It makes me angry that people think this is a bad game.
User Rating: 9.5 | Yu-Gi-Oh! Shin Duel Monsters II: Keishou Sareshi Kioku (Konami the Best) PS2
Of course, with any spin-off game from a television, movie, or sport; you need to love the seed before you can begin to love the tree. They could have done a bit more with the graphics, but bringing the duel monsters to 3D was a fantastic achievement. The game does have it's intense downside of starting off with a terrible deck in comparison to any of your opponents. With all the time I've spent playing this game I have never been able to beat it without using at least one password; but I really think that they put these passwords in the game for good reason, not just to cheat. They tell you exactly how to input the passwords on page 19 of the manual (it's not like it's a big secret or anything, passwords are meant to be used). It does feel like cheating though which does not help the game's outlook, but you do need a certain amount of strategy to win against the more challenging opponents. It was very cool to have a deck leader since I'm sure everyone ends up having a favourite card in the game. I also very much liked the historical reference this game provides through it's story as well. The Yorkists against the Lancastrians, Yugi against Kaiba setting was a nice touch. The part that makes this game awesome though was it's innovative way of playing a card game. When I bought this game when it first came out, I thoroughly anticipated another basic draw-set card game; but I was pleasantly surprised when the game had a lot more depth in it's card game play style. I especially thought that not only moving your cards but also having terrain to change the effects of the battle made this game a much more interesting strategy game which I know must count for something. I love this game and still play it today. If you were not much of a yu-gi-oh fan going into this game, you would not be much of a yu-gi-oh fan coming out of it; but I know yu-gi-oh fans out there probably thought that this game really complimented how far the yu-gi-oh franchise has come.
