ...an impossibly strong opponent like Yugi! Actually you can duel him around this point, too, but the prize is just the not-that-great Beaver Warrior. Okay fine, I was kidding about the "easy prey" thing, but it's still neat to find this guy here after you just told him where to find Yugi. Attention to detail!  In return, he tells us where to find Mai Valentine. (The pun is an English dub invention.) She'll duel, but she doesn't want to bet locator cards, as she's dead set on taking card number six from Joey. For some reason.  She is, as far as I know, the only opponent where the duel begins on a Mountain field, which raises the power of Dragons, Thunder monsters, and Winged Beasts. Mai is notable for using one of the earliest decks in Yu-Gi-Oh to use an "Archetype", a series of monsters that share a part of their name and a consistent theme. She uses Harpy monsters, and you can win one from her if you're good. Come to think of it, if I remember right, the only field spell the game doesn't have a duel start on is the Meadow field. Odd.  Anyhow, back on the main path, a guy in purple threatens us and says they've taken Joey Wheeler and Tea Gardner (Yugi's romantic interest) prisoner.  Alerting the police force or whatever never crosses our mind, apparently.  Looks like a mysterious group of dangerous card players is on the loose! They're committing the heinous crime of winning at card games!   Right, so, the next objective is to beat up all the "Ghouls", because beating them at a card game will make them stop. I could understand if, say, the monster holograms the characters' Duel Discs project had a physical presence, thereby making their attacks actually hurt, but that's not happening for a good four anime spin-offs or so.  The Ghouls all share two qualities: One, they all start on the Yami field. Two, they use heavy amounts of Fiend monsters. Since running them over with stronger monsters doesn't always cut it, including a few Light monsters in your deck is a good idea for these duels.  Typos aside, this section of the game is annoying because you need to beat the Ghouls in every area they appear in. However, they respawn, and you don't know which Ghouls need to be beaten in order to set the event flag (You'll hear a bell sound when you beat the correct ones.) So this part gets a little annoying.  Oh, and check out this card I picked up. This is Trap Master. His effect is to place a free Acid Trap Hole on my side of the field. Where does the card physically come from, you ask? The Acid Trap Hole on my rear end. oh...oh god I'm so sorry Uh, okay, so, Trap cards. They activate the instant their conditions are fulfilled, which means you can't save them for when they're absolutely needed. The most common traps respond to monsters attacking. Acid Trap Hole will destroy any attacker with 3000 or less attack points. Other traps including reversing the effect of a powerup, reflecting direct damage, and turning LP recovery into LP damage. Mako Tsunami actually has the best trap in the game: Torrential Tribute. If that one activates, the attacker loses all his monsters and it's seriously infuriating because you can't even bait it out with a weaker monster. Good thing he never draws it.   Here's where the remaining Ghouls are located.  I finally got the chance to use Dark Magician, and would you look at how much power the field gives him! Yugi must be demolishing them left and right. They really ought to switch to another monster type at this rate.   Beat all the Ghouls in the other areas, then return here to see Weevil getting beaten by a guy with a flag on his head. "Bandit" Keith Howard here is an American jerk and he always wants you to remember it.  Okay, Keith, whatcha got for me?  Wow, he actually used different attributes! Good job, Keith, it took more than one turn to beat you!  B-but I'm the one who keeps winning...  Anyhow, head back to the game shop after beating Keith to find Mai Valentine, and she's willing to give us a lead.   Always nice to know Big Brother has our backs and wasn't spying on us in order to knock us out at his own leisure!  At this point, Yugi actually follows you around on the map! I can pretend to be popular now!  We head to Kaiba Corporation, where his security dude won't call him for us unless we beat him in a card game. Of course. Why would it be anything other than a card game. It's not like lives are at stake.  New objective: Find Kaiba's little brother and bug him about it instead.  Of course he gets kidnapped, there's nothing else you can expect from Mokuba. Oh, and since we're in front of the game center, I should point out a cool easter egg I just now found out: The DDR cabinet in the game center isn't actually DDR, it's Beatmania. How do I know this? One of the songs from Beatmania appears in The Sacred Cards as the theme of the game center.   