I really had a great time playing Yo-kai Watch.

Doing the story while exploring and unlocking new areas really did give me that cool pokemon feel of discovering new creatures for me to fight and capture. The combat system is really nice and addicting, encouraging you to use all of your 6 yokais in combat and the Yokais themselves all look fun and creative.
There are some flaws here and there like the basic and episodic plot and a lot of RNG BS in capturing Yokais but other than that, it was a very good time.

Ngl, this is better than Pokémon. (sorry Pokémon fans, I tried with Pokémon it didn't get my instert) I feel their fun moments in this game than I thought, including my favorite Yo Kai characters, Blizzaria, Fidgephant, Everfore, and Spronk! The bosses are Fun! (especially Spronk, Hoggles, and McKraken!) Terror time is fun to defeating to Oni's! (Thankfully they brought the good one back in the 3rd installment) The songs are great too! The story is a bit confusing and all over the place but thankfully it gets on track in the end. This is a good Pokémon "Competition" it's a shame that it didn't get this attention around the world unlike on there home place (Japan, which even then is losing popularity). I hope one day this series get the good treatment like Pokémon did.

It’s been a while since I played a Yo-Kai Watch game but with my longing for a new entry and all the signs of the series making a comeback I thought I would replay the original. This series will forever be special to me so this review may be slightly biased but I can acknowledge Yo-Kai Watch left a lot to be desired in the initial game. First of all I did play this on the 3ds version because for one the remaster isn’t in English but more importantly I feel the 3ds is where the battle system shines the most but as a consequence I will be having very few compliments about the graphics. I want to start by talking about the story. Yo-Kai Watch story has never been a strong point but to make up for this it has never taken its plot seriously, however compared to future entries and other games this games story just felt super empty. It’s not too long and isn’t the worst thing ever but as an introduction to some characters it’s not very good especially when some backstory and plot points are redone in the sequels and are just straight up so much better there. This plot leaves a lot of things unexplained and honestly not too impressed with it especially since none of the characters really felt as alive as they do in future games. Moving on I want to talk about something I think Yo-Kai Watch is almost unrivaled in and that’s exploration and side content. It feels almost impossible to talk about the story by itself with how much is usually in these side missions and extra areas. The problem is the first installation in the series feels like a beta for this idea. While there is lots of rewards for exploring and some side missions that affect huge parts of the game it’s just isn’t as vast as future entries. There are quite a lot of quests for a monster collecting rpg don’t get me wrong but not enough to feel like I’m not delaying progression. I think the main factor holding the side quests in the game back is the fact that the characters are so dry. It’s hard to feel like Mr. Barton is more than a npc with a name in this game compared to future games. While the exploration in this game is definitely worthy of yo-Kai watch quality, it isn’t the same without the train system or disconnected locations. The battle system though is still very much fun. A system where you don’t need to worry about directly controlling your yo Kai but instead about trying to manage all parts of the fight so your team can do what they do best. While it’s super bear bones in this installment it’s still got the most important parts. I will say the befriending system is a little unfair in this version with little ways to increase befriending odds but it wasn’t too bad. Very few broken items in this game with most of them being locked behind end game shop purchases or passwords. The difficulty of the game isn’t too bad with how easy it is to get shogunyan and how available talismans are (a little harder than I remembered though). The only problem I think the battle system really has is all the creative battles are locked in post game. I love this battle system and am sad yo Kai watch 4 doesn’t have it. It’s very unique and no game I have played has made something similar to it. I think this is a solid game and was a base for future entries in the game. It suffers from being over shadowed by yo Kai watch 2 in every way but has the first piece to the story of the series so feels like it needs to be played first. This game gets a 7/10 for me because yo Kai watch 2 exists but in the genre of monster collecting RPGs I would say 7.5-8/10 but still just play yo Kai watch 2 or 3. Fun to have completed it again and please give yo Kai watch a chance, it didn’t deserve this fate.

An incredibly charming game with pretty mediocre gameplay. The story, characters, and world are nice and simple in a way that taps into a feeling of childlike adventure by combining the supernatural elements with the contemporary setting. While the game’s really charming, the gameplay is kinda mediocre. You equip 6 Yokai to your team and they attack randomly, and while you have control over battles by rotating which Yokai are active, purifying them, and charging their soultimates, there’s barely any strategy involved. The only strategy comes from choosing which Yokai to use, but you can get away without much planning (unless you’re doing the postgame challenges) for most of the game. The bosses are definitely a high point, though, as they all have a special gimmick that adds a bit more thought to combat, and their unique designs make them exciting to fight. An enjoyable time, but not something I’ll go back to anytime soon.

It's really cute and pretty unique. Feels too simplistic at first but the battle system demands more out of you as the game goes on. I wish befriending Yokai wasn't even more luck reliant than SMT Negotiations but getting one feels great.

This game really truly excels in its world. It really feels like you're a kid in a small town, a little nostalgic even. It's filled with these little details like taking your shoes off when you enter the house, or a jingle plays if you make sure the light is green before crossing an intersection with no other reward. Or how two of the final trials are 1. Are you a helpful person around town and 2. Always be honest. It's nice to encourage good morals like in this fun little game.

But it is very child-like, just going on a bunch of random adventures with these Yokai, you know in SPRINGDALE which is filled with YO-KAI in AMERICA. We could talk about how much of a marketing blunder it was in the west and how Level-5 can't maintain a hit franchise even in just Japan to save their lives, but I'd rather focus on the game.

I got to be a cute girl, the monsters are varied and unique (and again, were destined to never catch on outside Japan but boy did they try), music's good and battle system's fun. Once falsely labeled as a Pokemon killer (though Pokemon took the wrong notes from this game sadly), I consider Yo-Kai Watch a hidden gem that I recommend.