History YMMV / YuGiOhReshefOfDestruction

* AntiClimaxBoss: Relatively speaking given the game's difficulty; Bandit Keith. A full third of his deck is made up of tribute monsters, and that rises to ''half'' his deck when you include his Spell cards that only work on one of his tribute monsters. And his non-tribute monsters are mostly Fiend-attribute save for the Fire-attribute Blast Sphere, so a couple of Light monsters can quash them. All in all he's not too much tougher than most of the Ghouls you faced before getting to him. And for the ultimate insult, if he manages to summon [[spoiler:The Winged Dragon of Ra]] against you, laugh at him as you witness it's 0/0 stats since [[spoiler:he doesn't know how to release its Battle Mode.]]

** Shimon Muran. He runs monsters with upwards of 1600 points in most every attribute in the game, making it impossible to reliably counter him via ElementalRockPaperScissors. Further, he has several tribute monsters that are Divine-attribute, completely immune to that strategy anyway. And most surprisingly difficult is that Shimon only runs three Spell and Trap cards, unlike other duelists up to that point. This unfortunately means his deck is almost entirely composed of monster cards, hence he'll be able to summon those high-powered monsters every single turn with no let-up.

** Marik. {{Justified|Trope}} as he's protecting the power of Ra, though. Making this worse is he's a ''required'' boss.
** Mako Tsunami is up there, too, especially in the rematch.
** God help you if Weevil Underwood summons the Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth. The guy is tricky enough with his traps and effect monsters as is, but [[OhCrap if he summons]] ''[[LightningBruiser that]]'' [[CurbstompBattle juggernaut]]...
** Every duelist in the game can qualify as this considering the horrible cards you start the game with, the low amounts of Deck Capacity you will be getting, and the ability for the computer to topdeck their best cards.
** Sol Chevalsky can take out your Egyptian God Cards with his Red Archery Girl's effect, which lowers their attack and defense points and ''immobilizes'' your cards. He can also use Relinquished and Thousand-Eyes Restrict to steal your non-Egyptian God monsters, with Thousand-Eyes Restrict increasing their stats by 1000 points. He also has 20,000 LP and a Toon Summoned Skull, which only needs one tribute and it gains a field power bonus.
** Reshef. 40,000 LP, all three God Cards (despite the fact that YOU have all of them), regenerating LP cards, enough traps and spells to inhibit your attacks, and he comes immediately after another battle. You can have a hard time beating him using ACTION REPLAY.
** Odion is somewhere on this spectrum as well, although you ''can'' skip him and go straight for Marik instead. At the very least, he's a WakeUpCallBoss, and you had ''better'' be prepared if you're confident/foolish enough to try to beat him and Marik back-to-back.
** ''Arkana''. With non-tribute monsters beefed up to over 1800 Attack with the Yami field and varied types of monsters, your only prayer for survival is to change the field type or get lucky with Final Destiny. Even then, it's an uphill battle.
** Mai Valentine, especially in the rematch where all her monsters get a bonus from the Mountain field.

* ContestedSequel: Given that ''Sacred Cards'' was very easy, some consider ''Reshef's'' intense difficulty spike to be an improvement, others cite it as FakeDifficulty by way of TheComputerIsACheatingBastard. The card pool is larger and the gameplay more complex than ''Sacred Cards'', which allows for more intricate strategies while still capturing some EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, but the changes are also the source of the game's main {{Scrappy Mechanic}}s. The story, too, tends to drive a wedge through people, with some naming it BetterThanCanon for taking advantage of the universe of the series and featuring some neat twists and turns, and others labeling it a bad fanfic that crowbars every character it can think of into the plot for no reason.

** Castle of Dark Illusions constantly turns your monsters face-down, acting as a ''continuous'' version of Darkness Approaches. It also constantly turns the field into the Yami field which conveniently gives it a 30% power boost. However, its absurd deck cost makes it unlikely for a player to even run it until postgame, unless they somehow gain control of an opponent's copy.

** The Paradox boss rush has you winning cards from the Millennium Guardians you defeat as well as specific cards afterwards, meaning you can keep defeating the first Guardian to get a ton of Kuribohs to wager on duels.

** Besides all the computer cheating and loading, you'll only recognize the game's ElementalRockPaperScissors system when your opponent kills that Blue-Eyes of yours with a Wretched Ghost of the Attic.
** You're forbidden from selling a card unless you have at least two copies of it in your card trunk. While this was ostensibly done to try and stop UnwinnableByInsanity scenarios where the player has no cards to ante and no money to buy more, in practice it'll often mean you win high-level cards you won't be able to use for a long while and may not even want to use anyway, and you have to let them sit in your trunk forever instead of being allowed to sell them to buy other cards.

** Dark Flare Knight can similarly be discarded from the hand to immediately summon Mirage Knight to the field, a 2800/2000 monster that normally needs two tributes. Mirage Knight then splits into a Dark Magician and a Flame Swordsman on the opponent's next turn, giving you two powerful beatsticks. Provided you can afford it in terms of money and deck capacity, there is no reason to not run three Dark Flare Knights in most any deck you may end up building.

