Thoughts on Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links

If you haven't heard of the new app, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links, then you clearly haven't been online lately. The app is everywhere - especially on YouTube. I watched a few of my favorite YouTubers play this game then decided to try it for myself. Let me just say - I love it! I will break down my thoughts into 3 categories: cards and characters, game play, and issues. Let's get into it!


Cards and Characters
The whole point of this game is to duel - which will get you to level up which will unlock new cards, characters, and character skills. All of the playable characters are from the anime - and they even have their dubbed anime voices (for the most part). If you are a fan of the anime, this alone will be enough to start playing. The cards are as you would expect - they start out weak but get stronger as you go. You can buy packs of 3 cards for gems at the card shop or trade with the card trader for rarer cards. Thus far, Synchro and Xyz monsters are not available but that could change in the future.


Game Play
If you have ever played Yu-Gi-Oh!, then you can play this game. If you haven't, this is also a great place to learn since things start off fairly easy then get more difficult as you level up. Like I said before, gems are needed to get card packs while other resources are needed to get other things: stones and gold for the card trader and keys for the legendary duelist gate. Beating legendary duelists can also get you special cards but my luck has not been that good on that. It seems that you need to duel often and a lot to get anywhere in this game. Character level up not your idea of a good time? Then you can try the PVP arena which matches you with random people from all over the world so you can see how you skills stack up to real duelists instead of just the app AI.


Issues
Where to begin on this one....how about money? As you can expect, if you want to get cards quickly, real money is required. I can assure you that I have multiple characters over level 15 and I have not spent a single cent of real money. Another issue is that an internet connection is required to play the game - even if you aren't using PVP (which I don't use - not until I get my decks to a playable level). In fact, if your device (a tablet in my case) suddenly loses its signal, you get an error screen and worse case scenario: it reboots the app. I have had this happen - though to be fair, I can't say if it was the app or my internet to blame. I can say that even if that happens, if I am acquiring gems or as was the case recently, opening a card pack, the app does give you what you in the process of getting when the signal went out. If you are dueling, it usually asks you if you want to continue the duel that was in progress at the time. I haven't had any other issues with signals dropping but we'll see how things progress. The last issue is that it drains my tablet battery pretty quickly - luckily there is a setting that allows you to change how much battery is used when you play the game. Lowering the setting may slow things down, but it is really up to you to decide which is more important: battery life or app speed.


In general, this game is very fun and easy to pick up. It is free to download and to play - which is a plus. I can't find anything really negative to say about it - the issues above are minor, except for the internet requirement. I would recommend this game to anyone who loves Yu-Gi-Oh! or wants to start playing it. What about you? Leave a comment below telling me your experiences with this app. Follow me for future posts if you enjoyed this post. Have a good weekend and as always, keep on gaming!