History VideoGame / YuGiOhReshefOfDestruction

* StayingAlive: Your advance into Pegasus Island gets stalled by [=PaniK=] and the Mimic of Doom, then later by the Paradox Brothers. In both instances, after you first defeat them with the help of Yugi or Joey, they get back up and challenge you again, intending to continuously Duel until they eke out a win. Your companion takes on the duo by themselves to buy you the opportunity to continue past them.

* YouShallNotPass: Joey and Yugi do this on the way to Chevalsky's castle, leaving you alone by the time you reach him. Joey takes on Panik and the Mimic of Doom at the same time by himself, and Yugi does the same with Para and Dox.

* TrapMaster:
** Keeping consistency with his anime playstyle, Odion's deck now features a ''lot'' of Traps to support his few monster cards.
** The player themselves might take up this trope when it comes to [[ArtificialStupidity exploiting the AI]] and overcoming the sheer difference in monster quality between them and their opponent.

* UnskilledButStrong:
** Joey's deck has stronger Monster cards than Yugi's, but weaker tribute summons and spell cards.
** In general, mid- to lategame opponents have monsters stronger than the player can hope to attain without extensive grinding, but are saddled by their ArtificialStupidity.

* WeakButSkilled:
** Yugi's deck has weak Monster cards but more powerful tribute summons and better spell cards than what you expect at the start of the game.
** The player themselves must become this to win the game. Unless you spend ''days'' level grinding, you'll never have half the deck capacity or duelist level needed to fill your deck with the top-level monsters the AI opponents will. But you'll learn to compensate with low-level monsters with good effects, good Spell and Trap support for them, and exploiting the game's ArtificialStupidity and ElementalRockPaperScissors mechanic to manipulate the field to your advantage.

* NiceHat: The protagonist has a blue baseball cap.

* AchillesHeel: Despite being overpowered, Slifer the Sky Dragon and The Winged Dragon of Ra have their weaknesses. Slifer can be trapped by Dragon Capture Jar, while Ra's ATK and DEF are greatly reduced if you're playing on a Sea Field. Also, Ra's Battle Mode is overshadowed by Perfect Machine King who gets 1000 ATK and DEF for each Machine monster on the field, including Ra and itself. Also, Slifer, Ra and Obelisk can get powered down a lot by cards such as Shadow Spell, destroyed by a stronger monster or removed by another Ra/Obelisk’s destruction effect.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Many powerful cards that require two or three tributes. Due to the level difference between your deck and opponents' decks, cards that only require one tribute are the safest option.

** Yami Yugi is forced out of the plot due to the Millennium Puzzle being stolen and later broken, and recovering it that lines up with the main quest.

* SpannerInTheWorks: Bandit Keith's meddling was explicitly unforeseen by Ishizu, and his meddling ends up costing time to stop Reshef and [[spoiler:leads to the loss of a Millennium Puzzle piece]].

** The player themselves must become this to win the game. Unless you spend ''days'' level grinding, you'll never have half the deck capacity or duelist level needed to fill your deck with the top-level monsters the AI opponents will. But you'll learn to make due with low-level monsters with good effects, good Spell and Trap support for them, and exploiting the game's ArtificialStupidity and ElementalRockPaperScissors mechanic to manipulate the field to your advantage.

* BonusBoss:
** Three in the main story, all optional. If you visit Italy before beating the Paradox Brothers in China, you'll duel Jean-Claude Magnum a second time, who has a better deck than the first time. Second, at another part of the game, Tea is standing at the town square. If you talk to her, you'll have to deal with Johnny Steps and then Krump, one after another.
** The Hall of Eternity duelists begin the game with anywhere between 30,000 to 60,000 Life Points, have their Decks stuffed to the gills with game-breaking cards, and give immense deck capacity rewards and powerful cards should you somehow beat them.

