Year: 2002
Type: Gamerip
Composer(s): Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe
Number of tracks: 58

★★★★★

Yu-Gi-No!

What am I doing here? Am I in a fever dream? Why am I listening to the gamerip to a Yu-Gi-Oh!-game that was released in Japan in 1999 and only in 2002 for the PlayStation in the rest of the world? Nostalgia? Nope, never played it. Famous composers? Nope again. Was the music recommended to me? Not that I know of. So what am I doing here? The answer is obvious: I don't know.

Somehow this spin-off of the popular trading card series snuck into my collection and even though I enjoyed watching the TV version and actually played the 2004 PC triumvirate Yugi the Destiny, Kaiba the Revenge and Joey the Passion , I never came across this game. Not an oversight, as Let's Plays on YouTube have revealed to me. Well, at least that's no reason not to listen to the music ... right? But it is!

If the words PlayStation, licensed game and unknown composers haven't set your alarm bells ringing yet, you should know by the time you hear the word Gamerip that we're in for some uncurated music snippets. We are presented with 58 of them, which are either a few seconds, 1:50 or three minutes long. Nothing wrong with that, you might think, but the album proves us otherwise.

As is usual for a turn-based strategy game - which is what most card games are - the music is primarily intended as a loop. The three composers I am less familiar with, Naoko Ishii, Waichiro Ozaki and Hiroshi Tanabe, deliver exactly that: highlight-free scene descriptions that would probably have served as background music for lengthy dialog in some JRPGs. Here, however, it is the main component of the score ... and unfortunately that is not enough to impress.

I could go into more detail now, talk about the fact that we move between stereotypically oriental and funky jazzy modern tones; that the music is sometimes calmer and sometimes more upbeat ... but isn't that true of pretty much every score? And for what? Has anyone missed this game in my review collection? Apart from the hardcore fans, does anyone out there know it at all?

That's why I'm keeping my review as generic as the creators did with the music, by saying little with many words. There's absolutely nothing worth mentioning here, and even the aforementioned players from back then are unlikely to remember any of the tracks. Save yourselves the 2.5 hours of life - or 30 minutes if you (like me) skip before the first loop.

No.	Title	Artist(s)	Ratings
01	Main Menu	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
02	Input Name Menu	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
03	Introduction Title	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
04	Pharaoh's Place	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
05	Modern Times [Short Version]	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
06	Egyptian Duel	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
07	Track 7	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
08	3D Duel (Egypt)	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
09	Metropolis 1	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
10	Duel Ground	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
11	Town Plaza	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
12	Heishin's Invasion	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
13	Heishin Millennium Puzzle Confrontation	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
14	Modern Times	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
15	Preliminary Face-Off	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
16	Card Shop (Modern Times)	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
17	Preliminaries	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
18	Shadi's Message	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
19	Final's Face-Off (2)	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
20	Finals	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
21	Seto Kaiba Face-Off	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	1
22	Kaiba (Tournament Final)	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
23	3D Duel (Tournament Final)	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
24	Inside the Puzzle	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	1
25	Egypt in Ruins	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
26	Metropolis 2	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	1
27	King's Valley	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
28	Forbidden Ruins	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
29	Mages	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
30	Forest Shrine	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
31	Desert Shrine	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
32	Sea Shrine	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
33	Mountain Shrine	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
34	Meadow Shrine	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	1
35	Millenium Item Found	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	1
36	Vast Shrine	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
37	Dark Shrine	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
38	High Mages	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
39	Heishin	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
40	Seto's Betrayal	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
41	Seto	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
42	DarkNite's Arrival	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
43	Final Duel	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
44	3D Duel (Final Duel)	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
45	End Credits	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
46	Epilogue	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
47	Build Deck	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	1
48	Free Duel Menu	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
49	You Win!	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
50	Free Duel	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
51	Duel Results Screen	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	1
52	You Lose!	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
53	3D Duel (Free Duel)	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	3
54	Duel Results Screen (2)	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
55	Game Over	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
56	Exodia	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
57	Password	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2
58	Library	Naoko Ishii; Waichiro Ozaki; Hiroshi Tanabe	2