Pros: Nice Card Illustrations
Cons: Frustrating
The bottom line: Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden Memories Will Likely Not Be Enjoyed By Anyone Outside of the Yu-Gi-Oh Fanbase.
Last Summer when I wasn't hanging out with my friends or playing video games I was just sitting around being bored, while most of the time I could think of something to do, the times I spent just sitting around seemed to drag on and on, and so I decided to find a new show to get into, and the first show that caught my eye was a curious little anime series called Yu-Gi-Oh. At first glimpse this show seemed to be another one of those pokemon rip-offs like Digimon, but after watching an episode I decided to catch another one the next day, and I repeatedly caught this show until I was hooked. Yu-Gi-Oh may have a lot in common with the likes of Pokemon, but the way the show is presented, and the deep storyline make it a much better watch than one might expect. Well since I've been hooked to the show for some time now I decided to purchase both the Gameboy Color and PlayStation Yu-Gi-Oh games because I had a yearning in the back of my mind to play the card game the show is based around, and so here is my review of the PlayStation game; Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden Memories.

Yu-Gi-Oh Background Story
In Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden Memories you control an ancient Egyptian Prince. A card game called the "Shadow Game" is very popular in ancient Egypt, and this prince just happens to be one of the best players in the entire kingdom. When the evil priest Heishin threatens to steal one of the 7 mystical millennium items; the Millennium Puzzle, the prince shatters it to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, and in the process he is sealed up inside and can be released only when the puzzle is put back together.

Now fast forward to the future, a young boy named Yugi Moto has a knack for the latest card game known as Duel Monsters (which is the same as the ancient Shadow Game). Yugi has managed to assemble the Millennium Puzzle and has thus released the Egyptian Prince's spirit, and so as the spirit it's your job to win a special Duel Monsters tournament by using the body of Yugi Moto as you face off against many other duelists that are looking to win in hopes of acquiring all of the Millennium Items which will allow you to send the prince back to his original time so that he can defeat the evil Priest from the prince's past.

The game's story may sound excellent, but it is executed poorly in Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden Memories. The story makes this game sound like some epic RPG when it's really not, it's really more like a simulation of the card game only with a story. What I really don't like about this game and it's story is the fact that it is just way too linear, it would have been great if Konami had made it more like an RPG by giving you the ability to move around and take control of Yugi Moto, but instead, you simply move from screen to screen through entering commands and such, in a similar fashion to the old Myst games.

The Rules of Duel Monsters
Gameplay in Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden Memories (I'll just refer to it as Forbidden Memories from here on out) revolves around the card game; Duel Monsters. Since this is one of those card-battling games it is pretty deep, and therefore has all types of rules associated with it.

In order for a duel to break out you must challenge or be challenged by someone, when this occurs you are whisked away to another screen, this screen has an Egyptian style board where all the cards put into play are placed. There are 2 different sections on the board; one for each player. Each side of the board has 2 different rows of sections where the cards are placed, the front row is where monsters are assimilated, and the back row is where magic and trap cards are placed.

At the beginning of each duel, both duelists are given 8,000 life points, and 5 cards from there deck are put into their hands, but cards in your hand are out of view from the other duelist. Both duelists take turns placing cards on the field and attacking each other, a winner is declared when one of the player's life points reach 0. The rules also say that you must have no more than 40 cards placed in your deck to play, but it is rather difficult to actually acquire (good) new cards throughout the duration of the game, and opponents usually always have a better-assembled deck than you. There are 3 separate types of cards in the game of duel monsters; monster, magic, and trap.

Monster Cards are cards that can be used to attack other monsters or a duelist's life points. Each monster card has 2 numbers on it; life points and defense points, and these are really the backbone of the Duel Monsters card game. Monsters are defeated when they are attacked by a monster with higher attack power then them, or if a monster is in defense mode they are destroyed when an attacking monster has a higher number of attack power than that of the defending monster's defense points. Only when all enemy monsters are destroyed can a monster attack someone's life points directly, but they can also score damage by attacking other monsters in attack mode; the amount of damage is the difference between each monster's attack strength. There are some definite perks to defending though; if a monster attacks a monster in defense mode when this monster has a higher defense than the attacking monster's attack power the attacking monster's owner will suffer damage to their life points.

Magic cards are used to enhance a monster's stats; they are placed in the row behind the monsters. There are more than one type of magic cards though, some can be equipped on monsters, some can change the field's element, and there are more types but I can't think of any more at the moment. Magic cards usually go face down on the dueling arena, but their effects can be enacted whenever you want (during your turn I mean).

