Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection: Duel Monsters I

Back with another themed month, and I return to the well of Yu-Gi-Oh! Except, this time, I’ll be focusing on older games. In February 2025, Konami released the Early Days Collection, which contains 14 (technically 16) games from the earliest of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. I already covered one of these, The Sacred Cards, in the first year of Planned All Along, which leaves 13 games to cover (technically 15; you’ll understand why I say that, but not until next year).

This volume had the duel against PaniK,
also known as the Player Killer of
Darkness in the original Japanese,
because the manga was edgy like that.

I figured that I would start with the shortest games (according to How Long To Beat); but the four I’m planning to cover this month, I’ll do in chronological order. I’m opening today with the first game in the entire collection, the original Duel Monsters, released for the Game Boy on December 16th, 1998. Several of these classics had never been officially released in languages other than Japanese before, so it’s a chance to discover them and experience the start of a legacy.

Technically, it isn’t the first Yu-Gi-Oh! game ever released (the actual first was based on a lesser game from the manga’s history, Monster Capsule), but it is the first to feature the card game that would then take over the anime and be the sole focus of every following series. When it came out, the manga itself was at its tenth volume, in the middle of the Dueling Kingdom tournament arc. Barely halfway in, not even in the finals. The duel against Pegasus is still far. The timeframe in which this game was made explains a lot about it. For starters, the characters we meet and duel are only the ones we have seen in the manga pages up to that point.

However, it’s most notable in gameplay, with duels obeying the, um… elastic rules of Duelist Kingdom. I’ll get there soon enough.

The OG Duel Simulator

Choose your fighter Duelist!

Before the game starts, Yami Yugi tells the player to input their duelist name. It’s not important in the Story Mode, but it is a screen name for dueling and trading with other players using a Link Cable (remember, this was the Game Boy era).

Story? What’s that? When the game begins, your first screen shows the mugs of Yugi Muto, Joey Wheeler, Tristan Taylor and Bakura Ryo. We can surmise, based on the background showing a large boat, that we’re on the ship taking our characters to Duelist Kingdom. Each of these four will say the same thing: If you want to proceed, you’ll have to beat them all five times. Why five? Shouldn’t one be enough? Nah, not here.

Okay, back to that pin about gameplay. The card game as we know it didn’t even exist yet. The cards at the time were the Bandai OCG, a short-lived version that ended in 1999, when the actual Konami card game began and overtook the former in popularity. As a result, early Duel Monsters video games had the bare minimum to base themselves on, gameplay-wise. All they had was the Duelist Kingdom rules (which would later be streamlined for the second tournament arc, Battle City). Also, take into account the hardware limitations: A Game Boy cartridge could only contain a maximum of 4 megabits of data, and the game had to be designed to account for the tiny screen.

So:

The card arts are still pretty.

-There are two card types: Normal Monsters (no monster has an effect), and Magic Cards (this game predates the terminology switch to “Spell Card”).

-Monsters have Types, but no Attributes, and no Levels; you can summon any monster, at any time, without Tributes.

-There is no backrow; a Magic Card is activated when it is selected from your 5-card hand, and you only have to target a monster if it’s an Equip card. Otherwise, for Normal and Field Magic cards, the effect triggers immediately.

-In campaign duels, the player goes first. Like in classic Yu-Gi-Oh, you cannot attack on the first turn.

-CPUs can never use Magic Cards or fuse their own monsters.

-Each turn is split in three phases: You play ONE card from your 5-card hand. Then, you declare an action with every monster on your Field (either attacking, or putting them in defense position); after all actions have been declared, your turn ends and the system draws a card from your Deck for the next turn.

I think 700 ATK has decent chances against
the very low stats of the Stage 1 Duelists' monsters.

Let's see. Do I summon another monster to deal
over 500 more damage, or do I go for the cheap
shot of a measly 200 instant damage with this
magic card? Okay, 200 damage it is.

