Yu Yu Hakusho: Spirit Detective

"I really had my hopes up..."

Before I start this review, let me say one thing. Atari could've done better. Atari seems to be going through this system of making the first game of a series so horrible and then improving it. (I hope that is the case for this one.) Anyway, it's time for me to get on with this review.

Story:5/10
-----------
The only decent part of the game. It follows the story from the Spirit Detective saga. Plain and simple. They messed up the Dark Tournament saga badly though, that's why it didn't get a perfect.

Gameplay:1/10
--------------
Gameplay is what makes the game. This game's gameplay is horrible. You go through a simple system of levels and all you do is use the compass to reach your goal, and fight a boss. This gets extremely boring. The enemies are easy and can be beaten in less than a minute. Hiei, Kurama, Botan, and Keiko only show up once in the game, and then you've only got Yusuke and Kuwabara.

Graphics:1/10
--------------
The sprites look like little blurs of color mashed together on a huge screen of enviroment. The enviroments are highly detailed and colorful, but even then you can't explore them out of free will because of the horrible gameplay.

Sound:3/10
-----------
Not so good here... There are no soundtracks from the show whatsoever. I was highly disappointed at the unoriginality in the music. The soundtrack is a little boring tune that repeats over and over. You're going to want to turn down the sound for this game.

Playability:1/10
-----------------
The camera angle is slanted, making it hard to control your character. You must press two directional buttons on the Control Pad at the same time for your character to walk in a straight line. This is one of the worst points of the game and it gets really annoying.

Entertainment:1/10
-------------------
You will be utterly bored out of your skin with this game's horrible gameplay, graphics, sound, and playability.

Replay Value:1/10
------------------
Once you beat the game, that's it. There's nothing else to do unless you are a completist and want to play through 2 more times. But since it was boring the first time, you can bet it will be boring the second and third times too.

Overall:1/10
-------------
Rent. (And that's only if you're desperate and must play this game) Atari could've done way better than this. It's like they made this game at the last minute and then slapped the label Yu Yu Hakusho on it to make it sell. Atari should stop their horrible first game plan and start making all-around good games from the start.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 03/12/04, Updated 03/12/04