Not for the hardcore card player.
User Rating: 6.3 | Duel Masters PS2
The reason I say it's not for the hardcore card player is there aren't that many cards as I hoped there would be. You can't make that much of a stradegy with them because once you've seen one of a certain type, you've seen them all. You can't make that much stradegy especially since it isn't a good idea to put all the different civilization of creatures into one deck. The gameplay in story mode is just going around dueling people with your Duel Masters deck you customize along the way. You can get more cards by beating people. You then get 3 cards. You can either put them in your deck, trade them for credits at the card shop so you can buy booster packs (5 cards), or just let them sit in your collection. You are also given quests to do which just lead to dueling people. The arcade is just about the same thing accept you only duel and get the 3 cards for winning accept you get to play the extreme mode which is a different way to play it . It's a lot more fun than the normal way if you don't like waiting for your opponent. You just have to be on your toes when playing. The way to play it is a turn will start you get a time limit to charge your mana and play your monsters. After that time limit you draw a card and then the time starts again. Besides that you play normally accept you both are playing your cards at the same time. I'm really torn about if the graphics on this game are good or bad. Outside of duels, the graphics are horrible. The outlines sometimes dissapear in some areas and their hand sometimes go into their bodys and chins into their chests and stuff like that. And besides that, they barley made any characters. Most of them are the same just they talk differently and are dressed differently and stuff like that. The only unique characters are the main characters that you play as, the rivals, bad guys, and Knight who is another main character. Inside battle the graphics are good. The stages are few but they are well done. The monsters are terific compared to the characters outside of battle. The battle scenes get boring after a while though. The music is really stupid. They only have actual music outside of battle and it is really dumb. The music for the main menu is alright but it is still only one song. During battle you only hear partial songs. So there is very little music to duel with. Overall, I would have to say that this isn't a game to have high hopes about if you play the card game in real life. If you really like it you can try it but don't expect to like it right away. It needs getting used to. I wouldn't sugjest it for renting. There is no point to it unless you are going to play it a lot and save it on a memory card. So in short I would say if you really like the card game or are just getting started with the series, I would sugjest getting this game, especially since it is so cheap. If you are a casual card gamer or really hardcore card player and expect a lot from it, this isn't the game for you. 
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