Another pair of Marik Ishtar's minions. These two are called Lumis (the white one) and Umbra (the red one). In the anime, they dueled Yugi and Kaiba as a team.  Guess what that means!   They insist on dueling on the roof of the building, because the losers are going to have the skylight's glass shatter under their feet. (Uh, in the anime, anyhow.) We get a choice of which one to duel. Make sure you actually know which one is Lumis, because he's the easier of the two. Umbra's deck has a lot more tough monsters with attribute variety. (No Dream monsters, but that goes without saying.) Side note: They goofed and gave Lumis four copies of one of his (not so good) monsters. You're normally restricted to three of any card, unless the banlist of whatever game you're playing further restricts the number of copies you can have. In this game, the only restricted cards are the Exodia pieces, Raigeki, Dark Hole, Pot of Greed, Harpie's Feather Duster, Change of Heart, Monster Reborn, and you can only have two copies of Heavy Storm.  But you stink at card games.  Marik starts talking through his minion again, and we get a little more info about him. He and Yugi each possess a Millenium Item, which is ancient Egyptian artifact with crazy magical powers. There are, of course, seven in all.  Marik's item is the Millenium Rod, which lets him mind control people. That's how he talks through other people.  Marik then makes the masked pair collapse.  ...WHAT! We just saved your life, buddy! Let's throw him off the building!  Well, at least he gave us what we came for. To the Art museum!  Kaiba then tells us where Joey is. If this seems unusually helpful of him, he really just wants us to get rid of Marik and the Ghouls for him.   The Pier opens up on the map, and...gah! Yugi, your sprite is morphing with mine, hurry and get away!   Keith and a bunch of Ghouls block our way. Yugi decides to take all five of the others. No I don't know how that works.  Check this out, I won so much money even the game doesn't know the actual amount!...But wouldn't it be trivial to just...like...print that number on the screen? Sigh...some decisions I'll never understand.  Joey's just ahead, but something isn't right with him.   This has got to be the most elaborate trap ever. Marik forces Yugi into a duel with Joey in which the loser gets drowned. Hey Marik, I've got this great invention you should try out - a PISTOL BULLET TO THE FOREHEAD!  Yugi can't bring himself to drown Joey, so he loses and gets drowned instead.  You then get a Dragon Quest-style "But thou must" prompt. Refusing to save Yugi doesn't actually do anything but make you select again.  Okay, Joey, now it's my turn!...Wait will beating him just drown him like before or is that different now?   Yugi gives Joey a heart-to-heart talk about friendship and promises, and that breaks Marik's hold on him. Wow, friendship really is the strongest thing in the world.  Everyone heads back the game shop, and Joey realizes he's still short on locator card, so we have to wait for him. At abolutely NO POINT is this ever hinted, but the next plot point is at the Art museum and you're kinda expected to just go there.  A mysteriously lady is there to greet us.  She introduces herself as Ishizu (known as Isis in Forbidden Memories in case anyone played that first) and invites us inside. Plot dump incoming!  She lays out the story behind Duel Monsters. Way long ago in Egypt, wizards and priests battled each other by summoning dark creatures that prey on the weaknesses in the hearts of man. Records of these battles survived to the present day, where a guy named Pegasus J. Crawford decided these horrific beasts and bloody wars would be a great basis for a children's card game! Okay it goes a little deeper than that, but Yu-Gi-Oh does a horrible job at not looking completely silly on the surface.  Ishizu challenges us. I'd like to take a moment to comment on the actually pretty nice soundtrack the game has. Ishizu's theme is upbeat and mysterious at the same time, and best of all, there's an excuse to listen to it more than once per playthrough.  This is one of the rare moments where the game forces you to play two duels consecutively without saving. If you beat Ishizu but lose to the second opponent, you'll be kicked back to your house (which is also the only save point, forgot to mention) and you have to re-do the entire event from the start. Thing is, Ishizu gives you TONS of money and deck capacity, so grinding money off of her is very possible if you want to make the game even easier. Oh, and Ishizu uses nothing but Light monsters.  Well, except for that. That is the ONE Dream monster I've ever seen in Sacred Cards and it just rammed headfirst into one of my traps.  