Game reviews

By ADAM SHEPPARD and CHUCK MURPHY
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 3, 2003

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses

• System: PlayStation 2
• Company: Konami
• Price: $49.99
• Rating: E
• Grade: B-

Depending on your video game preferences, this game can be quite good or incredibly bad. For those of you who enjoy games of strategy, this game could be for you. Built around a card game, the story mode is interesting and boasts a variety of strange characters. You can battle opponents (either the computer or a second player), and trading can be done to get better cards or to complete your deck. You must use your wits to defeat your opponent. As the story progresses, more characters come into play and the game gets more difficult.

If you don't like strategy games, or simply don't want to have to think that hard, this game isn't for you. There isn't much action. The graphics are good, but it could get boring for thrill-seekers. If sports and combat games are your thing, you probably want to leave this one alone.

-- ADAM SHEPPARD, Times correspondent

Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeondice Monsters

• System: Game Boy Advance
• Company: Konami
• Price: $29.99
• Rating: E
• Grade: C

It's rated E for Everyone, but when applied to Dungeondice Monsters, the E could just as easily stand for "Exceptionally Complex." This is essentially a board game, played within the small screen of the Game Boy Advance. And while it deserves credit for being different from the standard role-playing action games available for Game Boy Advance, it suffers from the difficult rules and the multiple permutations included.

For the uninitiated, Yu-Gi-Oh is the latest challenger to Pokemon in the collector-card trading category. And if you don't already know about Yu-Gi-Oh, this game is not the place to start. Players must choose 15 dice at the start of the game, then roll three of them at a time. Each die contains crests that represent monsters or moves. As you roll the dice, you are essentially creating a pathway on the game board. When you complete your pathway, or dungeon, you can unleash your collected monsters on the "Die Master."

There are more than 100 monsters available, and loss of the instruction booklet would probably lead to an early shelving of the game. Those who stick it out through the difficult learning curve won't be bored. The number of monsters, moves and combinations created by the random rolls of the dice make each game different. But that strength of variety is also Dungeondice Monsters' greatest weakness.

-- CHUCK MURPHY, Times staff writer

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