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IGN Review of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Beginning of Destiny
To say that Yu-Gi-Oh! GX The Beginning of Destiny is a "niche game" would be an understatement. Not only is this game based on the card game and a subsequent anime spin-off, but the gameplay is highly technical and encapsulated within a college/dating sim that only a special type of gamer can appreciate. Furthermore, Beginning of Destiny is extremely similar to
Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force 2 and other previously released Yu-Gi-Oh! games, which could be positive or negative, depending. But in the end, the King of Games is all about cards, so let's find out how these cards stack up.
Beginning of Destiny puts you in the shoes of a nameless, faceless transfer student first arriving at the Duel Academy, a school based primarily on the instruction and evaluation of card battles. You'll spend the majority of the game attending school; going to class, buying supplies and engaging in social networking are all parts of your daily schedule. This is the college sim portion of the game and it is, unfortunately, one of the weakest parts.
Games like Harvest Moon have long since nurtured and expanded the day-to-day mechanic that gives you new challenges, new people to talk to and a varying schedule to keep things from getting repetitive. When it comes to Beginning of Destiny, however, very little changes around campus each day and a normally entertaining gameplay type soon becomes obnoxiously boring and mundane.
Some repetition wouldn't be a problem, but we soon found that most of the lesser important characters rarely alternate their dialogue patterns, so there's no point in talking to people frequently. Even when you talk to the main characters, the social networking element is still painfully lacking. You can usually only select from four conversation topics each time you speak with one of the characters: Duels, Hobbies, The Academy and Rumors. As far as we can tell, there's no surefire way to tell which topic will go over well with a particular character (it changes often). You can buffer these risky conversations by giving gifts in the form of sandwiches, but interacting with characters in a sim game should be much more elaborate.
Although one of your main goals is to befriend a partner to team up with for the Tag Team tournament, your time at Duel Academy seems more like an exercise in pattern-following than an actual simulation of the "anime school" experience. This is by far the most disappointing aspect of the title. Had there been a more complex, involved sim experience, Beginning of Destiny would have been a much different (and better) game.
But of course, the entire school is really just an avenue towards card battles, which is the primary gameplay mechanic of Beginning of Destiny. Yu-Gi-Oh! fans will be happy to know that the card battles in the game are almost perfect replications of the actual card game, down to the surprisingly technical rules and card chains. I should note that I have a relatively extensive history with the card game -- my friend and I used to play it often so I was familiar with the mechanics before going in. Honestly, there's very little to say here because explaining the actual card game would require numerous pages of text. All you need to know is that playing cards in Beginning of Destiny is just about the same as actually playing -- there's very little flash added into the digital experience besides brief cutscenes showing the characters performing certain actions, like drawing or placing a card.
Another issue we noticed, one that may have been accepted long ago by veteran Yu-Gi-Oh! fans, is organizing your deck. Beginning of Destiny has a number of features that enable you to build a deck with semi-limited effort (organizing by type, attribute, or performing searches, etc.), but when your total number of cards begins to climb, the entire system feels like its just itching to break free of its digital constraints and move elsewhere. For us, it's much easier to organize a physical set of cards than to scroll through massive lists and spreadsheets looking for the right combination of monsters and spells.
©2008-01-23, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force 2 and other previously released Yu-Gi-Oh! games, which could be positive or negative, depending. But in the end, the King of Games is all about cards, so let's find out how these cards stack up.
Beginning of Destiny puts you in the shoes of a nameless, faceless transfer student first arriving at the Duel Academy, a school based primarily on the instruction and evaluation of card battles. You'll spend the majority of the game attending school; going to class, buying supplies and engaging in social networking are all parts of your daily schedule. This is the college sim portion of the game and it is, unfortunately, one of the weakest parts.
Games like Harvest Moon have long since nurtured and expanded the day-to-day mechanic that gives you new challenges, new people to talk to and a varying schedule to keep things from getting repetitive. When it comes to Beginning of Destiny, however, very little changes around campus each day and a normally entertaining gameplay type soon becomes obnoxiously boring and mundane.
Some repetition wouldn't be a problem, but we soon found that most of the lesser important characters rarely alternate their dialogue patterns, so there's no point in talking to people frequently. Even when you talk to the main characters, the social networking element is still painfully lacking. You can usually only select from four conversation topics each time you speak with one of the characters: Duels, Hobbies, The Academy and Rumors. As far as we can tell, there's no surefire way to tell which topic will go over well with a particular character (it changes often). You can buffer these risky conversations by giving gifts in the form of sandwiches, but interacting with characters in a sim game should be much more elaborate.
Although one of your main goals is to befriend a partner to team up with for the Tag Team tournament, your time at Duel Academy seems more like an exercise in pattern-following than an actual simulation of the "anime school" experience. This is by far the most disappointing aspect of the title. Had there been a more complex, involved sim experience, Beginning of Destiny would have been a much different (and better) game.
But of course, the entire school is really just an avenue towards card battles, which is the primary gameplay mechanic of Beginning of Destiny. Yu-Gi-Oh! fans will be happy to know that the card battles in the game are almost perfect replications of the actual card game, down to the surprisingly technical rules and card chains. I should note that I have a relatively extensive history with the card game -- my friend and I used to play it often so I was familiar with the mechanics before going in. Honestly, there's very little to say here because explaining the actual card game would require numerous pages of text. All you need to know is that playing cards in Beginning of Destiny is just about the same as actually playing -- there's very little flash added into the digital experience besides brief cutscenes showing the characters performing certain actions, like drawing or placing a card.
Another issue we noticed, one that may have been accepted long ago by veteran Yu-Gi-Oh! fans, is organizing your deck. Beginning of Destiny has a number of features that enable you to build a deck with semi-limited effort (organizing by type, attribute, or performing searches, etc.), but when your total number of cards begins to climb, the entire system feels like its just itching to break free of its digital constraints and move elsewhere. For us, it's much easier to organize a physical set of cards than to scroll through massive lists and spreadsheets looking for the right combination of monsters and spells.
©2008-01-23, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved