Yu-Gi-Oh! DUEL LINKS

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Yu-Gi-Oh! DUEL LINKS is a free-to-play smartphone game of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. The game is set in the virtual world Duel Links, based off of the VR game of the same name featured in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions.

In the game, you can take the role of various Duelists from the franchise's history. While starting off small (you begin the game as either Yami Yugi or Seto Kaiba, your choice), you can expand your roster by progressing through the game. Level-up your characters to earn more powerful cards and learn various character-specific skills to spice up their Decks or buy more cards to build various different Decks, then take on the world through online matches.

Instead of the standard Duel format, the game used the simpler and more compact Speed Duel format, just like the 3DS game Saikyo Card Battle. While the game initially only focused on Duel Monsters characters, Duel Worlds for GX and 5D's were added on September 2017 and September 2018, respectively, while Zexal was added on September 29, 2020.

The game was released in November 2016 (Japan) and January 2017 (Worldwide). A PC port (through Steam) was released on November 2017.

Tropes used in Yu-Gi-Oh! DUEL LINKS include:


  • Accidental Hero: Tea claims she only came to watch and cheer on her allies, but the system registered her as a duelist. She catches on fast, though.
  • Adaptational Badass:
    • Carly (as in, regular, nerdy reporter Carly, not Dark Signer Carly) as an AI opponent can be far better than she was in the anime.
    • Other characters like Tristan and Scud (who were at best amateurs at the game in the anime) can be mediocre as opponents, but have the potential to be much better as playable characters.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • You can register cards as "Favorites" to easily find them during Deck construction.
    • When dueling computer-controlled opponents, you can instead use the Auto-Duel features to speed-up the duel. In a case where the Auto-Duel messed up, you can instantly stop it and take control of the Duel manually again.
    • From the Tag Duel Tournament 2 onward, you are able to control your partner in case of partner-related screw-ups.
    • When dueling Standard Duelists, you can choose to spend 3 charges of available duelists to get triple the reward, thus shortening farm time even further.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: Level 10 opponent's are supposed to be beginner-friendly, and thus has simpler AI that will definitely Summon their monsters in Attack Position regardless of your monster's ATK.
  • Awesome but Impractical:
    • One of Yugi's Skills, Grandpa's Cards, adds the five Exodia pieces at the start of the Duel. However, the cards are added into your already 20 cards Deck, bumping your Deck count to 25. Add in the fact that Speed Duel starts you up with only 4 hand and is generally more fast-paced than regular Duels, and the Deck becomes really hard to play.
    • The Winged Dragon of Ra is already this in the regular format. In the Speed Duel format, it plunges even deeper; firstly, 4000 starting LP means that you have less juice to pump into Ra when you Summon it. Secondly, the tighter Monster Zone limit of 3 made gathering Tributes for it even trickier. And finally, if you do get to Summon it, Spells/Traps that can instantly nuke it (like Widespread Ruin) can clean it up easily for your opponent. Even Yami Marik himself lampshades this, saying that he's gonna enjoy seeing you fail to use it.
      • Marik does have a Skill that makes it more useful called Power of the Tributed; if the player chooses this Skill and summons it while using Marik, its ATK and DEF each becomes the sum of the ATK and DEF of the Tributed monsters, respectively, giving it one of its effects from the anime.
    • The Paradox Brothers have a skill called "Elements Unite!" that lets you Special Summon Gate Guardian on your first turn should you use them. But in exchange for that, you have no opening hand. Good for leveling them early by dueling Level 20 AI opponents maybe, but not much more than that.
  • Bad Powers, Good People: As an opponent, the cards Bakura (as in, regular Bakura, not Yami Bakura) uses are Fiend Types that are mostly the same creepy ones Yami Bakura uses, with some even creepier additions like Curse Necrofear.
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: You can use real money to purchase things like Boosters, Structure Decks, and Gate Keys to speed up your progress.
  • Butt Monkey:
    • Joey Wheeler; whenever the game wants to show a non-Standard Duelist to humiliate, it's usually him. There's even a Stage mission to defeat him 3 consecutive times. Of course, to be fair, there are Stage Missions like that for most characters. Also, a lot of characters - including Kaiba, Tea, and Bandit Keith - are very embarrassed if they lose against Joey.
