by Brian - January 13, 2005

Fans of Duel Masters may get some entertainment out of Kaijudo Showdown, but for practically everyone else, Kaijudo Showdown will do little to turn you on to the Duel Masters card game.

Grab a deck and get ready to duel.

In Duel Masters: Kaijudo Showdown, you begin by choosing one of three characters be play as, which makes no difference from a gameplay standpoint, so choose whichever one looks coolest to you. From then on, the game is nothing more than a never-ending series of duels. You can compete in tournaments and work your way up the ranks, buy and win new cards for your decks, and talk to people in the duel shops, but thats pretty much it.

Battles are similar to other card battling games out there. You have 40 cards in a deck, and 5 cards in your hand at a time. Each turn you can sacrifice one of your cards and put it into your mana pool which is used to summon creatures or cast spells. Once summoned, creatures cannot attack until the next turn (unless they have a special ability to do so). The object is to then attack your opponent with the creatures. Both players have 5 shields though, so you have to take down each of them before you can attack the other duel master. There is some strategy involved as well, because your opponent can block your attacks with their own monsters or spells so knowing when to attack is key.

After winning a duel you gain new cards to put in your deck, and you can also buy them in shops. One of the problems I had though was that there isn�t a tutorial on how to build a deck, so if you aren�t familiar with how collectable card battling games work you�re out of luck.

Wait, what is that again?

Although the overworld graphics are better than previous Duel Masters games, the battle screens and interface are horrid. Most game interfaces are simple to understand and get the hang of. Not so with this one. Even after reading the manual its difficult to remember what everything is supposed to represent because everything is so clamored together. Then there is the battle screen. Now, the GBA isn�t the greatest system for graphical power, but at least with the sprites in most games you can decipher what something is based on what it looks like. Half of the monsters in Duel Masters are not, and their battle animations are just as bad. Each one only has one battle animation and it lasts for about a second. It gets really old, really fast.

Mute

Sound effects and music aren�t much better than the graphics. The sound effects are minimal period, and the music is just plain and boring. I found myself just turning the sound completely down on my GBA after playing this game for a while.

Boredom Factor

There are much better card battle games out there than this, and I�d suggest doing some research to find them. I myself am not a fan of the Duel Masters cartoons or comics, and I didn�t enjoy this game one bit, nor did I feel the urge to check out the cartoons from playing this. If you are a fan of the series, you may get some enjoyment out of this game, but I didn�t find it very fun at all. In fact, I found it more boring than anything else.

Conclusion

Fans of the series might be able to overlook the fact that there is no story, the gameplay is pretty one-dimensional, the graphics are horrible, and the sound isn't that great, but for anyone who is not already obsessed with Duel Masters will likely not care about this game in the least.