E3 2015 Hands On: Watch out here comes Yo-Kai Watch

I did not really know what to make about Yokai Watch when I first learned of it a few years back, I thought it was just another Pokémon clone, but then seeing that Nintendo are doing the work to bring it across to the west, I had to rethink that idea and after getting some hands on time with it at E3 I am sure it’s not.

The demo started with me in a bedroom, there was a bed, tv and stairs in the corner, I laughed and said to the lady’s from Nintendo America that it’s just like Pokémon, they told me I was wrong, but as they start out the same I could not believe them, until I went downstairs. There I got the first thing that it’s nothing like Pokémon as there sitting at a table was a man in a suit and when I spoke with him, he was identified as Dad.

I laughed and realised this may not be like Pokémon, which looking back upon my time there is a good thing. Once outside though, things opened up quite unlike any other game on 3DS, the town was large, with people moving about doing all sorts of activities, jobs and just living their lives. It was at this point I was tasked by a neighbour to go around town and deal with the three naughty Yokai that were causing problems for people, one was near the playground, another near the shops but the third was a mystery, but I knew where the first was so off to the park I went.

When I got to the park, there was a small boy there and on one else, after a brief conversation, where I learned that bad Yokai can possess, I mean inspirit people, it was Yokai hunting time. In order to search for them, you need to keep an eye on a meter in the top corner of the screen, as you get closer to a Yokai the meter will move from green into the red and once you are at full red, you can break out the scanner to start looking. Doing this is just a matter of moving the stylus around on the touch screen to have a reticule move about on the top screen, you need to be a little thorough in search, but once you do a fight is going to happen.

Combat in Yokai Watch is more akin to Puzzle & Dragons, where you have a team of Yokai on the screen, but you can rotate them out when you want by simply spinning the circle on the bottom screen. When you want to attack, you select the option and then which Yokai you actually want to do the attack, this will trigger a mini game that requires you to complete a task in order to charge up the attack. These will vary from tasks like tracing a pattern, spinning a wheel or even tapping on orbs as they fall down the screen, once the time is done, even if you did not get full strength the attack will happen.

The combat is more involved than that other title, but it still requires a knowledge of elements as some Yokai are stronger than others, so making sure you select the right one to attack is going to determine how successful you are. After the fight was won, I went on my way to locate the second troublesome Yokai and along the way I saw a man who was standing around looking bored, so I talked to him and got the funny message to check back with him in the full game for something good, which made me laugh.

Of course, I still had to hunt down that second Yokai, which thankfully was not too far away from where I was. Again I spoke to the person the Yokai was causing grief to and then had to scan for it, this time I started the scanner too early, which resulted in me looking over every inch of the screen I was on, as it turns out when you have the scanner active, you can’t move your character about. So I had to back out of the scanner and then move closer to the actual space, start the scanner and start looking again.

Once I found the new Yokai, it was time to battle again, which again had me tapping, tracing and spinning to charge the attacks, which resulted in a swift defeat for that trouble making Yokai and a win for me. I could have continued on to locate the third Yokai, but I wanted to go and play more Nintendo games, but from my time with Yokai Watch, I can tell you it is not Pokémon, even if there are themes that run through both games. Yokai Watch has more depth to it’s combat and the world feels bigger, of course, this is only a vertical slice of the game and things could be different when it releases, but so far it’s on track to be quite a fun game.