FAQ - Guide for Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters

Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters FAQ V0.5
FAQ by Tyma (@tglmax.com)

                            "Card does not have heart - Card represents Power!"
                                                                  - Mr Seahouse



                                   Contents

1. FAQ                                             (Frequently Asked Questions)
2. Quick-Start Guide              (A short walk through your first game of DDM)
3. General Strategies                    (Learn to win, without all the hassle)
4. Character-Specific Strategies         (Conquer the game's trickiest battles)
5. Credits / Contact                     (About me, and how YOU can talk to me)


__ _o_ __                                                             __ _o_ __
\       /                                                             \       /
 \ ( ) /                          1. FAQ                               \ ( ) /
  \   /                   Frequently Asked Questions                    \   /
   \_/                                                                   \_/


Q. When is the game coming out in America
A. I'm not sure - check Gamefaqs or ask your local game store.

Q. Are there any cheats?
A. No. A lot of people claim to be brandishing them on message boards, but all
of them seem to be memory patches (Gameshark codes). As far as I know, there
are no actual cheats for the game, except those which involve the use of memory
patches. If you really want those, check out the Gamefaqs message board.

Q. Can you turn off those god-awful battle animations?
A. YES! On the game board, press start, choose the 2nd option, and then choose
"off" - Your gameboy is now rid of such evils.

Q. How do you unlock all the dice?
A. By playing the tournaments over and over again, until you play (and beat)
every character in the game. Some dice can be bought from Solomon's shop, but
most of them can only be won by beating a specific opponent.

Q. Help! I can't move / attack
A. Read the Quick-Start guide - that's why it's there. Please read it
thoroughly, and if you find it doesn't help you, please EMail me, so I can
correct it.

Q. Why do you refer to all the characters by their Japanese names?
A. Because I don't know their English names. Once the English version of the
game comes out, I'll change them all over to their English counterparts.

Q. Can I EMail you?
A. Yes. Please read the 'Credits / Contact' section for information.



__ _o_ __                                                             __ _o_ __
\       /                                                             \       /
 \ ( ) /                    2. Quick Start Guide                       \ ( ) /
  \   /           A short walk through your first game of DDM           \   /
   \_/                                                                   \_/

Note : This is an introduction to the Japanese version of DDM, and will
hopefully introduce you to DDM, and teach you everything you need to know, in
order to play the game in Japanese. It is by no means a complete run-down of
the game, so please bear with me, until the American version of the game is
released.


A. Initialising
---------------

From the main menu, choose "new game". If the cartridge already contains a
saved game, you'll be asked whether you want to overwrite the existing data.
Choose the top option (yes) to wipe the cartridge, and start a new game.

B. Name Entry
-------------

Japanese for fun! Use the A button to select letters, and B to erase letters.
Selecting one of the boxes on the right changes the alphabet set. They are,
from top to bottom : Higrana, Katakana, English.
When your done, select the bottom-right box. The game will prompt you to
confirm your name, select the top option to proceed.

C. Main Menu
------------

The available selections are (from top to bottom) :
Sections marked with a asterisk (*) require a link cable

Select Dice              (View your dice collection, and your current pool)
Tournament Battle        (Compete in a tournament)
Free Battle              (A re-match with any opponent you've already faced)
Multiplayer Battle*      (Play with a friend via the GBA Link Cable)
Trade*                   (Trade dice via the GBA Link Cable)
Dice Shop                (Purchase new dice with your tournament winnings)

D. The Dice Pool
----------------

Choose the first option in the menu, to check out the Dice Selection screen. At
this point, the game will have assigned you 15 semi-random, low-level dice
. Each game of DDM requires you to select 15 of your dice to play with,
which are put in a 'pool'. The dice selection screen consists of 2 windows, a
'Box' window (which shows all the dice you've collected during the game) and a
'pool' window (the dice you're currently using to play with). To move between
the 2 windows, move the cursor to the far left or right of the current window.
It's worth checking out your current pool window (on the right of the box
window) right now, just to get an idea of how the dice work.

E. Monster Classes
------------------

Moving around the window, you can check out your current 15 dice. As you select
a dice, the little pane at the bottom changes, to show the status of the
current highlighted dice. Although the dice are 'randomly' generated, the top-
left dice will be 'Baby Dragon', so we'll use him as an example of the various
statistics of each dice.

The pane at the bottom shows the name and statistics of Baby dragon. To the far
left is a green avatar which looks like a dragon's head. This is the MONSTER
CLASS, which tells you Baby Dragon is a dragon-type monster which as far as I
know, is totally irrelevant in the game (it only has any effect in the actual
DDM board game, not the GBA game). Anyway, the class of a monster is determined
by the avatar that appears in it's stats, and also by the colour of the dice
itself.

