Yokai Watch 2 – So much more than just a Pokemon Clone
Throughout my video game journey, Pokemon has always been there for me. While I’m by no means a hardcore fan, I’ve played a good number of generations, and even tried shiny hunting a few times, though to little success. One thing that Pokemon seems to have nailed down at this point is its formula. Even Monster collecting games inspired by Pokemon seem to mostly stick to it, after all, it’s been working for years. But there’s one Pokemon-inspired game that vastly shakes up the Gameplay, and, in my Opinion is better than every Mainline Pokemon Game. And that game is none other than Yokai Watch 2. You might think that’s a bold claim considering it’s a 3ds game you have probably never heard of. But let me tell you, Yokai Watch 2 gets so much right.
The Story
Let’s be honest, when you spend more than a few seconds thinking about the universe of any of the Pokemon Games, they kind of fall apart – As it turns out, kicking your 10 year old out of your home so they can catch animals and have them fight each other isn’t exactly the best idea. Now, Pokemon is obviously still very fun, but it would definitely be improved by having a world that does not fall apart at the seams the moment you give it any thought whatsoever – Yokai Watch on the other hand has a rather grounded world in comparison. It still doesn’t take itself all that seriously, which is a good thing, but there’s nothing there that just straight up doesn’t make sense even within the logic of the world. Yokai Watch 2’s areas also feel a lot more alive, with NPCs that have more realistic dialogue (No more randomly talking about your love of shorts to strangers, sadly), less static looking walking routes, and roads with cars that actually stop for you. In general, its very charming and gives big Saturday morning cartoon vibes.
The Combat
Of course, one of the most important aspects of Pokemon is the combat – It’s what you’ll be doing most of the time.
And Yokai Watch 2 does not disappoint, having its own, very deep, and in my opinion, much better combat system.
First up, the wheel:
In Yokai Watch, all your Yokai Are positioned on a wheel, which is dragged around with the stylus to choose which Yokai are active. This allows for you to have 3 different Yokai out on the field simultaneously. How you position Yokai on this wheel when building your Team and in combat is a huge part of the combat system. In Yokai Watch 2, there are 11 Tribes of Yokai, their equivalent to Pokemon Types. When multiple Yokai of the same Tribe are positioned next to each other on the wheel, they get a bonus depending on their Tribe, which encourages you think about team composition a lot more, and gives the Tribes more of an identity than Types have in Pokemon.
Lastly, there are no turns in Yokai Watch 2. Your Yokai and the enemy Yokai attack each other automatically. This might sound like it reduces the depth of the combat system by a lot, but being able to use three Yokai at a time, that all have different abilities makes up for that. You will be too busy during battle anyways, as you will need to use your Yokai’s Soultimate attacks once they are charged (Basically the equivalent of Z-Moves), remove debuffs, and rotate the wheel to position your Yokai correctly for the current situation. You can also directly target which Yokai to attack, or for bosses, which body part to attack. All of this makes for much faster, more enjoyable battles than in Pokemon, where fights usually take ages.
Befriending Yokai
Next up we have the Yokai – seeing as this is a game about collecting Yokai, it’s kind of important that collecting them is actually fun, and that the Yokai that there are to collect have good designs – and wow, Yokai Watch 2 does not disappoint.
First up, how do you befriend (catch) Yokai?
Unlike in Pokemon, there is no one method that lets you catch every Yokai. Instead of just mindlessly throwing Pokeballs, you need to actually prepare. In order to maximize the chances of befriending a Yokai, you need to give it its favorite Item during battle. Usually this is some kind of food. Once the battle is over, the Yokai will decide whether or not it wants to join you. This is not only more involved than throwing Pokeballs, it’s also significantly less tedious, as you can only give one item per battle, as opposed to Pokemon where you often waste 2-3 Turns just throwing Pokeballs at the enemy.
Another thing I love is the Ranking System for Yokai. Instead of Pokemon, where we just have Legendaries, Mythicals, and then every other Pokemon that exists, Yokai in Yokai Watch 2 come in ranks S, A, B, C, D, E, and F, so not only does this let you tell at a glance if a Yokai is suited to where you are in the Game right now, the gradual increase in ranks of the Yokai you befriend also feels very rewarding. S Rank Yokai, unlike Legendaries in Pokemon, actually feel special. You typically have to go through a lot of effort to obtain them by doing a quest line, fighting a difficult battle, or obtaining specific Yokai and then using those to summon the S-Rank using your Medallium. Having this ranking system also encourages you to keep on befriending new Yokai as high ranked Yokai are vastly more powerful than Yokai with lower ranks, enough to make up for the level difference of the lower-ranked Yokai already in your Party, as opposed to Pokemon where you can usually beat the entire story line and most of the post game without ever swapping out any of the Pokemon in your team.
Another thing that Yokai Watch really excels at is giving the Yokai Character – Because they can actually talk, there is way more room for expressing their personality, which is absolutely taking advantage of. Sure, they usually aren’t the most 3-Dikensional of characters but it absolutely beats ‘Pika Pika’ in terms of writing.
Foreshadowing
Yokai Watch 2 does something that the Mainline Pokemon Games should legitimately take notes from:
Foreshadowing for Yokai.
In the Main story, there are plenty of times you have to fight or do quests for Yokai you will not be able to catch until hours later, sometimes they are even only available in the Endgame. This gives the Player a goal to look forward to, and makes finally catching those Yokai so much more rewarding. For example: At the end of one of the earlier boss fights in Yokai Watch 1, the Player gets rescued by a mysterious Ninja Yokai called Venoct that uses his Snake-Scarf (Yes, really) to one-shot the boss you were struggling to defeat. Once you can finally obtain Venoct hours later after having finished the story, it feels so much more rewarding, because now Venoct isn’t just some random cool looking Ninja, it’s that Badass Yokai that helped you defeat a Hydra that one time. Small stories involving Yokai like this happen all the time, and make the experience of catching Yokai so much more rewarding because you actually get to interact with a lot of them before you’re able to catch them.
The Bossfights
In Yokai Watch, you can’t befriend boss Yokai, this means that instead of Pokemon, where bosses both have to be challenging and fun, but also need to be balanced around the Player being able to use them. In Yokai Watch, bosses get to have actual Mechanics. I know, what an insane idea. For example, in the aforementioned Hydra boss fight, you need to target the eye that the Hydra has opened in order to deal damage. This also means that bosses get to be an actual challenge, as their stats don’t need to be tuned around you being able to use them later on. There are befriendable versions of some boss Yokai, but they have altered stats and a different moveset to balance them for use by the Player. Boss Yokai are also always fought in themed arenas, and their designs can be a lot more interesting, because due to them never being obtainable in their Boss form, they can take up the entire upper half of the screen if need be, or be made up out of multiple Yokai you can target independently. Unlike Pokemon, Yokai Watch 2 also has a lot of endgame content, and said content is actually very challenging. I still haven’t managed to beat its main endgame challenge, the infinite Inferno. There’s a bunch of endgame quests for the Player to do, all rewarding you with very powerful Yokai, a lot of which were teased in the Main Story.
Overall, this leads to Yokai Watch 2 being by far my favorite Monster Collecting Game, beating out Gen V by a landslide. Hopefully, this article has convinced you to give it a try as well. With the eShop for 3ds getting discontinued soon, it might get a big harder though. But hey, if all things fail, just choose the Pirate’s Life. You didn’t hear that from me though, got it?