The most common type of game in the Yu-Gi-Oh line is the card game. There've been various incarnations of the Yu-Gi-Oh card game on pretty much any system in the current generation. Each of them add more cards to the game and improve a bit on the graphics. While each of them have a story mode, none of the story modes are really too developed. The game has a high degree of success in doing what it is meant to do, however - emulate the collectible card game to perfection.

If you're uninitiated in the Yu-Gi-Oh world, simply go to an elementary school and pull aside one of the older kids and ask them. It is highly likely they'll be able to tell you the ins and outs of the universe - I definitely can't do that for you. All I've done is played the card game with some friends and extensively played the past few Game Boy Advance games.

Enough on the background, though. The latest game in the series, Yu-Gi-Oh: Nightmare Troubador, was recently released for the Nintendo DS. It takes the familiar card game and attempts again to blend it with a story. You play the part of, well, you (you give the game your name at the start) and take on characters from the Yu-Gi-Oh universe. From the episode or two of the show that I have seen, the characters are pulled right from the show and use the types of cards that you'd see them use on the show. For example, Yugi's deck has the Dark Magician and other cards designed around the magician in the deck.

The attempt at the story in the game is, to be honest, pretty bad. Sure, the game starts off with a story, but in my many hours of playing, I've yet to find out how to progress it. All I know is that I'm fighting in some tournament and there are some bad guys running around that, if I lose to them, kill me or something. The game was pretty vague in that area. There is some progression, however - winning duels with other players will get you points that let you go and buy cards from the card shop. You'll be able to buy one pack every other duel or so. Also, after you've dueled a certain character enough, you'll be able to actually get their "deck recipe" from them, so you can build a deck like theirs.

Of course, the story isn't really the reason to pick up this game. The main reason to pick it up is the actual card game - and the card game is definitely satisfying. There have been some improvements made to the game this time around, along with the addition of new cards.

One of my favorite new additions is the deck builder. While there wasn't much changed from the deck builder in the last game, the one here feels much easier and more natural to use. I had an easier time moving cards between my deck, my sidedeck and my trunk. The touchscreen also helps a lot with this. It stays easy to organize your cards to find certain high powered monsters or that key spell card you need. Being able to just tap the deck or the trunk to look at the cards there makes building your deck far less of an exercise in frustration.

The touchscreen is also incredibly helpful in the actual playing of the card game. When I first heard that a Yu-Gi-Oh game was being released for the DS, I was excited because there was the possibility of touchscreen interaction. Thankfully, Konami didn't disappoint me here, and included the ability to use the touchscreen. While the old controls will still work, the touchscreen ones make the game easier to play.

Also, once you're in the duel, the cards actually come to life when you play them. If you put down a creature, it'll actually show up on the screen in a 3d rendering. While the graphics aren't the greatest, it does help to spice up the gameplay. The only thing that could have been done to make this better would have involved giving each of the monsters unique looking moves when they fight. Heck, even making the monsters fight instead of just animating a slash over the opposing card while the monster does nothing would have been a plus.

The phases of a turn also flow better this time around. Instead of having to slowly move through each phase, you'll be able to bring up the menu at any time that lets you choose what phase to go to next. You can, say, jump right from the Main Phase to the End Phase without having to go through the other phases. While you won't worry about this often, it does save some time.

Moving around the map to find these characters to duel is made easy by the touchscreen. To find another duelist, you move the stylus around on the bottom part of the screen and play a game of hot or cold. Once the target turns pink, you know that there is a duelist nearby. As you home in on the duelist (or other significant area such as your house, the card shop or the occasional random event), a pink pointer pops onto the screen. You then will "move" to that area by tapping the person in the bottom left corner.

Overall, Yu-Gi-Oh: Nightmare Troubador is a solid simulation of the card game. While the story is lacking, the actual gameplay is fun. While it may get boring after dueling the same characters over and over again, this game serves its portable purpose well - you can jump in and play a quick battle and turn the game off without having to worry.

If you're already a fan of the card game, this is definitely a worthy pickup. I f you've never played before and are wondering what things are all about, this is the first time that I would actually recommend picking up one of these games. This is the first of the Yu-Gi-Oh card games to actually have an in-game tutorial for the newbies. While it won't teach you all the little secrets, it will allow you to get going without having to go to an elementary school and seem creepy when you ask the kids there about Yu-Gi-Oh.