After defeating her, she explains that Marik Ishtar is her brother and he organized the Ghouls in order to hunt down rare cards. Specifically, he is looking for the legendary Egyptian God Cards - three monsters based on Osiris, Ra, and Seth. You might have seen them already, in fact, if Ishizu and Strings had pulled out the ones they had in their decks, but then you'd have probably lost. Ishizu wants to stop Marik, because if he gets all three, he can...uh...he, he can... What the hell CAN he do with them?! They're TRADING CARDS! I don't want to get into a rant about the plot in a Let's Play, but the "God Cards" are one of the reasons I didn't like the Battle City arc as much as what preceded and followed it.  Ishizu's willing to let a complete stranger handle what's apparently a very important piece of cardboard, but there's one more test first.  We get to duel Seto Kaiba. It's the moment you've all been waiting for.  Kuriboh vs. Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Three hundred attack points versus three THOUSAND. A chestnut versus the most powerful (normal) monster alive.  KURIBOH WINS.  And in case that wasn't a big enough kick in the balls, I use a spell card to revive Blue-Eyes White Dragon on MY side! That's gotta sting! But see, there's an AI quirk that can make this even MORE humiliating. He has Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon in his deck, which is a Ritual monster. Now, the player needs a Ritual spell to summon it, but the computer doesn't, the computer just needs to tribute three monsters. Thing is, if the AI decides to discard it to make room in its hand, it goes to the graveyard. And you can revive it. Fascinating.  We even win it as a prize in this duel! This is actually an alternate artwork of Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon - I assume the Ritual spell summons the other version. Alternate artworks exist for the Ultimate Dragon, White Dragon, Dark Magician, Red-Eyes Black Dragon, and Black Metal Dragon. Oh, and I should mention the game limits you to three copies of any given card unless that card is further restricted by an in-game list of cards limited to two or one copy. However, I tried adding three copies of each version of Blue-Eyes White dragon into my deck - IT WORKED. They were too lazy to stop you from having six of one monster with alternate art in your deck. It's the most impractical thing ever, but hey, there it is. Now I'm curious if certain card effects interact with all versions of what they're supposed to interact with.  Kaiba says he doesn't need a God card to win duels. And you know what? He's entirely correct. But hey, that means we get to use the God card ourselves!  Sacred Cards was the first game (in the West, that is) to give us players control of the God cards. They WERE printed, but they were just prize cards, they weren't tournament legal until they were reprinted very recently. And...they're highly impractical to use basically anywhere they appear, but let's talk about them anyhow. The Egyptian God cards in Sacred Cards have a number of common properties. They're Level 12, so they need three tributes. If you have that many monsters, you were probably going to win anyways. However, it should be noted that the God cards have the Divine attribute and are completely immune to destruction by card effect - literally the only way to destroy one is by having higher attack points, and all three of them have 4000 attack and defense. Now, they aren't immune to ALL effects, just destruction. If you have spells or effects that lower their attack points or stun them, by all means use them. As for Obelisk the Tormentor (how it got that name is a mystery) he is probably the best one out of all three in this game. His special effect lets him destroy EVERY enemy monster AND deal FOUR THOUSAND damage to the opponent. This should secure victory no matter what, but if it doesn't, you can play Darkness Approaches. Like I mentioned previously, this flips him face down and allows him to use his effect again. Unlike with regular attacks, NOTHING can stop a monster effect. Anyhow! That update had lots of text in it, but there's still one more update to go for Sacred Cards! The finals of the tournament await! Ephraim225 fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Mar 6, 2017 |
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Mar 2, 2017 11:47
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Oh God, you're going to have to play Reshef. Godspeed you poor bastard.
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Mar 2, 2017 12:03
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Dabir posted:my dude we ain't gonna judge you but keep the porn you look up to yourself Yu-Gi-Oh and smut are practically indistinguishable. Check out this difficult quiz.