Red    :  Dragon
Green  :  Beast
Yellow :  Undead
White  :  Demon
Blue   :  Warrior
Black  :  Item

F. Monster Levels
-----------------

Next to the Monster Class symbol is Baby Dragon's LEVEL, which can range from
1-4 (Although you'll only have Lv1-3 right now, since Level 4 dice are
incredibly rare). The importance of levels will become very clear later on,
although all you need to know right now is that the higher the level, the more
powerful (and elusive) the monster will be. Note that in order to summon a
monster, you need another monster of the same level in your dice pool. Without
another monster of the same level, the dice cannot be summoned.

G. Abilities
------------

Above the level is a heart symbol, what should (but doesn't) look like a white
feather. The feather represents a monster's special ability. There are 3
special abilities to be found, and they can prove to be both a blessing, and a
hindrance. Baby Dragon's ability is FLYING, which is represented by a white
feather. The other abilities are TUNNELING, represented by a small picture of a
tunnel, and ARCHERY, represented by an arrow (the type shot out of a bow).

Flying
Flying monsters move through the air, slightly out of reach of the other
monsters, and as a result, can only be attacked by monsters who have the
'flying' or 'archery' ability. The downside of this ability is that flying
monsters can only attack other flying monsters, and because of the energy
required to fly, such monsters requires 2 movement crests, for each space they
move along the board.

Tunneling
Tunneling monsters move below ground, and can tunnel beneath other monsters, in
order to pass along the same square as them, on the board. Moving through
another monster or item has no effect, and they do not acquire any item they
move through (only those they stop on).

Archery
Monsters blessed with archery can attack flying monsters.

Summary
* Only FLYING and ARCHERY monsters can attack FLYING MONSTERS
* FLYING monsters can only attack other FLYING monsters
* FLYING monsters require double the movement crests to move
* TUNNELING monsters can move through spaces occupied by other monsters

H. Life Points
--------------

The heart symbols next to a monster's ability represent the amount of LIFE
POINTS they start off with. Every time a monster is successfully attacked by a
stronger monster, it loses a life point. When monsters no longer have any life
points left, they die.

I. Attack & Defence
-------------------

Moving along the stats window, each monster has an ATTACK strength (represented
by a picture of a sword, next to a number) and below that, a DEFENCE strength
(a picture of a shied, accompanied by a number). Both stats range from 10 to
40. The higher the attack, the more likely the monster can kill another
monster, and the higher the defence, the more difficult the monster is to kill.

J. The 6 Sides Of A Dice
------------------------

After the Attack & Defence statistics, on the far right of the stats window
should be 6 symbols, which represent the 6 sides of the dice. During the game,
you will roll the dice, to determine either SUMMON monsters, or obtain crests.
Each dice is unique in it's layout, meaning some are better at summoning
monsters, while others will help you acquire certain crests. Each side contains
a symbol, which is explained below. You may want to move around the dice pool
to see which monsters bear some of the symbols, as Baby Dragon only has 3
different symbols on his dice.

Summon   Crests (A red star)
Movement Crests (An orange arrow)
Attack   Crests (A white sword, with a bronze handle)
Defence  Crests (A white shields, with a black cross on it)
Magic    Crests (A blue pentangle)
Trap   Crests (A green 'X' symbol)

The basic idea is that you roll the dice to acquire crests, which you can use
to make moves in the game. Some dice have a number on the bottom right of the a
certain crest. This means that rolling this side of the dice will give you that
quantity of the crest shown.

K. Summon Crests
----------------

These are the most important crests in the game, which is why you'll notice
that some dice consist mostly of summon crests. The main concept of DDM is that
each unique dice contains a monster inside it, and the only way to unleash that
monster is by rolling a combination of summon crests, and 'summoning' the
monster onto the playing board. During the actual game, you will roll 3 dice at
a time. If 2 of these dice land on summon crests, then you will be able to
select and summon a monster onto the board.. Now here's the confusing part :
You don't just need to roll 2 summon crests to summon the monster - you have to
roll 2 summon crests of the same LEVEL. Each monster has a level, and the level
determines how many summon crests are on that monster's dice :

Lv 1 : 4 Summon Crests
Lv 2 : 3 Summon Crests
Lv 3 : 2 Summon Crests
Lv 4 : 1 Summon Crests

As you can see, the more powerful the monster, the less summon crests appear on
it's dice, and therefore, the harder it is to summon.