To summarize that last one: Every turn, you MUST play a card (Monster or Magic). If your field is full and you have no Magic in hand, doesn’t matter, just play a monster on top of another (I will explain soon). Then, you MUST either attack with every monster OR set it to Defense. The AI will always know exactly which monster you’ve just played, and WILL attack if its monster can destroy yours.

The biggest issue here is that you HAVE to play a card, but that’s the catch: You can only play one. So you’re often forced to choose between bringing out a monster to protect your Life Points, or playing a Magic, knowing very well that it’ll be the only card you’ll play that turn. This can be a problem when it comes to Equip Cards. Let’s say you summon a monster, intending to equip it; well, you cannot use that Equip card on the same turn, so your monster must survive to the next turn! And since the AI knows whether it can beat a card you’ve played, don’t expect your weak monsters to be able to survive on their own. There’s no Mirror Force here.

Fusioning and Equipping Towards Victory

From Supporter in Shadows to Celtic Guardian,
that's a 400-ATK boost. The difference between
1,000 and 1,400 can be life or death in Stage 2.

Though all Monsters are Normal, Fusion still exists despite the absence of Polymerization. In line with the unimpressive state of Fusion Monsters in early Yu-Gi-Oh!, and combined to Duelist Kingdom’s rules where anything could seemingly fusion to anything else, we have here a mess of a concept.

Fusion happens if you play a monster on top of one already on your field, and they’re compatible. Most Fusions have some logic behind them; as an example, a fire-themed monster and a Warrior-type monster fuse to create Flame Swordsman. All results still count as Normal, since the resulting fusions can be won as regular cards and played without the need to create them with fusion. The result of a fusion can be used AGAIN to chain into even more powerful monsters.

Flame Swordsman is probably the best fusion
you can actually make out of cards from the
starter deck. But it will often require monsters
that are already decent enough on their own.

The biggest issue with this concept, as you may have guessed, is that you do need to have one of your two monsters on the field, and it has to survive one turn; then, on the next, overlay your second monster onto it, to get a new monster that may only gain tiny amounts of extra ATK and DEF as a result. How many Fusions only have 100 or 200 extra ATK compared to one of their materials?

The other issue is exactly this: Since there are so many combinations, many will be letdowns. The number of Fusions I’ve seen where the end result is WORSE than one of its materials… Not to mention that, if you don’t have a guide, fusions are a trial and error process where you try overlaying a monster over a played one, and if the new one just replaces the old one (which is what happens when monsters don't fuse), too bad for you. Fusions can save your butt in early duels, but are not viable once you get proper firepower, and when opponents play nothing but monsters with enough ATK to take out your Materials.

1120 is not much. But it's enough to beat
over just about every monster the Stage 1
opponents can bring out.

Just gotta hope the Field will not boost the
monster the opponent has on the Field, or any
other in their hand.

Which takes me to my other gripe: Equips and Fields. As I said, you can only play one card per turn. First issue: These ATK and DEF-boosting cards follow Duelist Kingdom rules. Instead of giving a specific amount upon use (like a multiple of 100), they will instead boost a monster’s two stats by 30% (for Fields) or 60% (for Equips) of its current value. This can stack to 1 Field boost and 2 Equip boosts maximum. Percentages instead of set values means that weak monsters receive smaller boosts, thus stay at a disadvantage, while strong ones get much stronger.

As an example, a monster with, say, 500 base ATK will only gain an extra 150 with a Field and 300 with an Equip. One with 1500 base ATK will gain 450 with a Field and 900 with an Equip. See the difference? Field Magics give less, because they can benefit every applicable monster on the Field and in the hands (which can be a double-edged sword, since the opponent’s monsters may also benefit as a result).

Oh, and Equip Magics may claim they boost a certain type of monster, but they’re often equippable to any monster that can use them, often including some that aren’t hinted at in the Equip card’s description; just like Fusions, it gets confusing fast, and you basically need a guide to know which monster can use what card.