Trap cards are very similar to magic cards in the fact that they can alter a monster's stats, but they are usually negative effects and target the enemy. Trap cards are placed in the same area as magic cards, but they are usually enacted during an opponents turn and are triggered by an opponents attack. Trap cards do several different things; they can lower an enemy monster's stats, destroy monsters, and some can even cancel out an enemies attack.

The card battling system may seem great and all, but it has it's downfalls. For one thing, the game grants you and the enemies the ability to combine monsters to create stronger ones, but there is a catch; not all combinations will work, and an incorrect combination will result in the destroying of one of the monsters while the other card will be forced to be played on the field. What's worse about this is the fact that there is no way to know exactly which monsters make what; the game doesn't even tell you a single combination to use while the computer knows every single one and certainly isn't shy when it comes to combining monsters and creating incredibly powerful cards, it's almost like it's cheating sometimes.

One thing that I thought was really cool about the duels in this game is the option to actually see the real monsters in 3-D instead of just looking at the pictures on the cards. This is accomplished by substituting the square button as the action button when attacking an enemy monster. There is one major downfall to watching the monsters attack though; the loading times are horrendous, couple this with the fact that the attack sequences are a little drawn out and you'll realize that the time it takes to finish an attack in 3-D mode really isn't worth it.

After every duel you gain a new card, only most of the time you will receive common cards that you already own, and so getting new cards is the pits. In an effort to allow players to assemble their deck just how they like, Konami has added in the ability to buy new cards by inputting some password or something that is found on the official playing cards. Like most of this game though, Konami managed to mess up this feature by forcing you to buy these cards in the game using star chips that are gained after each battle. This may sound good and all, but considering the fact that all the really good cards cost 999,999 star chips and you only gain 5 per duel at most, it is extremely strenuous and not worth the effort at all.

The Series and the Game
While Forbidden Memories is based on the same characters, events, and even storyline as the Yu-Gi-Oh anime series, it seems to follow it pretty loosely, unless of course I just haven't seen some of the episodes. Almost all of the important characters in the anime series are present in Forbidden Memories, and so Forbidden Memories would definitely feel right at home with this game. One of the main differences I've noticed between the game and the series lies within the fact that some of the cards are... well... different then their counterparts are between the series and the game.

The Different Game Modes
In adding separate game modes Konami actually did something right with this game for once. There are several different modes of playing, which include the standard Campaign Mode where you progress through the game's story. Free Duel mode was also included; this allows you to challenge any duelist you have defeated in Campaign Mode. Also included are card trading, and 2-player duel.

In Forbidden Memories 2 players can trade cards with each other, but they must have save files on separate memory cards in order for this to work properly. I'll admit it right now, I actually used the trade feature to cheat on this game; I downloaded a save file on the internet to one of my memory cards using the dexdrive, and then I simply used this tactic to take all of the really powerful cards from the downloaded save file to my current game file, but cheating like that is really the only way that you will get anywhere in the game fast.

Keeping your cards secret from your opponent is advantageous in the game of Duel Monsters, and so the question rose in my head, "how exactly can 2 human players play this game against each other without seeing each other's cards?” This is where it gets kinda complicated though, you have 2 options; in one of these options your cards are all face down as you receive them but they all have numbers, and in order to know which card is which you must memorize which numbers correspond with what cards. This is really rather confusing though, but you also have the option of just playing the game with the cards in plain sight, this is much easier but takes away from the game a little.

Forbidden Memories targets mainly the hardcore Yu-Gi-Oh fans, and while I do keep up with and enjoy the show, I do have to say that I don't particularly like Forbidden Memories. For one thing, the game is frustrating and tedious, and another thing is that this game requires a whole lot of patience, which is something I'm wearing thin on as of late. The main reason I purchased this game was because I expected more of an RPG than Forbidden Memories delivers, and so I didn't exactly get what I had originally wanted with this game, which is ok, except for the fact that I wasted $30 on it. Oh well, it's my own fault for not researching this game before I bought it.

My Ratings For: Yu-Gi-Oh!: Forbidden Memories

Graphics: 6.5/10
There really isn't a whole lot to look at in Forbidden Memories, I mean the story is told through still images and text, and so the graphics are a little on the bland side. Besides through the still scenes, the only other time you can see a character is when it shows a picture of them while they are talking, and their mouths move as text appears on the screen. A little more work was put into the graphics during battle though, as the camera swirls around the game board right after a duel erupts, and some of the magic and trap cards have animations associated with them. There are a couple of good things about Forbidden Memories' graphics though, and one of them lies within the pictures on the cards, which are colorful and full of detail; overall they look wonderful. Another good thing about the game's graphics is that when in 3-D the monsters look slightly above average, and even though they have that infamous jagged polygon Playstation esq. look to them, they are still a very nice touch to the game overall.