L. Other Crests
---------------

While summon crests are required in order to summon monsters onto the playing
board, the other crests are almost as important. Whenever you roll a dice that
lands on any crest besides a summon crest, you'll acquire that crest, and add
it to your CREST POOL. The crest pool is basically your collection of crests,
which you can use to make moves within the game. Summoning monsters is of
course the idea of the game, but monsters require other crests in order to
move, attack, defend, or to cast spells, so it's often a good idea to build up
a stock of the following crests, as your monsters won't be able to do ANYTHING,
without them.

Movement Crests - Once a monster is placed onto the game board, you can use
movement crests to move it along the board, These are pretty vital, and without
them, your monsters will all become stranded on the space in which they were
summoned.

Attack Crests - Used to make your monster attack an opponent's monster.

Defence Crests - Used in order to have your monster defend an opponent's
attack. Without these, some monsters are incredibly vulnerable.

Magic Crests - Used to make certain monsters cast spells. All spells are unique
to a certain monster.

Trap Crests - Same as spell crests.
Some monsters require Magic Crests, while others require Trap Crests. They
both cast spells of some sort.


M. Duel, Standby!
-----------------

With a basic, somewhat hazy idea of how the game works, were now ready to
actually play it. From the Dice Pool window, move into the Box window, and
press B. A prompt will come up asking if your sure you want to leave, select
the top option (yes), and press A to confirm.
Back in the main menu, choose the 2nd option (Tournament Battle), and choose
the default option, to compete in the first tournament. You'll be taken to a
screen showing the competitors in the tournament, and then a bracket showing
the winners of each duel. When your duel comes up, your opponent will say his
lines, and you'll be taken to the Dice Selection screen, for one last chance to
construct your dice pool. Since you only have 15 dice right now, don't bother,
and just exit by pressing B and then A. You'll be taken to the game board, and
to the Dice Roll screen.

N. Go, Dice Roll!
-----------------

On the left is your crest pool, which shows how many of each crest you've
collected so far (Zero). The top 2 boxes (one of which the cursor is over) will
be explained later - We want to use the 3 boxes at the bottom (next to the
yellow "Go!" button). Select one of them, and press A.
You should now be given a picture of Baby Dragon, along with the rest of your
dice. This is where you choose which 3 dice to roll, in order to summon
monsters, or obtain crests. The first thing you need to do is try and summon a
monster, so let's select a Baby Dragon. Select the other 2 dice yourself, but
remember that in order to summon Baby Dragon, you need to roll 2 Lv1 summon
crests. The most likely way to do this is to select 2 other Lv1 dice,
preferably ones that have lots of movement crests on them, since those are used
more than any other crests. After you've selected 3 dice, hit the "Go!" button
to roll the dice. If you roll 2 summon crests, you'll be prompted to select
which monster to summon. If not, the crests you rolled will be added to your
crest pool, and you'll be taken to the game board. Press start, then A to
proceed. Your opponent will make his move, and you can try again, until you
manage to roll the summon crests.

O. Dimension The Dice!
----------------------

When you manage to roll 2 summon crests, you'll be prompted to select which
monster to summon. If you rolled 2 summon crests, you'll be able to select
between the 2 dice which landed on the crests - If you rolled 3 crests, you'll
be able to select from all 3 monsters. The idea here is that each dice contains
a monster, and once a monster is summoned, you can't use it's dice again, for
the rest of the game. Decide which monster to summon based on it's stats, but
remember that some monsters are more useful for rolling and collecting crests,
than they are for fighting, so weigh up how useful your monster is on the game
board (based on it's attack and defence stats), against how useful it is to
keep
in your hand, and roll again (based on how many crests it will give you). Baby
Dragon is just about the most useless dice in the game, and the easiest to
summon.. So if you have it, summon it. Choose the monster to summon, and you'll
be asked to dimension the dice!

Note : Once a dice is summoned, it can't be rolled again for the rest of the
game. If for any reason (and there are many good reasons) you don't want to
summon a creature, you can abort the summoning by pressing B and then selecting
the top option (yes).