Ah yes, the Get Out Of Trouble Free Card

As a result, duels boil down to who’ll get the bigger number on the field, and that’s it. That goes for ATK and DEF alike, since playing a high-DEF monster to block the opponent can render them helpless. (Unless the AI is dumb, which it frequently is.) Your Starter Deck is made up of 33 randomized Monster Cards, and 7 specific Magic Cards that never change; one is Raigeki, which will destroy everything on the opponent’s field. It’s sad how often I’ve had to rely on drawing Raigeki to finish a duel, especially in the difficulty spike from Stage 1 to Stage 2. And I do say Raigeki, which destroys the opponent’s monsters only; Dark Hole is useless, because it destroys the cards on both sides, but since it will be your One Card for that turn, the opponent will get to hit back with a monster on their turn.

The Five Stages of Annoyance

You gotta duel a lot; how else are you going
to find cards to beat over a Garoozis?

The opponents are separated into Stages. Stage 1, discussed earlier, is Yugi, Joey, Bakura and Tristan. Tristan is so easy that you should get an achievement for losing against him, since it’s basically impossible. The other three aren’t too tough either.

Much like your starter deck, every opponent’s deck is randomly created before their duel from a personal pool, with each card having X chances out of 2048 of appearing. Cards of a suitable power level for the current Stage and opponent have higher odds than cards either too strong, or too weak for that point – but since it’s randomized, you can get surprises, like Stage 1 Joey pulling out his 2400-ATK Red-Eyes B. Dragon.

When you win a duel, you meet Téa, who will give you one card for your collection. Note its number, it’s the only way you’ll find it again in the archaic deck builder, which is nothing but a 70-page list of card names with no way to scroll back from the first to the last page. Much like their decks, the pool of rewards for each adversary is different, and cards have variable odds anywhere from one to three digits, out of 2048 again. Many cards have less than a 1% chance to be obtained.

Write that number down if you want to check
the card out in the Trunk afterwards.

Nice place. Bit tough to navigate though.

Then it’s Stage 2, Duelist Kingdom. Nine opponents here, and like Stage 1, they must all be defeated 5 times to proceed. You encounter Weevil Underwood, Mai Valentine, Rex Raptor, Mako Tsunami, Mokuba and Seto Kaiba, the Ventriloquist of the Dead, PaniK, and Bandit Keith. I think all of these opponents are faced in the same Stage, despite wildly different difficulties, because the arc was still ongoing and nobody knew yet how to split them further.

However, even without knowledge of the finals, here’s how I would have personally split them:

Stage 2: Regular duelists (Underwood, Valentine, Raptor, Tsunami, and Mokuba Kaiba).

Stage 3: Pegasus’ goons (PaniK and the Ventriloquist), and Bandit Keith. Then, Seto Kaiba in Stage 3, or all on his own in Stage 4, because he should be considered a boss. He's way too strong, he has no business in Stage 2.

Well, I don't have much for now.
Just hoping it will be enough.

The actual only opponent of Stage 3 is Simon (Shimon?) Muran, a character with possible ties to Yami Yugi. Then, Stage 4 is the boss, Maximillion Pegasus. Beating him 5 times plays the credits, but you’ll unlock a Stage 5, in which you duel Yami Yugi.

They have 4 monsters, I have none. I'm screwed.

Having to beat every opponent 5 times allows the player to build up a collection of cards that will give them better fighting options. Makes sense, since you only earn one card at a time. Well… That’s not entirely true. At every 10th victory against a specific opponent, you earn one extra card, though that one is not randomized. These may be cards you don’t have yet, but they may frequently be cards you’ve already obtained at random from beating that opponent. These preset rewards continue up to a hundredth victory, and that one will net you rewards you cannot obtain any other way, like the Exodia pieces or some highly prized cards (like Gaia the Fierce Knight, a second Raigeki, or Blue-Eyes White Dragon). Will I do it? No! Playing 100 duels against every opponent sounds tedious as all Hell!

Socialization… Bonuses?

Imagine playing hundreds of duels to get a super
rare card with tiny odds of being given, and then,
you lose a Duel against another human and they
take that specific card from your Trunk.

