Sunday, August 24, 2014

Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal World Duel Carnival English version for 3DS: Read the reviews first!

I was looking forward to the first Yu-GI-Oh game for 3DS. It has been missing from all handheld consoles for a long time. (I'm not considering Yu-Gi-Oh BAM) I missed out that the English version was already out for the Europe region in June this year as I haven't been checking the 3DS scene for a while. 3DS is region-locked so I'll still be waiting for the US region in September 2014 but I have second thoughts after reading the Europe version reviews:

Nintendo Life review

Nintendo World Report Review

Other reviews at Metacritic

This latest version has no multiplayer mode which is really peculiar. On top of that, a lot of features in the English version were cut from the Japanese version: "no Duelist Profiles, no Ending Pictures, no Photos, all Sleeves and Mats are unlocked from the start and there is no Device or Database modes. The only playable characters are Yuma, Astral, ZEXAL, Tori, Reginald, Kite, Dr. Faker, Vetrix, Trey, Quattro, Alito & Konami-kun (aka Tag Force's Hat Guy)." from the Wikia page.

I read that the cards, play mat and card protector designs are unlocked at the start. As much as I dislike grinding cards to improve decks for PvP in Hearthstone, being able to slowly improve a deck card by card is fun, especially in a story mode scenario.

The screenshots I saw were not very attractive as well but with so little content offered, I'm already not sure if I want to buy it at all. Here's the official product page with the listed features and I don't think much will be changed between the Europe and US region release.