* ScrappyMechanic: Besides all the computer cheating and loading, you'll only recognize the game's ElementalRockPaperScissors system when your opponent kills that Blue-Eyes of yours with a Wretched Ghost of the Attic.
* ThatOneAttack: That One ''Trap'', Torrential Tribute, which ''destroys all non-Egyptian God monsters on the attacking side''. Late-game duelists have ''three of them''.

* HilariousInHindsight: When Tristan is turned into a robot monkey again, Mokuba mentions that [=KaibaCorp=] had once manufactured robot monkeys that could duel, but they didn't sell well. Not long after this game's release, ''GX'' introduced a cybernetic monkey created by [=KaibaCorp=] that knew how to duel.

** Mai Valentine, especially in the rematch.

** The Kaibaland plot, though it overlaps with a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stY-qpK6Ips Pegasus's awakening]] starts out tense and quickly turns sad.

* EvilIsCool: Pegasus, who sports a ponytail and a golden eyepatch.

* GameBreaker: The Winged Dragon of Ra's Phoenix Mode can be discarded in the hand to immediately appear on the field in Battle Mode, negating the need for three tributes. [[note]]It doesn't necessarily guarantee a win, though, if your opponent can lower its Attack/Defense Points with Effect Cards or Umi.[[/note]]

* BrokenBase:
** ContestedSequel: Given that ''Sacred Cards'' was very easy, some consider ''Reshef's'' intense difficulty spike to be an improvement, others cite it as FakeDifficulty by way of TheComputerIsACheatingBastard. The card pool is larger and the gameplay more complex than ''Sacred Cards'', which allows for more intricate strategies while still capturing some EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, but the changes are also the source of the game's main {{Scrappy Mechanic}}s. The story, too, tends to drive a wedge through people, with some naming it BetterThanCanon for taking advantage of the universe of the series and featuring some neat twists and turns, and others labeling it a bad fanfic that crowbars every character it can think of into the plot for no reason.
** EvenBetterSequel: The other side of the players loves this game because you spend much more time to play through, having an interesting story and this game allows you to play all three Egyptian Gods unlike the previous game.

** The music [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqckLrB92Ts when dueling a high-ranked Ghoul]].

** Another optional moment where Téa gets hit on by a rock star and the penguin-themed member of the Big Five. This is because of a fortune-teller saying she'd have bad luck with men.

* FridgeBrilliance:
** The reason the Millennium Puzzle went missing, and why it's broken later on, is because normally [[DeusExitMachina Yami Yugi would win all the duels instead of the player]].
** Another example: Why does [[{{Jerkass}} Weevil]] show a [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold hidden heart of gold]] and act somewhat nicer to the player? Because the player isn't Yugi/Yami Yugi. Therefore, Weevil holds no grudge against the player for anything like Duelist Kingdom and does not even lose to him in a tournament, averting a great deal of [[BerserkButton humiliation]]. Plus, unlike the [[AntiHero Pharaoh]], the player does not ([[HeroicMime apparently]]) [[BerserkButton laugh at Weevil]]. Thus, we see his [[HeartwarmingMoments nicer side]].

* GameBreaker: The Winged Dragon of Ra's Phoenix Mode can be discarded in the hand to immediately appear on the field in Battle Mode, negating the need for three tributes. [[note]]It doesn't necessarily guarantee a win, though, if your opponent can lower its Attack/Defense Points with Effect Cards.[[/note]]
* NightmareFuel: The Chevaliers, green lizard-like creatures with Pegasus's original hair. [[ParanoiaFuel They ambush you in a locked, otherwise empty cable car]].

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The Kaibaland plot, though it overlaps with a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.

* FridgeBrilliance: The reason the Millennium Puzzle went missing, and why it's broken later on, is because normally [[DeusExitMachina Yami Yugi would win all the duels instead of the player]].

* ThatOneBoss: Marik. {{Justified|Trope}} as he's protecting the power of Ra, though. Making this worse is he's a ''required'' boss.

** Sol Chevalsky can take out your Egyptian God Cards with his Red Archery Girl's effect, which lowers their attack and defense points and ''immobilizes'' your cards. He can also use Relinquished and Thousand-Eyes Restrict to steal your non-Egyptian God monsters, with Thousand-Eyes Restrict increasing their stats by 1000 points.

** Another optional moment where Tea gets hit on by a rock star and the penguin-themed member of the Big Five. This is because of a fortune-teller saying she'd have bad luck with men.

** EvenBetterSequel: The other side of the game loves this game because you spend much more time to play through, having an interesting story and this game allows you to play all three Egyptian Gods unlike the previous game.

** Sol Chevalasky can take out your Egyptian God Cards with his Red Archery Girl's effect, which lowers their attack and defense points and ''immobilizes'' your cards. He can also use Relinquished and Thousand-Eyes Restrict to steal your non-Egyptian God monsters, with Thousand-Eyes Restrict increasing their stats by 1000 points.

** Sol Chevalaky can take out your Egyptian God Cards with his Red Archery Girl's effect, which lowers their attack and defense points and ''immobilizes'' your cards. He can also use Relinquished and Thousand-Eyes Restrict to steal your non-Egyptian God monsters, with Thousand-Eyes Restrict increasing their stats by 1000 points.

** Sol Chevalaky can take out your Egyptian God Cards with his Red Archery Girl's effect, which lowers their attack and defense points and ''immobilizes'' your cards.