* BoringButPractical: Mammoth Graveyard has an average 1200/800 statline, but its perpetual effect of powering down your opponent's monsters lets it, and the rest of your deck, win a lot of straight fights in the midgame.

* DistressedDude: Mokuba gets kidnapped late in the game.

* WeakButSkilled:
** Yugi's deck has weak Monster cards but more powerful tribute summons and better spell cards than what you expect at the start of the game.
** The player themselves must become this to win the game. Unless you spend ''days'' level grinding, you'll never have half the deck capacity or duelist level needed to fill your deck with the top-level monsters the AI opponents will. But you'll learn to make due with low-level monsters with good effects, good Spell and Trap support for them, and exploiting the game's ArtificialStupidity and ElementalRockPaperScissors mechanic to manipulate the field to your advantage.

* BackFromTheDead: The Winged Dragon of Ra's Phoenix Mode, Vampire Lord, Different Dimension Dragon, and Dark Flare Knight can return to the field after they're send to the graveyard. Discarding them from the hand is a very powerful move to summon strong monsters.

* FaceHeelTurn: The Big Five, when Rare Hunter defeats Kaibaman. But when you defeat him, the Big Five [[HeelFaceTurn become good again.]]

** Mako Tsunami is the first theme duelist who you can rematch at will, and he stays true to that theme, which is Water monsters. With a deck stacked with Thunder monsters, you can take him out with minimal difficulty.[[note]]Of course he still has a few non-Water monsters to cause trouble, but unless you get unlucky and he opens with them in his hand, by the time he draws them you'll have enough of an advantage that it's too little too late.[[/note]] He drops Umi, Power of Kaishin, and plenty of high-level Water monsters. Grinding against him lets you build your own Water deck with good cards for it, and anything you don't want can be sold for good cash, especially Fortress Whale, which nets a cool 2,000 bucks at the card shop.

* SpannerInTheWorks: Bandit Keith's meddling wasn't expected, but in the long run [[InSpiteOfANail it doesn't accomplish much]].
* SpoilerOpening: The unskippable introductory cutscene shows that Pegasus, now sporting a new look, resurrected Reshef.

* BoringButPractical:
** Mammoth Graveyard has an average 1200/800 statline, but its perpetual effect of powering down your opponent's monsters lets it, and the rest of your deck, win a lot of straight fights in the midgame.
** Life-gaining Spells do nothing to help you defeat the opponent quicker, but when your Life Points carry over to the next Duel, you're going to need them to survive multiple opponents in a row. Their low cost also frees up more deck capacity to run stronger cards.

** The computer ignores the card limitations, Lategame duelists will have three copies each of cards like Torrential Tribute, Swords of the Revealing Light, Raigeki, Harpie's Feather Duster, Pot of Greed, Monster Reborn and/or Change of Heart while you can have only 1 copy of each in your deck. This becomes more visible with endgame opponents or those in the BonusDungeon.

* CrutchCharacter: In the early game, tribute 1 monsters are the way to go to secure a win. There are a large variety of Tribute 1 monsters with below 1500 attack with low cost, a lot of which can be acquired from dueling against Duel Machine at Novice difficulty. These monsters eventually fall off, eventually replaced by other tribute 1 monsters such as Flame Swordsman.

* DiscOneNuke: Flame Swordsman can be acquired from Joey, who is a relatively easy duelist to fight against right from the start of the game. At 1800 attack, it's more powerful than your other Tribute 1 monsters, making it an easily accessible, strong early beatstick, and its dinosaur-destroying effect helps when fighting Rex Raptor.

* EarlyBirdBoss: Rebecca, appearing in the beginning at a time when your cards are even more limited than usual.

** Obelisk the Tormentor is the last Egyptian God Card and the last overall that you get in the main story. The moment you obtain it, the remaining plot-important opponents are the final bosses.

