sodtiwaz's Review of Duel Masters

not a horrible card game adaptation

User Rating: 6.8 | Duel Masters GBA

By sodtiwaz | Review Date: February 6, 2006

I got this game having no idea what it was or what it was about as a matter of fact i didnt even look at the back of the box to try and figure it out...i wanted a game for a road trip to colorado and this just happened to be the game i picked out of the stack of 40 or so games. Turns out this is a card game very similar to magic the gathering which if you look in my collection is a game i play (and have been playing since alpha). With my magic (and other CCG) experience I basically knew how to play this game before i read the tutorial but it never hurts to go over the basics just in case. turns out the game isn't half bad though i would never dump any money into buying the physical cards the game kept me occupied during long trip to both colorado and mexico on several occasions. Unfortunately the game is also fairly short and while there is no point where you have to stop playing once you beat the game there's really no reason to continue as you gain a feature where you can build any deck you want with an unlimited supply of cards.

The graphics are right on par with any other gameboy advanced title and the monotony of the card game is broken up with an RPG type birds eye view adventure type setup. also to break the blandness of the card game are graphical representations of the creatures on a play field which do battle. overall not bad as far as graphics go.

the sound is very repetitive which is both a good and a bad thing. I didn't particularly like or dislike the sound it didnt seem to grate on my nerves but at the same time i never found myself humming along with the score.

gameplay i can only suspect is a good representation of the physical card game but having never played the card game i honestly dont know that for sure.

overall i wasted about 30 hours on this game on various trips and at times even found myself wanting to play the game even though i had better consoles available. If you're a card game player or a dual master player then i can only suspect you would enjoy this game, although I was disappointed by the limited card choices resulting in very few good deck choices. i started with a red deck but soon found that white was definitely a better choice for me it has tons of blockers and 2 godly cards (Holy awe and Diamond Cutter) that help win a game even when your opponent has the advantage.

While being offensive can work i found that playing defensively with cards like Terror Pit, Holy Awe, Natural Snare, etc where far superior to trying to weenie rush the opponent. Iocant the oracle is a 2 cost 2 power blocker but once you drop an angel it turns into a 4 power blocker...if you can at some point cast holy awe it for some reason turns into a 6 power attacker which for 2 mana really can't be beat.

the game is not horrible but it is a fairly short game and the "plot" is horrible.

Duel Masters (2003)

not a horrible card game adaptation

Descent First Game

It is okay, not the best card game ever.