Much like Pokemon Yu-Gi-Oh! is one of those ultra-successful Trading Card Games (TCG) that’s perhaps now better known for its other incarnations such as cartoons or videogames.

Nightmare Troubadour however, is the first Yu-Gi-Oh! game that even comes close to capturing the depth of the TCG. First you’re given a starter deck and can then study the rules of the game in the shop training area. When you’re ready to do battle you can search the city for opponents to duel. This is implemented nicely: as you drag the stylus over the map, the circle that you’re moving glows red once you’ve found another duellist. You can battle all the characters from the anime series and each has different strengths and weaknesses. All battles begin with a round of Rock Paper Scissors to decide who goes first – then the fun starts.

The game is played like the real card game (although new rule changes are not included in the game due to the timing of the release). Each player must play through drawing cards, summoning monsters, casting spells and setting traps to try to catch out their opponent. Of course, the idea is to attack your opponent’s Life Points directly and by killing all their monsters on the field you can hit them with your High-powered Monsters and Fusion Monsters. At the end of every game your points are totalled and you’ll earn experience and KC Points that can be spent at the local shop. The only items you really need to buy are new cards and there are loads to collect – each booster pack contains five cards and these cost just 150KC Points. You can then use these cards to tweak your deck and get ready for the tournament.

Nightmare Troubadour is incredibly easy to play; the DS is the perfect console as the two screens have been used well to enable user-friendly controls but also to allow you to read all the information on the cards. There’s loads of fun to be had building new decks, and fans of the game will feel right at home with the way the control system works.

At times the game does become extremely repetitive as you find yourself battling the same characters over and over until you’ve earned enough experience to move on. That said, there are 38 characters to battle and loads of cards to collect so this could keep you busy for a very long time.