US, April 9, 2010 - Traditionally, Yu-Gi-Oh has found its home on the Nintendo DS and the PSP. The portable nature of those platforms, along with the fact that Yu-Gi-Oh appeals primarily to a younger audience, has made Konami tentative to expand the brand into the more hardcore consoles. That's about to change with Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Decade Duels, on its way to the Xbox Live Arcade.
Fans of Yu-Gi-Oh will find this release to be a bit of a departure from the norm. For starters, it isn't aligned with any one card series. The developers have instead gone through the entire history of the franchise to put together a set of classics for you to build a deck with. With the addition of online play and voice chat, Yu-Gi-Oh on XBLA will also support four player matches in a two on two format.
Fans of the card battle series will find that this is still very much a game about building out a deck and trading tactics with opponents on the board. There's a career mode which follows the story of the animated series in which players can fight through battles to unlock cards (I'm told it will take about 1,000 victories to earn every card). Those that want the easy route out will find booster packs that can be bought through Xbox Live to instantly trick out their deck for a cost.
Once you have a solid set of cards and have built out your deck, it's time to venture online. Players who think they're hot stuff can head to a ranked match to see if they can't climb up the online leaderboards. Others can go for a quick match or custom match, thereby getting something less stressful or more suited to your particular tastes.
The success of Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers last year showed that there is most definitely a market for card battle games on Xbox Live. Yu-Gi-Oh is looking to build on that foundation later this year. Stay tuned for more.
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