Our Verdict
Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection is a generous compilation of retro games from the beloved series that provides hours of engaging and nostalgic fun. There are one or two titles that don’t hold up all that well in 2025, but otherwise, this is a time capsule that is well worth indulging in.
While much of the gaming world is waiting on the Nintendo Switch 2, GTA 6, or even the next Elder Scrolls game, I’ve been looking forward to something else entirely. Yes, as you can probably tell from the headline of this review, I’m talking about Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection. Well, having spent the last week or so experiencing a blast from the past as potent as the breath of a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, I’m happy to report that, with a couple of exceptions, this compilation does not disappoint.
For context, I’ve spent a solid chunk of my life playing Yu-Gi-Oh! both physically and digitally, and while I might not participate in the competitive scene these days, I can still tell the difference between a fusion and a synchro summon. Fortunately, you don’t need a knowledge of the incredibly complex modern game to enjoy this collection. You don’t even need the heart of the cards. All you require is a copy of the game, a few free hours, and the will to turn back the clock to the days of George W. Bush in the White House and Friends on our TV screens.
Before getting into the games, it’s worth praising developer Digital Eclipse for the stellar emulation experience of the Early Days Collection. You can use enhancements to tinker with in-game ban lists and introduce some cheats, and there are options to rewind the gameplay and save whenever you like. This last bit is incredibly important as, if you can’t remember or didn’t yet exist, getting to a save point was the bane of my existence back in the day. Now I can use it to save just before an epic showdown, and I don’t feel even the slightest bit guilty about it.
There is, however, a little bit of an inconsistency with one of the features in the Early Days Collection. In some games you can fast-forward, but not all of them. For example, all three versions of Duel Monster 4: Battle of Great Duelists and Dark Duel Stories allow you to skip ahead, but there’s no such luck in two of the best Yu-Gi-Oh! games in the collection, The Sacred Cards or Reshef of Destruction.
It’s great to have the option in a couple of titles, but in those that don’t include the new mechanics, it serves as a slightly frustrating reminder of how slow games once were, especially some of the GB and GBA inclusions. It’s not a deal breaker, but it does feel like a bit of a disappointment, especially when the pre-release game details don’t specify that the fast-forward function isn’t available across the entire collection.
Considering how big a fan I am of this IP, there are a lot of games in the Early Days Collection I never got my hands on back in the heady days of the early 00s. There’s Monster Capsule, a new personal favorite that admittedly feels more like playing Fire Emblem than it does Yu-Gi-Oh! thanks to its strategy mechanics, and The Eternal Duelist Soul, the first GBA title to employ the card game’s core mechanics to great effect. You’re not getting much story in these games, but you can say the same of a lot of smash hit gaming series from the turn of the millennium, including both Pokémon and Spyro, and I still love them all these years later.
The later games, such as World Championship Tournament 2004 and 7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005, are the most playable of the collection, and you can spend hours dueling in those two examples (just like I did). As a fan of the anime series, it’s quite the thrill catching up with all the recognizable characters, from Seto Kaiba himself to the likes of Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor, and the dueling challenge here is the most consistent without ever feeling unfair. If you want unfair, try the earlier games, where it truly is all about the luck of the draw.
Admittedly, not all the entries in this collection hold up that well in 2025, even after a bit of fiddling from Digital Eclipse. Duel Monsters and Duel Monsters 2: Dark Duel Stories are particularly egregious. These games launched before the TCG properly existed, so there are no effect monsters, and you can’t set spells or trap cards. For the uninitiated, that’s a pretty big deal, limiting the gameplay and any semblance of strategy significantly. When checking out those examples, my brain went into what I call ‘museum mode’. I appreciate the history, and how they set the stage for what would come, but nothing is really engaging me in any meaningful way.
Then, there’s Dungeon Dice Monsters. For those who don’t know, Dungeon Dice Monsters was a spin-off of the core Yu-Gi-Oh! card game that briefly existed in both the real world and the anime. If you think the mechanics behind dueling are complicated, DDM takes it to the next level, which probably explains why the main series still lives on today while DDM failed to take off in any shape or form. It’s playable if you’ve got the time to sit around and figure out the mechanics, but it’s a big skip from me, and considering there are plenty of other games here to occupy my time, I don’t feel bad about that.
While Dungeon Dice Monsters can be a bit boring, one of Early Days Collection’s other spin-offs, Destiny Board Traveler, is anything but. This game is pure chaos. Honestly, after a few hours playing and with plenty of knowledge of the card game, I still don’t really know what I’m doing or what’s going on, but for some reason, I love it. It serves as a nice break from the rigid card game core of a lot of the other titles on offer, and the visuals in particular offer the sort of experience I can imagine you combined the original Mario Party with one of those off-the-wall Japanese TV shows that blow my tiny British mind.
Given that I received our copy of Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection before the big release date, I still can’t speak to the online gameplay of Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelists, but I imagine it’ll be pretty fun to play this properly old-school dueling simulator against online opponents. I’m also hoping for future online options in the latter games, especially 7 Trials to Glory, but we’re still waiting for Konami to reveal which of the 14 games are getting post-launch multiplayer modes.
It’s also worth pointing out that there are some pretty notable omissions from this collection that launched within the timespan it covers. I’m talking about two series classics, 1999’s Forbidden Memories for PlayStation and 2001’s Duelist of the Roses for PlayStation 2. These are the games that I’ve played the most out of any from the history of the franchise, and while it sort of makes sense that they’re not here, given that all the available games were originally for handheld consoles, the collection would be that bit better if they’d made the cut. If Konami is listening, I’d pay the same amount to play just those two titles on modern consoles. Make it happen.
In terms of performance, I tested the Early Days Collection out on my Steam Deck OLED and had no issues at all. While I can’t speak for the Nintendo Switch version without trying it firsthand, I can’t imagine it having any issues, given Digital Eclipse’s experience with the platform and the fact that a few of these games are older than some members of the Pocket Tactics team.
If you’ve got to this point and you’re still debating whether picking up Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection is worth it, allow me to make it simple for you. If you’re looking for something to scratch that old-school Yu-Gi-Oh! itch, with some great games full of anime callbacks and classic monsters, go for it. However, if you’re not nostalgic for the early days of this iconic card game and don’t care for the likes of Joey Wheeler and Mai Valentine, it might be easier to justify spending the money on new cards in Master Duel instead. Fortunately, I belong to the first camp and had an absolutely fantastic time rolling back the years with my favorite card game. Long live Yu-Gi-Oh!, that’s what I say.
There you have it, our Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection review. If you’re looking for more of our thoughts on the latest games, be sure to check out our Donkey Kong Country Returns HD review and Life is Strange Double Exposure Switch review, or check out our comprehensive list of the best Switch games. On the off chance we’ve got you nostalgic for the gaming days gone by, you can also pick up some nostalgic hardware with our guide to the best retro handhelds.