I've been on a bit of a Yu-Gi-Oh wave lately, even though I haven't played the TCG since around 2015, I still enjoy the overall vibe and art of the series, especially the earlier, more Egyptian/Occult themed stuff. This one has been on my shelf for years, and I revisited it recently.
This game is so strange, I guess the developers figured, "hey, it's got an ancient Egyptian theme normally, why not Tudor era Britian. The story doesn't matter here, it servers solely to move the player from battle to battle. They could have themed it around anything but hey, Duelists of the Roses does sound pretty dope name wise.
The real gem here is the gameplay. Obviously it's based on the card game of the same name but the gameplay here is more akin to a board game like Chess. It's nothing like the actual card game and honestly the theming of Yu-gi-oh could be stripped away and the underlying gameplay here would be great. I wish they expanded this style, the only game that's similar as far as I know is Eye of Judgement on PSP.
Vibe wise there's a lot to love, the presentation is simple, but the creatures all have great models and attack animations that are a joy to watch. The overall aesthetic here is just killer, the battlefields are surrounded by stained glass, there's these weird eyes that evolve that ancient alchemy feeling. I want to smoke pot in the battlefield it's deff a vibe.
Dislikes: Mechanics aren't that deep and are easy to abuse/break, which only makes me want another game in this style more! Needs a better way to obtain cards, if they made a game in this style, would 100% need a card shop of some kind.
