Wheelie Breakers Review: Riding Duel, ACCELERATION!

100th Post!

Today, since I'm busy, this post will be in English only.
今日のブログは英語だけ。忙しいから

Today's Post is Wheelie Breakers Review. We will be looking at: Story, Graphics, Sounds, Multiplayer, Difficulty Curve, Replayability, Gameplay mechanics, and Included cards.


Introduction:
Most of the people considering this game are either: Players of Yugioh TCG/OCG, or fans of the Anime. Either way, you’re probably wondering just how hard it is to play children's card games and ride a motorbike at the same time. I'm here to tell you that it isn’t quite so.

Story:
The storyline for the game is relatively simple. You play as a person from the Satellite, and the story is set during the time Yuusei is trying to beat Jack and the time leading up to it. While people in satellite are forbidden from becoming Riding Duelists, hence the storyline involving jail and all sorts of run-ins with the authorities during the 5Ds/Stardust Accelerator storyline, there is a similar form of dueling involving D-Wheels, Wheelie Breakers. These games are considered similar enough for duelists good in one are considered good in the other, and many riding duelists play Wheelie Breakers.
In Wheelie Breakers, more emphasis is put on the Riding part than Dueling. The main difference between these two games is: 1: It is mostly virtual, and 2: Satellite residents may duel.
There are two story lines in Wheelie Breakers, the storyline you first play is determined by your game, supposedly, but after you play the storyline, you switch to the other.

In the first storyline, the main objective of the game is to meet up with Yuusei, whom is in Neo Domino City, by getting to the finals of the Wheelie Breakers Championship.
The game starts with you acquiring a Virtual Terminal, through which you can join the Wheelie Breakers Championship qualifiers/actual Championship (This is how little kids ride death traps). During this storyline, only 3 Duels happen outside of the Virtual world.
Basically, you succeed in acquiring the terminal, manage to destroy everyone in your path, and make it, and manage to make it to the finals, where you duel and beat Yuusei, becoming the Wheelie breakers champion(Yuusei is still the "king" of Riding Duels), and the epilogue involves Godwin planning to make you one of his pawns.

The second storyline starts with you already having the Virtual terminal, you destroying everyone in your path (again), and then dueling Jack, after becoming the champion, who you manage to beat, making you the Wheelie Breakers "King", and the epilogue involves Godwin planning to make you one of his pawns, again.

While simple, this storyline allows for the flow of duels from one to another. It’s not breaking any things that happened in the Anime, unlike Stardust Accelerator, and doesn’t support outright crime, unlike the anime and stardust accelerator, other than proving you didn’t steal the virtual terminal to the police. All in all, it’s a decent story that you don’t really need to follow to play the game.

Final Score: 6/10.
Final thoughts: Decent story. Only the bare minimum needed for a game like this, but acceptable.

Graphics:

Graphics for this game are, for a Wii game, not that bad.
While there are Wii games with beautiful graphics, namely: Smash Bros, Legend of Zelda, this game isn’t one of them. That being said, it has nice quality graphics, with clothing actually moving in the wind and not moving while YOU are not moving, and decent quality detail for bikes/clothing. For example, Jack's belt has the big A, and his necklace is separate from his body.
For monsters, the summoning and attacking are relatively accurate, and detail is placed. Examples include:
Junk warrior's spikes on his fist
Thorns on Black Rose Dragon's tendril-things
For the summoning of monsters, it’s actually well done. If you syncro-summon, it shows the rings and stars, etc. Normal summoning is similar to the anime
While I don’t see any problems with the graphics quality, there's nothing that’s really spectacular about it.

Final Score: 7/10
Final Comments: While good for a Wii game, they’re not the best.

Sound
Sound in this game is really nice. Voice acting uses the same voice actors as the anime, so if you recognize any characters, they're the same, and that makes them quite good.
At least you know when someone uses a trap on you, because you can hear the "Torappu kaaodo hatsudou!"

For music, there are only about 10 tracks for the game, but they're pretty decent. All the tunes fit the "racing" aspect of the game well, but 10 tracks are a bit unfulfilling.

Final Score: 7/10

Multiplayer:

This game has pretty fun multiplayer. Like all racing games.
However, honestly speaking, it’s not a party game. Unless you know what most cards do, you'll probably be smashing into walls while trying to find out how to attack.
But if you know how to play, it’s pretty fun.
Another problem is the card balance. There's no way a person with a starter deck and a starter d-wheel beating a person that’s played a lot.

