Yo-kai Watch (video game)

Yo-kai Watch (妖怪ウォッチ) is a role-playing video game developed and published by Level-5 for the Nintendo 3DS and the first game in the Yo-kai Watch franchise. Originally released in Japan on July 11, 2013, the game is based on the Yōkai of Japanese folklore, who are said to be ghosts and apparitions that cause mischief in daily life. In Yo-kai Watch, player character Nathan "Nate" Adams or Katie Forester, depending on who the player chooses, is given the titular Yo-Kai Watch, which gives him or her the ability to see Yo-kai, after stumbling across and befriending the butler Yo-kai Whisper. Players assume the role of Nathan or Katie, as he or she travels around town searching for and befriending peaceful Yo-kai, battling hostile Yo-kai, and solving problems caused by mischievous Yo-kai.

The game was released to a positive commercial and critical reception in Japan, and a steady rise in popularity started a franchise, including a toy line and an anime series, in addition to Yo-kai Watch 2, released the following year for the Nintendo 3DS. Despite the franchise's success in Japan, the game would not be released internationally until 2015, when Nintendo announced plans to localize the game in the West. By November 2014, the game had sold over a million copies in Japan, making it one of the best selling games on the Nintendo 3DS.

Plot
While on a bug-collecting school assignment in suburban Springdale, the protagonist visits Mount Wildwood and discovers an unusual capsule machine from which they free Whisper, a ghost-like Yo-kai who gives them the Yo-kai Watch, enabling them to see Yo-kai. The protagonist returns home with Whisper, only to find that the Yo-kai Dismeralda has caused their parents, Lily and Aaron, to argue. The protagonist and Whisper head to an intersection and meet Jibanyan, who joins them to fight Dismeralda. She and her husband Happiere reconcile and he inspirits Lily and Aaron, ending their conflict.

The next day, the protagonist visits Katie, who is upset she unintentionally said mean things to her friend. Upon realizing a Yo-kai is responsible, the protagonist finds and befriends Tattletell, who inspirits Katie and allows her to reconcile with her friend. With the issue resolved, Tattletell reveals that a group of evil Yo-kai led by Slimamander had broken several seals, disrupting the link between the human and Yo-kai worlds. The protagonist and Whisper defeat the evil Yo-kai and repair the seals.

The protagonist and Whisper decide to head to Timers and More, run by Mr. Goodsight, to upgrade their watch and be able to befriend stronger Yo-kai. In the process, the protagonist befriends Baku, encounters the Oni for the first time, and fights and defeats Sproink.

The next day, after Bear uses his mother's ring as bait to catch the "king of Catfish Pond" and accidentally loses it, his father instructs him to retrieve it. The protagonist and Whisper head to a riverside to find the kappa Yo-kai Walkappa and the ring, only to disturb the Yo-kai SV Snaggerjag. After the battle, Snaggerjag reveals he is the guardian of the Catfish Pond, and that the group had scared off the catfish in the area. Afterward, the ring is returned.

The next morning, while on his way to work, Aaron accidentally loses important documents after being Inspirited by Wazzat. While retrei the documents, during which they befriend Wazzat and receive a bicycle as thanks for saving their father's job. Soon after, they hear rumors about development at Flower Road and encounter Kyubi, who blackmails them into entering the construction zone at night. In the process, the protagonist and Whisper meet Komasan. They also find that Kyubi had led them to the true culprit: Massiface. After the protagonist defeats Massiface, the rumors stop.

The protagonist visits an art museum with their friend Eddie, who asks them to accompany him in sneaking to the museum at night. After being warped into the museum by Mirapo and evading the museum's security protocols, they battle and defeat Phantasmurai, a suit of armor controlled by a mouse who Eddie was trying to observe.

Soon after, the protagonist's friends meet up with them at the school in an attempt to find Tarantulor, a spider-like Yo-kai causing mischief there. The Yo-kai abducts their friends, and they and Whisper are forced to find them. They find Katie in the girls' bathroom, but are attacked by Tarantutor. After defeating it, Whisper becomes suspicious and asks the protagonist to return to the school and search for more clues. They discover that the abandoned Nocturne Hospital has unusual Yo-kai activity as a result of the evil Doctor Maddiman, who they fight and defeat. He then reveals that he works for Squiddilius McKracken, a dissident Yo-kai who plans to take over the Yo-kai World and destroy the human world.

