If there is any a man in the world worthy of our jealousy, it is Kazuki Takahashi. Be jealous of him because he had the brains to be able to create a deep and ingenius card came. Be jealous of him because he's extremely lucky to have it become a fad. And be jealous of him because he can make millions of dollars making games that are essentially duplicates of one another. Such is the case with Yu-Gi-Oh!: World Championship Tournament 2004. It's basically the same game as Yu-Gi-Oh!: Stairway to the Destined Duel, but with about 100 more cards added.
Actually, that's not perfectly correct. Tournament 2004, though newer, is actually a bit less of a game than STAIRWAY. Oh, the whiz-kid gameplay is still there, no worries. However, it was as if Konami put a bit of soul into STAIRWAY, some of that “arcade feel” that Martez talks about in the Netjak.com Forums. With Tournament 2004, it feels as if the game is just thrown together, to cover the essentials and get as much money for as little effort possible.
Oh, there are minor improvements. Now the game can be played at two speeds: extra lethargic and (if one presses L while choosing a character) entirely too fast. There's now the ability to have three separate decks, and the building and editing of decks is much easier than in STAIRWAY. The different categories of cards within a deck are nicely divided right at the top of the screen, so that one always has a quick overview of how a deck shapes up. All available opponents can be fought whenever one wants, instead of having to wander around a fake city for card players who seem to constantly dwell on every street corner.
But that's all, folks. Those are all of the major changes, besides the 100 new cards. And even the new cards aren't really a big deal, more or less. Sure, there may be “even more strategic options”, as it says on the back of the box, but that's like having another useless weapon in Megaman X7. The attacks may look different, but it's essentially the same as what one was able to do before. On top of that, there is still no answer as to why we would want to choose a complicated fusion monster over a level four one with higher stats.
At first, there seems to be an improvement in the music. This is true. The computerized synthesized track makes the card duels sound dramatic and important, much better than the whining drones in STAIRWAY. However, when this same song is played over and over and over again with every duel, its beauty quickly becomes annoying. After a while, even the whining seems preferable, because at least there was a new music score for almost every character in STAIRWAY.
The trash talking before a fight is now gone. The different expressions of opponents after some kind of metamorphosis is absent. The storyline in STAIRWAY, though weak as heck, is nowhere to be found this time around. There is absolutely no narration whatsoever, leaving a game that feels rather empty in terms of mood. Just a bunch of statues fighting each other, so that the gamer himself ends up feeling about as excited as a cement slab.
All right, there is one other reason to get this game: The ability to link up with someone else and play them. It’s a good thing that's there, because the A.I. in the game is still embarrassingly stupid with poor computer opponents, and a cheater when one faces a skilled opponent. In regards to the former, the matches get very boring, very quickly. But this boredom must be endured if one hopes to get enough wins to face the cooler looking, more skilled opponents. However, just like in STAIRWAY, the computer A.I. truly knows which cards are in their opponent's hand. They will not attack a face-down card when they know that doing so will give them damage. Sure, we all know that the computer knows everything, but a good card game should at least pretend to act like a real opponent.
The replay value in Tournament 2004 is still quite low. Like in STAIRWAY, there can only be one saved data per game (considering the tremendous number of cards one can own, this is understood) and so starting a brand new game would be absolute suicide. The true value of this game is only felt when playing against other people who also have it.
So yes, Kazuki Takahashi is a man at the top of the world. It might not have been his intention to allow Konami to repeat the same game over and over again with just a few additions, but we're sure that he's not complaining about the paychecks. Yu-Gi-Oh!:World Championship Tournament 2004 is at its base a solid game, where one can see very much thought in the gameplay mechanics. The cards still look cool, and at least there is still a brief mythical origin to all of the monsters on the cards. However, besides the creativity that was put in to add those 100 new cards, this is actually quite a lazy game.