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Mar 2, 2017 12:32
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I never realized that Mai used a deck with a bondage theme when I was a kid. Also, Marik's death trap never made sense to me. Instead of setting the timer and anchor to 30 minutes, why not set it to two minutes and just have Joey stand there instead of dueling? He didn't want Yugi's puzzle in the manga, so this way they die immediately and there's no need to prolong things. The anime added some lines about him wanting the Millennium Puzzle and needing to win it fairly in a duel or some nonsense, but he cheats in pretty much every match in Battle City aside from the duel with Strings. In regards to the game, Revival Jam is a good card to use in tandem with the God Cards. Its special effect summons an extra copy of itself to the field. PMush Perfect posted:Oh God, you're going to have to play Reshef. Thinking about that game still makes me angry. 
Blueberry Pancakes fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Mar 2, 2017 |
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Mar 2, 2017 14:50
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I didn't mind the lack of direction that much, because there are only so many places to check for the next plot point. Maybe the idea was to see how things had gone back to normal after the duel assault? Shame that only the Aquarium and the Art Museum had things to do at this point.
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Mar 2, 2017 15:30
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Ephraim225 posted:Another pair of Marik Ishtar's minions. These two are called Umbra (the white one) and Lumis (the red one). In the anime, they dueled Yugi and Kaiba as a team. you got your mask guys backwards Lumis is the white mask and Umbra is the red/black mask.
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Mar 3, 2017 03:06
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mateo360 posted:you got your mask guys backwards Lumis is the white mask and Umbra is the red/black mask. Woah, go me. Thanks for catching that! Gave me an excuse to check their decks. Umbra looks slightly harder!
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Mar 3, 2017 03:20
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Sacred Cards, part 4/4 Well guys, here it is. The Battle City finals and the grand finale to Sacred Cards. Get comfy, because there are only four duels left to be played, which means a LOT of cutscenes are incoming. But first, we have another sidequest available! Around the time you get Obelisk, you can visit the Aquarium because...maybe your character wanted to cool off a little? I haven't a clue.  You'll encounter Mai Valentine being stalked by a movie star. This is Jean-Claude Magnum and he's pretty much the definition of a filler character. The anime just decided to randomly have this guy show up right before the finals. Not sure if the manga did that too. Here, at least, he's just a sidequest.  Mai decides to make us take out the trash, and just to increase the pressure, promises to marry Mr. Magnum if we lose. No, that doesn't actually happen if you lose, losing just boots you back to your house and the game pretends it never happened.  Then why can't you just do it yourself, Mai? You're good at card games, right? ...Right? So we defeat Mr. Magnum and head back to the game shop. Everyone puts the locator cards together and finds that the finals are being held at a run-down stadium in town.  The finalists turn out to be me, Yugi, Joey, Mai, Kaiba, Marik, Bakura, and that totally friendly dude Joey met right before he was made into Marik's mind slave. Huh.  If you defeated Mr. Magnum, Mai rewards you with a card.  Hey, relax, Mai, I won't use it against you.  Correction: I CAN'T use it against you.  "Marik" is the last to arrive. That face is pretty intimidating, I'll admit.  As it turns out, Kaiba has decided to hold the finals atop a flying blimp for no other reason than he has the money to do it so he may as well. The first match is Bakura vs. Yugi.  What ever could you mean, Joey? Did Bakura manage to get all five Destiny Board cards on the field and win instantly? Destiny Board vs. Exodia actually sounds like a fun matchup.   Oh yeah, Bakura has a Millenium Item, too. Bakura possesses the Millenium Ring, which has an evil demonic world-destroyer sealed inside of it. I'm dead serious. Actually, the Ring has a FRAGMENT of an evil demonic world-destroyer inside of it, and he regularly clashes with Yugi.  Luckily, Yugi has the spirit of an ancient Pharoah in his Millenium Item!  Ouch, sick burn. Actually, I did check Yugi's decklist. He has only FOUR pieces of Exodia. Which contradicts canon, come to think of it...  Yugi's packing a new monster here, though. It runs over Bakura very easily.  