History VideoGame / YuGiOhTheSacredCards

** The weaker Tribute monsters for much of the game, since they may only have 1800 ATK for one Tribute, but your normal monsters at best have 900.

* ForWantOfANail: With the player character taking over a bulk of the main plot, certain events end up playing out differently than they did in the manga and anime. Most notably...
** The death-duel between the mind-controlled Joey and Yugi has Yugi outright losing, forcing the player to jump in and save him before dueling Joey themselves.
** [[spoiler:Joey ends up in Mai's shoes during the tournament finals, while Mai duels Kaiba and loses, but is otherwise fine. Kaiba ends up joining Joey shortly after when he duels Yami Marik in the semi-finals, since the player duels the Pharaoh in the semi-finals instead.]]
** [[spoiler:Kaiba doesn't get Obelisk before the start of the tournament, and instead the player character gets it for beating him in a duel while the tournament is already running.]] This further leads to the player character willingly giving the God Cards to Ishizu in the end, since Kaiba can't pull a ScrewDestiny to duel her for them.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Granted, it's because the player has the option of [[VideoGameCaringPotential being nice to some jerks from the manga]] and doesn't have the same baggage Yugi/Joey would have with the characters. Bonez, Rex Raptor, and even Bandit Keith will admit to supporting the protagonist to make it to the finals if the player is nice to them.

* ChewToy: Joey. He gets his butt kicked most of the time, all of the strong opponents he faced in the canon story are facing the player instead, meaning there's no way to gauge Joey's growth as a duelist other than the fact that he made it to the finals. He gets kidnapped and brainwashed by Marik, succeeds in Yugi getting pulled into the sea, and then he gets defeated by the player. In the finals, Joey gets defeated by Yami Marik in the first round of the finals and falls into a coma a la Mai Valentine.

** Interestingly averted in the first release of the game - the game didn't replace some of the cards with censored artworks, so the original artwork for cards like Monster Reborn, Exodia and his limbs, and Spellbinding Circle could be seen. The two-in-one game cartridge which bundled this game with its sequel fixed it.

** [[spoiler:Kaiba doesn't get Obelisk before the start of the tournament, and instead the player character gets it for beating him in a duel while the tournament is already running.]] This further leads to the player character willingly giving the God Cards to Ishizu in the end, since Kaiba can't pull a ScrewDestiny to duel her for them.]]

** Joey [[spoiler: ends up in Mai's shoes during the tournament finals, while Mai duels Kaiba and loses, but is otherwise fine. Kaiba ends up joining Joey shortly after when he duels Yami Marik in the finals, since the player duels the Pharaoh in the finals instead.]]
** Kaiba [[spoiler: doesn't get Obelisk, and instead the player character gets it for beating him in a duel.]] This further leads to [[spoiler: the player character willingly giving the God cards to Ishizu in the end, since Kaiba can't pull a ScrewDestiny to duel her for them.]]

** The Egyptian God Cards. Once they're on the field, you have essentially won, but once you're doing well enough to have enough tributes to summon them, you could probably have won without them.
** Ritual Monsters in this game. You need a certain monster, two other monsters, and the appropriate spell card. That's four cards, two of which have to be played together. If you get them out, the balance quickly shifts into your favor since ElementalRockPaperScissors can't kill a Ritual monster as they are all Divine-class and most of them have a lot of attack points.

* BoringYetPractical: The weaker Tribute monsters for much of the game, since they may only have 1800 ATK for one Tribute, but your normal monsters at best have 900.

* EleventhHourSuperpower: You get Obelisk the Tormentor shortly before the finals and Saint Dragon of Osiris immediately before the FinalBoss.

** The real point of the Egyptian God Cards is their 0 cost, which allows you to use stronger cards to compensate. Many other 0 cost cards exists, but Infinite Dismissal and the God Cards are the only ones with solid all around usage.

The game uses unique rules only vaguely similar to the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG, implementing the early manga and anime's field power bonuses and unique monster effects. The most major difference is the addition of ElementalRockPaperScissors, in which a monster whose type is strong against another's can kill it regardless of ATK/DEF points. For example, a Dark monster of 300 ATK can kill a Light monster of 3,000 ATK, but does no damage to the opponent's Life Points.

** Jonouchi/Joey, too, since you defeat all of the players that he dueled in the manga/anime.

* SelfInsertFic: The easiest way to sum up the plot is that the player character combines the roles Yugi and Jonouchi played in the manga/anime during the Battle City Tournament arc, with Yugi and Jonouchi themselves basically reduced to supporting characters.

* FullNameBasis: Whenever Marik is referred to or addressed by name in this game it's always as "Marik Ishtar".

* Anti-Climatic Boss: Yami Yugi. He isn’t that hard, as a lot of his strong tribute monsters tend to clog his hand often.

* Anti-Climax Boss: Yami Yugi. He isn’t that hard, as a lot of his strong tribute monsters tend to clog his hand often.

The game uses unique rules only vaguely similar to the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG. It is based on the prototype rules that were originally considered when the card game was first adapted from the manga. The most major difference is the addition of ElementalRockPaperScissors, in which a monster whose type is strong against another's can kill it regardless of ATK/DEF points. For example, a Dark monster of 300 ATK can kill a Light monster of 3,000 ATK, but does no damage to the opponent's Life Points.

The game uses unique rules only vaguely similar to the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG. It is based on the prototype rules that were being considered when the card game was being adapted from the manga. The most major difference is the addition of ElementalRockPaperScissors, in which a monster whose type is strong against another's can kill it regardless of ATK/DEF points. For example, a Dark monster of 300 ATK can kill a Light monster of 3,000 ATK, but does no damage to the opponent's Life Points.

The game uses unique rules only vaguely similar to the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG. The most major difference is the addition of ElementalRockPaperScissors, in which a monster whose type is strong against another's can kill it regardless of ATK/DEF points. For example, a Dark monster of 300 ATK can kill a Light monster of 3,000 ATK, but does no damage to the opponent's Life Points.

* AdaptationInducedPlotHole: In the manga/anime, Yugi gets Slifer by defeating Strings. In this game, the player is the one who duels Strings. You don't get Slifer from your victory over Strings, and Strings is never heard from again. During the finals, Yugi's deck has Slifer. How on Earth did he get that card if he never dueled Strings?

** The death-duel between the mind-controlled Joey and Yugi has Joey outright winning, forcing the player to jump in and save him before dueling Joey themselves.