Konami dishes out Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist details and gameplay

Posted by chat Annette and Ashley www.shensugor.com on July 10th, 2015 | 0 Comments | Tags: Konami , Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V Tag Force Special , Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist

When Konami announced their first Yu-Gi-Oh! game for current gen home consoles, a lot was left to the imagination. Thanks to a Twitch stream hosted by Konami’s Yuichi and Legacy of the Duelist producer Charles, we know a great deal more about the PS4-bound card game.

Told through the eyes of robot historian INF-N8, the Other Ocean developed release features an abridged rendition of the storylines seen in the five Yu-Gi-Oh! animated series. Rather than just simulating story events like in last year’s Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium Duels, Legacy of the Duelist has players actually going through unvoiced cutscenes that accurately reflect the shows. That includes the Japan-only finales to GX and 5Ds, which will be offered as optional paid DLC. To that end, the game allows you to use your own custom deck in these story modes, as well as a Konami crafted deck that fits what the characters would be using at that point in time. That means when Yugi confronts Kaiba to reclaim his grandfather’s Blue Eyes White Dragon, he’ll be running a deck with Exodia, but when you face Pegasus you’ll find a slightly different recipe. In fact, many of the trophies in Legacy of the Duelist are unlocked by recreating famous moments. Wipe out Kaiba with Exodia? Ding.

While Konami wants to accurately represent what was seen on TV, players will be restricted to real life Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG rules. Among other things, duels will start out at 8000 Life Points with players having to sacrifice other creatures to summon high level monsters. No Destiny Draw either, so don’t expect the game to ease up and hand you a trump card.

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Presentation-wise, the game adds some new musical tracks to the library returning players are long familiar with. Outside of the sound, players can expect a lot more flair than recent home console games. In addition to themed duel arenas, Legacy of the Duelist brings back monster summoning animation. Don’t get too excited, though. Due to the sheer amount of cards in the franchise, only signature monsters will get that treatment.

Duelist Challenges from Millennium Duels are back in a big way. While the Story Mode features over 90 characters from the show with anime accurate deck recipes, this mode brings them in line with current card game strategies. As a result, expect a more difficult duel against characters that might have been a cake walk.

One of the features new to the game is the Battle Pack mode. Replacing a traditional tournament setup, players can enter both the Sealed and Draft formats against either the AI or other players online. After five duels, players get their performance ranked with their 30-40 card deck added into their overall card collection. The next time the duelist enters Battle Pack they start off with a fresh deck.

Also returning from the last game is the ability to toggle which card effects you want the game to alert you to. By default, Legacy of the Duelist will notify player of every potential move. The Simple mode has the AI relax a bit and only selectively give you advice on potential responses. The Pro setting puts players on notice as everything is left to them.

The Deck Editor has been completely revamped through Smart Search. The tool aims to aid players by recommending cards that assist or are otherwise related to the one currently selected in the trunk. You won’t have to go sifting through tonnes of cards to match your Lord of D with a Flute of Summoning Dragons. This is in addition to the already exhaustive sorting system from prior games.

Talking cards, Legacy of the Duelist contains 6691 of them. Based on the western TCG, the latest set included is February’s Secret Forces, which means you can summon Pendulum Monsters. While you aren’t able to enter passwords, trade other users or import cards from previous Yu-Gi-Oh! games, Konami promises a softer grind than Millennium Duels. Winning battles here gives you three cards from your opponent’s deck in addition to enough DP currency to purchase around 3 virtual card packs (~24 individual cards). Interestingly, Konami has decided against using the actual TCG pack names and has instead sorted the cards by character usage. While the publisher insists that you’ll get everything you need in your base $20 purchase, Legacy of the Duelist will also have paid DLC packs.

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The game’s ban list, which is as recent as the January 2015 TCG rulings, is only required for ranked online duels. Yata-Lock all you want against the CPU in the other modes.

On the subject of online gameplay; disconnects will be penalized as a victory for the opponent. Losers also earn DP, so the hope is that players will want to stick around for the end. There’s also a turn timer to make sure no one wins by out waiting their competition.

Unwilling to confirm any plans, Konami isn’t against adding content post-launch. Specifically mentioned are additional storylines and cards tied to the ongoing Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V anime, as well as the potential for tag duels.

If you somehow read all of this but understood none of it, don’t fret. The game will have extensive tutorials for new users. There will even be a free downloadable trial to check out.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist will be out sometime this summer for $19.99 on PS4. It’ll be available in North America and Europe, with cross-regional play and language support for English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. If you’re in the San Diego area, the game is playable at Konami’s Comic-Con booth this weekend.

As the staff on this stream aren’t involved with game localization, they could only encourage fans looking for a PS Vita Yu-Gi-Oh! experience (be it a localization of Tag Force Special or something else) to politely request it on the various Konami and Yu-Gi-Oh! social media feeds.

Charles: Tag Force Special is made in Japan. I’ll let them know you guys want it, but I don’t control where it gets released. […] The more people that write, “Hey, bring it out in the US!” might help. Yuichi: Saying “I love Yu-Gi-Oh! and I’d love to see this game on this platform” is the best way to do it. If you say, “If you don’t bring this out on Vita I will never purchase another Yu-Gi-Oh! game” it’ll never go up the chain. You’ve got to be a little more positive about it.

A petition to localize Tag Force Special has topped 3189 signatures since its creation.