Pros: Colorful graphics, decent storyline, low violence level.
Cons: Designed for kids but the strategy level is a bit 'older'.
The bottom line: This will appeal to Yugi fans and newer gamers not overly demanding of intense graphic visuals. Good parent/child game until they outgrow it.
Yu-Gi-Oh CMC appealed to my 5-year old son, who bought this for me as a birthday present. He loved to watch the action but didn't understand any of the strategy. We've seen every monster in the game do battle and he has lost much of the original interest, but now my 3-year old likes to watch it, so the battle continues...

The voiceovers are the actual ones from the show, but over the course of the game the same lines become tired, as do the monster battle animations. You can turn off the 'Battle Animation' and you can hit your X button repeatedly whenever anybody opens their mouth to short-circuit the time spent on comments, conversation, etc.

If you have a Yu-Gi-Oh fan in the house, be advised, this is nothing like the actual card game. It is a turn-based strategy game like chess and involves no timing or hand-eye coordination for battles and such. The game doesn't take long to master, and depending on what you want from it you'll be done in a weekend (winning the tournament) or like me find yourself going for "Ultimate Completion" (winning the tournament under all eight different symbol types and getting all 200 monsters to Level 9), which took me almost a full year of off-again on-again play. The graphics are fairly well-done, the characters from the cartoon series are instantly recognizable and just about all of them are in the game. Yugi's foes are predictably antagonistic but the dialog stays fairly tame. One of his opponents calls him a Chumpasaurus Rex, if that gives you any indication. The violence factor is relatively low, no gore to worry about. The battle scenes show a general attack directed from one piece to the other, but the piece under attack just rattles or is motionless, no real expression or emotion that would suggest anyone is actually getting 'hurt'. That's good to know when young eyes are watching. When a monster is destroyed, the piece on the playing field, a statuette, shatters into colorful pieces. Again, fairly clean and totally blood-free. For as simple as it can be, the game has good aesthetics and decent replay value, though head-to-head competition against two equally savvy opponents is a rather stalemate kind of endeavor. If this sounds like something you or your child might enjoy, read on...

There are 25 rounds, 5 per area, each round with a unique battle field. The field of play may contain obstructions that impede a direct advance upon your opponent, and vice versa. A few rounds are wide open but in any event the field itself has varying advantages/disadvantages for pieces of a certain type. In the first round for example, after several turns the battle area begins to fill with water. This gives any Water-type monsters a nice defense (DEF) bonus and puts the opponent and his 4 Fire monsters at a big disadvantage. Several fields change attribute during the duel, so what was once a favorable field advantage for one of more of your pieces is now a disadvantage, and vice versa.

There are 8 element types with a few dozen different monsters for each, give or take a couple. Your symbol type determines which monsters are most effective as the symbol enhances or diminishes their Life (PP), Attack (AT), or Defense (DEF) capability. The element types are listed in pairs as follows:
Water - Wood
Wind - Fire
Earth - Light
Dark - Thunder
These pairs 'support' each other, that is, if you have an Earth symbol, any Earth monsters receive a PP increase based on the level of the symbol, and any Light pieces receive a similarly based ATK increase. It's generally a good idea to bring at least one support piece into a duel. The gameplay requires some forethought as in chess but typically thinking one move ahead or two at the most is enough to be successful. The tactics are fairly simple: Become familiar with the pieces' move and attack patterns. You can set your pieces up and either ambush an opponent's piece or lure an attack against one of your tougher monsters, then counter-attack with enough damage to kill the opponent's monster. Do this a few times and you will build up an advantage in quantity and at the very least can win the duel by attrition.

Here's a coarse rundown of gameplay mechanics...

From the menu, choose Campaign Mode. You will initially select a Symbol Type. the choices are Dark, Earth, Fire, Light, Thunder, Water, Wind, and Wood. You can assign some bonus points to each of three areas. From my experience, AP is most important, followed by MP, and PP lastly. We'll get more into what those mean later, but for now trust me and assign half to AP and half to MP. Once you pick a symbol, that's it, no changing types midstream. You can't play Area 1 with a Water symbol, then switch to a Dark symbol for Area 2. Now, you *can* create a new profile with a Dark symbol, but you'll be starting a new 'campaign' at the beginning of Area 1.