Time for another strange concept, here - When you start off, the game board is
completely blank. Every time you summon a monster, the dice is taken apart, and
the 6 squares on the dice will construct a short path through a part of the
game board. The object of the game is to make a path from your character (on
the bottom of the board) to the opponent (located at the top of the board), and
to attack him with your monsters.
now, It's time to decide how to construct the first part of your path, so
looking at the map on the right, decide where to place your path. Use the start
button to cycle through the various formations in which the blocks can be
placed, the R button to rotate the blocks, and the A button to 'dimension the
dice' (which will place the dungeon path, and summon the monster)

P. The Second Summoning
-----------------------

After summoning your monster and placing the dungeon path, you'll be given
control over the movement of your monsters. Right now, you've only got one
piece of path, and can't really do anything, so naturally, we want to summon
more monsters, and make a longer dungeon path, before we do anything else.
From the main game screen, press start and then A, to end your turn. after the
computer makes his move, it's back to the Dice Roll screen, where it's time to
learn what the top row of boxes are for.
When selecting which dice to roll, there are 2 main strategies :
* Try and summon a certain monster
* Try and collect a certain type of crest

Deciding which dice are the best to choose, in order to get the best results
can be confusing, so luckily, the game automates this process for you. Choosing
the top-right box will bring up list of your dice, choose the dice that you
most want to roll, by moving left or right, or if you want a certain type of
crest, move up or down. The first priority right now is to summon a second
monster, so choose another Lv1 monster. The cursor will move to the 2nd box,
which allows you to select your second priority (which right now should be
movement crests). press down to choose the movement crest icon (an arrow), and
choose 'Set!". The game should now generate and select the most dice it thinks
will give you the highest quantity of the crest you require.

Note : Using this system to get the crests you want is a VERY bad idea, as the
game will almost pick the dice which will give you the highest quantity of the
crest you select, not the dice most likely to get the crest (IE : If one side
of a dice gives you 2 attack crests, and the other sides are all summon crests,
it will always pick this dice over one that has 3 sides which all contain one
attack crest. Obviously, the latter would be the most useful in most
situations, although the computer doesn't take such things into account

Note : At this point, the opponent may or may not be making advances towards
your end of the board. If he gets too close for comfort, or you get thrust into
a situation that involves anything other than rolling and dimensioning the
dice, move to 'Chapter Q : Movement & Attack'

When you manage to summon a second monster, place the dungeon path. Remember
that the path has to connect to your existing path, and can't intersect with
any paths that you or your opponent place on the board.
With 2 Lv1 monsters out, it's a good idea to bring out some of the more
powerful, high level monsters, so choose to shoot for an Lv2 monster, and some
movement crests. When you manage to summon it, build the path in the general
direction of the opponent.

Q. Movement & Attack
--------------------

With a small army of monsters on the board, it's time to make them move. With
the cursor, select a monster on the board, and press A to bring up the action
menu, which reads from top to bottom :

Move
Attack
Spell / Trap
Stats

Select a monster, and then the top option, to move it along the dungeon path,
towards the opponent, and his monsters. Before you decide which monster to
attack, and how, you should know how battles work :

Although you can move as many monsters as many times per turn as your movement
crests will allow, monsters can only attack once per turn, and after attacking,
they can no longer move. Every monster has an attack statistic (ATK), a defence
statistic (DEF) and a number of life points (LP). In order to attack, a monster
uses one attack crest.

Note : Life points are displayed as hearts. Each heart represents TEN life
points (LP)

When one monster attacks another, the monster BEING attacked can choose whether
to Attack or Defend. If the victim of the attack chooses to attack the
protagonist, then the protagonist inflicts damage on his opponent, equal to his
ATK value. This damage is then deducted from the victim's LP (If a monster his
an ATK of 20, then it will deal 20 points of damage to the victim's LP). If a
monster's LP reaches zero, it dies.

If a monster chooses to defend the attack, it loses one Defence Crest, and the
damage dealt is calculated, using it's DEF value as follow :

Protagonist's ATK - victim's DEF = Damage dealt.

R. Attacking Your Opponent
--------------------------

The goal in Dungeon Dice Monsters is to run a dungeon path from your end of the
dungeon to the opponent (positioned on the opposite end), and then to attack
him 3 times. Each player has 3 lives (represented by hearts), and they lose a
life whenever attacked by an opponent's monster. When all 3 lives are lost, the
game is over.

S. Winning
----------

Should you win, then congratulations - "YOU GET!"
Besides being delightful, the "you get" screen means you've won a new dice,
which is shown in the bottom pane, along with it's stats. You'll also unlock
your opponent in Free Battle mode, letting you battle them again, any time you
want.


__ _o_ __                                                             __ _o_ __
\       /                                                             \       /
 \ ( ) /                   3. General Strategies                       \ ( ) /
  \   /              Learn to win, without all the hassle               \   /
   \_/                                                                   \_/


Blocking
--------

As players need to 'dimension the dice' in order to summon a monster, monsters
cannot be summoned unless there is sufficient space in which to dimension the
dice. A good tactic to cut off any player at the knees is to use Lv1 monsters
to quickly build towards your opponent, and then build sideways, and around the
perimeter of his dungeon path, cutting it off. If the dungeon path is cut off,
and a player can no longer place new pieces of path, then they cannot summon
monsters. This is exceptionally useful against players like Kaiba, who rely on
rolling high level monsters, as you can usually block them off, before they
have
the chance to summon.


