the Yo-Kai Watch series from Level 5 got written off by so many gamers - especially in the West - as just another “Pokémon ripoff,” when in reality, it’s one of the most charming, funny, and uniquely creative RPG franchises out there.
i mean yeah, it’s easy to assume Yo-Kai Watch was designed to ride Pokémon’s coattails. You’ve got a young kid, they befriend supernatural creatures, those creatures help them solve problems or fight other creatures. It even launched with toys and an anime, like Pokémon. But this shitty surface comparison misses the heart of what makes Yo-Kai Watch special; and anyway, if you want to cite superficial, genre-based similarities as a sufficient reason to not try a game out, you could probably apply that same wobbly logic to many other beloved franchises
when Nintendo brought Yo-Kai Watch to the West, the timing couldn’t have been worse. The first game launched on 3DS in 2015 — right at the tail end of the system’s golden age and just before the Pokémon franchise hit full mainstream saturation again with Sun & Moon and Pokémon Go.
Combine that with a localization that struggled to translate the very Japan-specific charm and humor, and the game was basically fucking sent to die overseas. Didn’t help that Hasbro bungled the toyline by failing to communicate which stores the collectible medals were being shipped to and when, making finding them a crapshoot for collectors.
It ALSO didn’t help that marketing leaned so heavily into the “it’s the next Pokémon!” narrative, which raised expectations to impossible heights (and also made Pokemon fans defensive and avoidant of the series on principle). People wanted battles with deep strategy and tournament-ready meta, but Yo-Kai Watch was always more about vibe, humor, and light social satire.
Yo-Kai Watch deserves a second chance, especially with the rise of “Pokemon-likes” like Cassette Beasts, Dokimon, Dragon Quest Monsters, SMT/Persona, Monster Hunter Stories 2 and Palworld
As someone who grew up with the 3DS and only recently got interested in RPGs, I’m a little curious about it. Probably only because the main protagonist bears a striking resemblance to the protagonist of the Mega Man Star Force series that means a lot to me, haha.
Coincidentally, Star Force is also an underrated RPG series (imo) that suffered from bad timing and, as the sequel to the Battle Network series, had the curse of being simultaneously called more of the same and too different from Battle Network, and also suffering from bad timing.