Next, you are given 300 Monster Points (MP) with which to purchase some starting monsters from Yugi's Grandpa (he runs a card store in the game). The initial monsters range in cost from 25 to maybe 100 points, so you'll need to stick with some of the cheaper ones at first, as quantity trumps quality in the early rounds. In my case, I wanted to eventually own all 200 possible monsters so it mattered less who I started out with, I bought the cheaper guys until I ran out of MP. Keep in mind that the monsters you buy are affected by the symbol type you have chosen. My first symbol, Water, did not jive well with Fire monsters at all. I didn't buy or develop many Fire monsters while competing under the Water symbol, their attack was too weak and they get killed too easily.

Once you have purchased your first bevy of monsters, you can proceed to Area 1 for your first battle against Joey. He uses all Fire monsters on a field that is Water-dominated, so you are given a very easy battle to start off with. You can own 5 copies of each of the 200 monsters for 1000 total in your 'Stock'. You can carry up to 50 of these as your 'Deck' into the dueling areas but you cannot play all of them in one battle. Each duel has a limitation of monsters you can duel with (between 6 and 10) and also a limitation of MP used to select your battle crew for the duel. Once you start collecting more powerful monsters you will have a choice of using an expensive (MP-wise) monster instead of maybe 2 or 3 cheaper ones. In the duel with Joey, you have 270 MP to 'buy' monsters into the duel and you can play a maximum of 6 monsters. If you choose more expensive monsters, you'll exhaust your 270 MP before you select 6. That's okay sometimes, especially if you have a monster that can reach out and pop one of the enemies and destroy it in one turn. For starting out though, you will want to have at least 4 monsters to fight with, a 5th one ensures an early advantage. I recommend it as all of your guys are Level 1 and at their weakest. Enough chit-chat, let's duel!!!

In the first duel only, the gameplay will be interrupted from time to time as Yugi Moto explains to Yugi Yami (Pharoah) how the game is played. You will first place your monsters on the field, in egg-like Capsules from which they must be 'summoned', or activated for battle. Enter into the fray a new metric, Action Points (AP). On each turn you have an amount of AP that you use for summoning/moving/attacking and any Special Abilities your monsters may learn through ascending to higher levels of experience. This is important and is initially set when you choose your symbol. As your symbol progresses to level 2 and beyond, you can increase your AP. AP regenerates each turn, but if you use up the current turn's AP allotment before all your monsters have moved/attacked, they'll have to wait until next turn. Something else to manage but the early rounds don't place a premium on this skill, giving you a chance to get used to it.

It will take several turns for you and the computer opponent to summon monsters and get within striking distance of each other. The game gets a bit chess-like in this regard. If you can think a move or two ahead, the game's AI is not very developed and will routinely waltz into an ambush if you can set one up. You may both move *and* attack with a monster on the same turn if you can get within range, so the goal is to get close enough to the opponent but not so close that they can move in and attack first on their next turn. Example - my piece and Joey's piece have six spaces between them. My monster can move forward two spaces and attack up to two more spaces in any one direction, so my maximum 'attack range' is four. Joey's piece is the same. If I move forward two, I cannot attack his monster (it is still four spaces away) but on next Joey's turn he can move forward two and now I'm only two space away. He can, and will, attack whenever he is in range. Instead, if I move just one space forward, I'm still five spaces away and safe from his monster. The AI does not 'turtle' or stall much, it will charge forward two spaces and end its turn still three spaces away from you and vulnerable to attack on your next turn.

By arranging your pieces so that multiple monsters can attack one of the opponent, you generally can whittle down the opposition by a few pieces before you start trading blows.

The attack...
You are in range. You move forward, select Attack from the menu and highlight the enemy's monster. Several dynamics take place in order to determine how much damage occurs. Each monster has a supply of Power Points (PP). Life Points would have made more sense, but they didn't ask me so PP it is. once PP reaches zero the monster is destroyed. If your monster gets destroyed, it sits out the next duel and then is available once again. Losing monsters in battle is part and parcel of the game, so don't get too bent when it happens. Each monster has an Attack (AT) rating and a Defense (DEF) rating. The DEF offsets the AT. Example: I attack Joey's 'Fire Reaper' which has a PP of 180. My monster's AT is 80 and Fire Reaper's DEF is 20. 80 minus 20 is 60, so 60 Power Points are deducted from Fire Reaper's PP total of 180. He now has 120 left. I will need to attack a few more times to destroy him; if I have a 2nd or 3rd monster in range, perhaps we can gang up and wipe this monster out before he gets in an attack. In a nutshell, that is the general concept of how the gameplay goes. If you get to a point where the opponent has but one monster left, you may be able to go after his crystal and destroy it. Doing this gives the attacking piece a hefty bonus (Level 1 monsters get 100 experience points, an instant 'Level up'; more on that in a moment).

