consists of hand-to-hand or melee attacks, as well as special spirit abilities unique to four of the protagonists (Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei). The player's health, spirit energy, and experience are represented by gauges. Items that refill health and spirit energy may be found strewn throughout many of the levels. Defeating enemies will reveal orbs that can be collected for experience. If enough of them are picked up, the character's health, spirit energy, and strength will increase. Although most levels require the use of one particular character, later levels allow the player to switch among the four aforementioned heroes. Development Yu Yu Hakusho: Spirit Detective was developed by the US company Sensory Sweep Studios in association with Screaming Games. Before its development, a multitude of licensed video games based on Yu Yu Hakusho were released in Japan during the anime television series’ original airing. The anime began its broadcast in North America in 2002, gaining popularity on the afternoon Cartoon Network block Toonami. In June 2003, the gaming company Atari and Funimation Entertainment, the English licensor for the YuYu Hakusho anime, established a publishing agreement for video games in western regions. Spirit Detective for the GBA is the first Yu Yu Hakusho game title in this deal. The two companies had found previous success with another Funimation license, Dragon Ball Z. Spirit Detective is Sensory Sweep's first published game. According to the company's Devon Hargraves, a team of 15 individuals took about five months to develop Spirit Detective. Although were not given a lot of time to adjust their engine, the team attempted to include all aspects of the Spirit Detective saga. Hargraves acted as a “jack-of-a-trades” designer for the game, working on the design documentation, giving game ideas and feedback, designing levels, and writing part of the script. Screaming Games had a more indirect involvement with the game's development by helping Sensory Sweep and Atari “line up” and “flesh out the project and all of the documentation”. Spirit Detective was officially announced by Atari in August 2003. The game was released in North America on December 9, 2003 and in Europe on April 1, 2005. Spirit Detective was later released in a double-pack with Dragon Ball Z: Taiketsu in North America on November 3, 2006. Reception The game received "unfavorable" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. One universal complaint about the game was the very repetitive and