History YMMV / YuGiOhTheDuelistsOfTheRoses

** Pegasus is blocked from immediate approach by the Labyrinth squares ahead of the player, which gives him time to set up some rather nasty spells and traps such as Change of Heart or Brain Control, though most of the time he'll just spam Tremendous Fire and deal 1000 points of damage, baiting you towards him before he snuffs all of your LP from a distance. His deck also makes great use of the surrounding Toon spaces while practically every other monster doesn't. [[TheAllSeeingAI Thanks to his Millennium Eye]], [[ArtificialBrilliance he doesn't fall for most of your tricks and bluffs]]. He is quite possibly the hardest duel in the game aside from Seto, Yugi, or the final bosses. His card set is designed to abuse his Millennium Eye too. The fact that he can cast Change of Heart and takeover a facedown to hit you or suicide a weak monster against your strong one to force a ton of LP damage is bad enough. The fact that he knows when he can get a direct attack in with Brain Control (takes over your strongest) even when that monster is facedown [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard is unforgivable]].

* BreatherBoss: T. Tristan Grey, for the Yorkist route. His monsters are all quite weak and [[ArtificialStupidity his A.I. often has him doing stupid moves]], such as constantly trying to move his cards behind your cards. He calls it his "crab-walker" strategy. Huh. Either way, it's a welcome breather after [[EarlyGameHell the grueling first encounter with Téa and her horde of buffs and Fairy monsters]].

** Aqua Dragon has fairly high attack power already at 2250 ATK, but when it duels its effect changes whatever space it's on to Sea terrain, giving it even ''more'' of a power boost. Combine it with Mirror Wall and the only tough fights will be the final bosses.

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: Going by real-life history, Yugi and Téa will get married after the game. And for bonus points, most historians believe that Henry VII and Elizabeth of York's betrothal led to a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage. When you duel Téa, she fights for her own sake and to protect the man she loves.

* BadassDecay: This game saw the debut of the Immortal cards, which serve as a set of [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity +1 Swords]]. They had powerful and unique effects, even aside from the natural benefits of being Immortal (immune to Crush terrain, and create it upon death, likely killing any opponent who beats them). Unfortunately, when they were released in the actual game, they mostly lost their awesome effects or were just plain not very good -- only Slate Warrior and maybe Rigorous Reaver were still sorta playable. How bad was it? One of the Immortals was [[JokeCharacter Shapesnatch]]. Yes, ''[[MemeticMutation that]]'' Shapesnatch.
* BreatherBoss: T. Tristan Grey, for the Yorkist route. His monsters are all quite weak and [[ArtificialStupidity his A.I. often has him doing stupid moves]], such as constantly trying to move his cards behind your cards. He calls it his "crab-walker" strategy. Huh. Either way, it's a welcome breather after the grueling first encounter with Téa and her horde of buffs and Fairy monsters.

* CriticProof: It was one of the first ''Franchise/YuGiOh'' video games for home consoles released in the early 2000s at the height of the franchise's popularity--it was going to sell no matter what critics said.

** Darkness Approaches. It flips everything on the field face-down, meaning flip effects can be recycled. A good number of cards power up themselves when they're flipped face-up, such as Wood Remains and Mystical Elf. Not only that, Fiend Reflection #2 lets you play another card the turn it's flipped, and even worse, Magician of Faith and Mask of Darkness can recycle Spell Cards. Including Darkness Approaches, which then flips them face-down, creating an endless cycle. Even though you can't actually cast the recovered card on the same turn, reusing flip effects every turn is still ludicrously good. Admittedly this is a card you need to be very lucky to obtain without cheating but you can get it.
*** Should you have TWO Spell Card recyclers out, you can get back two spells. This lets you cast a second spell very turn. Darkness Approaches is not the only spell that's useful to cast every turn.
** [[DiscOneNuke The easiest ones to obtain and work with]] are Zombies. The archetype runs on two principles: Multiple copies of Dragon Zombie, Armored Zombie, and Clown Zombie, three monsters with extremely low cost for their attack power and low Level ([[GlassCannon they exchange this for Defense, which you rarely need]]), and the ability to summon multiple copies of Pumpking the King of Ghosts (through normally summoning him or through fusing a Zombie and a Plant together, when one of them is at or above 1000 attack). Pumpking by itself is a GameBreaker, as its ability (raises the ATK and DEF points of all of your Zombies permanently by 100 every player turn) allows for insane ramping of power even with only one on the field (getting FIVE onto the field, all in face-up Defense Mode is not out of the question with fusions). Throw in Wasteland to set the terrain, a few more cheap Zombies, and just a few more cheap cards into the deck and you have an easily obtained deck that can beat 90% of the game without modification. Add in Call of the Haunted and/or Blue-Eyed Silver Zombie to change all your non-Zombie monsters into Zombies to get pumped. One of the possible starter decks has Call of the Haunted, and another has Blue-Eyed Silver Zombie, and a few Plants already. Even the low deck cost enemies that force you to swap out most of your other game-breakers can be pwned by a Zombie deck.