    • Bastion Misawa. Nearly left out in the GX World trailer? Check. Being the only Legendary Duelist without his own theme (or at least a shared Legendary theme) and instead got the Standard Duelist theme? Check. Even Logan and Zachary, probably the only ones who are explicitly his fans, always forgetting his name? Check.
  • Cast from Hit Points: LP cost from cards aside, certain Skills also require you to spend LP to use. Joey's Last Gamble is an example of this.
  • Cute Clumsy Girl: When the player summons Dark Magician Girl using Tea or any version of Yugi, she makes a dramatic entrance, only for the brim of her hat to fall over her eyes, forcing her to adjust it as she positions herself.
  • Cyberspace: The whole setting is a virtual reality world created by KaibaCorp.
  • A Day in the Limelight:
    • You can invoke this by playing otherwise minor characters such as Arkana or Mako Tsunami.
    • Rex Raptor actually got his own event, with the story being him looking for a new ace card because the Red-Eyes Black Dragon is more associated with Joey nowadays.
    • Bonz also got his own Halloween-themed event.
  • Defeating the Undefeatable: Due to the player being given freedom to play as pretty much anyone, you can create situations such as Weevil defeating Seto Kaiba or Mokuba defeating Yami Bakura.
  • Double Unlock: Unlocking a Legendary Duelist usually follows 2 steps. First, unlocking their Character Mission; sometimes you just need to reach certain Stage, other times it has specific requirements (e.g. Mako Tsunami would start his Character Mission after you Tribute Summoned 150 times). Then, you can finally unlock the Duelist as a playable character by completing their Character Mission.
  • Guide Dang It:
    • Before the addition of the Skill List, there's no way to know how you obtain a character's rarer Skills.
    • A Character Mission would only appear after you satisfy certain requirements, which would only appear once you complete it.
  • Hidden Villain: Axel is certain that Supreme King Jaden is the mastermind behind the D.D. Castle Assault events, but for a long time, the mastermind would flee before you reached the top floor. He finally appeared as an opponent in July 2021 event, where he was also unlockable as a playable character.
  • Insult to Rocks: If Joey duels Bandit Keith, Joey says, "I'd call ya a dirty rat, but I don't wanna insult da rats!"
  • Lighter and Softer:
    • Most of the storylines present are more akin to Duel Monsters-spiced Slice of Life episodes, such as Rex Raptor looking for a new ace card or the NPC recreation of Yami Bakura inviting all players to a game of Monster World, which is harmless this time (or is it?), showing how the characters interact when they're not dueling for the fate of the world.
    • Bonz also uses Ghostrick monsters (or at least gains them as level-up rewards), which are a lot goofier and sillier than most Zombies, although he himself warns not to underestimate them.
  • My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Many NPCs have cards that are not available to the player, although that can change with updates. For example, Mai uses Amazoness Village, Espa Roba uses Brain Control, Arkana uses Ectoplasmer, and Scud uses Cannon Soldier, all of these cards the player cannot acquire.
  • Ms. Exposition: Tour Guide from the Underworld is this for many events and mini-games, and is the opponent for the Duel Puzzles. Which makes sense, seeing as she's, well, a guide.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Mai, of course. Unlike the anime, the American version doesn't change her outfit with the short skirt and low-cut bustier.
  • Named by the Adaptation: In the Japanese version, Standard duelists are nameless with only assigned titles, while in the English version, they're given proper names (Kylie for example, is simply called "High-Tension Academia Student" in the Japanese version).
  • Never My Fault:
    • Bandit Keith would blame Kaiba for rigging the rules against him when he's first defeated.
    • One of Zachary's lose message is him blaming his cards for it.
  • Non Sequitur:
    • One of Aster Phoenix's quotes is "My Destiny HEROES are far superior to the Elemental HEROES!" even if neither player are using either HERO. Even funnier if Aster himself is using an Elemental HERO deck.
    • Several of Arkana's taunts mention the Dark Magician, which becomes this when the monster himself isn't present.
    • One of Zachary's starting quotes is "I'll show you why I'm an Obelisk Blue and you're not!", which might appear even if you're playing as an Obelisk Blue character, such as Alexis.
  • Rage Quit: This tends to happen a lot even though losing this way gains the quitter no credit for the duel and thus no reward. But no other punishment whatsoever.
  • Theiss Titillation Theory: Some monsters - like Dark Magician Girl and Fairy Cheer Girl - barely avoid Panty Shots in their summoning animation.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The game actually rewards you for winning by dealing more damage than you need to, and it is required for some missions.
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