Nintendo Authority

Fun and Addictive Ghostly Action

Yo-Kai Watch is making it’s way over to western shores in a few weeks, and to help promote the game, Nintendo and Level-5 Games has released a free demo of the game on the 3DS eShop. The original game has sold over 8 million copies in Japan, and Level-5 is hoping that Yo-Kai Watch will be just as, if not more successful when it makes it’s western debut, but does the demo make me excited for the full game or does it make me want to pass up the game instead?

First, lets start off with the gameplay, which is very smooth and fun! Nate walks very fluently and it’s very easy to control where you want to go (unlike in games like Pokemon X&Y where your character only move in one of 8 directions, which doesn’t feel fluent), he also walks at a pretty fast pace so you get from area to area quicker and more efficiently. But if that’s not fast enough for you, there’s a run button that you can use to run faster with. Just be careful about how long you use it for, because there’s a stamina bar for it and once it runs out, you’ll only be able to walk slowly for a few seconds.

Not only that, but the battle system works really well too! In the demo, the objective is to defeat 3 bad Yo-Kai, and fortunately, battles are very fun and intuitive! In each battle, you have 6 Yo-Kai on your team and instead of going into a menu to switch out Yo-Kai when you need them, there’s a wheel on the touch screen that you use your stylus (or the L or R buttons) to turn. Up to 3 Yo-Kai can battle at the same time, and instead of choosing a move for it to use, they auto attack. However, each Yo-Kai has a special move, and to activate it, you have to use the touch screen to preform certain actions like spinning a sphere, of tracing a symbol. When a special move is preformed, it can either do major damage to one or more Yo-Kai, or heal the Yo-Kai that are currently battling on your team.

So overall, what do I think about the Yo-Kai Watch demo? It was really fun! I’m extremely hyped for this game and I had a ton of fun playing the demo. If you’re curious about the game or on the fence about getting it, then I highly recommend downloading the demo. Hopefully it will get you interested and excited about the game, which releases on November 6th in North America.