First Byte: Yo-Kai Watch

Back in 1998, a small portable called Pokemon hit the gaming scene and ignited a phenomenon. Who knew catching, trading, and fighting adorable pocket monsters would become and stay popular among children and young adults for over 15 years? Many titles have tried their hand at usurping Pokemon off of its throne, but most have failed. Well, until recently.

Yo-Kai Watch, a multimedia franchise similar to Pokemon just replace monsters with ghosts, has blown up in Japan. Created by the well-respected Japanese game developer Level-5, Yo-Kai Watch has gone on the spawn games, toys, manga, anime, other forms of merchandise. Considering Yo-Kai Watch is such a hit in their home country of Japan, Nintendo and Level-5 are looking to recreate that success here in North America with the simultaneous launch of the toys, anime, and game.

To entice gamers to pick up the Yo-Kai Watch game upon release, Nintendo has a demo up on the eShop for all to enjoy. Funny enough, it had the adverse effect on me.

The demo gives the player one quest to complete: defeat three mischievous yo-kai and report back to the quest giver. Spoiler alert: turns out the quest giver is a yo-kai as well, and it's up to you to beat it or fight until the demo ending cutscene triggers. Outside of the quest, you are given a small section of Springdale to explore where you can talk to NPCs, find and fight wild yo-kai, and pick up random items (even though the demo doesn't allow you to use them).

Coming out of Fan Expo, I had a few reservations with Yo-Kai Watch, but was mostly pleased with the 10 minutes I played. The game has some unique systems in place when it comes to tracking down and fighting wild yo-kai that differentiate it from Pokemon, although not enough to stop comparisons from being made. After playing through the demo twice now, Yo-Kai Watch feels too shallow for my liking. While it may be easy to get into the game, there isn't anything beyond the surface. Simply, it lacks depth.

My problems with Yo-Kai Watch's lack of depth stems from its combat. Fights take place in real time, which means you have no direct control over what your party does. You only have control over switching your party mid-battle, who they target, and whether to unleash a special move or cure an afflicted party member. Using special moves and curing party members triggers one of three touch screen minigames: tapping the screen, rubbing the screen, or tracing lines. Thanks to the touch controls and minigames, I spent the majority of fights staring bottom screen. There were times I wouldn't even notice that a battle ended until I was booted back to the overworld.

This lack of agency during battles soured my impression of Yo-Kai Watch as a whole. I'm not going to spend 20 to 40 hours with a game, especially a RPG, if it's combat is this shallow. I might be wrong and Yo-Kai Watch adds plenty of depth the farther you get in the game, but I'm not spending 50 dollars just to find that out.