It's been year-after-year of disappointing releases for Yu-Gi-Oh! fans. Right after the first GBA release (Eternal Duelist Soul), things went downhill for this gaming franchise in terms of quality; poor gameplay, horrible battle system, and not to mention a huge portion of the card library missing from the game (therefore hampering player's creativity of creating powerful decks with solid strategy).

And now comes the seventh Yu-Gi-Oh! game release for GBA which is Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2006. Has Konami learned from its past mistakes this time?

A couple of things to start off, NO it doesn't boast nice graphics or awesome effects; just be thankful that the card images look fantastic.


As you can see, a simple card battle interface. No "pizazz", no anything.

However, just because the game lacks good graphics and effects unlike the previous release (Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Academy for GBA) doesn't mean that the game is horrible. Fortunately Konami was able to back up this statement well for there is one factor in this game which made all the difference between being an excellent game release, and being another lame mediocre game which would displease its fans (for the umpteenth time); Konami developers packed in 2060 cards (yes I know Konami said it was 2080, but I'm not counting all the cheap duplicates Konami threw in there)! For those players that have been frustrated from creating a dream deck just to have it limited by missing cards will not experience this problem much compared to the previous game releases in which more than half of the card library is missing. However, Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2006 is still missing a few cards (including Different Dimension Dragon) but Konami did put in more effort this time in this release for they used the biggest GBA cart size possible (256 Mbit). A lot of brand new cards are featured including Guardian Monsters (don't expect Guardian Eatos though), Level-up Monsters, and the three powerful demon monsters, Raviel, Hamon, and Uria (which are synonimous to Egyptian God cards in a way) along with good old classics such as Dark Magician, Change of Heart, Raigeki and Blue Eyes White Dragon. Even Vampire Lord which has been the card missing in the previous releases is now available in this game for expert mode! Players using undead-themed decks will go nuts for this! 60 decks can be created and saved in this game (which is very nice for this game requires more than one well-built deck to win certain duels).


A huge card library featuring a whopping collection of 2060 unique cards total! See if you can collect them all!


Oh, did I mention that Vampire Lord is in this game? You can now duel with this monster with expert rules!

As for opponents, there is nothing TV-spectacular about them for NONE of the characters from the TV show series make their appearance in this game. All your opponents are just duel monsters, but don't expect anything less from them; the opponents have well-built decks and a smart AI to crush you with. For instance, Goblin King in the second tier has a strong combo to help his level 4 goblin monsters with 2000+ ATK that will hardly give you any chance to fight back, and Infernal Flame Emperor in tier 3 has a deck that will give you a run for your money as your lifepoints are hopelessly drained by his unstoppable LP burning combo (and you can't even attack!).


Just duel monsters as opponents. Nothing special about these guys right? Well challenge one of them yourself and be surprised!

Of course this game isn't all about dueling computer opponents with cheap decks; there are challenges included in this game as well. Duel puzzles, limited theme decks, and survival mode will keep you occupied once you are tired of beating (or losing to) computer duel opponents, giving you more variety of gameplay. If that isn't enough, you can link up to a friend who also has this game and duel him/her to see which one of you is a better duelist!

This release is also the official game for the upcoming tournament this year! So if you want to participate in this year's Konami tournament, pick up this pack and start practicing and building up the deck of your dreams for your victory in this year's Konami tournament depends on it!

In short, an excellent Yu-Gi-Oh! game with lots of features, excellent library of cards which offers numerous of deck possibilities as well as a lot of replayability. Yu-Gi-Oh! fans finally have a decent game to enjoy.

Rating: 4 stars

This post has been edited by Hypr: May 25 2006, 02:30 AM

Nice review!
This game has more improvements than the earlier YGO GBA games, and it does look better.
If you want something like this and more, then I would recommend Nightmare Troubadour for the DS. That game will be to your liking, especially cuz of the touch screen and graphics.

Nice review indeed! And I agree this game is one of the best. I have it on PC... ^^

thanks for the review, i might want to get it now, but crazyboy do you download the roms and play it on Visual Boy Advanced?

yeah i just got the game and its sweet! i think its the best yugioh game out on the market. I reccommend it to anybody with a gba or at least an emulator. I love the simple interface for the duels, much better than others in the yugioh series.

@ XCHHS

Yes, I play it on the visual boy... It's a nice program... Altough I don't download all roms because I want to support Nintendo of course...

@crazyboychris
I understand where you are coming from, i buy one of their games now and then to support them, and i have all there systems, its just when your a lil low on cash, then you have options, but that is good that someone else supports them

Yep... It doesn't realy hurt them if you download a rom because I wasn't going to buy this game either way... And I already support them enough to my takes ^^

i nolonger play the TCG but now i finally have a way to play the game again.

being able to make 60 decks and test them against each other is an awesome ability

it's a pity it's still missing a couple card

Yea I agree... To be honest... I don't see the problem... Cards don't take that much space right? and their effects?... I mean they make such awsome platformers as an example on the gba...

So why can't they put the whole card libary into a game...
Shame...

Well Konami maxed out the space in this game. 256MBit should be plenty to "squeeze" the whole library in, but that would mean cutting out some features such as duel puzzles and the link functionality. Those features take some space too. Perhaps they can trim out 20 duplicate cards (not that it really matters) but it would probably leave barely enough space for one card (assuming that Konami programmers are wise in terms of code optimization) with its own effects such as a spell, trap, or an effect monster card. Keep in mind that the effects programmed for each card also take space as well.

Don't expect any more decent future Yu-Gi-Oh! releases to be on GBA. It's now the DS's turn to have its max cart size utilized by Konami so they can put the entire card library in with sufficient amount of features to keep players entertained. And I am confident that it is VERY DOABLE, just hope that Konami doesn't slack on this franchise ever again...

This post has been edited by Hypr: Jun 2 2006, 12:20 AM

It would be nice to have an online Yu-Gi-Oh game using wi-fi...
Mayby in the future...

Yea, you're right kinda forgot about the extra options in the game.

I found this game to be quite good. Sure, I can't unlock the rest of Tier 5 (I'm too lazy to do all the challenges), but it's still good. Lacks something, but I'm not sure what...

-Fred

I mainly use this game as an accessory to try out the feel of new decks when I can't get online to test them using YVD. I usually copy the SJC's Top 8 decks onto this game card by card and duel against them using my deck. You can't expect the computer to have the ability to play them as well as the actual duelists, but it's still a good substitute when I can't get online.

I have it and I've kinda quickly become bored with it. I wish there was some story to it. Dueling is fun, but a little bit of story would've made this game better I think.