Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Wheelie Breakers is a Racing Game Spin-Off of the Yu-Gi-Oh! series based on the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds anime. It was released for the Nintendo Wii in 2009 alongside the Nintendo DS game Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2009: Stardust Accelerator.
The game focuses on a new highly competitive sport called Wheelie Breakers, a derivative of the thrilling Turbo Duels taking Neo Domino City by storm. Wheelie Breakers puts more emphasis on the action aspect of Turbo Duels by challenging racers to cross the finish line before their opponents rather than participating in a traditional duel, with the added ability to use the power of Duel Monsters cards and abilities to enhance their game and out-race out the competition.
You take up the role of a customizable Player Character, a youth from Satellite and friend of Rally. When news of Wheelie Breakers trickles down from Neo Domino all the way to Satellite, the player, enamored by the prospect of hitting the big time and becoming the greatest Wheelie Breaker in the world, builds their own D-Wheel out of scrap to compete in the upcoming Wheelie Breakers tournament. With nothing in their way and nothing to lose, the player races their way through the ranks of Satellite and Neo Domino in order to compete in the Wheelie Breakers tournament: the Wheelie Breakers Championship (WBC).
This game contains examples of the following tropes:
- Awesome, but Impractical: Big beater Synchro Monsters like "Stardust Dragon" tend to cost a large chunk of DP to summon and attack with. They tend to hit hard and have good effects, but good luck keeping them alive long enough to actually destroy any opposing monsters. Tuner Monsters seem to be explicitly designed to alleviate the cost of bringing out the Synchro boss monsters, but you then have to worry about keeping the Tuner alive long enough for its effect to be of use.
- The Big Race: The goal of the story is to win the WGC, the tournament for Wheelie Breakers.
- Boring, but Practical:
- "Headlong Rush" gives the player a Nitro Boost for a few seconds. It's one of the simplest effects in the game but can win races due to the instant burst of speed it gives you being able to easily overtake other racers. Similarly, "Level Down?!" is also a relatively good card despite being in your starter deck since it slows down all of the players ahead of you.
- "Sonic Chick" can't be damaged by monsters with ATK 1900 or higher. It has pitiful stats otherwise, but having this monster out safeguards you against most attacks from the opponents' boss monsters. This means that you can then ignore the card battle part of the game's mechanics and play this as a standard racing game.
- Card Battle Game: Sort of, in the sense that has rather little to do with real Yu-Gi-Oh!. Each player enters a race with a deck of 15 cards, which effectively serve as Power Ups like in Mario Kart. Monsters can be used to attack other players and serve as defense from other monsters, Spells have immediate effects on the field or other players, and you can set up to 3 Trap Cards that activate under certain conditions. You draw 1 card from your deck at the start of each lap or when passing through a card on the track, and you can have up to 6 cards in your hand at a time. If your deck runs out of cards, you cannot use more abilities until the end of the race.
- Design-It-Yourself Equipment: The game features a basic level of customization for D-Wheels. You can pick the name and color of your custom D-Wheel; in addition, all D-Wheels have a varying number of card slots that you can scan Duel Monsters cards into. Each scanned card provides a boost to a different stat: Monsters increase Top Speed, Spells increase Acceleration, and Traps increase Maneuverability.
- Excuse Plot: The plot is basically non-existent after the introductory cutscene. It's basically a Tournament Arc where you fight several characters from the anime and then beat either Jack or Yusei in a race, upon which you get an A Winner Is You ending. The only semblance of a plot happening is some extremely vague scenes of Rex Goodwin making ominous statements about wanting to use the player's power. This aspect is at least partially justified by the fact that the game is based on the first season of the 5D's anime and thus there was very little story content to work with.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The player's name can be customized. You can also customize the name of your D-Wheel.
- Homing Projectile: Most of the bigger monsters will shoot much larger explosive energy blasts that follow the course and will generally attempt to hit the first possible opponent if available. Their size makes them frustratingly hard to dodge unless you have very lucky placement, which can make keeping monsters on the field quite the challenge.
- Life Meter:
- Each player starts with 4000 Life Points at the start of the race. LP can be depleted by taking a Direct Attack from a monster, although some cards can also increase LP. When LP hits 0, the player spins out and is stunned for a short period of time, after which their LP refills back to 4000 and allows them to start moving again.
- Monsters have a health gauge under their stats based on their DEF. When the player is attacked by an opposing monster, the monster loses health in place of the player. When a monster's health reaches 0, that monster is destroyed.
- Magikarp Power: The player's custom D-Wheel starts out pretty pitiful, with the 2nd lowest base stats in the game and only 1 card slot. Progressing through the Story Mode for the first time permanently upgrades it in subsequent chapters, and by the end of the game it gets a whopping 5 card slots and stats that rival Yusei's D-Wheel and the Wheel of Fortune.
- No-Sell: "Sonic Chick" is immune to damage from monster attacks that have 1900 ATK or higher.
- Old Save Bonus: The game features connectivity with its sister game, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2009: Stardust Accelerator. Linking the games for the first time unlocks "Dark Resonator" in the shop and gives you a paltry 10 BP. Linking the games a second time grants 5000 BP and unlocks "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" for purchase in the shop.
- Rubber-Band A.I.: The CPU opponents are extremely guilty of being able to inexplicably catch up with you if you are in the lead for an extended period of time. The only way to keep them from doing so is to stunlock them with attacks to keep their LP down and stop their approach.
- A Winner Is You: The ending of Story Mode is an image of all of the characters that appeared in the story celebrating with a trophy, alongside the words "Story Mode Completed".
