Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution Review

The once, Hit TV show is back for another duel. I will admit I actually used to play Duel monsters when I was a kid and my nine year old has since, really got into it. However, the last time I played a Yu-Gi-Oh game was for the gameboy advance a long, long time ago. This game is the perfect excuse for me to dive back in and also teach my nine year old the basics of how the game works. It helps that Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution does an incredible job of helping new and old players understand the game. The latest campaigns are incomplete due to them still being ongoing, but this game is a perfect recreation of memorable moments from the respective shows, which is sure to be nostalgic for many.

For those new to Duel monsters, the way it works is this. You each have life points, different amounts for different campaigns; once your life points are reduced to 0 you lose the duel. There are many ways to deduct life points, monsters, trap cards, for example, can inflict damage to your life points. Placing a monster in defense mode, however, will make it so you don’t lose any life points at all, even if the difference in attack points is far greater than the defense points. However, this also makes it impossible to inflict any damage using your monsters to your opponents life points. Even if you have a powerful monster in playing, one card can completely turn the tide of the duel and that’s what gives Yu-Gi-Oh its charm. 

Yu-Gi-Oh! has been going for a long time now. I remember getting up early before school to watch Yu-Gi-Oh and to be honest, I always liked how over the top some of the voice acting was. Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution is an absolute yu-gi-oh fan’s dream. It has all the campaigns from the hit TV series and I even thought about starting to watch some of the series I haven’t seen, because of how well the story was reflected in this game. It’s not a cutting edge game by any means, but it does a perfect job of telling those key moments from the TV series themselves. Recreating Yugis win against kaiba by getting all five pieces of Exodia sent goosebumps down my spine, as I was on the ropes for the majority of the duel praying that I would finally find the last piece to seal an unlikely victory. 

The game gives you the option of creating your very own deck using cards that you can buy from a shop or using the story driven decks that portray the characters from the show. I love how up to date everything is, if a certain card is acquired at that point it will be available in the decks. Another nice touch is the reverse duel system which lets you play as the loser from the campaign to see things from their perspective, doing this actually has its benefits; you can unlock rare cards and the characters themselves in the shop, so you can buy booster packs from them. 

This is addictive in itself and I often just found myself wanting to boost my own personal deck more than anything. The game does, at first, seem extremely complex, but Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution does such a great job of holding your hand through it, that you will immediately familiarize yourself when you can use a certain trap card or when its best to try and go for the win. The AI in the campaign functions a lot like the TV show too. Doing the challenges also can teach you new starts, as well as gaining epic rewards and rare booster packs. 

It was an incredible feeling knowing that what I had learnt from watching the TV show was actually going to my advantage in a duel. Some points I literally found a bit of luck was needed, one card could literally turn the duel on its head and Yugis deck is full of these. Joey, however, is for the more experienced player; his deck is very reliant on luck, using the time wizard which has a 50% chance of either wiping yourself out or your opponent. His red eyes black dragon can get you out of a pinch too, but knowing these tricks from the TV show will most definitely be an advantage to you. All the other characters’ respective decks are represented as well. 

The only disappointment is the lack of voice acting, this would have made a brilliant game even better; but I can understand this could be due to budget, which is a shame. Also, I ran into some performance issues as well; frames would drop considerably while waiting for the opponent to finish their turn, this will surely be patched though to fix this.  The games sheer depth of cards and different combinations of how you can turn a duel in your favor is the thing that Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution does best. However, its price tag is quite high for what you are getting and I reckon this will put a lot of people off. But this is a solid, fun card game that anyone can get into, its complex rules are explained well and anyone can pick it up after a few games. 

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.