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Having grown up watching the original anime on TV (and now rewatching it on Netflix) and playing the PSP Tag Force games, I’ve always wondered when KONAMI would be compiling the early games. It’s taken a while (seriously, these games should’ve been in a compilation during the late 00s), but Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION finally answers my prayers.
Containing most (not all) of the games from the series’ early years, most of these titles were never translated into English…until now. Why not then? Who knows? Perhaps KONAMI didn’t think they would sell in English speaking markets? Perhaps the card game hasn’t caught on in the West yet?
It could be for a number of reasons.
All of them moot now, because they’re now available in English in a neat collection!
Was it worth the wait?
What is Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION?
Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION is a compilation of 14 games that were released between 1998 – 2004. The games were released on a myriad of Game Boy platforms (Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance). Apart from Duel Monsters 6: Expert 2, all of the games in the collections can be played in English.
Developed by Digital Eclipse and published by KONAMI, the Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION is available right now on the Nintendo Switch and PC.
Our copy was kindly provided by KONAMI! Thanks!
I’m not shy admitting that when I saw that Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION was out, I immediately reached out to KONAMI reps and begged them for a review code! I’m a closet Yu-Gi-Oh! fanatic and until KONAMI ports all the Tag Force games to the PC, this is perhaps the best next best thing.
I mean, how the hell do you complain about getting 14 (FOURTEEN!) classic games in one compilation. On Steam, the compilation retails for SG$52.28, which means one game is a paltry SG$3.76. How is that not an immense value?
Here’s the complete list –
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (GB, 1998)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters II: Dark Duel Stories (GBC, 1999)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule (GBC, 2000)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories (GBC, 2000)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelists (GBC, 2000)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters (GBA, 2001)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! The Eternal Duelist Soul (GBA, 2001)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 6: Expert 2 (GBA, 2001)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards (GBA, 2002)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction (GBA, 2003)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel (GBA, 2003)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Tournament 2004 (GBA, 2004)
- Yu–Gi–Oh! Destiny Board Traveler (GBA, 2004)
- Yu-Gi-Oh! 7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005 (GBA, 2004)
If nothing else, it’s a great way to preserve these games for the future.
To be honest, most of these games are extremely dated. Unless you played them as a kid or are emotionally attached to them somehow, they’re not really fun. The core gameplay is, but the Game Boy handhelds imposed a lot of limitations on them.
Ability text and card art are usually missing. Or in some cases, require additional button presses to display. Even then, the art is super low resolution that they don’t resemble the ones they’re based on unless you squint real hard. I don’t have a photographic memory of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards so I have to constantly wade through screens (going back and forth) to display the card text and other important info.
There are filters, but they don’t help at all with the visuals. They only add in overlays like scanlines, which does nothing to make the text better.
There are a few caveats though.
The first one being that Duel Monsters 6: Expert 2 isn’t in English. It’s a bit of a letdown but think of it this way; would you rather have a semi-complete collection or a complete one? It’s a no-brainer a complete one would be the better answer here.
That doesn’t mean it’s not sad to see the game go untranslated. It’s understandable (I doubt KONAMI gave Digital Eclipse a big budget to work with) but it’s still sad. Since there’s no word on the game getting translated as a future DLC, I think it’s safe to assume this is as good as it’s going to get.
Honestly, it’s not too bad.
If you have rudimentary Japanese understanding (like the ability to read Katakana and Hiragana), you should be able to make out most of what’s happening. My Japanese is pretty much on an elementary school level, but even that was enough for me to get the gist of things by reading the text.
Worse case scenario, you can always use Google Translate on your smartphone as you play for live translation.
That works too!
It’s much better on the online front thankfully.
While currently only Duel Monsters 4: Battle of the Great Duelists supports online matchmaking, KONAMI’s gone on the record to say that some of the other games in the Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION will be getting patched to include online play in the future.
That’s awesome and I’m all in favour of it!
It’s great of KONAMI to want to add further value to the collection by patching in online play, though I do wish they’d at least let us know which games they’re looking at.
Perhaps it’s to temper expectations in case something goes FUBAR?
Whatever the case, all we can do now is hope for the best.
Unfortunately, while KONAMI’s done a great job in stuffing the compilation with games, they’ve not bothered much in the form of extras. Unlike other compilations KONAMI’s released (Castlevania, Metal Gear and Contra), this one’s empty of Behind the Scenes content.
No developer interviews, no in-depth look at the making of the games, not even a glossary of the cards included with the titles.
In fact, the only ‘extras’ are some cheats you can enable for each game. Piddling really. You can’t even fast forward the in-game speeds in the majority of the games, only rewind (which is pretty much useless)!
This is undoubtedly the most barebones compilation KONAMI’s released in recent times.
Speaking of barebones, that pretty much describes the graphical options too. There’s been zero work done to make the low res screens from the games better.
You have to remember the OG Game Boy (and Game Boy Color) had a display that was only 160 x 144, and the Game Boy Advance’s barely an improvement at 240 x 160. That makes the text hard to read, even if it’s on full screen.
That’s just for English text. Have fun reading Japanese text.
There’s no easy fix unless KONAMI’s upscaling the games themselves to a higher resolution. That doesn’t look like its on the cards unfortunately, so gamers will have to bear with this issue.
The good news is that portable machines (such as the Nintendo Switch or a handheld PC like the ROG Ally X) have smaller screens, so the font issues aren’t as troublesome as those playing on a bigger monitor or TV.
In fact, I’d even go as far as recommend that you play the Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION on a portable handheld PC like the ROG Ally X. These games were made to be played on the go and playing on a handheld PC is pretty much the same thing.
Even on the ROG Ally X’s lowest TDP setting, there was no issue running the games. No slowdown or anything of the sort. Even the GBA games ran perfectly. If you’re thinking of playing the collection on your daily commute or when you travel, you’ll have no problems at all.
It’s especially great now that you can save anytime you want!
The Bottom Line.
14 Yu-Gi-Oh! games in one package can never be a bad thing.
Get over that however and the Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION does start to lose a bit of its luster.
The 14 games aren’t all great hits so your mileage will certainly vary. The GB and GBC Color games are a bit too simplistic and dated for my tastes, which leaves only the GBA games worthy of playing.
Apart from the quality, KONAMI’s dropped the ball with the lack of enhancements and extras. This is a barebones collection, more so than any other collection the company’s released.
Those issues however does nothing to stop the collection from being a great choice to play on the go. Their bite-sized gameplay makes them great pick-up-and-play games. Whether it’s for 5 minutes as you wait for the bus or 30 mins as you do your daily commute.
If you love Yu-Gi-Oh!, there’s really not much to say against this collection. That goes double if you’re pining for the series’ early days and its old school cards. If you’re just a casual player though, you might not find most of the games in the Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION that fun to play with, despite their sheer number.
TLDR:
A great collection that’s hamstrung by the lack of enhancements and extras.
The Good:
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The Bad:
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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