New York is apparently ‘So good they named it twice’ in my opinion it has nothing to offer that old York didn’t, apart from the gun crime! Needless to say the adolescent version of me wasn’t too impressed by the Big Apple but then the only thing I have ever been properly impressed by was Jurassic Park and I later found out they weren’t real dinosaurs. What I did like about New York though was the fact that it had a giant Toys R Us featuring a model of the dinosaur from Jurassic park, a Lego Darth Vader and most importantly of all a games department full of delicious NTSC region games.
I knew this would be my only chance to ever purchase authentic American games so I had to choose carefully. Uncle Pete could only afford flights to the U.S because of September the 11th and the spectre of international terrorism wasn’t going to loom over us all forever. I had to make sure that I made a wise decision and chose games that had no chance of ever being released in the U.K. (Bear in mind that internet shopping was still an unknown quantity due to the vagaries of 56k dial up.)
How did I fare in my endeavours? I’ll let you be the judge…
* Samba De Amigo – Now released for the Wii but without the Sega game tunes. A marginal victory.
* Final Fantasy Tactics – Eventually released for the PSP but not for ages, it also featured a rubbish new translation which changed ‘Dorter Trade City’ to “The Market City of Dorter”. Another marginal victory.
* King of Fighters ’99 – SNK recovered from bankruptcy and issued compilations of everything also it’s a King of Fighters game. DISASTER.
* Yu-Gi-Oh: Forbidden Memories – Released the month after in the U.K. Another P.R disaster.
And that my friends is the ludicrous preamble to my review of a Yu-Gi-Oh! game.
Forbidden Memories was designed by a man who had obviously once seen a clip of Yu-Gi-Oh! and then blagged his way through the interview by writing the names of the cards on his hands.
Max Pegs (Chief of card HR): So where do you see yourself in five years time?
Yuri O!: Probably Black Lustre Soldier.
Max Pegs: Hmm and why do you want to work for our company in particular?
Yuri O!: Well Twin Headed Thunder Dragon, Mystical Sands.
Max Pegs: Welcome to the company!
Yuri O!: Prodigal Sorcerer!
Max Pegs: Excuse me!?
Yuri O!: I mean um…Bolt Penguin.
Max Pegs: Ha Ha Ha Ha. Very Good Yuri, I like your style!
I say this because Yu-Gi-Oh!: Forbidden Memories in no way matches up to the rules of the card game as seen either in the TV series or in real life. In fact the cards aren’t even card shaped they are in fact square shaped. The game revolves around trying to get the post powerful card possible by fusing different combinations together. Of course these combinations actually make no real sense so it’s just a case of experimenting and then remembering some key combinations.
So ingrained into my mind are these combinations that I can still recite them now. (An amzing feat considering that I can’t remember anything from my degree)
Pot the Trick + Nekogal = Mystical Sands (21000 atk)
Thunder Dragon + Thunder Dragon = Twin Headed Thunder Dragon (24000)
These two combinations got me through a good third of the game by which point I had acquired the all powerful B.Meteor Dragon. If you can’t afford this game then a fairly good simulation would be to imagine a picture of a Witch on a Broomstick breaking pictures of insects and bolt penguins, then imagine a picture of a dragon with two heads breaking pictures of dragons with one head and ultra bolt penguins and finally imagine a picture of a large purple dragon breaking everything. I say pictures because their were 3D representations of the cards available but they looked like they were made of twigs and took ages to load and so were immediately turned off.
It wasn’t just the game mechanics that Yuri O! Couldn’t be bothered to look up on wikipedia. He also decided to invent his own story set in Egyptian times where you must face an evil Pharaoh named “Heishinn” a man with an unfeasibly large face. This is not necessarily as bizarre as the ‘Duelist of the Roses’ game for the PS2 which casts Yugi as Henry Tudor during the war of the roses but it certainly doesn’t help matters that one of the characters is a mysterious blue fellow named ‘Simon Munran’. The questions raised by his blue skin and resolutely non Egyptian name are never sufficiently answered. I expect a sequel “Simon Munran: Unlimited” was planned but ultimately never came to pass because Max Pegs overheard Yuri O! telling his wife how much he loved the Merfolk of the Pearl Trident.
Special mention has to go to the games soundtrack which is actually some of the best music I have ever heard. Unfortunately I am unable to convey these sounds through the medium of words so you will just have to look them up on You Tube or buy the official soundtrack if such a thing exists.
The final thing to say about Yu-Gi-Oh! forbidden memories is that I finished it the very same day I was interviewed on Sky news and made the stunning pronouncement “It’s quite worrying really…basically your life is ruined.” They might have asked me about A-Level results but I was thinking about the nefarious maze inhabited by the paradox brothers!
Overall I’m giving Yu-Gi-Oh!: Forbidden Memories a probably undeserved Pot the Trick out of a Celtic Guardian.
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