Back when I was first interested in anime Yu Yu Hakusho was a mainstay for me. It was one of the first shounen series I really got into, and it’s my brother’s favorite, so it will always hold a special place in my heart. Since then I’ve fallen out of love with the format, but I was intrigued when I saw that there was an import fighting game based on the franchise for the Panasonic 3DO. I had to have it. Now I’ve spent ample time with it and decided today to write about it. Yu Yu Haksuho isn’t a particularly great fighting game, but it’s mildly enjoyable as a former fan of the show. Let’s dig in!
I won’t go over the whole storyline of the Yu Yu Hakusho anime series. More than likely if you’re reading this then you already know the basic outline. This game takes place during the dark tournament saga of the show. You have several fighters from different teams that you have to fight against using various members of team Yurameshi. This includes Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kuranma. This is of course only in story mode which is the main means of play.
Yu Yu Hakusho is a traditional 2D fighting game. Well, for the most part. In story mode you can choose from one of four characters from team Urameshi, and must face the other fighters competing in the dark tournament. You don’t fight them all, but several of the more iconic foes are represented here. Early on it’s one opponent per team. Not every battle is re-created, but that’s not a big deal in my opinion. The main game would be too long otherwise. Either way, let’s move on to the gameplay.
The 3DO pad has only three face buttons. Two of these are designated for punches and the third a kick. Well that depends on which character you play as. Kuranma has his vines that he whips with, Hiei uses his spirit sword by default, and Hiei his samurai sword. Despite their range and speed of attacks the four protagonists are functionally similar. Their special moves differ in that some have projectiles, flurries of attacks, and whatnot. They’re different enough, and playing as each offers different advantages and weaknesses.
The four character dynamic plays heavily on the story mode, and relates to the show in some very big ways. You can select from any of the four characters for any story fight, and none are particularly better than the other. Each fighter has two life bars, one in the yellow and one in the red. When both are depleted the match is called. Rather than getting a simple game over you’re moved back to the character select screen if you lose, and select another fighter. From here the fight continues, and again until all of your fighters have lost all their life bars. In between bouts team Urameshi recovers, but so does the opponent. If you lose as one you’ll have to wait a few rounds to play as them again. It lends survival elements to the story mode which is cool.
It’s this dynamic that sets Yu Yu Hakusho apart from the pack. It also really fits with the spirit of the anime series. The people that designed this game were obviously familiar with the source material. You can do really well and suddenly things go south, or perhaps you’re making a big comeback. I can say that Yu Yu Hakusho completely fits into the story in this regard. What’s nice is the fact that you can play as any of the opponents as well as main characters when you’re in versus mode. This brings the character roster up to 15 different guys you can play as. That’s makes up for only have the main protagonists available in story mode. It does make me wonder why the roster isn’t universal; it seems like they could have just as easily included all the fighters in the main game.
Unfortunately the fighting engine just isn’t very good here. The game uses, it seems like, hand drawn graphics for the characters. This causes issues with input lag, hit zones, and animations making the characters briefly invulnerable. These problems interrupt the flow of combat, and make Yu Yu Hakusho largely not very fun to play. Moving around and even jumping is not fluid in the least. The characters movements are incredibly stiff thanks to a less than competent engine powering it.
Graphically the game at first appears to be a step above most 16-bit fighters of this era. The characters are hand drawn and digitized. This perfectly reflects the anime/manga roots of the source material used here. The backgrounds are a bit washed out and lack detail, but that’s okay because it’s obviously a stylistic choice. Everything just moves so sluggishly. It’s hardly impressive by 3DO, or even Super Nintendo standards to be honest. The game does have a fair amount of full motion video ripped straight from the show. It’s a bit grainy but perfectly serviceable. The soundtrack is pretty lame to be honest. It’s not offensive or anything, but you’ll get bored with it.
Yu Yu Hakusho is a pretty lame fighting game to be honest. I was really hoping for more considering other developers were able to do the franchise justice and on weaker platforms at that. It’s pretty clear that they put the most effort into the visuals. Don’t get me wrong; Yu Yu Hakusho looks amazing in screenshots. In motion it’s pretty clear that the developers were a little overly ambitious. You’re better off not importing this one.
