Yu-Gi-Oh!started out as a lighthearted shounen manga centered around games of chance. The property’s popularity skyrocketed once it switched focus to a trading card game called Duel Monsters, and thereal-life equivalent TCGhas sold dozens of billions of cards in the years since.
Apart from its popularity among TCG enthusiasts, the series has also seen many video game adaptations - few of which reached mainstream popularity and none of which became the Pokemon-killers Konami hoped for. Regardless, theEarly Days Collectioncompiles 14 chapters in the early handheld history of the series. With such a massive selection of games at your disposal, it’s worth taking a look to see which are the best ones.
8Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters
1998, Game Boy
Perhaps the most celebration-worthy aspect of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters is the fact that it got localized at all after 27 years. The game is now playable in languages other than Japanese and is the first TCG-focused title in the series. It was the second Yu-Gi-Oh! game after amonster battleron the PS1.
Interestingly, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters came out two months before the official card game itself did. As such, it follows the rules set in the manga source material. There are exactly 365 cards in the game. The UI is quite clean and the artwork is nice, though the music will - perhaps predictably - grate on your ears.
7Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories
2002, Game Boy Color
As part of the Duel Monsters series on Nintendo’s Game Boy family of systems, Dark Duel Stories follows its own rules based on the original manga rather than Konami’s official card game.
Dark Duel Stories boots you right into the gameplay, telling you to beat characters from the manga five times in a row to progress. Aside from the gorgeous sprite artwork, the presentation is barebones, but the colour palette is impressive for a GBC title.
Though the in-game interface lists it as a 2002 title, Dark Duel Stories actually launched in 2000 in Japan.
6Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Tournament 2004
2004, Game Boy Advance
If you’re a longtime fan of Yu-Gi-Oh!, this game will be a delight. If you’re a newcomer, it will be a disappointment. World Championship Tournament adapts the rules of the official card game and, for better or for worse, represents the point of consolidation where Yu-Gi-Oh! became a yearly, iterative series in the line of sports games.
Though it has a rich and almost mind-bending selection of cards, World Championship Tournament could use some improvements to the AI before truly being one of the finer offerings in the collection.
Konami announced while launching the Early Days Collection that there would be online multiplayer support for several games in the coming months: if so, WTC 2004 would benefit from it the most.
5Yu-Gi-Oh! 7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005
2005, Game Boy Advance
7 Trials To Glory was the game subject to the most hype and scrutiny among Yu-Gi-Oh! fans when the Early Days Collection was announced, due to its proximity to theGoat Format, despite minor differences.
If you’re looking to get transported to the summer of 2005, when fans were able to reinvent the TCG in new and interesting ways that even Konami didn’t intend, you’ll find WCT 2005 fun. Other than that, it’s only notable for a Solid Snake cameo.
4Yu-Gi-Oh! The Eternal Duelist Soul
2002, Game Boy Advance
The Eternal Duelist Soul finally relented and adopted the rules of the official card game, unlike its preceding Duel Monsters titles. There are over 800 cards, and you duel characters from the manga in five-for battles before being allowed to progress.
The Eternal Duelist Soul is slightly disappointing due to its minuscule progress in user-friendliness or UI from the days of the original Game Boy, but any fan looking for rich TCG gameplay can jump right in and enjoy this entry.
3Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule
2000, Game Boy Color
The biggest reason Yu-Gi-Oh! was unable to catch up to Pokemon in the video game realm, despite its massive popularity on the trading card circuit, was that its games were often inaccessible to anyone unfamiliar with the TCG beforehand. They lacked tutorials, and the Early Days Collection itself makes only minimal efforts to circumvent that issue. The early games were also largely menu-based, rather than having a proper story or exploration.
This makes Monster Capsule a much more palatable offering than other titles in the series. It boasts an actual story, isometric visuals and appearances by series favourites. You explore over five floors as Yugi before coming face-to-face with Kaiba in what was Konami’s most sincere shot yet at a monster battler to rival Pokemon.
2Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters
2001, Game Boy Advance
After a few card battlers, Konami decided to try something new with the Yu-Gi-Oh! IP for its Game Boy Advance debut. The result was Dungeon Dice Monsters, adigital tabletop gamethat is incredibly deep and can be a good deal of fun, provided you have the patience to sit through the rules.
There is no story mode, no tutorial, and the game boots you directly into a match. You’ll recognize some familiar faces from the manga, but largely Dungeon Dice Monsters is focused only on gameplay, and that’s just as well.
Dungeon Dice Monsters was adapted into a real-life tabletop game in 2002.
1Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards
2003, Game Boy Advance
The Sacred Card brings some much-needed visual upgrades to the series with its impressive, Golden Sun-esque isometric visuals and graphical effects. Its dialogue is more than a bit amusing, characterizing the cast in a manner similar to early anime dubs.
The Sacred Cards incorporates elemental effects and is closer to the earlier Duel Monsters subseries than the official card game. Its presentation makes it more welcoming to newcomers than previous titles. This will be one of your best entry points into the series as a debutant duelist.