* InfinityMinusOneSword: Of all tribute 1 monsters that have to be summoned naturally, Kairyu Shin is generally considered the best one. It can be farmed from Mako and has the same power and cost as Flame Swordsman, but its effect allows it to change the entire field into Umi, turning the field into its advantage while denying the opponent their own field effect. While it's already good as a 2340 attack beatstick, Umi affects useful cards such as Doron, Revival Jam, and Toad Master. All of these combined makes Kairyu Shin one of the most reliable win conditions in the game.

** A similar thing happens with the Millennium Guardians and Paradox in China. The five Millennium Guardians have 3,000 LP, but they are stronger than the Neo Ghouls, and Paradox is stronger and he has 8,000 LP.

* OneHitKill: The Winged Dragon of Ra's Point-to-Point Transfer ability induces HPToOne but transforms that lost Life Points into damage to the opponent. With some LP gain you can inflict this on the opponent. Reshef also has the Winged Dragon of Ra, and its much higher starting LP total makes this ability lethal for most of the fight.

** Mako Tsunami in Chapter 4. He's the first theme duelist who you can rematch at will, and he stays true to that theme, which is Water monsters. With a deck stacked with Thunder monsters, you can take him out with minimal difficulty.[[note]]Of course he still has a few non-Water monsters to cause trouble, but unless you get unlucky and he opens with them in his hand, by the time he draws them you'll have enough of an advantage that it's too little too late.[[/note]] He drops Umi, Power of Kaishin, and plenty of high-level Water monsters. Grinding against him lets you build your own Water deck with good cards for it, and anything you don't want can be sold for good cash, especially Fortress Whale, which nets a cool 2,000 bucks at the card shop.
** Later, the Millennium Guardians in China in Chapter 7. They ''very'' often drop the Divine-attribute monsters that sell for 2000 each, and also give you cards afterwards that you can farm and sell, on top of the third Guardian always giving you Giant Soldier of Stone that sells for a pretty penny. While they lack Mako's thematic deck to exploit, they each only have 3000 Life Points, so if you can get the hang of beating them, once again they provide a steady source of reliable income.
** Shortly after expelling the Neo Ghouls from Domino City, Tristan qualifies. His deck has only undergone a few minor upgrades so he's still as easy to beat as he was in the beginning of the game, but his ante rewards include staple cards like Megamorph or Invisible Wire, which are reasonably powerful for their Deck cost and have good sale values.

* PurposelyOverpowered: The Egyptian God Cards, with the exception of the Winged Dragon of Ra's Sphere Mode. All of them, except Ra's Sphere Mode, have extremely powerful effects and 4000 ATK and 4000 DEF. The God Cards are excluded from the ElementalRockPaperScissors, and they're unaffected by destruction effects (aside from Helpoemer), even if you're holding them in the hand. To top it all off, they cost no Deck capacity, so including them in the Deck frees up space for your stronger cards. And unlike in ''The Sacred Cards'', the Egyptian God Cards won't activate any destruction Trap Cards. The Winged Dragon of Ra's Phoenix Mode is by far the most useful due to avoiding AwesomeButImpractical. This becomes {{Justified}}, as the game proceeds to pit you against [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard a cheating AI]] in its final chapter, with opponents that start with over 8,000 Life Points in addition to their habits of spamming overpowered cards that the player is normally only allowed 1 of.

* TerribleTrio: The Egyptian God Cards are the Monster Card variant.

* PowerTrio: The main character, Yugi, and Joey.
** The Egyptian God Cards are the Monster Card variant.

* CrutchCharacter: In the early game, tribute 1 monsters are the way to go to secure a win. There are a large variety of Tribute 1 monsters with below 1500 attack with low cost, a lot of which can be acquired from dueling against Duel Machine at Novice difficulty. These monsters eventually fall off, eventually replaced by other tribute 1 monsters such as Flame Swordsman

* DiscOneNuke: Flame Swordsman can be acquired from Joey, who is a relatively easy duelist to fight against right from the start of the game. At 1800 attack, its more powerful than your other Tribute 1 monsters, stronger than Leogun by 50 points making it an easilly accesible, strong early beatstick.