On the original Game Boy, two players using Duel Monsters I could trade cards using a Link Cable. It could help fill out the collection if, say, your friend had two copies of a card you were missing, and vice versa. You could also duel an opponent this way – you even had the option to edit your deck beforehand. Dueling other human opponents is encouraged, since you earned a new card after each 10 battles played in this mode. However, duels between human players follow the ante rule; when the duel ends, the winner selects and takes a card from the loser’s trunk.

Of course, I have something to complain about: Of all 20 socialization bonus cards (meaning you must play 200 duels to get the last one), five can only be obtained this way. Iconic cards like Flame Swordsman, Baby Dragon or Spellbinding Circle. (It’s annoying since Baby Dragon is a mandatory monster to Fusion Summon a Thousand Dragon).

By the way, you get those only if you duel against DIFFERENT opponents. Good fucking luck finding 200 other players with Duel Monsters I and a Link Cable.

The only way to get several cards, at the moment, is to
just... cheat them into your Trunk.

This would work on the GB version of DM1; unfortunately, the Early Days Collection version hasn’t been given access to multiplayer yet, so you can’t trade or duel other humans yet. (The only way to get the socialization bonus cards is to activate a cheat available in the Collection that adds a specific number of every card to your trunk – all or nothing).

With all that said, the original Duel Monsters had the ability to trade with the two games that followed it, and the fourth game in the series could even trade back with it, which is cool.

Most of the password-unlockable monsters are
not even that great either. This is the best of them.

There are 15 bonus Monster Cards. Nine are locked behind passwords, and beyond the password menu being a pain in the ass to open, the English passwords to obtain them often contain spaces, and while some have managed to make them work, I sure haven’t. Six more were only obtainable if you attended the Duel Monsters National Tournament… on February 1999. Jesus, that’s even worse than trying to get Mew in Gen 1.

Oh, and I still haven’t mentioned the Communication Fusions that require linking two copies of this game together, and then fusing cards into permanent monsters that get added to your trunk; but the process, to even begin, requires a monster that you only have a 1/2048 chance of finding as a reward. Are you kidding me.

Final words

It's not courage, Yami, it's greed. I will not
stop until you've dropped all the cards I want.

I know the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise was barely starting, so any games from that era were going to be wonky. This one is more frustrating than anything else, though. The strategy usually boils down to bringing out a bigger number, playing only one card per turn is extremely limiting, and the AI will always know whether they can beat over what you just played. The other strategic elements have their own issues: Fields and Equip Magic cards benefit already strong monsters far more than weaker ones, and fusions can give an edge in battle but can frequently be disappointments.

Just had to take the long road to here
from Page 1.

The game is a slog. I get it: Yu-Gi-Oh! was a slower game at the beginning, and I understand having to beat every opponent 5 times. Sure. But receiving only one card at a time is slow, you can’t get all the rewards unless you beat every opponent 100 times, and even then, most preset rewards are cards you’ll gain as drops anyway. And it annoys me so much that there are cards locked behind the multiplayer features. Your deck can get better, but building it is tricky due to the lack of detail in the Deck and Trunk menus. Need to add card #296 to the deck? Sorry bud, the Trunk starts at Page 1, there's no going backwards, you'll have to sift through 60 pages to get there.

I get it, this was probably done to save space due to the tiny room in a GB cartridge (I do think 365 cards is impressive for the system), but it doesn’t translate to simplicity. This journey across the Early Days Collection will reveal the quality-of-life improvements each new entry will bring.

For Game Boy-era graphics, the pixel art in
this game is genuinely great.

The character portraits and Stage backgrounds are lifted from the manga, and they do look very cool; but there’s basically no story, since this game came out before the arc it covers was finished. As a result, several characters are lacking their more famous cards, but many of them will have Decks pools with appropriate themes (Weevil’s monsters are Insect-types, and Mai’s cards are mostly feminine). Difficulty is all over the place during Stage 2, where duelists of wildly varying power levels are lumped together.

It’s a mess, and there are a few things I can excuse; I don’t think this game is that great, but I can tolerate it somewhat. But hey, this franchise had to start somewhere, surely the next dueling simulators will get better…

Next week: Duel Monsters II: Dark Duel Stories.