Yo-kai Watch 2: Fleshy Souls/Bony Spirits

The Yo-Kai Watch series began in 2013 in Japan with a manga series, an animated TV series in 2014, and a video game series that, in Japan, is up to three games.  Here in the U.S. though we didn’t get the first game until last November.  I remember when I first saw the game my immediate thought was that it was another series attempting to cash in on the Pokemon craze.  That’s what I get for not researching the series first because Yo-Kai Watch has actually been pretty successful in Japan.  That being said I recently got the opportunity to check out Yo-Kai Watch 2: Fleshy Souls and Bony Spirits on the 3DS, so let’s see if these games can get me hooked on the series…or at least the video games.

The series takes place in a world inhabited with creatures known as Yo-kai, but these creatures can only be seen with a special device called a Yo-kai Watch.  This device allows the series protagonist Nate to see, identify, and interact with the Yo-kai.  The watch is given to Nate by a Yo-kai named Whisper and they are soon joined by another Yo-kai named Jibanyan.  The three then begin to befriend all sorts of different Yo-kai, which Nate can summon in battles against other Yo-kai with ill-intentions that cause all sorts of trouble, as well as taking care of issues caused by other Yo-kai.  That’s essentially the series in a nutshell from what I’ve gathered.  While I’ve never played the original game, I have looked up some info on it and have seen a bit of a Let’s Play online so I’m not going into this completely blind.  From what I’ve researched on the game in Japan, Fleshy Souls and Bony Spirits are basically the same game with some minor differences in some quests and the Yo-kai you can find with some being exclusive to each version.

The story of Yo-kai Watch 2 begins with two evil-looking Yo-kai stealing Nate’s Yo-kai Watch while he’s sleeping one night.  This makes Nate not have any memory of the watch or the Yo-kai…that is until the next day when he stumbles upon another Yo-kai Watch at a shop.  Once he puts it on and uses a capsule machine, he’s reunited with Whisper and before long their memories come back to them of their adventures in the original game.  At that point you begin to wander around the town taking on various quests that come in two types: key quests and optional quests, and they work exactly as they sound.  Key quests are the quests that move the story along while optional requests are not required but will still get you some useful rewards.  The fun thing about key quests is that you may have several you have to complete before the main story progresses, but you can take them on in any order.

Aside from quests another main aspect of the game is to find and befriend other Yo-kai.  Luckily your Yo-kai Watch has a radar app on it that will alert you to when a Yo-kai is nearby and what rank it is.  Most of the time when you get near a Yo-kai’s location you’ll have to either break out the watch’s radar or inspect a tree or patch of grass, then use either the circle pad or stylus and touch screen to locate the Yo-kai.  Once found the Yo-kai may attack you and afterwards it may befriend you.  You can increase your chances of befriending a Yo-kai that you’re fighting against by giving it various food items.  That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be able to befriend the Yo-kai after the fight, and you still have to win the fight first, but various food items give better chances for it to befriend you.  Befriending a Yo-kai will add it’s medallion to a book called the Medallium and you can then use that medallion to call upon the Yo-kai in battles.

Similar to Pokemon you can have up to six Yo-kai medals on hand at any one time to use in battle, except unlike Pokemon you can battle with up to three Yo-kai at a time and can actually change your active Yo-kai at any time an attack isn’t taking place.  On the touch screen you’ll see your six Yo-kai on a wheel with the top three being the front Yo-kai doing the battling while the back three are basically in reserve.  You can rotate the wheel in any direction to change which Yo-kai are battling.  Each Yo-kai belongs to one of eight tribes and putting two or three Yo-kai in a battle next to each other of the same tribe will grant them bonuses during the fight.  After battles Yo-kai in your party will gain experience to help level up and eventually evolve.

However, the battles also contain my one main nitpick about the game: they’re mostly automatic.  The Yo-kai will attack automatically when their turn in battle comes up but you do have a few options you can perform.  Aside from using items on yourself or the opponents (ie. giving them food to try and befriend them) and assigning one opponent as a target for your Yo-kai to focus on.  The one attack you can use at will…sort of…are Soultimate moves.  Each Yo-kai will have a soul meter that fills up over time and once full you can call on a Yo-kai’s Soultimate move.  The moves can be either attack moves that target one or multiple opponents or non-aggressive moves that can heal or purify your team.  When you use a Soultimate move you’ll have to play a mini-game such as tapping coins or tracing a couple of patterns on the touch screen, and it’s not like each move has its own mini-game; it’s random which one you get.

Early on all of your questing is done during the day but part way in you’ll have to tackle a mission at night.  That doesn’t seem all that interesting of a feature until you learn what can happen when you’re outside at night: Terror Time.  When Terror Time occurs a giant Yo-kai known as Oni will start wandering around as well as smaller orb-like enemies that will try to spot you.  The goal is to make sure you don’t get spotted until the exit appears somewhere, then make a run for it.  If you get caught by Oni you’ll be put into a battle that you probably won’t win unless you have a really high-leveled team.  You can also get into a battle against a really powerful Yo-kai if you don’t follow the traffic laws…I’m not joking.  If you cross the street on a red crossing sign too many times, you’ll have to fight a really powerful Yo-kai, but at least with that battle the game doesn’t end if your team gets wiped out during the fight.

After playing Yo-kai Watch 2 without any experience with the series, I can honestly say it makes me want to play the original game but it’s not without a few issues and nitpicks, and one or two I’ll probably compare to Pokemon as the two series have similar aspects.  Befriending Yo-kai isn’t done at will unless there’s a type of food that guarantees they become your friend after the battle that I haven’t come across yet.  You have to feed them food, then win the battle, and then you might have a chance to befriend them.  You don’t have to feed them food, but your chances of befriending them go up a bit if you do.

Finding Yo-kai can be a bit tedious as well.  When your radar starts going off and you find where they are, you still have to use the circle pad or touch screen to track them down and hold a little bubble over them while a meter fills up.  The problem lies in that once it’s filled up half way, the Yo-kai will likely start moving around the screen and you have to keep track of it, but if the bubble isn’t on the Yo-kai the meter will go back down, making it take longer to catch.  Thankfully the Yo-kai normally move in a specific pattern making it easier to track them down, but it still feels a little needless to have them move as well, though I get why it’s like that; it’s to give a sense of challenge in finding them.

The other major aspect that I have to nitpick on is battles.  I was surprised when I found out that the battles are mostly automatic.  You do have control over using the Soultimate moves and using items, plus you have to know when to rotate your medals in and out to match the current situation, but at least in Pokemon you have a chance before each turn to figure out a strategy, plus you have up to four moves to use for the current situations.  With Yo-kai Watch there is still quite a bit of strategy to employ, just in a different way, and you have to act quickly before a Yo-kai takes too much damage or is taken out of the battle entirely and your plans just went up in smoke.

Overall, Yo-kai Watch 2: Fleshy Souls/Bony Spirits is a fun game and it makes me want to check out more of the series.  It does have its issues that newcomers might not enjoy, but from the research I’ve done the battles and other mechanics were also used in the first game so players of the original Yo-kai Watch will probably enjoy this outing as well.  The graphics are really nice for the 3DS and the occasional animated cut scenes and voice acting sounds good as well, while the humor used can be funny at times (I don’t think I ever once outright disliked any of the humor I saw).  Whether you’re a fan of the series or a first timer like me, Yo-kai Watch 2: Fleshy Souls/Bony Spirits is an enjoyable game if you don’t mind a lot of the battles being automated and catching Yo-kai being a little tedious.