Genre: Strategy / Tactics
Perspective: Top-down
Gameplay: Cards / Tiles, Trading / Collectible Card
Pacing: Turn-based
Art: Anime / Manga
Published by: Konami of America
Developed by: Konami Computer Entertainment Japan
Released: 2002
Platforms: PlayStation (PSX, PS1)
The story begins in ancient Egypt more or less 5,000 years ago. You are a young prince who has a mania for a very famous card game in that place. As soon as the adventure begins you will be scolded by Simon Muran your guardian and the one who taught you to play. After a long lecture you can go to the shop to play cards. This shop is frequented by ordinary people and therefore the members of the royal family are against you to go to this place. But here are Jono and Teana your best friends and also three other villagers (they seem to have no name, in fact they are always called villagers). After you leave the shop, Teana will invite you to go to the town square because maybe she would find Jono who didn't show up at the shop that night. In fact you will find him fighting against Seto, the protected of the magician Heishin (wizards are divided into wizards and great wizards).
In all they are 12 and make up the noblest part of the people; would be identifiable as senior officials). Jono will be severely defeated and almost offended and for this Jono proposes a duel between Seto and you. But Seto will have to go and you will return to the shop. Then after arriving back at the palace you will collide with Simon Muran. If you beat him you can walk around for a while or else you will have to go back to your room. If you beat him you will return to the shop where Seto will be waiting for you and he will challenge you. Once defeated he will understand your identity and will tell you that he hopes to meet you again soon. Arriving at the palace you will go to your room and while Simon Muran is reflecting on your behavior the palace will be attacked by Heishin and his henchmen. You will flee but you will be stopped by Seto who will ask you for the puzzle of the millennium. At that moment Simon Muran, who had been hit by a spell from Heishin, will arrive and give you the puzzle. You will escape but will be stopped by Heishin who will challenge you to a duel.
You will not be able to beat him because he has cards too strong for this point of the game, and he will order you to give him the puzzle. Only you, under the suggestion of Simon Muran, will destroy it and in doing so you will go into the puzzle. In this place you will be a spirit who can only come out when the puzzle is reassembled and is together with the other six objects. After 5000 years, a boy named Yugi together with his friend Joey will recompose the puzzle and the story will restart during a card tournament organized by the Kaiba Corporaion (the same one the prince played). Here you will have to face opponents in the preliminary rounds to access the finals. The opponents in order of appearance are: Rex Raptor, Brukido, Mai Valentine, Bandit Keith. After defeating them all you will enter the finals. The day before the start of the final phase a certain Shadi will come to you and with a millennium object (the key) he will look inside your mind. He will notice the spirit of the prince and will give you six blank cards whose usefulness you will not immediately know. The day after the finals open with the round of 16 and you will face Shadi himself; after beating him his two objects of the millennium (key and scale) will be locked in two of the white cards and so you will find out what they are for. Then in the round of 16 you will face your friend Bakura and after beating him he will give you the millennium ring. In the next round you will face Maximillion Pegasus, the inventor of the card game (according to what he says he invented it after having found in Egypt some tables depicting monstrous creatures that have become cards). If you defeat him he will give you the eye of the millennium.
In the semifinals you will face Isis, a character who appears only in this game, and after beating her you will be the necklace of the millennium. Meanwhile, in the other semifinal Joey will be defeated by Kaiba, the creator of the tournament. In the final you will have to defeat him to also get the last object of the millennium: the scepter. Once you have all the objects you will return to the puzzle and the prince will be freed. The story will restart a few days after you have destroyed the puzzle. You will discover that your parents are dead and that Simon Muran left you a map, which you will find in his room in the now destroyed royal palace. The map will indicate a shop like the previous one but hidden, as Heishin destroyed the city. In the hidden shop you will find Jono and Teana who will believe you are dead and will invite you to challenge them to a duel. Your friends will be improved, as will you and as will other characters in the game. Jono will tell you that after your disappearance the city and the surrounding territory was divided into five parts each controlled by a great wizard where a temple was erected. The name of the temple is the same as that of the great magician who erected it: the temple of the mountain, the temple of the meadows, the temple of the forest, the temple of the sea and the temple of the desert. Also in each temple there is an object of the millennium that you will have to recover. Guarding the temple will be a simple magician and the corresponding grand magician at the temple. To get the item you will have to defeat them both in a row or else you will have to challenge them again.