Textures and colors are a little on the poor side in Forbidden Memories, but this game wasn't created to wow you over with splendid graphics, well at least I hope not. At least Konami did something right with the graphics when they put all that detail into the pictures on the cards, as the cards should be your main focus point in the game. The still scenes aren't too bad looking, but the fact that they are almost devoid of any kind of animation really takes away from them. Overall I would have to say that while Konami did focus their attention into what counts (the cards details), they really should have put some extra effort into the appearances of everything else, I'm talking animations here Konami.

The interface may be a little overwhelming at first, but it's not all that hard to get used to once you know what you are doing. The only part of the game that is very hard to navigate through is the “build your deck screen”, it still confuses me sometimes. Inside of battle it is extremely easy to figure things out, and so you can focus more on which combinations will make a good monster instead of wondering how to navigate through the battle. At a certain point in the game you can actually choose locations to go to via a map, but this isn't very confusing either, and most of the menus in this game are pretty self-explanatory.

Story: 5/10
Although the story behind the anime series is very intriguing, and both stories are basically the same, Forbidden Memories does a pretty cumbersome job when it comes to execution. It may be hard for people who haven't seen any of the show's episodes to just jump right in and enjoy the story because the game doesn't tell you every detail, and some of the key characters are missing from Forbidden Memories, while some new ones have been added in. Since storyline has become such a big deal with games lately I suggest that you shouldn't buy this game unless you are a fan of the show, you would have to be pretty devoted to earn enough star chips to buy the Blue Eyes White Dragon or the Dark Magician.

Control: 8/10
For a game that requires you to only move a cursor up and down, control Forbidden Memories is a cinch. I did have a slight problem with the game's control though; for some odd reason I constantly mix up the cancel and OK buttons, I'm really not sure why. The interface on the "create your deck" screen is pretty overwhelming for a beginner, but once you get the hang of it everything becomes smooth sailing. One great thing about the control in Forbidden Memories is that you are not required to press any buttons on impulse, and therefore you can take all the time in the world to decide on what you are going to do.

Sound: 6.5/10
It takes really only one word to describe the music in Forbidden Memories; funky. No really it is, some of the music is just plain weird while other tracks brought the word "groovy" to mind. One thing you may notice right away is that Forbidden Memories has a pretty strong song that plays during most duels, every time I play this song gets stuck in my head and plays over and over again. Besides the dueling music there isn't actually any more tracks that fit the "above average" category, but few songs are bad at all. All in all I would have to say that by muting the volume you aren't actually missing a whole lot, and the music doesn't actually manage to add a lot to the game.

The sound effects are pretty mediocre, maybe I'm just becoming spoiled by the likes of the next gen consoles, but I feel that voice overs could have really added to this game, it's just too bad that Konami was too lazy to add them, I'm pretty sure that there is plenty of room on the Playstation disk. The game has very few actual sound effects, but I guess that it doesn't really need them since it's more of a card game simulation than an RPG, but voice overs still would have been a nice addition.

Multiplayer: 6.5/10
I can't really complain about the multiplayer feature considering the fact that Konami could have simply not included the option to duel against another human player. The Vs. mode could have been better though, I'm not exactly sure how, but it still could have been. I think it would have been great if Konami had included the option to play Campaign Mode with 2 players, but it is actually pretty hard to imagine how this would have worked out. All in all, even though I don't especially like the multiplayer mode in Forbidden Memories, I'm still glad they included it, it only adds on to the game.

Fun Factor: 6.5/10
I rate this area so low because of the simple fact that few people outside of the Yu-Gi-Oh! fanbase will actually enjoy this game, and even as a Yu-Gi-Oh fan I still don't especially enjoy it. This game would be a whole lot more enjoyable if it wasn't quite so frustrating, it surely isn't very fun when you can't beat the next duelist and have to spend hours and hours getting new cards from the Free Duel Mode only to see all your time spent in vain because you still can't win. The high cost of powerful cards also takes away from the game, but I guess if Forbidden Memories just gave you easy access to all the powerful cards from the get-go it would be too easy.

Overall Rating: 6.7