Yu Yu Hakusho: Tournament Tactics

"Another pathetic attempt at a tactic game"

Yu Yu Hakusho was a popular anime, many many years ago. There has been a number games based on it, mostly for the fighting genre, and this have varying success. That was during the SNES and Genesis era and this franchise died out for a while. A few years ago it was revived, with games on the GBA and PS2. Yu Yu Hakusho: Tournament Tactics is the next game based on the anime.

Story: 6/10
The story sticks very much to the anime, although the delivery is horrible. A young boy, Yusuke died and was revived and become a spirit detective. He then passed a series of test to be a successor of Genkai, learning the Rei-Kou-Hadou-Ken. He then teamed up with a human named Kuwabara, and two demons Hiei and Kurama. In the mission to rescue a girl, they caught the attention of the Toguro brothers, who force them to join a dark tournament, a tournament of demons.

Graphic: 4/10
Bad graphic. The environment looks plain and uninspired. The monsters look awfully similar and undetailed. The characters themselves look plain and boring, and Kurama looked especially awful.

Sound:4/10
Boring and plain is again repeated. This seems to be a main theme of this game. I am not usually very fussy about the music of them game but this is just pathetic.

Gameplay: 4/10
It sticks pretty much to the conventional tactic game. You move around the world in the constrain of your box and you attack. Think FFT, think FFTA, think Disgaea. It is basically the same thing, but much much more boring.

Disgaea have the combo, this game doesn't. FFT have the varied job class and skills. This game does not. You are given a fixed number of character, and you are limited to the pathetic number of moves they have. The beauty of tactic game is the variety job class available but this game has absolutely none of it.

The command of this game is different from other tactic game in the sense that it does not have a normal attack. Or attacks are skills, and some consume MP (they call it differently though) and some does not. And yes, once you run out of MP you may not be able to attack. There is where focus come in, where you can charge your MP. You can also choose to defend, taunt (where you get your enemy to attack you and it charges your overdrive meter) and mend (use your MP to heal). And the overdrive - do not get too excited because there are no new set of skills; instead your normal attacks become stronger.

The battle also feels draggier than others. Maybe because it takes ages to reach your enemy. This makes it really annoying, where your character just move around trying to get to the enemy. Did I mention the AI is pathetic, with the enemy not attacking but instead running away. Or attacking once then running away.

One of the good things about this game is the free customisation of the character. You can freely choose to spend your skill points on any of the 4 available growth area(yes there is only 4 of them).

Overall: 4/10
Maybe it is because I have a very high expectation of this game. Or maybe it is because I compare all tactic game to FFT, which is just perfect, but either way I am utterly disappointed with this game and I shall stop playing it.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 11/29/04