The protagonist's classmate Lucas reveals he is a Yo-kai related to Enma, the ruler of the Yo-kai World. The protagonist and Whisper venture to the Yo-kai World to seek answers, where they encounter McKracken and seemingly defeat him. However, upon returning to the human world, they find that the seals have been broken once more, McKracken has deployed his minions in the area, and Slimamander has reawakened. The protagonist defeats McKracken's minions and restores the seals, before defeating McKracken himself and banishing him from the human world. Whisper, knowing that more evil Yo-kai will attack, closes the elevator linking the two worlds, which the protagonist reluctantly accepts. In a post-credits scene, the elevator is rebuilt, allowing the Yo-kai to return.

Gameplay
Yo-kai Watch is a role-playing video game where the player searches around Springdale for Yo-kai using the 3DS' touchscreen. Players befriend Yo-kai by giving them a food item that they like before or during battle, and after defeating the Yo-kai it may or may not approach the player character and gives them its Yo-kai Medal, allowing it to be used in the player's team. Yo-kai can also be acquired through an in-game Gasha Machine by collecting in-game coins or using Play Coins. Certain Yo-kai are necessary for completing the game's main quest, and special rare Yo-kai are acquired through various subquests. Yo-kai have the capability to evolve into more powerful versions of themselves if they reach a certain level, or they can evolve by combining with particular items or other Yo-kai. The Yo-kai are divided amongst eight different tribes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. There are also Legendary Yo-kai that can only be obtained by collecting a particular set of Yo-kai listed in the Yo-kai Medallium, a compendium of the different Yo-kai the player has encountered or befriended.

When the player encounters a Yo-kai, they enter into battle with it using six Yo-kai that the player has befriended previously, and the enemy Yo-kai may bring other Yo-kai to fight with them. The touchscreen is used during battles to rotate amongst the player's Yo-kai in battle at will. It is also used either to clear up status effects on the player's Yo-kai or to charge up the Yo-kai's special abilities. A common in-game event is "Oni Time" (Terror Time), where the player character enters a nightmare realm where he or she looks for treasure chests with special items in them all while trying to avoid being seen by other Yo-kai. If spotted, the player is chased by a powerful Oni Yo-kai that can easily wipe out the player's party unless they can escape. It is possible to defeat the Oni, but only if the player's Yo-kai are particularly powerful. The player can also encounter similarly powerful Namahage Yo-kai if the player crosses the street on a red light, but the encounter may be beneficial if the player follows the rules.

Development
Yo-kai Watch was developed by Level-5, a Japanese video game developer based in Fukuoka, Japan. Before Yo-kai Watch, Level-5 were best known for their Professor Layton series of puzzle adventure games for the Nintendo DS, one of the best selling game series on the platform, with 15 million units sold across six titles. At a time where Level-5 were already successful with resonating with younger gamers with multiple IPs such as Inazuma Eleven and Ni no Kuni, many of the Level-5 staff expressed interest in creating, in Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino's words, the new Doraemon; a title that would "be loved by many people over a long period of time". The team agreed that such a title would be an open world role-playing game.

We’ve created a lot of different IPs, and I figured it was about time that we made something like Doraemon, that could be loved by many people over a long period of time. That was the start of it. I researched what would give something appeal and longevity, and pondered what would be relatable to people and developed the open world RPG that children could play, Yo-kai Watch. I think title's popularity is the fruits of trial and error.

Marketing and release
Yo-kai Watch was officially unveiled to the public by Level-5 at the 2011 Tokyo Game Show, where it was announced during the company's annual Level-5 Vision press conference. It was planned from the start that Yo-kai Watch would be a franchise that consisted of a manga and anime series. A shōnen manga series by Noriyuki Konishi began serialization in CoroCoro Comic from December 15, 2012. This series has been licensed by Viz Media under its Perfect Square imprint. The series went on to earn awards for best Children's Manga at the 2014 Kodansha Manga Awards and at the 2015 Shogakukan Manga Awards. Prior to the release of Yo-kai Watch in Japan, a game demo was made available to download from the Nintendo eShop on July 3, 2013.

After the success of the game and its sequel, Yo-kai Watch 2, a localization of the franchise in territories outside Japan was seriously considered. After registering a trademark for the Yo-kai Watch brand in the United States in January 2014, and inviting public opinion on an international release of the game, Level-5 formally announced in April 2015 that the game would indeed be released in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, and Korea, with Nintendo helping to publish the game outside Japan. At E3 2015, a trailer for the game was showcased during Nintendo's Digital Event presentation, and demos of the game were available to play on the show floor during the convention. A release window of Holiday 2015 was also announced at the convention, with the date being further clarified to a November 6 release in North America by the time the game was showcased at the EB Games Expo 2015. A demo for the game was released on the Nintendo eShop in North America on October 22, 2015. The game was also sold as a bundle with the Nintendo 2DS in North America, selling under $100.