Its real name is Osiris, but 4kids decided to insert a shoutout to Roger Slifer, the Executive Producer of the English dub for the first season. Know what, he did good work before he passed away two years ago, so I'll let this one slide.  Yes, the God cards can only be used by the CHOSEN ONES!  Sick burn? Wait. If Strings has Slifer in his deck (as he did in the anime) how did Yugi get it after we beat Strings?! Did he just happen upon Strings's body and just...take it?! That's looting!  Finally, it's our turn. We get to deal with the bad guy because of course we do.  Yugi points out, however, that those who own Millenium Items can tell each other apart, and this guy is most certainly not Marik. No, his real name is Odion and he's pretending to be Marik. I haven't a clue why he needed to do that. Is the real Marik just not scary at all compared to Odion?  Assuming you even get to play it!  Odion doesn't fool around. This is where the game gets very difficult. He uses strong, defensive Rock monsters, which he can later tribute for either his God card, or another signature monster of his.  That monster is Mystical Beast Serket. Which is Fairy-type.  A fairy. That's a fairy. Okay I know the fairy type was called "Angel" in Japan, but that's even LESS sensical!  Anyways, Serket has the ability to eat enemy monsters and absorb their attack points. Pretty impressive for one tribute.  Hey look, I have a Spell that destroys a monster, and another that revives a monster.  Yep! You should be careful, though, he has one mosnter capable of stealing his monster back. The Ritual monster, Relinquished, is in Odion's deck and it can steal one enemy monster. Yes, I am fully aware Relinquished is a Ritual monster you'd normally need a Ritual spell to use. Odion does not care one bit. He can play Relinquished like a normal monster. He's the only duelist in the game to do that, in fact. Well, the player can do it too, I suppose.  Oh, did I mention the God cards can smite unworthy souls who dare play it? Why were they even created and why weren't they DESTROYED if they're so dangerous?  He didn't even get the chance to summon it in that duel, what are you talking about?  Odion gets struck by lightning, and the real Marik reveals himself.  "I'll give everyone really bad paper cuts!" Marik just so happens to have his own super-powered evil side, created after Marik suffered some very contrived trauma as a kid. Now he wants to destroy the world because come on, that's just what these madmen do.  HE JUST TOLD YOU, GEEZ!  The next match is Joey vs. the real Marik. Why isn't he disqualified for entering under a false alias? I guess there was no rule against it...  Was saying the word "die" really out of the question here?  Marik reveals the third God, the Winged Dragon of Ra, and runs over Joey with it.  Joey falls unconcious and will remain that way until Marik is defeated.  You can wander around the blimp, and can find Marik about to stab Odion, but for some reason he backs off when you find him.   That just leaves these two. Seto Kaiba rather unceremoniously runs over Mai.  The blimp lands on an island formerly used by Kaiba Corporation as an HQ. It's been worn down over time, though.  Ooh, good one. The only thing more fitting is a tomb decorated with Link Monsters.   Inside the tower, we start the semifinal duel of the game. In the anime, there was a four-way Battle Royale to determine the matchups, but we can't do that with this engine of course.   Yugi upgrades his deck here with some great Spell cards, the fifth Exodia piece, and two three-tribute monsters you really DON'T want him to summon.  Unfortunately for him, I have so many powerful cards by this point he won't even get the chance.  We are awarded with the second God card. Let's take a look.  Slifer sucked horribly in the TCG, but here, he's, eh, okay. He can increase his attack by 1500 for every card in your hand, just in case you wanted to make an invincible God even more invincible. I guess it's cool to have an easy road to five digits of attack power.  Okay Kaiba, as long as you actually get your Ultimate Dragon on the field, everything should go smoothly!   Kaiba decides to up the level of awesome by creating a holograph of a gladiator arena for this duel.  Oh, just like the rest of the game, then.  Nice going, Kaiba. He falls unconcious too. It's really all down to us, isn't it.  The only thing standing between us and the ending is Marik.  It begins. Marik has a powerful deck with some of the game's best cards.  He has Ancient Lamp, which summons a strong, 1800-point Fiend to the field, which is further boosted by the Yami terrain. He has another 1800-point monster that can attack directly.  He has Harpie's Feather Duster and Monster Reborn - TWO copies of each in fact, despite the player being restricted to only ONE copy of these. He's cheating. And this is all before you factor in the Winged Dragon of Ra. But you know what?  