Robotic and devoid of personality, which is good and bad
I think there should be a new genre for games: Garage games. The sole focus of these games is to get stuff, run them through a couple of tests, get more stuff, do more tests, rinse and repeat. In addition, these games tend to avoid any sort of storytelling, causing players to worry more about the game flow and process than anything else.
Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2004 (I'll call it YGO WC04 for conveniency) is a Garage game through and through. There's absolutely nothing to do except for dueling and collecting cards. And although the card game is based off of a franchise, the game does very little to remind the audience of its sources; The cartoon characters like Yugi, Kaiba and Joey are simply wasted potential in the game. All in all, the game is a very bland package that is only catered to those who enjoy the card game and, to a lesser extent, fans of the anime.
The modes can all be summarized in a very short menu screen:
-Campaign: A substitute for the word "Duel". Here you duel against computer opponent's who are based off of certain characters from the manga.
-Edit deck: Pretty self explanatory
-Link duel: Duel with a human opponent through the cable connection
-Options: This allows you to change the language or trade with human players via the connection cable.
That's it.
Although the list of options is pretty thin, the dueling itself is pretty good. The AI opponents are mostly competent (although they sometimes do something crazy like replace their strong monster with a weaker one for no reason). There's also the option to speed up the duel by holding down the L button, which is a nice feature. The opponents, while showing a complete lack of personality (since the only thing you can see are their mug shots, really mimic their characters well. Yugi has the Dark Magician, Kaiba the Blue Eyes White Dragons, Joey the Red Eyes Black Dragon and so on. Even the Ghouls are pretty well enacted since they ignore the card limit rules, and they are one of the hardest duelists to face since their decks are very loaded with good cards. After winning in a duel, you get a booster pack of 5 cards, and more booster packs are unlocked as the game moves along.
Another strong point of the game is the presentation. The visual style is very cyber-oriented and futuristic-looking, as if the whole game is part of a virtual reality. Of course, the card art is also available. The soundtrack is comprised of many minimalistic pieces, and while some can't fit the mood of a duel they are pretty cool to listen to in their own right.
However, like I said earlier, the game does nothing to take advantage of the anime. The dueling only comprises the movement of cards from different portions of the field. As for the characters, you might as well be dueling a cardboard cutout of their visages because they do NOTHING besides duel. There's nothing like "Ha ha I win" or "Oh shoot I lost" lines or anything. They show no emotion; they just duel. In contrast to the high stress contests we see from the anime that's disappointing.
YGO WC04 is a game solely for the duelists out there who want to have a blast from the past since there are now many more World Championship games today. However, keep in mind that it's a dueling experience only, since there might as well be no references to the anime and it'll make no difference.
Breakdown
Gameplay: 3/5
The dueling is exactly as you expected. No curveballs or the like; it's straight up dueling. However the lack of variety (I could suggest duels where you only use certain cards, or best-of-3 duels that involve side decks) is jarring, hence making the package bland
Presentation: 3.5/5
Really like the cyber-style visual aesthetics and the soundtrack, although some songs don't really belong.
Favorite soundtracks:
-When dueling against Ghouls
(it's creepy and it fits)
-Dueling against Yami Yugi and the Tier 6 duelists
(it's grand and majestic, and it should be since you are indeed going toe to toe against the best duelists in the game).
Bonuses, Alternatives, Replay Value (BARs)
Well there's the link duel and trading cards with other human players. But there's really nothing special. The only real replay value that you get is through beating all the duelists and getting all the cards. If that's your thing then good for you
Overall: 9.5/15 (about 3.17 stars, round it out to 3 stars)
The good dueling wastes its potential by adding virtually no personality, flavor, or variety into the game (save for the duelists' different decks). This is for people who have a fondness of the TCG, and if you like the anime then this game is OK for you but be prepared to be upset by the lack of references to the anime characters you know and love.