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Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters 2: Dark Duel Stories (6/25)
Next up in the Early Days Collection is Duel Monsters 2: Dark Duel Stories, not to be confused with Duel Monsters 3, which was titled Dark Duel Stories in western releases. Like last time, this is an early, very barebones implementation of the OCG. This time, it adds in several simple Trap cards, mostly destroying a single enemy's monster when they attack. There is only one Trap slot on the field and it wears off at the start of your turn, in comparison to the OCG where there are five Spell/Trap slots and set Traps stay on the field until used or destroyed. It also adds Ritual spells to sacrifice three specific Monsters to summon a Ritual monster, which doesn't need to be in the deck in this game, making it kinda sorta like a Fusion monster, but like early Fusions they're usually quite impractical.
Duel Monsters 2 also adds in a strength/weakness system that allowed monsters to instantly destroy other monsters which they have a type advantage against, which improved what little balance this game had as the AI still uses no Spell or Trap cards. It now, sometimes, has an answer to your monsters if you get something out with a higher attack than anything in their deck. That being said, it probably would have left the card game worse off if it had actually been implemented past these early video games; it'd wreak havoc on modern Yu-Gi-Oh archetypes. DM2 also ditches the "one-card-per-turn" limit of the previous game, and you can play one monster (without having to tribute summon) and as many Spells and Traps as you want. You also draw up to a full hand of five cards per turn, incentivizing a strategy of playing lots of Spells each turn to run through your deck faster and build card advantage.
There is still no limit on the number of a specific card you can add to your deck, but Tremendous Fire was heavily nerfed (and bugfixed), making the new top deck Megamorph OTK. Megamorph in this game is a Spell card that multiplies a Monster's attack by roughly 2.56, allowing a Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth or Black Skull Dragon to 1HKO an opponent if they haven't used a lifegain card. If you have a Raigeki, Megamorph, and PUGM or BSD in your hand, and your opponent doesn't have a Widespread Ruin or Reverse Trap set, it's a guaranteed victory. Since the game is very grindy and boring, and some cards are locked behind cross-game trades that don't work in Early Days Collection, I used the provided in-game cheats to immediately get max Deck Capacity and all Cards so that I could get through it quickly and move on. The next Duel Monsters game will finally include opponents that use non-Monster cards, and in the process be actually interesting to fight.
Next up in the Early Days Collection is Duel Monsters 2: Dark Duel Stories, not to be confused with Duel Monsters 3, which was titled Dark Duel Stories in western releases. Like last time, this is an early, very barebones implementation of the OCG. This time, it adds in several simple Trap cards, mostly destroying a single enemy's monster when they attack. There is only one Trap slot on the field and it wears off at the start of your turn, in comparison to the OCG where there are five Spell/Trap slots and set Traps stay on the field until used or destroyed. It also adds Ritual spells to sacrifice three specific Monsters to summon a Ritual monster, which doesn't need to be in the deck in this game, making it kinda sorta like a Fusion monster, but like early Fusions they're usually quite impractical.
Duel Monsters 2 also adds in a strength/weakness system that allowed monsters to instantly destroy other monsters which they have a type advantage against, which improved what little balance this game had as the AI still uses no Spell or Trap cards. It now, sometimes, has an answer to your monsters if you get something out with a higher attack than anything in their deck. That being said, it probably would have left the card game worse off if it had actually been implemented past these early video games; it'd wreak havoc on modern Yu-Gi-Oh archetypes. DM2 also ditches the "one-card-per-turn" limit of the previous game, and you can play one monster (without having to tribute summon) and as many Spells and Traps as you want. You also draw up to a full hand of five cards per turn, incentivizing a strategy of playing lots of Spells each turn to run through your deck faster and build card advantage.
There is still no limit on the number of a specific card you can add to your deck, but Tremendous Fire was heavily nerfed (and bugfixed), making the new top deck Megamorph OTK. Megamorph in this game is a Spell card that multiplies a Monster's attack by roughly 2.56, allowing a Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth or Black Skull Dragon to 1HKO an opponent if they haven't used a lifegain card. If you have a Raigeki, Megamorph, and PUGM or BSD in your hand, and your opponent doesn't have a Widespread Ruin or Reverse Trap set, it's a guaranteed victory. Since the game is very grindy and boring, and some cards are locked behind cross-game trades that don't work in Early Days Collection, I used the provided in-game cheats to immediately get max Deck Capacity and all Cards so that I could get through it quickly and move on. The next Duel Monsters game will finally include opponents that use non-Monster cards, and in the process be actually interesting to fight.
Spoiler: My Deck
