Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Stardust Accelerator: World Championship 2009 is the latest installment of the Yu-Gi-Oh World Chamionship series for the Nintendo DS. Konami took a few years break for this game, and well......it was worth it.When I finally got the time to start playing this game, I was tired and restless and wondered if I was even going to bother with this game, and boy, it would have been my biggest mistake not to give this game a go, especially after being a fan of the previous game in the series (Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2007).So I got started with this game, and all looked too familiar to World Chamionship 2007. You get to customise your character you play with, this feature has always been a favourite of mine....and has been a big feature in all its games in the series. But, World Championship 2009 took it a few steps further. Not only are there much more customisations available, like extra hair peices, extra clothing, faces and dual disks..but also the biggest feature was putting your own customisation in 3D. Yes you heard that right, what the other World Chamionships didn't do, which was a 3D story mode, World Championship 2009 did and the feeling you get out of wathcing your own 2D character creation turn into a 3D charater is just an amazing feeling that you just can't believe.
The card battles have always been the main feature of Yu-Gi-Oh since the start, and if you've played any previous Yu-Gi-Oh games, especially on the Nintendo DS, this game will become second nature to you in no time. The battles are simple and easy to understand, with the battle area taking up the bottom DS screen, while all the other crap that you don't want to see is on the top DS screen. This feature gives you so much ease that you'll find the card battles not boring and difficult, but enjoyable. The card battles are continuasly looking more and more similar to the anime with it great looking monster sprites above it's original card. This feature makes you enjoy the card battling (duels) even more than it already is.
What World Championship 2009 does that its predessors doesn't is its new story mode. Previous adventure modes in the series consisted of just going from battle to battle...and absoloutly no adventure or walking ability. World Championship 2009 changes all this, as spoken about earlier this game is re-invented with a whole new 3D story based in the new Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's world from the anime. This feature gives a little more adventure/RPG feel to the game, which in my opinion was hugely missed in the previous games in the series.
Not only does Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Stardust Accelerator: World Championship 2009 contain a great adventure mode called "5D's Story Mode", but it also contains another mode called "World Championship".In World championship mode, you can practice and have fun doing Free Duals, you can battle friends with multi-player duals, great online features including online dualing with always a duelist waiting for you around the world and downloadable content including rare cards and characters everyday. There is also a shop where you can buy booster packs bought with dual points won in story mode and other various duals.Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Stardust Accelerator: World Championship 2009 contains everything for everyone that will keep you coming for more and more.Presentation- 9/10: Its previous games in the series including Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Stardust Accelerator: World Championship 2009, have and still has the highest of presentation, but this goes a step further with new 3D graphics in story mode, great character designs and stunning card battling.Graphics- 9/10: This game contains some new 3D graphics that were never shown in its predessors. The 3D graphics are a great welcome and even push the DS to its limits. The game also still contains its welcomed 2D grahics in character communication scenes and various other parts of the game.Sound- 8/10: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Stardust Accelerator: World Championship 2009 contains some nice catchy themes and tunes during duals and also when going through story mode. The themes suit very well when dualing and kind of give you a rythym during story mode.Gameplay- 10/10: When your rating a game based on card battling that is perfect in all different aspects including battle rules, battle mechanics, graphics and design it already gets a high score just for that, but this game goes way past just dualing, with the collection of cards, adventure features and maybe the highest of online features possible for a DS game.Replayability- 8/10: The replayability of story mode won't be too high, as playing the story again gives you no feel of accomplishment at all, though, this doesn't matter as the replayabilty of duels is the exact oppisite, as replaying duels against known characters of the anime is very enjoyable and worth replaying, and with great online features, you'll be playing Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Stardust Accelerator: World Championship 2009 for long amounts of hours.Total Score- 44/50: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Stardust Accelerator: World Championship 2009 is a brilliant game with features that will suit all types of gamers with all types of genres, including puzzles, card battling, anime character designs, RPG features, great online features and also a story mode. This game will brush you off your feet and make you wonder if you'll ever stop playing it. This game passes all aspects of gaming with flying colours, and highly recommeneded if your looking for a new and fresh addictive DS game.