Yu Yu Hakusho: Spirit Detective

"Possibly the worst anime game in existance"

Thesis Statement: This game makes me want to beat up the folks at Atari with a bag of hammers.

Graphics:
When I first started playing, I thought "This is a GBA game!?" The graphics are hardly worthy of gracing a Game Boy Color screen. The sprites look a little blocky, and in Maze Castle, the floor patterns were an eyesore, and it was hard to tell what was a wall between another level of the flooring.
2/10

Sound:
It leaves a lot to be desired. They really could have put more effort into sounds. There's ONE sound that is made when the character you are currently playing makes, if he's male. It's sort of an "oof!" and it doesn't sound like any of the characters. There's also a female version for when you play as Kayko, Botan, or Genkai.
1/10

Gameplay:
It's so freaking boring. A was punch, a B was using your basic spirit power. You run around and kill badguys until you get to where you're supposed to be. In the first part of the game, getting around town is hard and you have to walk around huge buildings, then you just may find yourself at a dead end, go back, go around another building, be stuck in another alley, and you'll just about be at your destination when time runs out. The bosses were extremely boring. It's playable, but it's really boring.
3/10

Story:
This game makes YYH fans sad. It keeps basically to the story line, but some things had to be changed in order to make a transition through the game. For example, you can control Kuwabara and you have to collect 50% or more of your homework that he's so clumsily lost and strewn around the town and do so without fighting anyone on the way. For Genkai's competition, you play completely unrelated videogames until you have enough points to continue. Rando wasn't mentioned at all during the process of the competition until Yusuke fights him at the end. You don't fight as Kuwabara at all during this part. They make no mention of Hiei's relationship with Yukina. And the "Dark Tournament" is the most disappointing part. You don't play it in the main game. It's an extra feature, and you fight only as Genkai. And guess what? You can forget all the demons we knew and loved from the Dark Tournament part of the series, because this Dark Tournament consisted all of the old bosses you fought through the main game. Whoopee! We get to fight them all again! (That's sarcasm, by the way). The series was wonderful, but the game shames it.
2/10

Play ability/Replay ability:
If you have the intention span and the patience, sure, this game's semi-playable. I beat it in less than 24 hours, which made me extremely peeved. I know there are some people who go through other games within a day or days, but I'm not that much of a hyper-gamer. I can go through games pretty quick, but I take my time and enjoy them. A mildly interesting game can last me a couple weeks, if I've got free time. But this game, as boring as it was, lasted me less than a day. And I beat it 100%. I played it a bunch during that time though: I figured it would get better, more interesting. Just when I thought it was about to get interesting... "The End"! So things never got better.
As for replaying it? I'm never touching it again unless I'm really bored.
1/10

Conclusion:
Don't waste your money on it. It you're still hungry for a YYH game (This game would fail to satisfy anyone's appetite), get the Dark Tournament game for PS2, I've heard good things about it.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 04/13/05