time to duel on the duel screen.

I got Yugioh Nightmare Troubadour a couple of months ago when I found it on sale at circuit city. So I picked it up and decided to play it and see if it was a good Yugioh game. Now Yugioh games are split into two types there are the straight and solid but very bare bones card simulators. And then there are the RPG types that have a story to play through while you play the card game, unfortunately the RPG elements usually screw up the whole thing. Nightmare Troubadour seems to mix everything nicely.

Story
You once again play has an unknown duelist who has enter the Kaiba corp dueling tournament. But strange things have been happening at night, unknown duelist have been attacking other duelist and sending there souls to the shadow realm when they loose. Yugi Moto and Seto Kaiba are on the case and of course you get dragged into it to.

The game covers both the cyber realm and the Marik Egyptian god arcs of the show.

Graphics.
The outside of duels graphics aren’t very pretty but they get the job done. On the bottom you will see a map and cursor that you can move around, when the cursor changes color a duelist is around, when you hit A the character of the duelist appears in the usual large anime stills that a lot of games like this have.

In the duels the graphics are done pretty well on the bottom you have a top down view of the game board and the cards are represented pretty nicely. On the top you see the characters in pre-rendered 3d sprites has they go ahead. Now the big rip is that most cards are just pre render some though do have some pretty good 3d summoning animation but just a few. Most of them are the popular cards like Blue eyes white dragon, and the dark magician. They do get the job done.

Sound.
Generic music for the most part on the outside and inside the duels the music is ok but just nothing to write home about. No VA’s from the American dub are in the game so it’s just straight text.

Gameplay.
The duels
Ok if you haven’t read any of my Yugioh reviews here is how you duel and it’s pretty easy card game to pick up. The goal is to get your opponents life points down to zero (that’s the main way but there are a few others ways to win), to do this you summon monsters and attack there monsters. One monster per turn can be summon on a normal bases, if the card has 5 to 7 card one monsters that is all ready on the field will have to be sent to the discard pile in order to summon the new monster, 7 and above will require 2, and the Egyptian god cards you will acquire late in the game will require 3.

Now the rest is just simple math, the monster with the highest attack point will win the duel and the difference in the attack points will come out of that persons like points. There is also a defense number on every card and if it is put in defense mode the monster will be destroyed with out doing any damage to you. Of course no monsters on the field means any monster can attack directly.

Sounds easy the tricky parts come with spells and trap cards that can be laid out on the field. Also some monsters themselves have special effects if there flipped upwards when there set face down in defense mode, so it’s a brutal game of trying to tell another persons bluff and with over a thousand cards to choose from there is a lot of strategy you can put in your deck.

Now on to the way Nightmare Troubadour plays. To get into a duel you track your cursor in till a duelist shows up, at first you won’t know who your dueling or the power of there deck. But as the story moves on updates to your radar and registering players will remove most of the mystery. When you win a duel you will gain EXP and points to buy decks at Yugi’s grandpas store and upgrade your deck. When you level up more card packs will become available. You can earn extra points considering on how you win the duel, say you don’t activate any trap cards or you don’t sacrifice any monsters that will gain you a few bonus points as well.

The more you duel a certain duelist the friendly they become with you, eventually they will register you, this means you can see who they are and duel them whenever there out side. They will even trade rare cards with you so duel people who have cards you like often you might get lucky.

Now not everything is perfect in Nightmare Troubadour though, two things really kind of bring it down. First are the shadow games, as you walk around the day will become night and at night the rare hunters will come out and attack you at random. They will engage you in a shadow game and for those who have seen the anime loosing a shadow game isn’t to healthy and will mean a big game over and you will loose any points and cards you have gain since you last saved. Good if you remember to go back to your house and save often, bad if your lazy like me and often forget to go back to your house after scoring a rare card.

Also the North American version has a game that will drive people who like to collect everything in the game crazy. Pegasus will disappear after a certain point in the story and never come back, if you miss collecting the cards he has in a trade your screwed. Of course most people will agree is Toon monsters suck big time so it’s not a big lost but it is annoying.

Finally this isn’t the fault of Nightmare Troubadour but it has to be mention, last week Yugioh GX Sprit Caller was released for the DS. This one has online wifi support and Nightmare Troubadour doesn’t, of course you have to put up with the Yugioh GX crowd so you do pay a price.

Final Recommendation.
I liked playing through Nightmare Troubadour, the card game is still addicting and fans of the show will like the fact the monsters now come in 3d forum. Unfortunately it doesn’t have online modes and I hate how the shadow games are done.