Once you have all five items, Heishin has the last one in his temple on the mountain above the city. However, you will have to go to this temple because your friend Teana will be kidnapped and taken inside the temple. Here at the beginning you will find a labyrinth and every time a crossroads. If you take the right path you will go to the next crossroads until you reach the end, if you make a mistake you will have to face a great wizard of the labyrinth. Past the labyrinth you will find Seto, who will give Teana back to you and explain the reason for this kidnapping. In reality it wasn't a real kidnapping but it was just a lure to lure you into the palace. In fact Seto wants to rebel against Heishin and thinks that only you will be able to defeat him. He will show you the way to his room and you will go there. But first you will encounter two other enemies, which are Heishin's bodyguard, namely the wizard Sebek and the wizard Neku. After defeating them you will face Heishin (who in the meantime has improved his deck) and if you defeat him Seto will lead you to your parents' grave. He will explain that his was just a staging and that he will challenge you to get all the objects of the millennium and take them to the sarcophagus to revive a fearsome creature and dominate the world. However, if you beat him, his plan will not come true and you will have all the objects of the millennium. But after the fight, Heishin reappears and will threaten to kill Seto if he doesn't have all the items.
You will be obliged to give them to him and Heishin will awaken DarkNite, the creature that was placed in a sarcophagus and who could only awaken by having all the items of the millennium. However, this creature will not want to follow Heishin's orders and with a spell it will lock it in a card and burn it, after which it will challenge you to a duel. If you defeat him this creature will undergo a transformation becoming Nitemare, the strongest being in this card game, which will challenge you again to a duel. Beat him and all the objects of the millennium will be yours. You will then be elected pharaoh and in the last sentences of the game these words will appear: "(Player's name) will be the most powerful pharaoh of all time who will rule with authority over all of Egypt with the power of the seven objects of the millennium. Seto no one knew anything about him ".
Characters
- The Prince: is the protagonist of the story. Its name is chosen by the user at the beginning of the game. His passion is playing Yu-Gi-Oh !, but as he often duels in a shop frequented by ordinary citizens he is constantly scolded by his guardian, Simon Muran.
- Simon Muran: is the tutor of the prince; according to what he tells in the game it was he who taught the prince the game and tactics. He seems to be a fairly old man, always wearing a tunic that completely covers his body, except for his hands and eyes. He himself gives the Millennium Puzzle to the prince.
- Heishin: is an evil wizard from the same country as the prince, and at the beginning of the game, he manages to seize power by rebelling against the royal orders thanks to some of his followers. Its purpose is to group all the objects of the millennium to become the pharaoh and to have power over the whole world.
- Jono: he is a friend of the prince who is often met in the shop. This character helps the prince in difficult situations.
- Teana: she is the best friend of the prince; she too is a girl who plays in the shop.
Game mode
Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories is not completely based on the Duel Monsters rules, but has slightly different rules (any monster can be summoned without tribute, life points cannot exceed 8,000, monsters and even spells and traps can be merged without the 'use of Polymerization, at the beginning of each turn many cards are drawn up to five, some cards have different effects than normal and no monsters have effects but they are all normal). The graphics are suitable for a platform like the PlayStation, generally the adventure is full of dialogue with the same graphic structure in 2D, while in the duels it has a 3D graphics and it is also possible to see the clashes between the monsters, rather than just the moving cards. In all there are 722 cards, mostly monsters, which are collected in the map library. Each time you win a duel in both the adventure mode and the free duel mode, in addition to the stars, you also win a card whose power is equal to the skills demonstrated in the duel. In addition to the classic adventure mode there is alternatively the duel for two players, or the exchange of cards between the latter, obviously to do so you must have a block on two memory cards.
Cards
The cards are represented in two different ways depending on the version. The Japanese version presents them as the first cards that came out a few years earlier, in Europe they are like normal cards that are still printed today. The cards in total are 722, most of them are monsters, with very few spell and trap cards. The cards and the game have some differences from the original:
- The monsters are all normal, they have no effect;
- Spell and trap cards sometimes have different effects than normal;
- There are no types of spell / trap cards (rapid continuous, counter-trap etc.), but they are all considered normal.
- There is no list of prohibited or restricted cards (apart from Exodia, only one copy per card in the deck);
- Equipment Spell Cards always increase Attack and Defense by 500 or 1000 points;
- Life points cannot go beyond 9,999 points;
- The cards in the deck must necessarily be 40 (in reality the number varies from 40 to 60);
- You can have a maximum of 5 cards in hand;
- At each turn you have to draw until you have 5 cards in your hand;
- You can join monsters without using the "Polymerization" card;
- Only one monster or spell / trap card must be played per turn;
- Monsters above level 4 can be summoned without sacrifice;
- Monster cards have two signs (guardian star), which does not happen in reality;
- Depending on these signs the cards can increase their attack and defense values by 500 points when fighting;
- Trap cards can be placed face up;
- Monsters can be placed face down in attack position or face up in defense position;
- If the 5 blocks for monsters or spell / trap cards are occupied, for the former you can play a card from the hand replacing it with another monster, for the latter you can do the same thing or activate them directly from the hand;
- The maximum attack and defense that a monster can take is 9,999 points.