Pros: good addictive card game
Cons: need a tutorial mode and a way to know combo moves
The bottom line: uh whoops
If you’re not familiar with Yugioh it's a trading card game, and a show that was released last fall on kid's wb. The show follows Yugi has he fentures thorough the duelist kingdom battling with his duel monsters deck, while trying to find his kidnapped grandpa.

To make it more interesting it seems that the duel monsters card game he play's is based on an ancient game called the shadow game. To top it all of there are seven millennium items associated with the game and Yugi posses one. This item contains an ancient sprit called Yami Yugi, and you start has playing him.

Story.
You start off playing a prince in ancient Egypt and one of the best shadow game player in the kingdom. When the evil priest Henshien decides to take the millennium puzzle the prince smashes it to keep him from getting it. This causes the prince to get sealed up in the puzzle until someone puts it back together.

Enter Yugi Moto who has just entered a duel monster tournament sponsored by Kaiba Corp. In a weird turn of events everybody else who has a millennium item has also showed up at the tournament. In order to get Yami Yugi back to his time Yugi has volunteer to seal up everybody's millennium item in a set of magic cards, of course not after beating them in a duel.

Graphics.
The graphics aren't going to be pushing the playstation's power by any means. Outside the battle there are nice Anime style still characters from the show doing the conversations and telling what's happening. In the duel screen there is a nice Egyptian style duel board, with two sides, each side has two rows (more on the rows when I talk about the game).

The pictures on the cards have pretty nice illustrations of the monster cards featured in the series. Now there are two types of attack animation if the x button is press to confirm an attack the typical slash through the opposing card is done, if successful the card will burn up. If the Square button is press it shows a Pokemon stadium type battle scene where 3d versions of the card attack. I do suggest not doing the 3d versions of the attack they drag out the duel, plus the animations suck. The characters are very sharp edge and they all seem to float around with out substances around the battlefield.

Gameplay
So how is the gameplay in Yugioh, while it has a lot going for it, it's not without it's problems.

Rules.
The rules in the game are a bit more complex then Pokemon, but after a few duels I was familiar with the basic rules. The bad news is that there is no tutorial mode, so to learn the more complex rules, and the combo attacks I have had to learn from Duel monsters School of Hard Knocks 101. So what are the basic rules.

Well before each deck you have to construct a deck of forty cards, you start off drawing 5 cards and with 8,000 life points. Each turn you have to do at least one of these things put down a monster card, combine two cards and put it down on the top part of the field, or play a magic card on the bottom row face up or face down on the field. Now after that is done you can attack the opponent’s cards.

Unlike Pokemon there is no such thing has damaging your opponent’s card, it’s a killed or be killed situation. If the attack of your card isn’t higher then your opponent’s attack and defense the attack will rebound and do damage to your life points, and may even destroy your card. That is why putting a card face down on the field and not attacking may damage the opponent’s bench more then just attacking. To make it even more risky there are type advantages (similar to Pokemon advantage types, if your type is strong against another 500 point advantage) and terrain advantages that can be set in play. Plus magic cards that can up the cards status, so you have to think about attacking a card sometimes.

So what’s the bad thing about Yugioh, well like I said no tutorial mode. The most annoying however is that there is no way of knowing the card combo. The only way to know that the D Human and a candle of fate will make the flame swordsmen is to try it your self. If it doesn’t work you’ll loose a card. While they do have a computer match that play’s with all of your cards the thing goes so fast that sometimes it’s hard to see what card’s he’s playing. To make it even more annoying they have a library feature that doesn’t have any of the information, all they have is the status of the monster and what it looks like in the 3d battle mode, not exactly helpful.

Getting cards.
OK there is more then one way to get a card in the game, first off you get a new card for every guy you beat. However there are other way’s you can trade with a friend (same game but you’ll need to have two memory card’s). Or enter passwords found on real Yugioh cards. But wait before you go around trying to find a password for a blue eyes whight dragon (a card that could easily turn Charizard to dust) you’ll need to pay star chip’s. Star chip’s are also obtain every time you win a battle, and you’ll need them to pay for card’s obtain by trades and password. To get a card like the blue eye’s white dragon will cost you 9999 star chip’s, your better off trying to get it in the game then you are by the password.

Final recommendation.
If your into playing trading card games, but not into the money then Yugioh may be up your alley. Even with the confusing combo system it’s still a lot of fun to play. If your not into trading card games then you might want to rent it or avoid it all together.