As I sit down and finish (read: start) my summer homework for AP European History, which mainly consists of outlining, I come across the Wars of the Roses. For those of you who do not know, following the great Hundred Years War in Europe between England and France, the House of York and the House of Lancaster, two rival branches of the English royal family, fought each other for royal supremacy. This duel was called the Wars of the Roses because, allegedly, the symbol of the House of York was a White Rose, and the symbol of the Lancasters was a Red Rose.

To summarize, Edward IV, son of the Duke of York, seized power of the Lancastirian monarchy and instituted a rule for over 20 years. His son was overthrown by Ed's brother, Richard III, and after Richard III died, the Tudor dynasty, of Lancastirian heritage, painted Richard as the bad guy, allowing Henry Tudor (Henry VII, not the guy in the show, Henry VIII) to eventually claim the throne. Oh yeah, there were several battles in-between (my book really doesn't go into that, strangely enough.)

Sadly, this reminded me of something else entirely.

I never actually owned this game. My friend did. However, he set a file up for me, and whenever I went to his house, we played this game.

The game is incredibly interesting, because you can side with the Yorkists (led by Seto Kaiba as Christian "Seto" Rosenkruez, who, by the way, has nothing to do with the Yorks) or Yugi Muto as Henry "Yugi" Tudor. Yes, you read that right. He's tired of being called Henry Tudor, so Yugi is an acceptable alternative.

At the outset of the game (keep in mind, this is a recreation of 9 year old memories plus Wikipedia), you get to choose to side with the Yorkists or with the Tudors. The goal of the game is incredibly simple; you duel several Duelists of the opposite Rose. If you side with Yugi, take down Seto's goons, or vice-versa. Typically, these are characters re-imagined from the show into several historical persons, or are just... themselves (Bakura is named... Bakura!). Some of these people are not actually from the Wars of the Roses, like Seto's character, but they are fairly old European people, so I guess that makes it OK?

The combat was what was different. It wasn't hard, but kinda weird. It's more like a strategy RPG in the sense that you move around a set field comprised of units and you attack monsters or give them boosts. Each character has a deck leader, not too unlike the one used in the 3rd season of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime. Your deck leader actually represents your life points, and attacking it continuously will cost you the duel. Or win you it.

Terrain is also an element of the gameplay, also functioning similar to field spells, giving set bonuses to set types of monsters. It also results in the wonky labyrinth or the broken Crush setting.

This was such a weird game. But a fun one. Taking historical figures and adapting them, even loosely, is a pretty interesting concept, and I love it when games do such a thing. I may never play this game again (the friend and I aren't on good terms anymore). But even still, this game was fun because it was different, and as I continue outlining for Euro, I smile.

Then my right hand hurts because I have 20 more pages to outline.

@tutuboy95 said:

(Bakura is named... Bakura!)

He's already British enough.

@Video_Game_King: Oh yes, of course! I forgot about 4Kids interpretation of him. How silly of me. ^_^

And I just remembered that @Ryan reviewed this thing:

@Video_Game_King: Hahaha, that's pretty accurate. I still love playing Yu-Gi-Oh! though, despite its common mediocrity in several areas when it comes to the games.