Konami has announced the release date for Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection and more information on the games included in the package. The upcoming selection of nostalgic videogames from the initial era of the trading card franchise is coming to Nintendo Switch and PC through Steam on February 27, 2025.
Back to simple but chaotic times
As a celebration of the card game’s 25 years, Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection gathers multiple games from the initial stages of the series development. It’ll include over 10 titles originally released between 1998 and 2004. During those 6 years, we had classic games such as Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses and Yu-Gi-Oh! The Falsebound Kingdom, as well as multiple handheld titles.
Back in the day, there weren’t many of the current card archetypes, like Synchro and Pendulum, or the Rush Duel format, but the TCG rules weren’t well-established either. As a result, these games usually featured unique elements that players wouldn’t be able to pull off when playing the real game.
Related
How to Start Up, Stay Free-to-Play in Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel – 2024 Edition
Holding games to their free-to-play promises can often be hard, but that’s not so in Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel. It just takes a little bit of know-how.
So far, the list of games already confirmed for the collection is only composed by Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games. Some of them will have their first western release with this pack, as they were previously exclusive to Japanese territories.
The full list includes:
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, a Game Boy title released in 1998 only in Japan;
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters II: Dark Duel Stories, a Game Boy Color game released in 1999 only in Japan;
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters III: Tri-Holy God Advent, a Game Boy Color game released in the west as “Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories” in 2002;
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelist, a Game Boy Color game released only in Japan in 2000;
- Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters 6: Expert 2, a Game Boy Advance game released only in Japan in 2001;
- Yu-Gi-Oh! The Eternal Duelist Soul, a Game Boy Advance game released in the west in 2002;
- Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards, a Game Boy Advance game that came out in 2003 in the west;
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction, a Game Boy Advance title that came out in the west in 2004.
Besides gathering all these games in a single package, the new release will add a save/load feature to allow players to have a more convenient time. Quality of life improvements will also include the ability to change the background illustrations and to customize the button layout.
Besides gathering all these games in a single package, the new release will add a save/load feature to allow players to have a more convenient time.
Out of all the titles already revealed, Konami has confirmed online battles for Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelist. Other titles will also feature this support but it’ll not be available at launch, with their updates coming afterward. The company has yet to reveal which titles will have this feature.
Fans of the franchise will be able to get Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection in digital or physical formats. The retail edition will include a Harpie’s Feather Duster card of the Quarter Century Secret Rare variety, which was printed as a commemorative card for the 25 years of the trading card game. Pre-orders for the digital edition will open at a later time.