* InfinityMinusOneSword: Of all tribute 1 monsters that have to be summoned naturally, Kairyu Shin is generally considered the best one. It can be farmed from Mako, have same power and cost as Flame Swordsman, but its effect allows it to change the entire field into Umi, turning the field into its advantage while denying the opponent their own field effect. While its already good as a 2340 attack beatstick, Umi is arguably one of the best field effect, affecting useful cards such as Doron, Revival Jam, and Toad Master. All of these combined makes Kairyu Shin arguably one of the most reliable win condition in the game.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Mai's Harpie Ladies are not censored when she calls them out in cutscenes, and neither is their ultimate attack, "Harpies' Triangle Ecstasy."

The plot starts off when the Millennium Puzzle goes missing. Your character, along with Yugi and Joey, sets out to find it. And it appears other Millennium Items are also missing. The group soon finds the cause: a man named "Sol Chevalsky/Taiyou Tenma" plans to resurrect Reshef, an Ancient Egyptian SealedEvilInACan. The only cards powerful enough to stop him are the Egyptian God Cards, but they have been sealed in stone. To awaken their power and seal Reshef away, you must collect the Millennium Items.

* SequelDifficultySpike: ''The Sacred Cards'' was pretty easy. There were a few spikes of difficulty and the end bosses could be tough, but overall it wasn't much challenge. This game on the other hand is as NintendoHard as any of the old NES games.

* DifficultySpike:
** When you board the Duel Express, the game's difficulty starts to rise, especially since it's the first time you're forced to feel the full brunt of your LP carrying over between games.
** Once you hit Canada the already difficult game becomes ''very'' hard, as enemies have cards much stronger than yours and there aren't fast ways to level grind and keep up.
** The game’s difficulty is upped again when [[spoiler: Slifer the Sky Dragon is turned back to stone, as you can't use Slifer for some time]].
** By the time you duel Marik, who's already a tough fight, opponents that come after him begin to break the rules. They have more starting LP than you have and use game-breaking cards.

** Yugi's deck has weak Monster cards but more powerful summons.

** Joey's deck has stronger Monster cards than Yugi's, but weaker summons.

And it's not going to be easy. Another thing about this game? It's NintendoHard with LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading. Despite this, for some fans the story is enough to keep going, and it makes an interesting alternative to the Atlantis arc of the anime.

* ForcedLevelGrinding: The Deck Capacity and money gain rate in this game is reduced to a tenth of its predecessor's, making it very difficult to actually ''use'' the new strong cards that you've just won without spending some time repeatedly dueling whoever's available.

** Obelisk the Tormentor is the last Egyptian God Card and the last overall that you get in the main story.

* FusionDance: Inverted with Dark Flare Knight. In the real life game, he's a fusion of Dark Magician and Flame Swordsman. In this game, when the Dark Flare Knight is send to the graveyard, it [[CameBackStrong Comes Back Strong]] as Mirage Knight, and when the turn ends, he's de-fused into his original two forms. The game itself has no Fusion Monsters.

* OneHitKill: Reshef has 40,000 LP, so if he pulls out the Winged Dragon of Ra's Point-to-Point Transfer ability, no matter how many Life Points you have you ''will'' die.

* GameMod: [[https://www.reddit.com/r/yugioh/comments/66xv1i/patch_for_yugioh_reshef_of_destruction_it_might/ Reshef of Destruction "It's actually tolerable this time" patch]]. Makes the game more evenly balanced.

* GameMod: Reshef of Destruction "It's actually tolerable this time" patch. Makes the game more evenly balanced.

