 That's drunk. Yu-yu Hakusho was an extremely popular manga and anime series throughout the 90s spawning all sorts of films, CDs, and video games. The story is rather interesting since it dabs into the supernatural with the main character Yusuke, who's just a normal everyday teenage delinquent, getting hit by Akara and killed in an attempt to save a young boy after pushing him out of the way. His brave act caught the underworld by surprise since that was his assumed destination for eternity, so as a result, the ruler of the underworld allows Yusuke to return to his body after a series of tests. This is one of the first anime series I ever watched back in the late 90s, and I still think it's well worth checking out. Yu-yu Hakusho ended up receiving four licensed games on the Super Famicom, all developed by Namco and none of which made it out of Japan, but there's one in particular that is one of the most interesting games I've ever played. It's the third game Namco made back in 1994 titled Yu-yu Hakusho Tokubetsuhen, and believe it or not, what you see in the footage here is actually a one-on-one fighting game. Wait, what? How is that even possible? How can you even tell what the hell is going on here? Well, that was my reaction back when I first played this on the ZSNES emulator way back when I first discovered emulators. I was fascinated with this game because it looked so frickin' cool, but I had no idea what to do or what was supposed to be happening, so I thought I'd make this video that kinda helps guide you on how this game works because it's pretty dang unconventional, for better or for worse. It's not exactly a pick-up-and-play game, and it's easy to dismiss this one as a broken mess without getting to know the controls. So, you start the game up and you're met with four options, two-player versus, tournament mode, gauntlet mode, and a three-on-three character battle which functions as this game's story mode. I should mention quickly that no, there is no English patch available for this game, but it's not necessary to play through this one. The story mode pretty much just follows the Dark Saga Tournament from the anime, and you'll notice that if you go into two-player versus mode, you have a whopping 18 characters you can play as, which is just frickin' nuts for a fighting game for its time. As for the gameplay itself, that's where this game is gonna lose some people because it's kinda weird. As you can see, you've got a separate screen for each character, and each screen is performing a scene, so to speak, of whatever command is chosen. So here's how this works. You have to pay attention to the red meter below your character. To get it started, you select a direction on the d-pad, hold it down until it's close to full, and then press a face button on the controller to execute a specific maneuver depending on who you chose as your character. However, the d-pad basics are the same for every character. Right or forward will do a physical attack, left or back will defend, spirit skills are used by pressing up, and spirit attacks are used by pressing down. Now, using Yusuke as an example, his spirit skills are all buffs that increase strength or speed, so if you hold up and select Y, that'll boost his speed for a few turns, which will help him dodge attacks. Holding down for a spirit attack and then pressing X will execute a really powerful ranged attack. Bear in mind that spirit and skill moves are each tethered to the two other energy bars you see on screen. That sphere in the middle contains fire, and when you successfully land a move, that fire will help refill your spirit and skill meters. In other words, you can't just abuse spirit attacks, you still have to land a fair share of punches and defend appropriately to set up your bigger attacks. Now, that all sounds cool, but in practice, it's really tough to get the hang of. Getting the timing down here is really tricky because the computer AI here is ruthless. Your opponent is constantly going balls to the wall with huge attacks left and right, so it's a good idea to be ready to defend to start each fight before you start firing off bigger attacks. It's all about getting the timing right here, and once you're able to kinda sorta get a feel for it, then you'll start to notice smaller intricacies of strategy here, like saving your ranged attacks for when your character is in the air, or using back and B to avoid melee attacks, or learning what the spirit attacks are for each character. There are some that even prevent your opponent from defending. There's a handy move list on game facts that I've linked in the description if you wanna check that out. So yeah, I just wanted to make a quick video about this one, just going over the basics of the gameplay because man, oh man, this game looks awesome. The pixel art here is absolutely spot on and nails the source material almost perfectly, and just the idea of this game is really cool. But the thing is, this is not a pick-up-and-play game by any stretch. The game doesn't tell you how to play, so the first time you play this one, you might be like, uh, what the hell do I do? It's a super ambitious title with a creative presentation, but it's not all that approachable, and it's gonna take several battles to get the timing of this one down. But once you get the hang of things, this game is pretty dang cool, and it's definitely unique in the Super Nintendo and Super Famicom library. Alright, I wanna thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.