An anime series based on the video game premiered on the TX Network, owned by TV Tokyo, on January 8, 2014, six months after the Japanese release of the game. The series has run continuously on TV Tokyo since then, including a rebranding as a "Second Season" featuring new characters from the upcoming Yo-kai Watch 3 game. As part of efforts to localize Yo-kai Watch in western countries, the series was broadcast in the United States; dubbed in English and premiered on Disney XD on October 5, 2015, a month before the release of the game in North America. The series was broadcast in Australia on GO! in 2016.

In July 2019, Level-5 announced the first game in the series would be ported to the Nintendo Switch; the port was released on October 10, 2019, in Japan. Unlike the original 3DS version, there was no option to use English text. The game was ported to mobile devices via iOS and Android in Japan on July 10, 2021.

Reception
Japanese video game magazine Famitsu scored the game a 36 out of 40, with all of the four judges of the review giving the game 9 out of 10. Editor Reona Ebihara wrote that "the game gradually expands its feature set as you go, opening up this very unique world that's easy to melt into." She also commented positively of the game's use of the Nintendo 3DS' stereoscopic features and its "simple and deeply strategic" battle system. Fellow reviewer Urara Honma corroborated Ebihara's remarks, stating that the battle system felt "really great to control". She further wrote, "You won't run into much frustration playing this game, and while it does feel like one big fetch quest at times, the charms of the story more than make up for that." IGN awarded it a score of 7.2 out of 10, saying "Yo-kai Watch's gameplay is inconsistent, but its world is compelling."

During the 19th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Yo-kai Watch for "Handheld Game of the Year".

Sales
Yo-kai Watch debuted with a strong opening week, selling over 53,000 units in its first week of availability; the best selling handheld game in Japan and second-best selling game in Japan for that week, beaten only by Nintendo's 92,000 unit sales for Pikmin 3. In a list published at the end of the year, Japanese video game magazine Famitsu named Yo-kai Watch as the 23rd best selling game in Japan, with just over 280,000 units sold. After the debut of the Yo-kai Watch anime in January 2014, Level-5, a month later, reported that the sales numbers for the game had spiked to over 500,000 physical copies of the game sold alone, without including digital download sales. The number was brought up to over 800,000, including digital sales, after sales tracker Media Create reported the game had sold as much by May 2015, though, Famitsu reported a more conservative estimate of 650,000 in the same time frame. The month earlier, however, Level-5 reported that they had, in fact, shipped 1 million units, with Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino stating, in an interview with Famitsu, that he believed that the game would reach the million sales mark soon. By June, a month before the release of the game's sequel, Yo-kai Watch 2, the game had crossed the million sales milestone, according to Media Create, after a steady increase of weekly sales since January 2014. By November 2014, the game had sold a total of just under 1,294,000 units sold in Japan. As of June 10, 2016, the game sold 400,000 units in North America. Although that number was below Level-5's expectations, it still got the Yo-kai Watch franchise off to a promising start overseas, and instilled confidence that the franchise would find its place.

The Nintendo Switch port sold 9,426 copies in its first week on sale, placing 4th overall for software sales.

Sequels
A sequel to Yo-kai Watch was released on July 10, 2014, for the Nintendo 3DS in two versions: and. Borrowing near-identical gameplay elements from the original Yo-kai Watch, the games featured an expanded setting, a brand-new story, additional game modes, and a broadly expanded roster of Yo-kai. The games were released to positive critical reception, and an overwhelmingly successful commercial performance was boosted by the popularity of the anime and the preceding game. Both versions of the game accumulated pre-order sales of over 800,000, with the games selling over 1.28 million units in their first week of sale. The games would go on to become the best selling games in Japan for 2014, selling over 3 million copies by December and outperforming Nintendo's Pokémon franchise with Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire and Capcom's Monster Hunter franchise, with Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. The games join Yo-kai Watch as two of the best selling games on the Nintendo 3DS. A third version of the game,, was released in December 2014, adding enhancements to the original Ganso and Honke versions of the game.

Because of the healthy sales of the first game and the first set of sequels, additional sequels titled Yo-kai Watch 3 and Yo-kai Watch 4 were released initially in Japan in July 2016 and June 2019, respectively.