A number of factors affect the AT/DEF thing. Water monsters have a natural advantage over Fire monsters, so if I attack Fire Reaper with a Water monster, I will do some bonus damage. Each position on the battlefield has an attribute also. If Joey's Fire piece is standing in water and my Water monster is standing in water, he's in bigger trouble damage-wise. Each monster type has another type of monster that it holds an advantage over and another type that it is disadvantaged against. The parity is rather well done in this respect. If you try to use only one type of monster during duels (Water, for example), you're going to run into a problem later on when dueling against, in this case, Mai Valentine's Wind monsters which have an advantage over Water monsters. In short, you'll get clobbered. You will need to strategize which support pieces to bring along so that you have some help if your best monsters find themselves disadvantaged.

As with most monster-battle type games, destroying enemy monsters and winning duels earns your pieces Experience Points (EXP). Every 100 points, you get to move up a Level, to a max of Level 9. Your AT/DEF/PP attributes get enhanced accordingly and many pieces pick up Special Abilities. Healing a monster's PP, increasing a nearby monster's DEF or AT for a turn, or performing a Special Attack of their own are examples. Your symbol levels up also, and you can enhance your PP, AP, or MP at your discretion. Generally speaking, if you allow the enemy to get close enough to your symbol to start depleting its PP, you have gravely misplayed the battle so only give it a bump every other level and develop your symbol's AP and MP, as those variables help the pieces doing battle in the trenches.

Obtaining Monsters
As you progress through the game, more monsters are available for purchase in Grandpa's shop. Winning duels allows you to pluck a few monsters from your freshly beaten opponent and also earns you MP to spend on new monsters. There are also lots of 'unlockable' monsters to earn that you cannot buy. Some monsters 'Evolve' into new monsters once they reach Level 3 or 4. These are brand new monsters with their own unique name that are now at Level 1, but have some increased ability or may develop a Special Ability down the road. Other monsters can 'Fuse' into a new monster. When both pieces have reached the proper level, place them next to each other on the battlefield and on your turn, choose either of the monsters' Fuse option from their respective menus. You must have sufficient AP to do this and neither monster can have moved on the turn you want to fuse them.

Evolutions will occur as your monster gets to the required level. The Fusions are not so straight-forward, I mean, how do you know which ones can be fused and at what Level? For that reason, I will list the Fusions:

Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon: Fuse three Blue Eyes White Dragon monsters (Level 2) *Costs 650 AP
Cyber Saurus: Fuse Twin Headed King Rex and Blast Juggler (Level 5)
Dark Fire Dragon: Fuse Firegrass (Level 3) and Petit Dragon (Level 5)
Flame Swordsman: Fuse Masaki and Flame Manipulator (Level 4 )
Flying Penguin: Fuse Penguin Knight and Penguin Soldier (Level 3)
Gaia the Dragon Champion: Fuse Gaia The Fierce Knight and Curse of Dragon (Level 3)
Gate Guardian: Fuse Sanga, Kazejin, Suijin (Level 3)
Harpie Lady Sisters: Fuse three Harpie Lady monsters (Level 2)
Kaminari Attack: Fuse Mega Thunderball and Ocubeam (Level 5)
Kwagar Hercules: Fuse Hercules Beetle and Kuwagata Alpha (Level 3)
Metal Dragon: Fuse Lesser Dragon and steel Ogre Grotto #1 (Level 3)
Metalzoa: Fuse Zoa (Level 2) and Steel Scorpion (Level 3)
Millennium Golem: Fuse Destroyer Golem and Statue of Easter Island (Level 3)
Rabid Horseman: Fuse Mystic Horseman and Battle Ox (Level 3)
Summoned Lord Exodia: Fuse the five Exodia cards (right arm/leg, left arm/leg, and head) Level 2
Thousand Dragon: Fuse Baby Dragon and Time Wizard (Level 5)
Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon: Fuse two Thunder Dragon monsters (Level 4)

Finally, winning the tournament earns you three rare monsters that are unobtainable elsewhere. There are 6 to 8 of these rare monsters, requiring you to win several tourneys to collect them all.

Fans of the animated series will likely enjoy the game but the younger they are, the more assistance they will need from mom, dad, or an older sibling.