Yugioh - Duel Masters

 Yugioh Duel Masters - a new release of the famous trading card game.

Today, I'm going to talk about the famous trading card game, Duel Masters which was currently released freely by KONAMI. The last time I played a Yugioh Duel card game, it was the Duel Links for Android systems which was released in 2017. Sadly, due to a high memory space requirement which my smartphone at that time (and still is) could not compete, I had to stop playing Duel Links around 2019. But not before I was one of the top twenty players in Asia category. Not bad for a 40 years old, huh?

I was caught by surprise at the new release (last February) of Duel Masters and that it was a free download. I have downloaded it and had spent nearly a month working on my deck and going through the game system. So far, from what I can tell, KONAMI did a good job of utilizing the Unity game engine (which did surprise me a bit, I wasn't expecting them - being a big game company to use Unity). If anything, it is a testimony that Unity Game Engine has started to develop into a game engine capable of supporting mega-projects for big companies and that is a good thing. Support from big companies like KONAMI could ensure that the game engine continue to evolve further.

The game is straight forward. They will teach you the basic under the Solo Story mode - which include how to draw cards, summon, set, attack, use magic, spell and trap cards. As the game progresses, they could also include tutorials on how to Synchro Summon (which I did when I was watching Yugioh 5Ds and had some good idea how to do it, I kinda of forgot now). They also have something called Pendulum Summon and Link summon which flew over my head. I have no idea how to do those, even so I had faced some opponent who uses those decks and able to stand up against them effectively with my older-style game play.

The game allow you to compete actively with other players OR form duel-room where you can gather around with your fellow duelists (who you know or who can join you) and test out your duel decks. 

This is a good feature, as many of the players to this game could likely be young people who have yet to experience the game firsthand before and sometimes, they go against a more seasoned players myself included) and even professional players who lived to play Yugioh. Building and tweaking their decks to that which they are comfortable with are an important aspect of the game and I like it that KONAMI took that into consideration and allow us to build a duel room for it.

They also allows plenty of structured decks which we can buy and base our decks from. A lot of newbies into the game seems to be using these structured decks early onward, taking advantage of the structure to create Link and Pendulum summons. I do not see a lot of Synchro Summons being pulled out during my duel with others, even so I still play old-school here (using my Dragon deck while slowly building my Dark magician deck). Since the game is still new, I believe we should be expecting more future updates, online competitions and newer cards in the near future, I hope.

However, one of the problems which being highlighted a lot (especially in Youtube) is the existence of cheat tools which are being used on this game. I believe this is largely due to the game being released on PC as well, allowing certain gamers to use mod-tools to modify the game to give them advantages. 

I have had several run-ins myself. At one time, someone "locked" my spell and trap card activation (without using cards like Solemn Judgement), making me unable to activate any of the magic spell cards or trap cards throughout the duel. At another time, someone pulled a Synchro summon on me to call out a level 9 Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon (Atk : 2500 Def : 3000) which require 1 Tuner card plus 1 or more Non-Tuner Normal Monster. What's the problem? He used a White Stone of Legend (level 1 card) Plus a Luster Dragon (level 4) without using any magic or fusion card in-between. 

I have also gone through some Youtube videos where players are complaining that they were "forced" out of game via a "surrendering" option where the game ends on its own (especially when they were winning or have a good card on the field) and the game could say that they had "surrendered" to the opponent. Personally I think KONAMI made a mistake allowing multiple platform release of their game. It was a greedy move and now, they have to fix this "cheating" problem before they could get the game moving any further forward.

I was able to make some progress a few days back when I have gathered enough cards to recreate the classic "Harpy Ladies" deck, one of the classical deck from the anime series (and one of which I still remember how to play properly). I had even went on and added a few "Darkwing" cards for the boost (since they are Winged Beast and Wind-elements, which should help out). 

However, while I was able to stand effectively in a duel with this deck, I find that the D-Link (or Pendulum Summon as some may call it) to really screw up my game. I was able to get my Harpy Ladies out on the field with my Egoist card and boost it with both a field magic (Harpy Hunting Ground) AND Cyber Shield (which all raised my Harpy Lady from 1950 to 2650 damage, a single mistake summon a D-Link summon (Harpie Conductor) brought it down to a mere 1900 + 200 = 2100. Frankily speaking, the effect was not that good and I really do not like these Pendulum cards. 

Or perhaps I was playing old style. Perhaps I have not catch up with the latest trend in Yugioh card game which kids nowadays are playing. But I'm starting to think that KONAMI kind of spoiled the game with this D-Link/Pendulum summons and overemphasizing on "effect" cards. For now , my decks are missing a lot of chunks which could make me feel more confident and KONAMI have to fix the problem with the cheaters before they could launch a more serious "tournaments" in the future.