Rest assured though, this is a gaming blog post.
In the beginning of the year, I was so excited for the new YGO World Championship 2011:Over the Nexus Video Game to be released. The day that it was, I traded in my old WC2010 game and bought the new one. Just like every other year's incarnation, I played the game during all of the off hours I had available. Lunch break? Yugioh. Driving to and from work? Yugioh while driving(NOT RECOMMENDED FOR ANYONE). Bed time? Yugioh until I become tired. The variety of duelists and card selection in the game was a lot of fun. Eventually, I did hit a moment where I did not want to grind out duels to unlock packs. Not only that, but my deck was so boring (Machina Gadgets), that I just didn't want to use it anymore. It sucks when you stop playing a game you really like just because a few sections of the game become a chore rather than being fun. If you hop on google, you can find a replacement for your Yugioh needs in the form of fan-made online games!
The one I had been playing for a while was Duel Monsters Genesis on Byond. Byond games use a low bit style of graphics, which looks pretty cutesy at first, but there are more graphical fan based games on the internet. DMG was riddled with drama. If you weren't a "regular" in their game, meaning someone that posts on the forums and gets involved with drama, then you had no respect. Most of these people were game masters and moderators of some kind, so if you wanted to defend yourself against their attacks, you could be easily banned from the game. Another popular fan based gamed was YVD. A lot of people still play YVD because of its simple controls. The only issue I have with it is connecting to other duelists, which is often done through iRC channels. Any game that makes you go through a different program to play is not worth it. The game that people ARE playing right now is Dueling Network.
Dueling Network is a fairly new fan based dueling program. It is entirely Flash, so there is no need to download any unnecessary files to your system. It has a hub with a simple, real time game lobby. That way, instead of hopping on iRC, or roaming around with your pixel character shouting for duels, you can leave room open for anyone to join you in, or just join another's room. The game itself is very well detailed. Like YVD, it is slightly manual, so if you are a beginner, be sure to read up on how the different phases in YGO work. There is a rock-scissors-paper match to decide who has the option for turns. After that, the game deals both players 5 cards, 6 if you go first. If necessary, you can click between different phases in the turn to help you keep track of what you can do at what time. When you want to actually play a card, you can put your mouse over it. Not only does a nice description pop up on the side of the screen(with images!), but a pop-up menu rises from the card. You can choose between all the basic things like "Set", Special Summon, Remove from game, and even things like placing cards on the bottom of the deck. All the commands have sounds, but I would love to see more animations. The most necessary one would be a generic "activate effect" option on the menu of each card. The command doesnt have to be extravagant, but it should do something so that you do not have to type out "Eff" every time a card effect should activate.
Above all else, the game has a great card pool and many people to play against. Of course, a lot of people are trying to test tournament-worthy decks, so there are times that you may be stomped by a tier 1 build. If necessary, you can always make rooms with a disclaimer on them.
"No Six Samurai"
"No Plant Tengu"
"Beginners only"
That sort of thing. The more you win, the more your rank and reputation rise. It is probably still in the works, but for now, win totals unlock new avatars for your profile. Twenty-five -> 50 -> 75 -> 150 -> 200 ->300 ->400 And so on. And the rewards are mostly the anime character cards like Blue Eyes White Dragon, Elemental Hero Neos, and assorted boss monsters once you get above 750 wins. Hopefully the creator has more plans for that in the future.
At the moment I have a 499/70 score. That is 40 wins and 21 losses. Reputation is...fickle. According to the game's forum, you gain reputation for doing things like admitting defeat to other players. Obviously, it is difficult to go undefeated in this game, but a player like me who does not use tier 1 decks, has a ~50% win/lose ratio. Since I don't lose enough, my reputation isn't very high. I would like to see that changed in some way, perhaps if you lose a duel, you can give your opponent a reputation bump. As of right now, you can only give your opponent reputation minuses by taking a game loss and a reputation loss.
If you haven't figured it out already. I am Imperialdramon.
All in all, it is a pretty fun game. No need to grind out enemies on my Nintendo DS, or deal with drama on other fan games. If you like building decks and testing them, I would say Dueling Network may be the place for you.
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