Defending The Player
--------------------

The player's piece can be attacked from 3 sides. To best protect him, build
dungeon path 2 blocks to his left and right, so that the opponent can't build
in the spaces directly to his left and right. This means he can now only be
attacked from 1 space on the board (directly in front of him) - the perfect
place to position your strongest defensive monster.



Rushing
-------
As with most real-time strategy games, the easiest (and cheapest) way of
beating your opponent is to over-run them with Lv1 monsters, before they have a
chance to summon anything. Stack your dice pool with 7 Lv1 monsters (to create
dungeon path as quickly as possible), and 6 Lv3 Monsters (to provide crests,
and summon in the event that something goes wrong).
From the off, summon s many Lv1 monsters as possible, building a path straight
to your opponent's life points. When you get within striking distance of your
opponent, start rolling the Lv3s, in order to get movement and attack crests
required to kill the opponent.
Of course, things can go wrong, so make sure you have one or two powerful Lv3s
to call out in an emergency, and beat-down anything your opponent manages to
summon. If things go VERY wrong (Someone calls out a Red-Eyes, or an equally
powerful monster), then bide your time, let the powerful monster head towards
your life points, and then summon a few lv1 monsters, to finish off your
opponent, while his monster is too far away to run back and help him.


__ _o_ __                                                             __ _o_ __
\       /                                                             \       /
 \ ( ) /               4. Character-specific strategies                \ ( ) /
  \   /               Conquer the game's trickiest battles              \   /
   \_/                                                                   \_/


Right now, this section only covers characters I found to be particularly
taxing. I'll hopefully expand it to cover all the characters later on, once I
have a chance to experiment with them all.

                             -Ryouji Otogi-
This is tough, as the chances of rolling summon crests suddenly become rather
thin. Luckily, the obviously rigged nature of the game means that instead of
getting summon crests, you'll be stocking up on crests of every other kind.
From the start, Otogi will start summoning monsters of every level, left right
and centre, quickly building towards your half of the field, and into the
corners, cutting off your dungeon path. The best way to deal with this is to
just sit back and try to summon an Lv3 monster, then stroll along his path,
slaughtering his monsters. Once you have an Lv3 out, keep trying to get more,
using the dungeon path they generate to block off the sides of the player's
piece (thus stopping Otogi from attacking from the side), and keep all but one
monster back in defence, for the inevitable assault on your life points.

                             -Rare Hunter-
Rush like hell, as he tries to assembles Exodia pieces. You need Lv1 Monsters,
and LOTS of movement and attack crests - it's just a race to see if you can
kill him, before he summons Exodia. Build straight towards him, but make sure
you plan your dungeon path ahead of time, so that you can attack him from all 3
sides, killing him the instant you have 3 monsters near the top of the field.

                            -Insector Hagyu-
Don't get put off by his speed - insects are fast, but weak. Concentrate only
on summoning powerful monsters, while he rushes to block off your dungeon path.
When he does so, leave one or two monsters back to defend, and send the rest on
a killing spree, towards his heart points. He's the master of the rush tactic,
so don't try it against him - just sit back amassing powerful monsters and
crests, then overpower him.


__ _o_ __                                                             __ _o_ __
\       /                                                             \       /
 \ ( ) /                    5. Credits / Contact                       \ ( ) /
  \   /                           About Me                              \   /
   \_/                                                                   \_/

                       FAQ written by Tyma (@tglmax.com)

Feel free to contact me about DDM, Yugioh, Duel Monsters, or just for a
friendly chat. Please be friendly and courteous, and don't ask for cheats,
ROMs, money or sex.

Tyma would like to thank :
Shdwrlm3 (My spiritual leader, paragon of virtue, and treasured friend)
Cat (Keeping me interested in Yugioh, by owning me on a regular basis)


-

Document (c)2002 Tyma. Please don't borrow, rip-off, plagiarize, re-print or
steal anything from this FAQ. FAQs take several hundred hours to produce, and
only 5 minutes to steal, and since there's no law to stop you doing so, I can
only ask you - PLEASE don't use anything from this FAQ without my permission.

Duel Monsters, Yugioh, and Dungeon Dice Monsters (c)1996 Kazuki Takahashi
All related characters (c)1996 Konami Of Japan

This FAQ is written for Gamefaqs.com. The latest version of the FAQ can always
be found there.