This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
Yo-Kai Watch Blasters, the game that marked the beginning of the end for Level Five's localization business. I may be a huge fan of the first two games, but I can't even muster a shred of heart to defend this failure of spin off. Because not only is this game riddled with annoying level design, but it is physically painful to play in the later stages. I'm not joking when I say you will risk get blisters on your fingers if you attempt the post game stages.
No matter how strong your Yo-Kai are, no matter how skilled you are at controlling your Yo-Kai, you'll be mashing the attacking and evasive commands so much that by the end of the fight you'll be left exhausted and bruised. There was little thought put into the control style of this game. This handheld game system was not designed for this strict amount of button mashing.
This game is so painful, that I don't even recommend this adventure to casual gamers. The Yo-Kai Watch Blasters are supposed be this Ghostbusters and Mystery Dungeon Team hybrid that defend the peaceful Yo-Kai from the evil monsters that appear in Terror Time. Which doesn't make much sense, because it was stated in the first game that Oni are a manifestation of psychological stress, not evil. Gargaros is not a villain.
But that doesn't matter, because the goal of this game is to become the ultimate anime hero team of good people. Because cliche plot threads make everyone happy. The story doesn't care if you have the skill to beat Gargaros in the very first chapter, you must flee like a coward to understand true victory. I can't stand the main story theme. It's bad enough that I need three hands to have access to all the button commands and have my stylus ready to activate touch screen commands. But with a story mode that puts in more effort in advertising new characters than making the adventure interesting, my excitement transforms into irritation. Why should I care about saving the day?
I would also like to mention that their's a lot more voice acting compared to the last game. Now whenever a character utters a word, a random voice clip catchphrase plays to remind you that they are talking. And yes, it does get annoying fast. Unlike other Level Five games like Inazuma Eleven and its many sequels where the voice acting is only used to make certain events stand out from other dialogue exchanges, this game does the next best thing, by making every exchange of dialogue seem important.
But hey some of the boss fights are pretty fun. I will give credit that Yo-Kai Watch video game cutscenes are consistently entertaining. And the same goes for the soundtrack, I haven't found a game yet in this series with bad or even average music. Captain Thunder's theme in particular is a real jam. This game may be a pain to play and a bore when it comes to keeping my interest. But it is entertaining to watch the fights themselves and listen to the awesome fight music. I recommend you look it all up on Youtube.
But remember Yo-Kai Watch fans, no matter how interesting this game looks, I highly recommend you avoid playing it. With the Nintendo E-Shop kaput, it is now impossible to access the extra content from the Moon Rabbit Crew update. Not that you'd stand a chance against the exclusive bosses anyway. For sheer luck is a key requirement to wining these fights. These bosses were so cheap with their attack patterns that I couldn't bring myself to enjoy them. It's like Kingdom Hearts, minus the adrenaline, the enjoyment, and the ability to jump.
I'd say the most memorable part of this game in the final battle against Whisped Cream. A demonic version of Whisper who is in no relation to Whisper. Wrap that around your head. In the original version of this game he was meant to resemble the giant Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters to tie in with the Ghostbusters theme. But due to copyright, he was changed to resemble Godzilla in the international version.
It's entertaining enough for a stand alone fight, but compared the previous two final bosses, it's thematically weaker in comparison. A giant enemy just isn't as interesting as the nightmare hell spawns we got in the last adventures. And I think the clash would be way more entertaining if Whisper was the main villain of the game, wanting to take revenge on all Yo-Kai that mocked him over the years. A nice combination of tension and humor.
I hope none of the future spin off games in this series end up like this one. I can also understand why the sequel never made it outside of Japan. I swear the only reason most of these games sold well was due to the successful fad in Japan. But if we keep in mind what made this series enjoyable to begin with, maybe their is still hope left for the future of Yo-Kai Watch.… Expand