** Muka Muka. Though it starts with 600 ATK, when flipped up, it gains 300 for every single monster in your Graveyard. Play it in the late game, and it'll probably have something in the range of 4800 ATK, and even in the early game, simply discarding your hand is enough to make it fairly strong. Combo it with the Darkness Approaches combo, and it'll usually have enough ATK to OTK the opponent while attacking their strongest monster. And if you don't like reincarnation, Swordstalker does the same thing but better in some ways (2000 ATK, 100 for every monster) and can be found through a password or dueling Seto and Pegasus.
** Gate Deeg and Berformet instantly max out your summoning stars, neither have especially high costs, and the former can be played on the first turn. This makes summoning strong monsters insultingly easy. First turn: Gate Deeg. Second turn: Blue-Eyes. Third turn: Red-Eyes, or one of its fusions if you're lucky. Even if you don't use Darkness Approaches, Gate Deeg basically gives you up to four turns worth of summoning stars, and your opponent won't keep up.

* ScrappyMechanic: The inability to duel someone you have a higher deck cost than. It makes sense to maintain difficulty that you have to beat them the first time with a deck of equal or lower cost, as it prevents you from beating the game by just grinding your way to a deck that can just overpower everyone with little strategy, but for subsequent replays, it's just annoying to be restricted like that when you've already beaten them. Be prepared to constantly shuffle around your deck to get a lower cost in order to reduel people. [[NewGamePlus Even after you beat the game on both routes and have everyone unlocked to duel]], and thus have overcome every challenge in the game and are only playing at that point for fun and to get more cards, you ''still'' aren't allowed to duel people you have a higher deck cost than.

** Bakura is just plain mean. Not only is his deck cost the lowest of all the duelists (meaning you're forced to line your deck with only the weakest monsters, Trap and Spell cards available to you), but his field is covered in Crush terrain--even if you manage to play a monster with over 1500 ATK, it goes bye after stepping or playing on one of those spaces. The game itself [[LampshadeHanging is aware of this]], as Bakura will mockingly ask the player if you think him [[DirtyCoward a coward]] should he win.
** Jasper's Deck Leader is protected behind Labyrinth tiles much like Pegasus'. Said Deck Leader happens to be Exodia, so in the time it takes for your monsters to make it all the way to his Deck Leader, he may have already summoned the four limsb and won. Naturally he compliments this strategy with spellbinding monsters.
** Yugi is the cruelest offender of Destiny Draw in this game. When you have him low on Life Points and you think that you have the duel wrapped, Yugi will set some facedown cards he will use later. The cards will ended up be Mirror Force, Spellbinding Circle, Swords of Revealing Light, Monster Reborn, or Raigeki which will ruin your advantage. If you are really unlucky, Yugi will ritual summon Black Luster Soldier when you are still busy recuperating. Without Magic Jammer or Royal Decree in your deck, duelling Yugi can be harder than the final bosses. [[MemeticMutation Even in video games, Yugi can get whatever cards he wanted when his back is against the wall. Heart of the Cards, yeah!]]

* TierInducedScrappy: A number of types get the short end of the stick in this game. Dinosaurs are by far the worst, with only thirteen Normal Monsters to their name and nothing stronger than 2200. Reptiles and Pyros aren't much better, with thirteen and eleven monsters, respectively, but they at least have one or two okay cards, even if getting them is an ordeal. Conversely, Zombies, Machines, Insects, and the Fish/Aqua/Sea Serpent trio tend to dominate.

** The easiest ones to obtain and work with are Zombies. The archetype runs on two principles: Multiple copies of Dragon Zombie, Armored Zombie, and Clown Zombie, three monsters with extremely low cost for their attack power and low Level ([[GlassCannon they exchange this for Defense, which you rarely need]]), and the ability to summon multiple copies of Pumpking the King of Ghosts (through normally summoning him or through fusing a Zombie and a Plant together, when one of them is at or above 1000 attack). Pumpking by itself is a GameBreaker, as its ability (raises the ATK and DEF points of all of your Zombies permanently by 100 every player turn) allows for insane ramping of power even with only one on the field (getting FIVE onto the field, all in face-up Defense Mode is not out of the question with fusions). Throw in Wasteland to set the terrain, a few more cheap Zombies, and just a few more cheap cards into the deck and you have an easily obtained deck that can beat 90% of the game without modification. Add in Call of the Haunted and/or Blue-Eyed Silver Zombie to change all your non-Zombie monsters into Zombies to get pumped. One of the possible starter decks has Call of the Haunted, and another has Blue-Eyed Silver Zombie, and a few Plants already. Even the low deck cost enemies that force you to swap out most of your other [[GameBreaker game-breakers]] can be pwned by a Zombie deck.

