Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Keith Schleicher

There seem to be three trading card games that have endured the test of time: Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh!  The later two card games have popular cartoon series associated with them which has helped them to continue their popularity, and it’s no surprise that the companies behind these card games would want to try to expand their success to other areas.  Yu-Gi-Oh! has been around since the Game Boy Color and original PlayStation, and most of those translations have been created for the Game Boy Advance.  Since development has started to shift to the Nintendo DS, it’s not surprising that Konami is attempting to corner the market with a new Yu-Gi-Oh! game.  Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Spirit Caller is the second Yu-Gi-Oh! game to find its way on the DS, but is it that much of an improvement over the first?

In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Spirit Caller you play as a new recruit to Duelist Academy.  While at Duelist Academy you traverse the grounds, attend classes, and work your way up through the ranks by dueling.  Building your deck and playing your cards right is essential to make you way to becoming the top duelist.

It’s easy to tell that Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Spirit Caller uses the same engine as Yu-Gi-Oh! Nightmare Troubadour when starting the game.  You start out inside your dorm room with your bed, PC, door, and deck construction area.  As you travel the island you’ll encounter different terrain like forests and the beach.  You’ll even see the classroom where you attend classes.  The backgrounds have a nice amount of detail, but they don’t move and a single screen is used to represent the entire area.  It’s not bad, but it could be represented better.

As you wander around you try to find other duelists.  Some of these are easily recognizable from the TV series.  Other duelists were created specifically for the game.  While they haven’t been seen before, they match the style of the other duelists you’ll find.

The duel matches are the portion of the game you see the most.  The bottom screen represents the entire duel area, while the top screen highlights specific points of interest in the game.  When the card is displayed with its description, the card picture is created exactly as if you’d bought it from the game.  On the battlefield, all of the cards have a graphical representation.  Monsters show if they are in attack mode or defense mode and when the monsters battle small lighting effects are used.  It’s impressive that they use lighting effects that match each monster.  Sometimes you see a claw swipe while other times you see an animal bite or a slash attack.  Cards also crack like glass when they are destroyed in battle or through trap cards.  Unfortunately the monster representations look a bit jagged and unpolished.  They do their job though and are most likely limited by the hardware.  The cards do look a bit blurry as well, while they do get more detailed when selecting them.

The music in the game is repetitive.  You hear the same music whenever you are in your room.  The music you hear while searching for duelists is always the same.  During the duels you hear the same music unless the field is changed by a field spell.  Although it’s nice to be able to tell where you are by the music, it gets repetitious quickly.

The sound effects represent something more from the GBA than the Nintendo DS.  They do give an indication of what is going on with the duel, but they are the dings and crashes that you’d expect from a 16-bit title.  While this is a card game, more variety would go a long way.

The series is based on a cartoon series.  When you encounter different duelists you only see what they are saying.  It would have been nice to actually hear lines from the main characters from the series you find.  We’ve seen other games on the Nintendo DS with voice acting, so this is disappointing.

Games like this show the strength of the Nintendo DS touch pad.  Controlling the game through the stylus is very easy.  All the turn phases are laid out on the left side, your cards along the bottom, and your deck to the right.  Every area is clickable and you can get more information on cards when you want to fairly easily.  To play a card you tap it once, and then tap the icon to either summon the card or set it.  This system is very intuitive and becomes second nature quickly.

You can also play Spirit Caller using the D-pad and buttons too.  Sometimes this feels just as quick as the stylus.  However, there is a bug with the game that I encountered several times.  Occasionally I would hit A selecting a monster on my side to attack.  When this happened, the game would automatically attack the opponent’s middle card when more than one monster card was placed on the opponent’s side.  I don’t have issues like this with other games on my DS.  Something like this should have been easily caught in play testing.

In Spirit Caller you are a student attending classes progressing through the day.  The first item on the day’s agenda is class.  Basically you go to the classroom and that becomes your new starting point for the day.  You aren’t actually taught anything about dueling.  You can also visit the card shop here to strengthen your deck by purchasing cards with the Duel Points you earn.

From the main Duelist Academy building you go around the area and search for duelists using either the stylus or the D-pad.  The cursor goes from blue to green to magenta the closer you get to a potential opponent.  Sometimes they decline playing against you because of your rank or just mention something about the area.

When you find an opponent, you play a quick game of Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who goes first and who goes second.  Once that is decided, the duel is on.  Each player has their own separate deck of cards.  Each player draws five cards.  Monsters have a specific number attack and defense points.  Summoning more powerful monsters requires other monsters to be sacrificed.  Trap cards can be laid on the field to foil the plans of your opponent by playing them when specific conditions are met.  Spell cards are instant cards that can be played during your turn.  Each player starts with 8000 Life Points, and the object is depleting your opponent’s Life Points.  While the game can be compared to a simplified version of Magic, there are enough cards and twists in the game that it has a surprising amount of depth.

After the match, you are given Duel Points.  With these Duel Points you can go to the school store and purchase new cards for your deck.  You can select specific packets from different booster series.  After you purchase them, the game shows you each card individually.  Once you have them in your possession, you can go to the Deck Construction screen.  The interface is intuitive and makes constructing decks easy.

At first you start out with a fairly limited deck that makes it difficult to win matches except against the easiest opponents.  As you win matches you gain Experience Points and level up your character.  As you level up you can challenge higher-ranked opponents to duels.  The more challenging the opponents, the more experience points you gather to level up.

The game doesn’t have a training mode.  While it would have been helpful, the mechanics of the game are easy to learn.  The game really takes its time getting you used to the gameplay.  Unfortunately, the game almost takes too long to get into the higher levels.  You have to play through a lot of games to get to that point, and you’ll be scraping the bottom of the barrel for a while.  It would have been nice to have a little faster challenge curve.

Also, if you aren’t a fan of the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX series, Spirit Caller isn’t going to change your opinion.  Some of the characters do get annoying with their phrases.  They also seem to say the same thing over and over again.

When you think of a game like this, you can play it over and over again.  The AI occasionally does make some questionable moves, but it can become quite challenging at the higher levels. Each player has a specific difficulty level from one to five stars which will give you an idea of how challenging the opponent will be.

In previous Yu-Gi-Oh! games, if you wanted to play against another person you needed to be linked with a friend directly.  Fans of card games like this have been clamoring for online play, because games like this are well-structured for online play.  This feature was missing from Nightmare Troubadour.  Now online play is a reality.  It’s easy to find a match, especially with how popular the card game is.  There is a timer of three minutes for each turn which should help the game go smoothly.  You also gain levels for your online avatar, so this helps you match up with players of similar skill levels.

When purchasing a Yu-Gi-Oh! game, you probably know what you are getting.  If you have played any previous Yu-Gi-Oh! games, this game plays very similarly.  The graphics and sound are adequate, but the gameplay matters most.  That being said, having two screens on the Nintendo DS gives you a better view of the playing field.  Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Spirit Caller is the best Yu-Gi-Oh! game to date.  With over 1400 cards and the ability to play against other people through the Wi-Fi capability, you won’t quickly bore of the game.  If you are looking for a strategy card game to take along with you, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Spirit Caller is probably your best bet.  At least until Yu-Gi-Oh! Ultimate Tournament 2007 comes out.

Gaming Trend Score

75

1. Graphics: 72
2. Audio: 62
3. Controls: 80
4. Gameplay: 75
5. Value/Replay: 85
6. OVERALL:75