{"id":99545,"date":"2019-09-02T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/nintendo-switch\/yu-gi-oh_legacy_of_the_duelist_link_evolution"},"modified":"2019-09-02T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T17:00:00","slug":"review-yu-gi-oh-legacy-of-the-duelist-link-evolution-a-decent-card-battler-for-your-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/09\/02\/review-yu-gi-oh-legacy-of-the-duelist-link-evolution-a-decent-card-battler-for-your-switch\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy Of The Duelist: Link Evolution &#8211; A Decent Card Battler For Your Switch"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/976807fa2f0b7\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/976807fa2f0b7\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution Review - Screenshot 1 of 3\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98728\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98728\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution Review - Screenshot 1 of 3\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Once upon a time, there wasn\u2019t a single card-based game on Nintendo Switch, but now we have <em>loads<\/em>. We have the post-toys-to-life <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/lightseekers\"><strong>Lightseekers<\/strong><\/a>, the challenging warfare of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/warhammer_age_of_sigmar_champions\"><strong>Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Champions<\/strong><\/a> and the all-out silliness of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/super_dragon_ball_heroes_world_mission\"><strong>Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 and there\u2019s even <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/lord_of_the_rings_living_card_game\"><strong>The Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game<\/strong><\/a> looming on the horizon (amongst many others). We might not have <strong>Magic the Gathering<\/strong> or <strong>Hearthstone<\/strong> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2017\/11\/dont_rule_out_hearthstone_on_switch_says_blizzard_senior_designer\">well not yet, anyway<\/a>), but the collectable card game genre is very much in rude health on Switch. And now one of the biggest names in the genre \u2013 <strong>Yu-Gi-Oh!<\/strong> \u2013 is finally ready to bring its monster-filled library to the platform in predictably outlandish style.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s cut to the chase. If you\u2019re a fan of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game you\u2019re going to love <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/yu-gi-oh_legacy_of_the_duelist_link_evolution\"><strong>Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution<\/strong><\/a>. Well, <em>mostly<\/em>. With 20 years of card updates and additions to draw from, this new virtual card battler includes a vast number of cards introduced over the last two-plus decades. That\u2019s over <em>9,000<\/em> individual cards to choose from, enabling you to build and customise decks with traps and monsters from the earliest iteration of the game right through to some of the most recent expansions. Whether you\u2019re a lapsed duelist or a dedicated player, the sheer commitment to its own archives is staggering. Sure, you haven\u2019t got <em>every<\/em> card there is (the new Duel Power expansion isn\u2019t included), but to be fair, it\u2019s also a <em>very<\/em> new addition.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution Review - Screenshot 2 of 3\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98727\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98727\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution Review - Screenshot 2 of 3\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>That same sense of authenticity extends to its very sizeable campaign as well. Split into six chapters (covering all six seasons), it covers all the major story beats from the seasons so far, including many of the biggest and most memorable battles. From ZEXAL to ARC-V, you can relive some classic duels from both sides, enabling you to double the rewards as a result. Each chapter has around 25-30 battles each, so you\u2019re getting a good 30 hours of play (and that\u2019s not counting the reverse matches). With the inclusion of the \u2018new\u2019 Link Monsters (a type of card that doesn\u2019t sit in your main deck or hand, but effectively enhances those that do), you\u2019re getting every aspect of the modern game. Link Summoning was only introduced to the real-life TCG in 2017, so it\u2019s great to see this enhanced ruleset included here.<\/p>\n<p>The campaign\u2019s AI is still a little <em>too<\/em> unpredictable, however. The game originally appeared on PS4 and Xbox One in 2015 and while developer Other Ocean Interactive has gone all-in on the content, the randomness of its difficulty hasn\u2019t been addressed. The random nature of CCG \u2013 and the lack of any tangible difficulty modes for the AI \u2013 means you can often end up with a poor or near unusable hand when facing some of the really tough duelists towards the end of each chapter. By the same token, you can end up with a super-OP hand and just wipe the floor with the same opponent. It\u2019s inconsistent enough to be annoying, especially for a four-year-old reissue.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution Review - Screenshot 3 of 3\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98732\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/98732\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution Review - Screenshot 3 of 3\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>We mentioned earlier that Link Evolution benefits from some considerable content benefits, and we\u2019re not kidding \u2013 the previous console versions had around 7,500 cards, while this update has over 9,000. Switch players also get all of the DLC the game has received over the past few years, so you\u2019re getting as close to a comprehensive package as it\u2019s possible to get. You also get some exclusive features, but these are more inherent to the platform, such as full touchscreen support when you\u2019re playing in handheld mode. This is, by far, the best way to play Link Evolution. Alongside the sizeable single-player content, there\u2019s also support for local and online play, although the latter has some caveats.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of performance, Link Evolution is both an improvement on the previous version of the game and a bit of a letdown. Some of the nauseating animations that were rolled out after playing certain monster cards in the previous version have been removed, so you\u2019re not forced to endure them this time around, but you there\u2019s some noticeable lag when playing online, with actions that take far too long to complete. Bizarrely, this issue does crop up in single-player sometimes as well when the AI bizarrely takes too long to react to your strategy. Previous Yu-Gi-Oh! titles didn\u2019t suffer from this issue, so we\u2019re hoping the developer and Konami address it otherwise it\u2019s online community will die out like it did on PC. We also experienced the occasional hard crash, which is a real pain when you\u2019re 15 minutes into an online match. This is an issue that\u2019s plagued this game since its original release, and, sadly, it\u2019s followed the game onto Switch, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>There\u2019s no doubt that Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelists: Link Evolution has a few problems of its own \u2013 the delays between actions and the randomness of card deliveries still rankle \u2013 but that doesn\u2019t stop this from being the best version of the game yet. Hardcore devotees will notice that its 9,000+ card archive is missing a few key special cards, but as a virtual representation of the long-running TCG, this is a formidable beast. With no microtransactions, a constant stream of cards to unlock and a streamlined recreation of all six seasons of the anime, this ranks as one of the best CCGs on Switch \u2013 if you can overlook its somewhat irksome issues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once upon a time, there wasn\u2019t a single card-based game on Nintendo Switch, but now we have loads. We have the post-toys-to-life Lightseekers, the challenging warfare of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Champions and the all-out silliness of Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission \u2013 and there\u2019s even The Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}