Failing that, if you're still both standing after 99 turns then it's a case of the old 'whoever's got most points wins' idea. The basic idea is to either reduce your opponent's Leader Points to zero or populate all of your opponent's summon squares on the battleground. Powers and abilities are governed by a range of factors, most notably card type, but also including location, offensive and defensive point values, and an experience-based rank system. The actual battles take place in the usual turn-based way, with each player able to summon up to five monsters on the battleground. Thankfully, though, there are no 'bayonets at ten paces' shenanigans to endure here, Duelists of the Roses relies on the good old, tried and tested combat system of ridiculously explosive magic attacks and massive summoned monsters.
In a novel way, this fantastical and magical video game is actually based on actual historical fact, more specifically the 15th Century English conflict, the War of the Roses. The PlayStation 2 is the latest machine to receive such an offering, part of Konami's popular GBA brand, Yu-Gi-Oh! Before Pokemon, would anyone have really taken the notion of card battling seriously? A game that's marginally more interesting than Top Trumps and essentially the same concept as the old paper, scissors and stone idea used to settle playground disputes (unless you were a hardcase, of course)? Well, for some reason gamers can't get enough of it lately and, subsequently, there's no shortage of card battle games.