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Yu-Gi-Oh gets a bad rap for a good reason. Players often loathe the card battle game because it resembles the same incomprehensible babble year after year. Mostly, they’re right. Gamers require some sort of knowledge of this card monster mayhem just to move through the phases. Once you get past the initial learning curve, duelists often find the same game engine year after year.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Spirit Caller may have been just another rehash of the DS doomed to its own redundancy if it wasn’t for a simple yet powerful concept – on-line play.

Pulling from the Bottom

Spirit Caller borrows more than its share of tricks from the previous DS installment, Nightmare Troubadour. A quick tap of the stylus sends your monster to war or unleashes a well-placed trap. Anything to quicken the pace of matches that can take up to thirty minutes is a welcomed addition in this series. Graphics haven’t improved since the days of Troubadour – mixing 2D cartoon with 3D Rorschach samples. From the interface to the cards themselves, fans of the series will find little to celebrate in the way of needed improving on the previous model – but that’s not to say that there are few surprises in this shuffle.
 
Instead of the customary volcano resting precariously close to a school filled with children, Sprit Caller opts for the abandoned well. Don’t look for dead girls to creep out of this gap. Prepare for something worse – crappy cards. Spirits help by extending the time on exams, give you a better chance to obtain new clothing, or a number of other tasks that add nothing to the game play experience. Like the Tag Duels in the PSP game, Konami throws in another new twist to the game without ever improving the overall presentation.
 

You mean other people play Yu-Gi-Oh?
 
If there was ever a way to revitalize a dying card battling franchise, on-line play must certainly be the cure. Until recently, these card-flipping games focused on single player action with very little multiplayer support. You know what you get when you play with yourself too long – boredom. Spirit Caller institutes a very simple on-line mechanic. Player can link up through friend codes or use a match system very similar to the one in the game. The only restrictions to the on-line play come from the design of the game.

Agent of Judgment

Spirit Caller won’t be known as the game that saves the franchise, but as a good start in a very long journey. While over a thousand cards may look good in print, picking through cards that wouldn’t be fit for the spokes of your bike five years ago seems like a let down. The new twists in the series fall short of being innovative or worth keeping for longer than a game. If Konami could actually focus on putting together a decent game with more focus on the on-line play, they may find something little more than just average.

Article by: Rob Manuel
Video produced by: Rob Manuel