Duel Masters

It is pretty impressive that Duel Masters is still actually going to this day! Today, we are looking at the original game which was released in 2004. There had been a few Japan only games before this, but this would mark the first time the series would come to the West. It started life out as a collectible trading card game, but it would go on to become a pretty successful multimedia franchise. I remember there being some buzz when this was released and recently I came across a dirt cheap copy of the game so I decided to give it a whirl.

The End Of The World!

Ok, so I am probably going to be simplifying the whole Duel Masters lore here, but the basics are that that people battle with monsters from cards and an evil being called, Widow has managed to break the barrier of the dimension these monsters are kept. All is not lost, a good being called Knight has brought together a team of five kids who are experts at this card game to try and fight back and seal the barrier, stopping the monsters and Widow from taking over the world. I must admit, I got a kick out of the “end of the world” stakes being handled in places like a shopping mall.

Fun For All

The thing with Duel Masters is that this is actually a pretty fun collectible card game, and I feel that the video game does a very good job of explaining how to play it. You have a deck of 40 cards, and you use your monsters and your spell to try and break the shield of your enemy, you do this, and you can then deliver your final blow. However, your abilities use mana, and you have to sacrifice cards from your deck to fill your mana pool. It means you have to try and work out a balance of having useful cards and cards that are pretty much just there to fuel your attacks. It sounds complicated, but the game eases you in, and the first few battles are nice and easy, the difficulty never spikes, it slowly climbs up, forcing you to get better as you go. It may be basic, but it is actually pretty fun.

An Anime Made In The West

In the early to mid-00s, the anime art style was well and truly in, and there were a few shows that had this anime look to them, but you could tell that they were, at the very least, done for a Western audience. That is very much the case here with Duel Masters. The characters have a rather strange look to them, but the monsters look really cool, at the start of the battle, you see the monsters in their full glory, but you can turn this off if you start to tire of it and get straight to the battles. The whole game has a rather budget look about it. Sure, they capture the look of the show well enough, but there is just something “cheap” here. Keep in mind that this was released in 2004, so it is not like this was an early PlayStation 2 game. It just has a rather uninspired look to it.

What, No Rocking Tunes?

What really lets Duel Masters down and what ultimately made me lose interest was the sound. There is voice acting here, and I am sure the music that is in the game is faithful to the show (although I cannot say for sure) however, the battles are pretty much silent! You get the monster noises and sound effects, but there is no music in the battles! I even went into the menus to see if there was an option for music in the battles, and I could not find one. Now, unless something went very wrong with my game, I see no reason as to why there is no rocking music to pump you up in the battles! The actual card battling is a fun system, but the fact that it is silent makes it become rather boring as the battles go on.

Pros:

• Some of the monster designs are cool
• The premise of the story is fun and very early 00s!
• The game has a great tutorial that breaks everything down for you
• To be fair, this is a decent card battling video game

Cons:

• The lack of music really kills the battles the longer they go on
• The game has some very dated and budget looking presentation

Duel Masters is a card game based on the anime of the same name. Travel to a world where a common card game can leave deadly wounds. Use a variety of combinations and choose your fighting style to defeat the best players in the Duel Masters universe. Choose a faction and its unique fighters to develop a personalized strategy.

Game Pros:

• Customize your hero
• Three-dimensional game board
• Characters from the original universe as your allies and opponents