Need a quick monster collecting fix? Pick up Yo-Kai Watch 2!

If you have caught em’ all in Pokemon Go or you’re waiting for the second season of Pokemon releases then I’m sure you’ve looked into to pre-ordering the newest 3DS games Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon. As you may have noticed, however, these game won’t be here until sometime in November leaving you in a collection slump. Fear not though, for Nintendo has your back as long as you are able to gain access to a 3DS. The game Yo-kai Watch is a monster collector based on a watch that can summon creatures by inserting the friendship medal they award you for pretty much just feeding them a lot of food.

Yo-Kai Watch 2 has just released and is a huge monster collecting game by the same studio(Level-5) that made the insanely beautiful and popular Ni No Kuni game for the PS3.  Yo-kai Watch is similar to Pokemon in enough ways to scratch the itch you have for new Pokemon. The games currently have 3 versions out in the non-eastern part of the globe titled Yo-kai Watch, Yo-kai Watch 2 Fleshy Souls, and Yo-kai Watch 2 Bony Spirits.  Yo-kai Watch 2 is split into two different versions that contain different Yo-kai depending on the ones you pick much like Pokemon. They each have over 200 Yo-kai to befriend and features online battle to challenge your friends with when you assemble your ultimate team.

On the story side of things Yo-Kai Watch has a very comical narrative to it and never tries to take itself to seriously.  The collectible creatures in Yo-kai Watch all have quirks about them generally related to their names. Fidgephant, for example, is found in the game causing mischief because anyone he is around ends up having an uncomfortable urge to run to the bathroom. The world of Yo-kai Watch is filled with sidequests detailing the mischief that the different Yokai causes for the humans around them and it’s your job to generally stop them with a battle. The main story itself is usually a little more serious, but it still has a lot of light-hearted moments throughout it to keep things colorful and fun. The first game takes around 12 hours to get through and the second has been quoted to be pretty expansive giving you a lot more to play.

The battle system that we mentioned above is also quite different from Pokemon. Each Yo-kai has a level and most of them have evolutions/fusions to help make them more powerful. The battle will have you spinning a wheel to switch out Yo-kai and using mini-games to build up their soultimate moves to deal massive damage to the opponent. There is also mini-games to help break status effects and collect bonus items that fly across the screen. The system is generally a complicated mesh of micro management that is easy to learn and get into quickly.  Just make sure to keep a good balance of firepower,defense, and healing throughout your team and you can do just fine.

If you do end up getting into Yo-kai Watch on the side almost every store carries Yo-kai Watch merchandise as of right now so feeding your inner collector is easy. Currently, you can buy yourself a Yo-kai Watch and the medals. There is also a huge line of small medal moments toys that come with the Yo-kai posed with its medal to put on a shelf. On top of all of that a new line of giant plushes have just come out of the show’s mascots Jibanyan and Whisper.