My deck packs almost twice the punch and has Obelisk, so it's not like the challenge is that much higher.  However, he has one bullshit card that can ruin your match if he draws it. This is Thousand-Eyes Restrict. Like Relinquished, it can steal an enemy monster. Unlike Relinquished, the stolen monster is powered up just to rub your face in it further. TCG players might remember needing to Fusion summon it, but nope, not in this game! Thankfully Marik tried to use it on the God card, who is immune to the effect. Now, I could just finish him off with Obelisk right there, but I wanted to end Sacred Cards with a much bigger bang than that. Then I thought of something that would be outright amazing if I could pull it off. What was it, you ask?  Killing a God monster with a non-God monster. I picked up this card from Lumis earlier. The Masked Beast Des Gardius has 3300 attack points, making it the strongest two-tribute monster out there. And it's a Fiend, so this field pushes its attack points all the way to 4290 - HIGHER than the Gods. Of course you can beat Ra very easily even if you actually let Marik summon it. For whatever messed up reason, Ra counts as a Machine monster, which means the Umi field spell WEAKENS him. The other two Gods don't have that problem, which really makes me wonder why everyone thinks Ra is powerful or dangerous, but what can you do?  How about not only killing it but reviving it to your side as well?! This is technically the only way you can control Ra, since the game ends as soon as you beat Marik. Why the game awards you half a million Domino for beating him is something I've pondered on occassion. Was a New Game Plus mode planned? That'd have been a good thing, the game has so little replay value without a multiplayer mode.   In addition to being weak in the Umi field, Ra's effect is by far the worst of all three: He reduces your LP to 1, then reduces the enemy's LP by however much you lost. If you're ahead in LP, you win instantly, but seriously? Obelisk at least doesn't leave you vulnerable to the Sparks spell! (Sparks literally just does 50 damage. If you kill someone with it it's rather hilarious.)  Kaiba and Joey wake up and presumably duke it out for the coveted Bronze Medal, Mokuba says "Thank-you" for once, and we head back to town.  Ishizu greets us when we arrive.  What? Hell no, they're actually pretty good if you play them right, I'm keeping them! They're safer with me anyways.  Yeah it's another "But Thou Must" moment, so no you don't get to keep them. Hopefully they don't turn to stone or something stupid.   Man, the attention to detail is incredible. They drew a whole portrait just for this one line of dialogue.   Everyone goes home after that, and we return to our normal lives. Would suck if another crisis decided to disrupt our boring routine, huh?  The credits roll, and we're shown mugshots that certainly won't be recycled in the sequel!  Why couldn't they hire him back for Generation 7? sob  This concludes Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards. We still have a hell of a lot to get through. Next time, we check out the four Gameboy Color Yu-Gi-Oh games, and then after that......the true Shadow Realm of gaming.
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Mar 6, 2017 10:42
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Jean Claude was not in the manga, no. And Odion pretends to be Marik because the real Marik wanted to do something. I dunno. Marik's plans are pretty dumb, to be honest. He spends the whole time he pretends he isn't Marik holding the real Millennium Rod behind his back.  Incidentally, I do believe that Odion can summon Ra, but I think it just winds up being the Sphere Mode if he does. The God Cards weren't destroyed for reasons gone into in the Memory World arc. Yami Yugi needs to win them and use them on Ishizu's Giant Rock of Ancient Egyptian Spoilers to learn his true name so he can pass into the afterlife. This ties in with a subplot about Yugi becoming his own person and so on. I guess this game just decided not to worry about silly things like that, so he'll wander the Earth forever. Cheery! 
Blueberry Pancakes fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Mar 6, 2017 |
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Mar 6, 2017 14:00
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Wow, was not expecting a diss on Link Monsters to show up. Kudos. It does make some sense for Ra to be treated as a Machine, since it does look pretty mechanical in its art (or at least, to me it does). Doesn't excuse it though. And they somehow made Spark even more useless. I'm not even mad, that's impressive. For those who don't follow the TCG, in the real card game, Sparks does 200 damage.
