Recent reviews by grusha enthusiast

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel, for all intents, is a complete anomaly.

As someone with a comical amount of both time and money invested into the skinnerbox nightmarescape that is Duel Links, I was cautiously optimistic about Master Duel for most of its prerelease period. A lot of it sounded good, but with the precedent of Duel Links having already been set my expectations were tempered that it was going to be a functional online simulator with a massive amount of MTX baggage with very little else to write home about.

I was proven wrong in less than 3 hours of playtime when I had constructed my entire dinosaur deck, and proven wrong again at the end of my first day when that same dinosaur deck was furnished with playsets of meta staples like Ash Blossom and Lightning Storm and I was already halfway into building a Madolche core.

* Master Duel, as of the day of its release (1/19/2022) operates on a strange version of an outdated OCG (Japanese) banlist when released to a primarily TCG-oriented (Rest of World) audience, which has lead to a lot of strategies being more viable than they should be in the paper card game. While many hope this discrepancy is solved, given Konami's track record with their other video games I am personally not hopeful. On the bright side, this means the 3 Miscellaneousaurus I pulled are usable.

* Master Duel's single player offerings are somewhat underwhelming, but that wasn't really the reason most of us are here to begin with. A lot of the reason I, a comparative rarity within the community, would be interested in the single player missions is the first official release of a lot of card storylines outside of Japan-exclusive Master Guides, has been brought down by a lot of the text in the game reeking of automatic translation.

* On a related note, a lot of text and UI elements feel remarkably unfinished. One of the backgrounds you can purchase specifically mentions the term "Release", the OCG equivalent to "Tribute", which is not mentioned anywhere else in the game.

* As to be expected from a single-purpose simulator, the actual gameplay is... Well, it's present-day Yu-Gi-Oh! alright, for better or for worse. There are a few strange quirks where the most recent legal set is *exactly 1 third* of Legendary Duelists: Synchro Storm, with only the Lyrilusc cards being playable while the Speedroid and Fluer Synchron parts of it are nowhere to be found. As a direct consequence of this, the current format-warping superthreat of Destiny HERO - Destroyer Phoenix Enforcer is nowhere to be found.

* An important anomaly of Master Duel is the actual format of which duels take place. The official ranked mode has the somewhat bizarre setup of being Best of 1s with absolutely no Side Deck whatsoever, leading to hyper-aggressive decks being at an automatic advantage and some matchups being almost unsolvable for most decks. Crooked Cook Turbo is almost impossible to beat without having side options to get around it, leading to some of the most dull Yu-Gi-Oh! in history.

* This is personally a minor thing, but as a long-time fan of the series it's refreshing as to how restrained the pandering to DM is. The Dark Magician pet and Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon artwork being plastered all over the menu are the extent of the obvious nostalgia pandering, which is especially noteworthy considering how Konami's previous most-successful games are literally built around nostalgia pandering as their primary selling point.

* The big elephant in the room is, of course, the shop. As of writing this the game is still during its launch window where gems are being given out like candy, so several months-to-several years down the line this may change drastically, but as of now I have yet to feel any compulsion to spend money at the real-world cash shop when I can just play games and be showered in gems and CP.

* Speaking of which, the biggest surprise twist is the addition of a crafting mechanic where unwanted cards can be broken down into their components and reconstructed into any card of the same rarity at a 3:1 ratio. This, by itself, already cuts down on the massive grind for building a new deck by letting you scrap any unwanted SR and UR cards and turn them into cards you actually need, as well as the ability to stockpile powerful staple cards with minimal effort.

* There's probably more to say here but my integrity as a reviewer is completely compromised by my sleep meds kicking and me falling asleep at the keyboard so consider this a spot for potential updates instead.

All things considered, Master Duel is a shockingly accessible and surprisingly F2P friendly environment that, if you can stomach it, gives you the experience of modern Yu-Gi-Oh! without spending a dime.

And no, as much as I love EDOPro it doesn't count.

Brother, what is this...? Why is it misshapen and weak? Was there an error in my design?

Guardian. Come to me. Allow me to see your construction.

...

So I see.

These are not the correct ratios.

This is no minor error, Brother. You have purposefully deviated from the design. For what purpose have you done this? You cannot weave a construct from such an abundance of soul. You know it is too unstable - that it is too unpredictable and too frail. I have told you this, and yet you have wasted the materials I have gathered - and exhausted your own strength to fabricate this miscreation.

To what benefit?

At its best, it can be no more than an inferior servant; it is deficient in the compounds that were to give it fortitude and strength. At its worst, it will betray us.

You have created the first being of this world which threatens us. We cannot keep it here. Attempting to destroy it will risk its retaliation... I will prepare one of the vaults for it to be sealed away, while it is still young and naive.

What a foolish mistake you have made, brother.

I expect you to return the design to me. I cannot allow you to build another construct with so much power - and with such little control. I will build the rest of our guardians; by my hand, they will be weak, but at least they will be loyal.

Go home. I will deal with this creature. We can discuss a better project for you when I return.

Now you too can enter the secret ranks of the Completely Generic Pub Raelynns with this skin that seems to be used more than default Raelynn!

Learn the art of *banking into *Pump Rifle and *Paw and completely ignore Time Rift while the enemy, equally generic pub Raelynn tears you to shreds with Warhead.

*Note from legal: skin does not include Piggy Bank, Pump Rifle, or Paw. Using this build is a terrible idea.

Ted McPain isn't the only dead thing Voltar is bringing back!

ronimo employee 1: "we made the game f2p, but people are still leaving. why could that possibly be?"
ronimo employee 2: "maybe it's because the matchmaking doesn't work, the balance is awful, half of the cast is nigh-useless, the community is terrible, constant technical problems, the entire concept of peer-to-peer networking in a moba, and a development team that clearly has no idea what they're doing?"
ronimo employee 1: "obviously, it's because we didn't give deadlift a skin on launch, but we're going to have to run this by ronimo employee 3."
ronimo employee 3 could not contribute to the given conversation, given that he is the office plant.