* OlderThanTheyThink: Seto and Yugi's battle themes are remixes of tunes from ''VideoGame/YuGiOhMonsterCapsuleBreedAndBattle'', a Japan-only game about Capsule Monsters that predates ''Forbidden Memories'' (which also featured arrangements of Seto's theme[[labelnote:*]]one for Seto in Ancient Egypt and another for Kaiba in the finals of the modern-day [=KaibaCorp=] tournament, the former serving as the basis for Seto's theme here[[/labelnote]]) by over a year.

** Yugi is the cruelest offender of Destiny Draw in this game. When you have him low on Life Points and you think that you have the duel wrapped, Yugi will set some facedown cards he will use later. The cards will ended up be Mirror Force, Spellbinding Circle, Swords of Revealing Light, Monster Reborn, or Raigeki which will ruin your advantage. If you are really unlucky, Yugi will ritual summon Black Luster Soldier. Without Magic Jammer or Royal Decree in your deck, duelling Yugi can be harder than the final bosses.

** Darkness Approaches. It flips everything on the field face-down, meaning flip effects can be recycled. A good number of cards power up themselves when they're flipped face-up, such as Wood Remains and Mystical Elf. Not only that, Fiend Reflection #2 lets you play another card the turn it's flipped, and even worse, Magician of Faith and Mask of Darkness can recycle spell cards. Including Darkness Approaches, which then flips them face-down, creating an endless cycle. Even though you can't actually cast the recovered card on the same turn, reusing flip effects every turn is still ludicrously good. Admittedly this is a card you need to be very lucky to obtain without cheating but you can get it.
*** Should you have TWO Spell card recyclers out, you can get back two spells. This lets you cast a second spell very turn. Darkness Approaches is not the only spell that's useful to cast every turn.
** The easiest ones to obtain and work with are Zombies. The archetype runs on two principles: Multiple copies of Dragon Zombie, Armored Zombie, and Clown Zombie, three monsters with extremely low cost for their attack power and low Level ([[GlassCannon they exchange this for Defense, which you rarely need]]), and the ability to summon multiple copies of Pumpking the King of Ghosts (through normally summoning him or through fusing a Zombie and a Plant together, when one of them is at or above 1000 attack). Pumpking by itself is a GameBreaker, as its ability (raises the ATK and DEF points of all of your Zombies permanently by 100 every player turn) allows for insane ramping of power even with only one on the field (getting FIVE onto the field, all in face up defense mode is not out of the question with fusions). Throw in Wasteland to set the terrain, a few more cheap Zombies, and just a few more cheap cards into the deck and you have an easily obtained deck that can beat 90% of the game without modification. Add in Call of the Haunted and/or Blue-Eyed Silver Zombie to change all your non-zombie monsters into zombies to get pumped. One of the possible starter decks has Call of the Haunted, and another has Blue-Eyed Silver Zombie, and a few plants already. Even the low deck cost enemies that force you to swap out most of your other [[GameBreaker game-breakers]] can be pwned by a Zombie deck.
** Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth is nasty. It has the ability to lower your opponent's attack and defense on every creature (even face-down) permanently every turn as long as it stays in face-up Defense Mode. A few duels with Weevil can get you the Cocoon of Evolution and a Petite or Larvae Moth to fuse with it to create Pupae of Moth, which turns into Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth next turn, and goes to the graveyard. Where it can then be resurrected with a card to get you another Moth (Mimicat is commonly used for this). Then it goes to the gravevard again. You can use these cards in your already game-breaking zombie deck. Humiliation doesn't even begin to cover it.
** Once you get Mirror Wall (obtainable with a password at the start of the game if you know it), you've practically won the duel. It's an incredibly powerful continuous trap that blocks all of your opponent's attacks and cuts their monsters' attack in half. However, due to ArtificialStupidity, the A.I. will simply keep attacking as if the trap didn't exist, weakening their monsters and allowing you to do whatever you like unimpeded. Combining it with Aqua Dragon or Roaring Ocean Snake, which change the terrain they battle on to Sea when attacked, and it becomes unfair.
** Muka Muka. Though it starts with 600 ATK, when flipped up, it gains 300 for every single monster in your Graveyard. Play it in the late game, and it'll probably have something in the range of 4800 ATK, and even in the early game, simply discarding your hand is enough to make it fairly strong. Combo it with the Darkness Approaches combo, and it'll usually have enough ATK to OTK the opponent while attacking their strongest monster. And if you don't like reincarnation, Swordstalker does the same thing but better in some ways (2000 ATK, 100 for every monster) and can be found through a password or dueling Kaiba and Pegasus.