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Mar 6, 2017 16:09
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Wow, you cleared the entire first game in a single page. Talk about short. And not very good even in that shortness, but well, what's coming next is much worse, obviously. Also giving you Ra then ending the game without letting you use it is one of the weirdest things I've seen. What was the point, other than following the plot? Give the player at least one duel to use it, geez. At least you can hack it in, I guess.
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Mar 6, 2017 18:30
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There's one last secret duel that might be worth looking into, if you go right immediately after entering the Pier. It's nothing compared to the final boss, but it can be the best way to grind up money. Or you could take a break from TSC then duck back to it before Keith reintroduces himself in the next game. MightyPretenders fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Mar 6, 2017 |
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Mar 6, 2017 18:47
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:Incidentally, I do believe that Odion can summon Ra, but I think it just winds up being the Sphere Mode if he does. You're thinking of Keith in Reshef of Destruction. Sphere Mode isn't in this game. Hobgoblin2099 posted:The God Cards weren't destroyed for reasons gone into in the Memory World arc. Yami Yugi needs to win them and use them on Ishizu's Giant Rock of Ancient Egyptian Spoilers to learn his true name so he can pass into the afterlife. This ties in with a subplot about Yugi becoming his own person and so on. I guess this game just decided not to worry about silly things like that, so he'll wander the Earth forever. Cheery! I suppose that kinda makes sense. I feel that there was a better way to handle the plot point about specific cards being important, but whatever. MightyPretenders posted:There's one last secret duel that might be worth looking into, if you go right immediately after entering the Pier. It's nothing compared to the final boss, but it can be the best way to grind up money. Do you have to do it at a specific time? I just tried going there at the end of the game and found some random duelists and the Mako Tsunami rematch, and none of them had tons of money.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:14
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Did you really finish the game without leveling up enough to use a single reward you got over the course of it?
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Mar 6, 2017 21:56
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Yes, Marik telling Joey to die is a bridge too far. This is the dub that changed the "these saws will slice your feet off" to "these energy discs will send you to the Shadow Realm," after all. And the Umbra & Lunis fight contained a portal to the Shadow Realm at the bottom of the fall, because we can't have somebody dying by falling a bunch of stories to the ground underneath. Also, what's with the weird laughs some of the characters have in TSC? "Fufufufu" was also a laugh used in Pokemon Silver/Gold, and I'm not sure why.
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Mar 6, 2017 22:09
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get that OUT of my face posted:Yes, Marik telling Joey to die is a bridge too far. This is the dub that changed the "these saws will slice your feet off" to "these energy discs will send you to the Shadow Realm," after all. And the Umbra & Lunis fight contained a portal to the Shadow Realm at the bottom of the fall, because we can't have somebody dying by falling a bunch of stories to the ground underneath.
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Mar 6, 2017 22:15
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Yeah, it's supposed to be a sort of throaty chuckle as I understand it.
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Mar 6, 2017 22:24
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Simply Simon posted:Did you really finish the game without leveling up enough to use a single reward you got over the course of it? Oh no, you'll certainly have the level needed to use the rewards by the end of the game. I simply chose not to for the most part. Other than Revival Jam a lot of cards I was winning don't fit my strategy for this run. I think most players will end the game with a duelist level of 275, which covers most of the rewards you get. Of course I still didn't appreciate seeing that "Your duelist level is too low" text every time I won something.
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Mar 6, 2017 22:28
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Ephraim225 posted:You're thinking of Keith in Reshef of Destruction. Sphere Mode isn't in this game. I said the Right, not the left.
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Mar 7, 2017 01:07
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MightyPretenders posted:I said the Right, not the left. .......How was anyone supposed to know you could even go inside that building?! Or any of the buildings?! You can't even see the door!
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Mar 7, 2017 02:08
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It's a pretty obscure secret, yeah.
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Mar 7, 2017 02:11
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