I hope Yo-Kai Watch lives on in some form
Yo-Kai Watch Smarpho (smartphone) is coming very soon, as Level-5 continues to mine the well of former Yo-Kai Watch popularity. The mobile edition will be released on July 10 in Japan, which is basically right now in JST. It’s 1,220 yen if you grab it before August 16: at which point it’ll revert to the permanent price of 1,960 yen. That’s basically six bucks off if you get it early.
So what is it? Well it’s actually just a re-release of the original game; the game that started the craze in Japan, and the attempt at domination in the west.
If you’re somehow in the unique position to play this, do it! There’s a reason the first title (and subsequent games) caught on, as the main series is actually a pretty fun JRPG romp, with several unique mechanics and a very vibrant cute world. For 10 bucks you can’t really go wrong, though the original has dropped to around that much on 3DS, so you have options.
There’s a lot more Yo-Kai Watch in Level-5’s future too, with several spinoffs in the works. Sadly, Yo-Kai Watch 4 still hasn’t been localized, and Nintendo (who has been handling it in the west) has seemingly given up on this series. Level-5’s western HQ is also shuttered, so the chances of the fourth entry actually seeing the light of day outside of Japan are very slim.
You can’t say that Level-5 didn’t try. I saw a ton of merch flood many US stores around the release of the first game overseas, and the team completely reworked a new anime series to appeal to an older crowd. It just didn’t work out. You can read up on the whole history of Yo-Kai Watch here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHuxYhlTyC4