** The computer will always attack your cards if they are face down unless their monsters have 0 Attack. This will happen even if you use a card to cover up previously seen monsters. Once you get an advantage on an opponent, you can keep setting defensive monsters to bait them into attack into your Traps and/or keeping their monsters in attack mode. They will also always attack with their monsters in order of strength, letting you bait them into having their strongest monster attack your defending monster with an Attribute advantage over it. If you've managed to grind the ridiculously high amount needed for a Castle of Dark Illusions (which has high DEF and flips everything facedown every turn), the AI will spend every turn suiciding into it.
** The AI will use power-up cards on their monster, several if they have them, even if said power-ups are not enough to beat your monster. Expect to see them use two Equip cards on a newly summoned monster, then you attack to find out it's still a thousand points weaker than yours.
** If you use a card effect to see your opponent's hand, the AI will prioritize using cards you haven't seen, even if the card they just drew is worse than what they already had. Further, they play monsters in order of deck cost. If you control a Forest monster and your opponent has a hand with one weak Fire monster and three strong Wind monsters, they will continue to summon their Wind monsters.

** If the AI has any magic/traps in their hand, they will always place them face-down on the field straight away as long as their magic/trap zone isn't used up. Therefore, you can play magic/trap destruction cards such as Harpie's Feather Duster and Heavy Storm to destroy some of your opponent's cards before they get a chance to use them.
** The AI activates magic every chance it gets, so if you suspect the opponent has a monster control card face-down on the field, you can trick them into stealing one of your weaker monsters.

* ArtificialBrilliance: The AI will frequently use stalling tactics, multiplying monsters, and clever spells and trap cards, clearing the field if need be to stop you.

** The computer will always attack your cards if they are face down in defense mode unless their monsters have 0 Attack. This will happen even if you use a card to cover up previously seen monsters. Once you get an advantage on an opponent, you can keep setting defensive monsters to bait them into attack into your Traps and/or keeping their monsters in attack mode. They will also always attack with their monsters in order of strength, letting you bait them into having their strongest monster attack your defending monster with an Attribute advantage over it.

** Once you hit Canada the already difficult game because ''very'' hard, as enemies have cards much stronger than yours and there aren't fast ways to level grind and keep up.
** The game’s difficulty is upped again when [[spoiler: Slifer the Sky Dragon is turned back to stone, as you can’t use Slifer for some time]].

* WakeupCallBoss: Panik is your first opponent who starts with an automatic Field spell in effect (Yami, which will get used a ''lot'' in this game), and you'll have to start wising up to monster types and attributes to keep up.

** The computer ignores the card limitations, Lategame duelists will have three copies each of GameBreaker cards like Torrential Tribute, Swords of the Revealing Light, Raigeki, Harpie's Feather Duster, Pot of Greed, Monster Reborn and/or Change of Heart while you can have only 1 copy of each in your deck. This becomes more visible with endgame opponents or those in the BonusDungeon.

* PurposelyOverpowered: The Egyptian God Cards, with the exception of the Winged Dragon of Ra's Sphere Mode. All of them, except Ra's Sphere Mode, have extremely powerful effects and 4000 ATK and 4000 DEF. The God Cards are excluded from the ElementalRockPaperScissors, and they're unaffected by destruction effects (aside from Helpoemer), even if you're holding them in the hand. To top it all off, they cost no Deck capacity, so including them in the Deck frees up space for your stronger cards. And unlike in ''The Sacred Cards'', the Egyptian God Cards won't activate any destruction Trap Cards. And The Winged Dragon of Ra's Phoenix Mode is the GameBreaker due to avoiding AwesomeButImpractical. This becomes {{Justified}}, as the game proceeds to pit you against [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard a cheating AI]] in its final chapter, with opponents that start with over 8,000 Life Points in addition to their habits of spamming GameBreaker cards that the player is normally only allowed 1 of.

* AdaptationalHeroism: The Big Five, while still not particularly ''good'' people, are not the villains that they were in the anime, and are even accepted back into Kaiba Corp as low-level employees as a result.