Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection (Nintendo Switch) Review

The Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection brings with it a heavy whack of gaming history, centred wholly within Nintendo's pre-DS portables, and, a few notable omissions aside, contains all the adaptations of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series and stories. Sixteen individual games make up this collection's offerings, though one title is basically split across three of them with different supporting cards and content for each.

Every game has an Enhancements option on the selection menu that varies in features per title, but generally can instantly unlock all cards or lift certain restrictions, which are a very welcome addition for certain games and cuts down on a lot of potential grinding. The Versus and Trade Connection features have unfortunately been disabled in each game, but an online option has been added to one game in particular, with more to be added in a later update as per Konami PR. Each title also has screen size, border and display choices to select from.

Starting off with what would best be described as the pre-battle city era, where the rules of the card game had yet to be set in stone, is Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, the very first video game adaptation for Game Boy, and newly translated for overseas languages. A very basic black and white player versus player adoption of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga and season 0 anime, Duel Monsters's super early grasp ruleset and tricky deck-building interface makes it a difficult proposition for both newcomers to start with and veterans to look back on. As a curiosity, though, it is a great start to the compilation.

Next up is Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 2: Dark Duel Stories, a colourised upgrade to the first game and also newly translated for the Western markets. Added cards and the introduction of type alignments (Shadow Monsters automatically beat Light cards regardless of attack or defence power, Pyro overcomes Forest, and other such examples) make this sequel an even more interesting spectacle than the previous, though largely the same in terms of card lists and opponent offerings.

Long-term Yu-Gi-Oh! fans might notice the subtitle attached to Duel Monsters 2 and wonder about the newly translated part, but it would be the third game of this series that would be the first to be officially brought overseas and given that exact inscription.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories, or to give it the much more badass Japanese name, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 3: Tri-Holygod Advent, was indeed the first Game Boy game in the series to leave Japan, and continues its predecessors' trend of new cards and opponents added, now with a much tighter and cleaner presentation for menus and deck building.

To be expected, next up is Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4, subtitled Battle of Great Duelists, and also newly translated, though this one game comes in three flavours: Yugi Deck, Kaiba Deck, and Joey Deck. Each version has a separate card list and headliner god card monster, though the general interface, menu setup and opponent selection remains the same, so version choice can simply be for main character preference, which goes out the window somewhat with the unlocking all cards for any version enhancement option. Such an edit being made to the game is necessary for the added online play option, which offers a solid VS Random and Friends play connection.

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Eternal Duelist Soul, or Duel Monsters 5: Expert 1, is a game of many firsts for the series, with it being the debut entry for the Game Boy Advance and the pioneer of portable play with the modern Yu-Gi-Oh! ruleset. Gone are the Type charts and in are level-reliant tribute summons and any number of Magic and Trap card plays per turn. This updated game structure makes effective use of the GBA hardware with clearer menus, far better deck building customisation, and presentational flair, culminating in Eternal Duelist Soul being the best starting place for newcomers to learn the rules of the game. As in previous games, there isn't yet a story mode, but a campaign of sorts, facing a selection of characters from the show and manga, and unlocking more by beating them multiple times.

The last game to use the Japanese subtitle, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 6: Expert 2 is ironically the only title in the collection not translated, either newly so or previously. It acts as somewhat of a stopgap between Eternal Duelist Soul and the next game to be covered, incorporating traits of both: a returning campaign mode structure with updated card lists and a flashier interface, but sadly with a language barrier of entry diminishing the first adaptation of the manga's Battle City story arc.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel is likely where many Western players got their first taste of portable card battling, and the game fully realises the potential of where Duel Monster 6 left off: an explorable city map with opponents to find and defeat, NPCs to chat with and gain duelling advice from, a storyline to follow that progresses upon multiple victories, and plenty of booster pack choices upon winning that give out a huge variety of cards.

After this point, the games that followed the main rules of the franchise would release annually with a title indicating such, like with Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Tournament. This game took a more streamlined approach to the main campaign with stripping it down to the bare essentials of opponent listings and unlocking more after victories, but also gave the duel field and deck building screens and menus a significant design overhaul. Many previous Yu-Gi-Oh! game releases, both conventional and spinoff, have been praised for striking and hard-hitting soundtracks, and it was the overhauled one here that made many players take notice.