** Mimicat has a fairly high deck cost, but can fetch any card from either graveyard. Including ones that are considered too good for you to ever actually get in your deck.

* OlderThanTheyThink: Seto and Yugi's battle themes are remixes of tunes from ''VideoGame/YuGiOhMonsterCapsuleBreedAndBattle'', a Japan-only game about Capsule Monsters.

** Bakura is just plain mean. Not only is his deck cost the lowest of all the duelists meaning you have to discard your deck with only the weakest monsters, trap and spell cards available to you, but his field is littered with Crush cards. Meaning even if you manage to play a monster with over 1500 attack points, it goes bye after stepping or playing on it

* OlderThanTheyThink: Seto and Yugi's battle themes are remixes of tunes from ''Monster Capsule Breed and Battle'', a Japan-only game about Capsule Monsters.
* ScrappyMechanic: The inability to ever duel someone you have a higher deck cost than. It makes sense to maintain difficulty that you have to beat them the first time with a deck of equal or lower cost, as it prevents you from beating the game by just grinding your way to a deck that can just overpower everyone with little strategy, but for subsequent replays, it's just annoying to be restricted like that when you've already beaten them. Be prepared to constantly shuffle around your deck to get a lower cost in order to reduel people. [[NewGamePlus Even after you beat the game on both routes and have everyone unlocked to duel]], and thus have overcome every challenge in the game and are only playing at that point for fun and to get more cards, you ''still'' aren't allowed to duel people you have a higher deck cost than.

** Pegasus is blocked from immediate approach by the Labyrinth squares ahead of the player, which gives him time to set up some rather nasty spells and traps such as Change of Heart or Brain Control, though most of the time he'll just spam Infernal Dance and deal 1000 points of damage, baiting you towards him before he snuffs all of your LP from a distance. His deck also makes great use of the surrounding Toon spaces while practically every other monster doesn't. [[TheAllSeeingAI Thanks to his Millennium Eye]], [[ArtificialBrilliance he doesn't fall for most of your tricks and bluffs]]. He is quite possibly the hardest duel in the game aside from Seto, Yugi, or the final bosses. His card set is designed to abuse his Millennium Eye too. The fact that he can cast Change of Heart and takeover a facedown to hit you or suicide a weak monster against your strong one to force a ton of LP damage is bad enough. The fact that he knows when he can get a direct attack in with Brain Control (takes over your strongest) even when that monster is facedown [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard is unforgivable]].

** Once you get Mirror Wall (obtainable with a password at the start of the game if you know it), you've practically won the duel. It's an incredibly powerful continuous trap that blocks all of your opponent's attacks and cuts their monsters' attack in half. However, due to ArtificialStupidity, the A.I. will simply keep attacking as if the trap didn't exist, weakening their monsters and allowing you to do whatever you like unimpeded. Combining it with Aqua Dragon, which changes the terrain to Sea when attacked, and it becomes unfair.

** The easiest ones to obtain and work with are Zombies. The archetype runs on two principles: Multiple copies of Dragon Zombie, Armored Zombie, and Clown Zombie, three monsters with extremely low cost for their attack power and low Level ([[GlassCannon they exchange this for Defense, which you rarely need]]), and the ability to summon multiple copies of Pumpking the King of Ghosts (through normally summoning him or through fusing a Zombie and a Plant together, when one of them is at or above 1000 attack). Pumpking by itself is a GameBreaker, as its ability (raises the ATK and DEF points of all of your Zombies permanently by 100 every player turn) allows for insane ramping of power even with only one on the field. Throw in Wasteland to set the terrain, a few more cheap Zombies, and just a few more cheap cards into the deck and you have an easily obtained deck that can beat 90% of the game without modification. Add in Call of the Haunted and/or Blue-Eyed Silver Zombie to change all your non-zombie monsters into zombies to get pumped. One of the possible starter decks has Call of the Haunted, and another has Blue-Eyed Silver Zombie, and a few plants already. Even the low deck cost enemies that force you to swap out most of your other [[GameBreaker game-breakers]] can be pwned by a Zombie deck.