Review: Yu-Gi-Oh! The Early Days collection is fun nostalgia with a heavy price

At the end of February, Konami released the Yu-gi-oh! First days collection On the PC and Nintendo switch. This collection offers 14 Yu-gi-oh! Gameboy video game, Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance Eras in a single package.

Furthermore, if you buy the physical edition for Switch, you will get a rare secret version of a quarter of a century of Harpie’s Feather Duster in one of the two works of art. Konami was kind enough to provide me with a PC code, but all the thoughts below are mine. If you want your copy, you can take it from your favorite retailers for about $ 50.

Yu-gi-oh! The collection of the first days commemorates the 25th anniversary of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Card game and reports iconic Yu-Gi-Oh! Digital games originally released between 1998 and 2005.

The collection will include a rescue/loading function everywhere: a function not available at the time of their original outings. There will also be support for online battles in Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelist. After the release, some titles will be updated to support the online game.

Complete list of games:

• Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters (1998/Game Boy)

• Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters II: Dark Duel Stories (1999/Game Boy, Game Boy Color)

• Yu-gi-oh! Dark Duel Stories (2000 JP, 2002 US, 2003 UE/Game Boy Color)

• Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelist (2000/Game Boy Color. Includes the support of online battles).

• Yu-gi-oh! Monster Capsule (2000 JP/Game Boy Color)

• Yu-gi-oh! Dungeon says Monsters (2001 JP, 2003 US and EU/Game Boy Advance)

• Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters 6, Expert 2 (2001/Game Boy Advance)

• Yu-gi-oh! The Eternal Duelist Soul (2001 JP, 2002 US, 2003 EU/Game Boy Advance)

• Yu-gi-oh! The Sacred Cards (2002 JP, 2003 US, 2004 EU/Game Boy Advance)

• Yu-gi-oh! Reshef of Destruction (2003 JP, 2004 US and EU/Game Boy Advance)

• Yu-gi-oh! World edition: Stairway to the Destinated Duel (2003 JP, USA, EU/Game Boy Advance)

• Yu-gi-oh! 2004 World Championship tournament (2004 JP, USA, EU/Game Boy Advance)

• Yu-gi-oh! Destiny Board Traveler (2004 JP, 2005 US/Game Boy Advance)

• Yu-gi-oh! 7 tests in Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005 (2004 JP, 2005 US/Game Boy Advance)

I was very excited for the First days collection revisit these games. I played each of the games released in the United States in some way when I was a child. I remember some of the strange things within these games such as the type rankings and I focus more on the gameplay of role -playing and less on being a simulator. They are wild.

In this review, I will do my best so as not to review the individual games, but more as a collection. My last note is that I played a First days collection A little on my desktop but above all on my steam deck without problems. The system requirements are so low that I believe it would be more a result if your device could not perform it.

It is quite Dilly-Dallying. The overall presentation of Yu-gi-oh! First days collection It is solid. When starting the collection, you are welcomed by a rotating carousel of the games in chronological order.

Each game is represented by its box art and an icon of the flag to indicate the language currently set. You can press a button to change the languages ​​on any of the games, with an exception we will talk about later. Then select the game you want and loads in a frame centered with a unique background for fun (it can be deactivated if you wish).

Some of the backgrounds are actually quite beautiful in my opinion like the Egyptian god cards for The sacred cards. So far, everything is a victory.

Another victory is that it is possible to press a button (trigger on the right for controllers) to pull on a special menu to create or load the rescue states, leave the current game and return to the menu of the main collection, access the original instruction manual (extremely necessary for some games), alternate the off/off background, to deactivate different color filters (as shown below: off, TV, monitor, LCD), staying the size of the game size of the game. And for the game titles that you can close the color filters.

Being able to save at any time is always a characteristic of the quality of life I love. I also like the variety of cosmetic switches even if I personally don’t like filters or color palates.

In the meantime, if you press a different button (trigger on the left for the controllers) you can rewind a lot. In a game like Yu-gi-oh!I am not a big fan of this because it seems more like betraying (this is a personal opinion, not @ me). This actually leads me to a feature that I want the First days collection I had.

I wish there was a button that I could hold or a switch to accelerate the games. A couple of games have a way you can keep B to accelerate things, but I would just like to be able to apply an X2 or X3 general multiplier during most games.

A feature with which I have not played, but there is that you can cheat unlocks from the beginning. Before starting a specific game, you can press a button to access the improvements that will do things such as unlocking characters and cards. If you are in a hurry to play high -level decks, then it’s fantastic, but for my fun I haven’t worried.

Now I want to revisit something that seems a little strangely. Each game in the first days was located in a couple of languages ​​except Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters 6, Expert 2.

I understand that this game has been modified and subsequently released all over the world as Yu-gi-oh! World edition: Stairway to the destination duel And that game is included, but it is strange and frustrating to have an included game that is not really accessible unless you can read the Japanese. Why has this not been located? Is it because of the censorship?

Another interesting choice that the team made was the way they managed the online gameplay. At launch, the only title with any type of online capacity is Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelist (I want to note that there are three versions of this game with different starting decks).

We know that the online game is scheduled for other titles in the collection, but I don’t understand why they didn’t have the game online ready (or even everyone, it would be too crazy?) Of the titles. Due to his limited skills and not knowing anyone else with the game, I didn’t worry about trying how it works online.

I also want to note that there is no information available on the fact that there is or not there is games of PC and Switch players that makes me believe it is non -existent. This is a very sad thing in my opinion. I feel strongly that in 2025 CrossPlay should be a de facto function (in reality I don’t know how easy or difficult to implement, so perhaps it is much more difficult than I imagine).

At the end of the day, I think what surprised me most was what I sucked myself The sacred cards And how ready I was doing with games like The eternal duel.

For this review, I spent time playing each of the 14 titles for at least 20-30 minutes, with the exception of Duel 6 monsters Due to the lack of location in which I bounced after about 5-10 minutes because I could not play effectively.

Most players will probably spend less than 30 minutes for at least 50% of these titles. They will therefore spend more now in another 25-40% of the games before settling and spending their time in about 2-3 of those games for several hours before calling it well.

There will be people who really stick to the various games and play through them or even most of them as expected, but the vast majority of players will most likely remain only with 2-3 games.

In my opinion, Yu-gi-oh! First days collection It is a beautiful museum showcase but with some oddities that can (and should) be faced. Like a huge Yu-gi-oh! Fan, it was fun to revisit these games.

He also gave me a difficult pill to swallow that many of these games are not as good as nostalgia would make you believe. My opinion is that First days collection It is not worth $ 50. After many reflections and thoughts, I think $ 30 would have been a much fair price.

With a lower price, my score would increase to about 8/10 or perhaps even 9/10. At present, with glasses still slightly pink, it gets the score below.

Having said that, I would still like for other collections like this for the old console titles and not Gayboy. If you collected First days collectionIt sounds in the comments and let me know your favorite games to revisit. Maybe other online options are available, we should make a big streaming party.