The last of the traditional set in this collection, and the last of the original series adaptations before the GX anime and manga took over, is Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005. Yet again building upon the previous releases, but this time with a significant change in the main campaign mode: an isometric view of the city with freely movable character sprites and a shop to visit and buy card packs from.

One somewhat annoying aspect of this mode is the restriction and ban list for cards that can't be used. This changes on a week-to-week basis in-game and can be a hassle to adapt to frequently, though thankfully for this collection, the Enhancement menu lets players turn it off. With this in mind, plus the much more ambitious campaign and a very speedy, easy to use duelling and deck creation interface, it's tough to argue against this game being the best in the collection.

The more conventional games speak for themselves, but also included in this collection are a number of titles that either put their own spin on the Yu-Gi-Oh! formula, or go off in their own direction. The former consists of two titles: The Sacred Cards and its narrative successor Reshef of Destruction, both of which adapt the overworld sprite exploration of Trials to Glory whilst using an original story for the second game and a ruleset much more reminiscent of the pre-Battle City style of play. That means Type matchups are back and the one-card-played-per-turn rule is again in effect - though tributes are retained, but much less intuitive to use. A player could easily accidentally sacrifice a monster and the game would not prompt them to play something else, for example.

Winning new cards in each game is done with the ante system. The rarer the card put as a bet, the rarer the winnings would be, though naturally the card bet would be lost after a defeat. The Sacred Cards goes easy on the player, retaining weak opponent decks very far into the game's story progression, so much so that criticism at the time for as such made the sequel far more difficult and grind inducing.

Rounding off this collection there are some curious oddities. Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule on the Game Boy Color is a very strong sendup of a certain popular Pocket Creature collecting and battling game, even right down to the overhead sprite-based world exploration. The game does have its own rules for collecting and battling monsters, though, making use of a real-time strategy-like versus interface and field terrains, dice rolls, evolving beasts, and Type matchups to determine results. As a newly translated title and a loose adaptation of the early manga story, including the famously green-haired Seto Kaiba, Monster Capsule is a fun anomaly to explore.

A spinoff that garnered a committed fanbase, Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters was a worldwide release that weaves a unique take on the franchise. Instead of cards, dice determine essentially everything in this new ruleset. Building pathways on a large square-by-square grid map to reach and attack opponents, movement options, strength of monsters to be summoned and special moves, luck is essential in getting good dice rolls, but careful planning is equally important to win. Tournament Mode is where most of the action takes place, but Free Play offers up opponents for rematches when previously beaten in the former.

The last game of the lot, and potentially the one with the biggest learning curve, is Yu-Gi-Oh! Destiny Board Traveller, a curious title that puts its own spin on the Mario Party formula. Up to four player characters from the anime and manga take turns moving around a game board, though instead of minigames you have Monster Summoning, the strength of which is determined by dice rolls. These monsters are used to make claim to certain zones on the board, with victory being determined by who has the most at a certain point.

This game has a surprisingly strong tie to the anime, with voice clips from the respective voice actors being used for the characters, and a much more colourful presentation than most of the other games in this collection. That being said, the core gameplay loop of Destiny Board Traveller isn't all that enjoyable or very accessible to new players, and without the versus options or any online support as of the time of writing, its longevity is quite limited.

Regarding accessibility, although none of these games have a tutorial option in their original forms, Konami has included scans of the game manuals for each title, including surprisingly fully translating those originally exclusive to Japan. Each manual does a good job of explaining the rules and gameplay structure of each game, and even include a flattened scan of the box art for certain languages.

One feature used as a selling point for the collection is the fast forward function, though this is a little disingenuous. A good number of the games will let players speed up turns by holding the A or B buttons; it isn't a newly added function. The rewind function is most definitely a welcome modern addition, though, and can reverse progress up to a minute at any point in every single game in this pack. In recent years, Konami has been on a roll with its game complication packs - the Castlevania and Metal Gear Solid selections to name but a few - and the Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection is no exception to that streak.