Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament - Reception

Reception

Atari reported "reasonable" sales of Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament, despite an overall net loss for the company during the game's release quarter. Dark Tournament received mostly mixed or average reviews, holding aggregate scores of 58% on GameRankings and 56 out of 100 on Metacritic. Although most reviewers agreed that the aesthetic features of the games are appropriate for fans of the manga of anime, they denoted Dark Tournament as a poor fighting game overall, mainly faulting its controls and certain gameplay mechanics. 1UP.com’s David Beaudion noticed little difference in the characters themselves, each offering similar movesets and insignificant specials. “What determines the outcome of a match in Dark Tournament, essentially,” Beaudion explained, “is who can pound the button the fastest and overcome the game’s sluggish response time and slow animation.” Jeremy Dunham of IGN and Tom Orry of VideoGamer.com were also unimpressed, stating that the game's combination attacks are lethargic and inaccurate. Both reviewers berated the way an opponent can attack during the long periods it takes to perform more complex actions. Dunham noted an unbalanced level of challenge in the story mode, in which enemies are “both ruthless and clueless simultaneously”. GameSpot writer Ryan Davis contrarily found the controls to be simple and responsive, but respectively agreed with Beaudion on the lack of move diversity between characters and with Dunham on its slow pace.

Dunham praised the variety of objectives in the story mode chapters as the game’s “saving grace”, and positively compared the team battle option in skirmish mode to Marvel vs. Capcom and Tekken Tag Tournament. Beaudion was indifferent about the extra diversionary modes, while Davis called the additional fighting modes “predictable” and the token game “rather out of place in the context of a simple fighting game”. Beaudion, Dunham, and Orry all credited the cel-shaded graphics, sound effects, and music as faithful to the anime series. Beaudion enjoyed the “bright and detailed” visuals, the interjection of FMV sequences straight from the anime, the use of the Funimation voice cast, and destructible backgrounds. For the most part, Davis appreciated the translation of the 3D from their 2D counterparts and the effects used for the spirit attacks. Though he felt there was an “air of authenticity” from the new dialogue, he admitted it would “probably just come off sounding like some silly anime acting.” Davis additionally felt the sound design and “rather understated music” was aimed for consistency with the source material rather than a strive for high-quality.