Final Score: 6.5/10

Difficulty Curve

Wheelie Breakers is, honestly speaking, HARD for beginners.
You know how in the anime, they have auto-pilot while dueling? In wheelie Breakers, there isn't. YOU drive the death-trap, and duel at the same time.
In the game, turning is very difficult. In many games, there are the smooth turns on the stage itself, but Wheelie Breakers isn’t that kind. The only D-Wheel you use in the storyline has atrocious turning, and so do most other D-Wheels.

Another note on difficulty: On stage 4, when you duel Ushio, it’s near impossible to beat him because his D-Wheel has that much better specs. It’s near impossible for the 1st try.
And even more difficult: Yuusei and Jack.
You duel them where your best card gives you Turbo level 1 for a few seconds.
They use cards that give you no cost Turbo level 3 for the same amount of time, and immortality. It takes several tries to beat them just once.
Jack uses Attack 3000 double hitting hand destroying monsters (Red Demons Dragon).
While you get to use Road Runner. See the gap in power?

Try going from switching you monster to def position to activating mirror force, turning a 180 degrees turn, while flipping your D-Wheel to face backwards, all in the split second between declare attack and launch attack. That’s how hard it is.

Final Score: 5/10

Replayability

Wheelie Breakers really shines in the replayability section.
Unlocking cards takes a lot of time. You have to win all 4 "cups", each consisting of about 5 races each. Additionally, every time you beat someone in story mode, depending on which time you beat them, you unlock one of their cards.
Example: 1st time Yuusei: Stardust Dragon, 2nd time Yuusei: Magic Cylinder. You get a new card in the card store every time you beat someone.
That means you have to race. A Lot, to get all the cards.

Most races are challenging, especially the Jack/Yuusei ones, so it shouldn't be boring very fast, and should give a good amount of entertainment.

Final Score: 8.5/10

Gameplay Mechanics

Like I mentioned before, Wheelie Breakers puts emphasis on your driving AND dueling skills. This game requires you to multi-task. A LOT.

The nun chuck-controls let you control the cards with your D-Pad and Wii-mote, and Accelerate/Brake/Turn with the nun chuck. That’s not all. You have to spin around to attack, still control you’re D-Wheel, with your turning reversed while going backwards, and swap to reversing instead of accelerating while going backwards. Viewing what’s behind you completely shuts off what you’re looking at ahead of you.

For dueling, it’s quite different. It says it’s Yugioh on the box, but the only thing that’s similar is the cards, and the card types. They’re still trap/spell/monster cards, but the rules are completely different.
Spell cards are only activated from your hand. You cannot set spells. Some spells take up speed counters.
You can only have 1 monster summoned at a time. Summoning and attacking uses up speed counters. Monsters have life, which is an element not present in the card game.
Traps are the most similar. While most of the rulings/text has changed, they work exactly the same. You set them, and use them on specific timing.

There are many changes to the game of Yugioh itself, so it’s not quite Yugioh on motorbikes.

And you have the regular racing game elements of turning and drifting and knocking enemies off cliffs...

All in all, the controls are well designed, and game play is rather fun once you grasp what your doing.

The D-Wheel customization is not so good. By scanning cards, you can spec your d-wheel to have more top speed, turning, or acceleration. That being said, acceleration and turning don’t really seem to change how your D-Wheel handles much.

Final Score: 9/10
Final Comments: I hope they make a Wheelie Breakers 2, with more characters and more cards, as the game play itself is rather enjoyable.

Included Cards:

Promo + Bad Card = Waste of time. end of Story

Final Score: 1/10
Final Comments: Infernity > This set.

Final Verdict(Stop here if your just skimming)

Final Score: 7/10

Rauzes's verdict: This game is good, and worth your money, but shelling out 60 USD for this game is a rip-off. Buy EITHER: Wheelie Breakers Second hand(If you see it for under 30 USD, grab it), or Mario Kart Wii.

Its a difficult game, but enjoyable once you get the hang of it, but be prepared to race 70+ Times against Yuusei/Jack if you want good cards.

Rauzes's advice to new players: ALWAYS spec your D-Wheel to maximum top speed. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. That and just focus on the racing part VS Jack and Yuusei. Using the summoning animation to turn hard turns is another tactic. Also, don't hesitate to pick up the guide book. Skull Conductor isn't that bad a card.

That is all for today.
今日の分はこれまで。

I hope its been a good read/skim
いい読みになった？

So, until we meet again, RIDING DUEL, ACCELERATION!!
じゃ、次回までライディング・デュエル。アクセラレーション！！