There’s a new trading card game coming to mobile devices very soon from Konami. Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links is a brand new way to play the popular card game on your mobile device that was revealed in Japan some time ago.
Konami has finally chosen a select few to try out the closed beta version of Duel Links and as a fan of the anime, manga and actual card game, I was psyched when I was invited to try out the new mobile game.
So after about two days with Duel Links , I’m ready to jot down my impressions of what I’ve experienced so far in the closed beta.
I’d first like to acknowledge how duels are different from the physical version of the game. In Duel Links , you’ll be dueling in quicker matches. Instead of five monster and spell/trap card zones, duelists only get three. And instead of starting with 8000 lifepoints, you have 4000.
This may seem alarming at first, but it’s actually a benefit. Duel Links takes up a lot of battery life; there is a battery saver mode but the quality of the visuals will be diminished, so you don’t want to have 15-minute duels that will kill your battery.
With 4000 lifepoints and a limited amount of monsters you can have on the field, duels are faster, allowing players to get as many duels in as they can before they need to recharge.
The AI in the beginning is too easy, summoning monsters in attack mode that are weaker than my already summoned monster, making the early duels in the game laughable. However, as you level up the duelists become tougher, which, honestly, caught me by surprise a few times.
PVP Duels are the exact opposite. You are playing in real-time against someone else, which is pretty great and it feels like a real duel. However, these duels become a race to get the best cards and put them in your deck because the number of PVP Duels I had caused my opponent to surrender after about two turns.
I do enjoy the faster paced duels, but there are two changes I don’t approve of. The first being how the game decides turn order. Before every duel, a coin is flipped but you don’t choose which side of the coin is yours, nor do you get to decide who goes first or second if you win. You win the toss, you automatically go first. In a game like Yu-Gi-Oh! , there is a strategy behind turn order, especially since the new rule change that the very first turn taken doesn’t draw a card. It seems a little silly to not give the players a choice.
The second gripe I have is the removal of Main Phase 2. In these fast duels, you have your Main Phase to summon monsters, set traps and activate spell cards. There’s the Battle Phase and then….that’s it. Once you finished the Battle Phase, you end your turn.
Not sure about everyone else, but when I dueled I would not set traps until my Battle Phase was over, just to scout out what my opponent was doing and to prevent them from being destroyed before I get a chance to use them.
Very often, I finished my Battle Phase and wanted to use a Spell Card right after to either draw some extra cards or inflict effect damage. Nope, Duel Links doesn’t allow for a Main Phase 2, so everything has to be done before you start to attack. I suppose it’s to balance how quick these duels can become once you have the right cards, but it just feels odd to not have that extra phase.
Speaking of cards, Duel Links seems to have a lot of the newer cards. Of course, the closed beta only has one booster pack set to choose from at the moment, so you are limited to what you can get (the shop does show you what cards are in the set, which is awesome). You can win some cards by beating Legendary Duelists, but it’s too early to know what cards can be used.
The Card Shop will be updated with new packs every week, it seems, so players will constantly want to check back to create the decks they want.
Duel Links does an incredible job of incentivizing players to log in every single day. Not only will new booster packs and cards appear every week, but missions will appear daily and weekly to help you gain the currency needed to purchase said cards.
There’s also a Card Trader that appears after you’ve reached a certain level in the game that really changes a lot of what you can do. You can give currency up for really rare cards or sell off extra cards to gain more money. And the interesting part is, the rare cards that the Card Trader owns will change every few hours.
Not only will this play into how in-app purchases work, because some of the currency you can’t earn fast enough, but will also gives players choices on how they spend the money they’ve already earned.
Players of Duel Links will also be able to play as Duelists from the anime like Yugi, Kaiba, Joey and more, which you can unlock as you level up and complete certain tasks. Each character has their own level that you can increase as you battle using their decks and unlock duelist skills as you do.
These duelists skills adds another wrinkle of strategy to duels that I can get behind. For instance, Yugi has a skill that will activate the field spell Yami when the duel starts, even if you don’t have it in your deck. Other skills include giving you an added 1000 lifepoints when you start, giving you an early advantage.
It’ll be fun to unlock and try out all these skills alongside new decks and it’ll be interesting to see how others utilize them.
Overall, Y u-Gi-Oh! Duel Links is a great mobile game. The fast duels give you enough of the real-world feel of the card game while not lasting too long to drain your battery. There are new strategies to be made and neat level-up systems that provide hours of gameplay.
I’m having a blast playing Duel Links , and I can’t wait to see what Konami does with it once it’s launched.
