Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection Review

Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collectiondoes solid work at sanding down some pretty rough edges. If that was all there was to discuss, this wouldn’t be a very engaging review. Thankfully,Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collectionis chock-full of content to unpack and explore.

TheEarly Days Collectionhas two major appeals going for it, which also serve as the two main lenses by which it can be judged. On the one hand, there is the matter of how well it succeeds as a collection as a whole. On the other hand, there’s the more obvious question of whether the games inside are any fun at all.

Yu-Gi-Oh Early Days Collection Tag Page Cover Art

The Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection Does Great Preservation Work

As one would expect from any collection of classic games.Early Daysis a work ofgame preservationfirst and foremost. As such, it needs to please anyone looking to recapture their memories with any of these decades-old titles. In this regard, this particularYu-Gi-Ohcollection comes pretty close to receiving full marks.

With a whopping fourteen games included, the developers didn’t spare any expense on the selection of games here. By technicality, there are actually sixteen titles available, but only because one of the games has three separate versions. Beyond sheer numbers, the variety is impressive, too.Early Daysfeatures everything from the classic card battlers any fan would expect toDestiny Board Traveler(2005), which is essentiallyYu-Gi-Oh’s answer toMario Party.

However, it’s often not enough to simply put all of these games in the same place. Players expect a certain degree of quality of life improvements as well as the preservation of some peripheral material from each game. Once again,Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collectionchecks nearly all the boxes.

Some games come with features to avoid grinding, and each game can be played in several different languages. Menus within each game include the respective title’s original instruction manual, which is the perfect example of something that really brightens the experience despite not providing much material benefit. TheYu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collectioneven supports online playfor one of its titles.

Unfortunately, some elements should have been included but were not. For example, the aforementionedMario Party-like does not allow you to start a multiplayer game, which renders theboard game experiencepretty much empty. Some of these exclusions are minor enough to rarely corrodeEarly Days' purpose as a collection, but they do often create little sour moments that hamper the gameplay experience itself.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection’s Available Games Have Plenty of Ups and Downs

Yu-Gi-Oh’s Earliest Game Adaptations Give the Early Days Collection a Rough Start

I have a personal philosophy when it comes to retro game collections like these, which is that your eyes are always most likely to gravitate to two titles before any others. Of course, the first is the earliest game in the collection, while the second is the latest game. It’s always a bit inspiring to see how far a given series has come, and that growth happens to be resoundingly evident within theEarly Days Collection.

InEarly Days, the title of earliest game is awarded toDuel Monsters(1998). As important as this game is for setting the foundation of all the games that followed, it does manage to expose the underlying problems with a lot of the games in this collection.Duel Monstersis tedious to play through, with early enemies playing too passively to be engaging, and later encounters rely onpraying against RNGrather than any sort of skill expression. Judging the collection by its least polished title isn’t fair, but some of the issues found inDuel Monsterspervade a few of the games that follow it.

In fairness, some of these issues are to be expected. It’s atrading card game, so of course there’s going to be RNG involved. Likewise, the games being dated is the very reason some of them are in this collection in the first place. And, toEarly Days' credit, every effort is made to sand down the roughest edges. It’s best to check the control scheme and player’s manual before actually diving into one of the earlier titles.

The Yu-Gi-Oh Early Days Collection Finishes Strong

After the slog players might experience from some of these early games,7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament(2005) is a complete breath of fresh air. Pretty much any issue players could have withDuel Monstershas been completely resolved by the time you reach7 Trials to Glory. In fact,7 Trials to Gloryprovides another worthy critique of the collection: these games often sell players less on the experience of actually playing theYu-Gi-OhTCG, and more on the fantasy of the anime. This is to be expected, considering many of these games are essentially adaptations of the anime in question, but your mileage may vary regarding how effective that particular subject of nostalgia may be.

The Early Days Collection Doesn’t Miss Out on Underrated Yu-Gi-Oh Games

Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters(2003) is a pleasant surprise to find included at all, showcasing the diversity of the collection. Unfortunately,Dungeon Dice Monstersdoesn’t provide the same addictive fun as it did originally. Inclusions likeDungeon Dice MonstersorDestiny Board Travelersimultaneously prove the collection’s biggest strength and biggest weakness. It’s great that theEarly DaysCollection is dedicated toevery corner ofYu-Gi-Oh’s gaming history, but nostalgia plays a huge part in whether you’ll enjoy many of the games it has to offer.

Yu-Gi-Oh!Early Days Collectionis a funtime if you have an existing nostalgia for the series. Some features and mechanics could be better explained from game to game, but the developers may not have wanted to tamper with the original experience. Thankfully, menus and manuals create enough quality of life improvements to look past the sour spots among the included games.