Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links (Part 2)

Yu-Gi-Oh! Month 2025

Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution: Part 1 – Part 2

Master Duel: Part 1

Duel Links: Part 1 – Part 2

Missed Part 1? Read it here. This part? We’re diving into the fun part, for folks like me who love this game because of the connection with the anime.

From Duel Monsters to VRAINS SEVENS Go Rush

After a while, you'll be glad the game has an Auto-Duel
feature, since there's just so many duels to do against NPCs.
Sometimes the AI will make stupid decisions, but it usually
does alright against all kinds of opponents.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links started with very little content, building over time. The overarching plot of Duel Links is that Seto Kaiba, in his constant struggle to prove himself worthy of defeating the Pharaoh Atem (who left for Egyptian afterlife at the end of the original anime series, Duel Monsters), invented the Duel Links virtual world where duelists can meet and battle no matter where they actually are. At the very least, that’s what it feels like for average duelists. Characters from the various anime series, AKA the “Legendary Duelists”, exist in a variety of odd ways in this “world”. The land of Duel Monsters is explicitly said to be a simulation, so the Legendary Duelists met there aren’t real, even in-universe. That world specifically replicates the past, and as a result its characters exist all at the same time even if they didn't back in the actual series. Some characters express bewilderment that they somehow still exist, like Yami Marik (who was erased from existence; it’s a long story).

Oh, also, Duel Monsters is the only world that takes closer inspiration to the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga rather than its associated anime, but there’s still a clear inspiration from both regardless.

He looks just as unhinged as ever.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links (Part 1)

Yu-Gi-Oh! Month 2025

Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution: Part 1 – Part 2

Master Duel: Part 1

Duel Links: Part 1 – Part 2

Joey, Red-Eyes (yep, I'm playing that card again!), and Jinzo.
I think I'mma win that one.

I’ve been hoping to review this game forever; this themed month was an excuse to do it. Today’s game is easily the most approachable of them all, with a format that makes it playable on the go on mobile, but it’s also as far removed from “classic” Yu-Gi-Oh! as can be without transforming the game too much. It’s possibly the best game for beginners, because everything regarding mechanics is simplified. Today, we’re talking about Duel Links, which was released worldwide to mobile platforms in January 2017, with the PC version on Steam coming out on November 16th of the same year.

The popularity of the new format was such that it eventually became adapted to the physical card game with dedicated in-person events, cards printed with the format’s peculiarities in mind, and even Skill cards to look for.

And his time around, we’ve got the clearest connection to the franchise’s many anime series – some would call that nostalgia bait, I call that an incentive to discover them all. Yep, all the way to VRAINS. …And beyond!

Well, let’s go!

From Classic to Speed Duel

Speed Duel was created with the goal in mind to be played in a shorter time than it normally takes for regular duels. For that purpose, several details and mechanics of the game were modified; so the format feels like its own thing, despite being roughly the same. A quick rundown:

Pick your cards wisely!

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

Yu-Gi-Oh! Month 2025

Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution: Part 1 – Part 2

Master Duel: Part 1

Duel Links: Part 1 – Part 2

Moving on to the second of three Yu-Gi-Oh! games this month. This one has the weakest relation to the anime, but is without a doubt the closest to being up-to-date with the cards and the mechanics, and therefore the best official simulator to play if you want to learn the game on a nearly professional level.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel, developed/published by KONAMI and released to Steam and several other platforms on January 18th, 2022, has celebrated its 3rd anniversary. This free game has evolved a lot in three years, adding new modes from time to time to keep things fresh. Whereas Legacy of the Duelist was much more focused on single-player, Master Duel is tailor-made for PvP. Once again, the devil is in the details, so let’s jump in.

The new coat of paint

Since multiplayer is the focus here, the main mode is simply titled Duel, and pits you against a human opponent. The game is free, so it utilizes a free-to-play system that’s thankfully lenient: The special currency here is Gems, which you can buy with real money. Those Gems can be used to buy card packs, structure decks and cosmetics. However, if you’re willing to put in the work, you can gather plenty of Gems on your own by playing duels, completing daily and lifetime missions, logging in every day, and you can even get some during special events.

There is indeed a solo mode, and I’ll discuss it, but the main draw is the multiplayer aspect. It’s only by playing against other people that you’ll get the better rewards; also, most missions only progress when you play in Ranked Mode or in Events. Nope, not in Casual.

Oof, I can feel the heat in this place.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution (Part 2)

Yu-Gi-Oh! Month 2025

Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution: Part 1 – Part 2

Master Duel: Part 1

Duel Links: Part 1 – Part 2

Challenges

Because it’s a card game, a lot of it lies on drawing the right cards and knowing which strategy can win you a duel. Hoping the CPU doesn’t get too many good draws, either. Since so much of this game is reliant on luck, difficulty is all over the place. You may beat one campaign duel on your first try, then need four or five attempts to win the next. There isn’t so much a curve as there is a difficulty rollercoaster. What also doesn’t help is that some duels played here with the regular rules of the game were played with different rules in the anime; as an example, several 5Ds duels were Turbo Duels, features that don’t exist here. Same for VRAINS; that anime utilized Speed Duel rules, where players have 4000 LP instead of 8000, so the decks frequently aren’t optimized for a more classic Yu-Gi-Oh! setup.

Some challenges are easier than others.

The challenges are a different story; there is no associated Story Deck for any of them, so you can either pick a pre-constructed Deck for which you own all the cards, or you can create a custom deck. These decks are supposed to be tough; it’s in the name. These duels are unlocked as a reward for your progress in the anime campaigns, since you must have beaten all of a character's campaign decks to unlock their challenge deck, as well as their portrait to slap onto your custom decks.

So many folks, and I still don't have them all.

Mako Tsunami in the campaign: Weakest shit ever.
Mako Tsunami's Challenge Deck: Will FUCK YOU UP.

Exactly, those are supposed to be tough; but there too, difficulty can vary wildly. If you’ve got a good user deck, you can speed through several of these without much thought. Oh, there’s still going to be the occasional tricky one in there; no deck has answers against every deck gimmick out there.

How many challenge decks are there to beat? 159. That’s on top of all the campaign duels, of which there are 183, both regular and reverse duels, making 366. So… yep, this game offers a total of 525 duels to win. I hope you have some free time if you want to 100% this thing.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution (Part 1)

Yu-Gi-Oh! Month 2025

Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution: Part 1 – Part 2

Master Duel: Part 1

Duel Links: Part 1 – Part 2

Plenty of differences are already visible, just from
comparing the original Legacy of the Duelist
to its remake, Link Evolution.

I already did a theme month like this one, all the way back in October 2018. It’s been a hot minute since I last talked about Yu-Gi-Oh!. These games are lengthy – they all feature hundreds of duels for you to play. Time-wise, these add up fast. I spent the better part of February playing today’s game; though, what helps that I already covered this game’s predecessor back in 2018. I figured a new themed month was in order, seeing as I’ve had these three games for a while and had been waiting for the right time to cover them. Well, on February 27th, Konami released the Early Days Collection, which contains 14 games from the start of the franchise. I’m thinking of purchasing it, but I’m not sure yet. However, before I get there, I have this month’s games to cover.

There are running themes across all three entries I’m covering this month. The first is that all three games serve as good introductions to the card game, if you’re learning to play; however, all three of them approach the game from a different angle, so they offer varying experiences as a result. It’s all in the finer details. The second theme is that all three games are tied to the greater history of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise (and its many anime series) to some extent, but once again, each of them does it differently.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution was developed by Other Ocean Emeryville, published by Konami, and was released on the Switch in 2019 and to Steam on March 24th, 2020. The previous Legacy of the Duelist (which I’ll shorten to LotD) entry came out semi-early in the existence of the fifth Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, titled Arc-V, so it featured the then-newest summoning mechanic and monster type, the Pendulums; however it was, in my opinion, a relatively bad introduction to them. It had a lower base price, instead locking bonus duels and cards behind DLCs. Link Evolution is more expensive at 39.99$ USD, but you get the full package right away. As a bonus, it was released a while into the latest mechanic, Link monsters (…which I've finally learned!), and is thus a great demonstration of what Links can do.