Hello everyone. I am currently working on more material as I type this, seeing as my computer is finally repaired; I'm just getting used to the new software. In the meantime, I thought I would tell you more about my experiences with Yo-Kai Watch 2: Fleshy Souls, since I have managed to log another six hours of gameplay since I picked the game up.
Since I chose to start with the female player character, naming her Furiosa (default name in English is Katie Forester, Japanese is Fumiko Kodama), I can now officially treat the demo last year like its own thing. Still, I have to wonder what the rationale was of just choosing a random point in the game. Instead of drawing new players in, it just confused them. The demo for Sun and Moon avoided this by being its own entity that served as a test run for the new mechanics in Generation VII (plus, all those Yungoos and Gumshoos made good target practice for Ash-Greninja, in more ways than one).
Around seven hours in, however; things start to come together. While the first movie they did loosely adapts the plot of going back in time 60 years, I actually find Katie's late grandfather Kenny to be somewhat more likable than Nathaniel, and the relationship between him and his future granddaughter is at least more engaging than the one between Nathan and Nathaniel. Again, I'm still a relative newcomer to the series. Not really what I would call a fan, just an outsider.
More improvements to the map system are something I discovered by pure accident: by clicking on an objective in your quest log, the game will automatically set a waypoint like in other games I've played lately. Very useful feature, because even the past Springdale and Harrisville can be quite daunting to navigate. Not quite as confusing as the first game, but it still lacks the intuitive feel that I get from the newer Pokémon games. I am trying my best to adjust my mind while I ponder what to look at next for the anime, but I've still yet to find a happy medium between "must-own entry in big series" and "cultish niche oddity."
That said, it hasn't been all disappointing. Even if the graphics are still a bit cartoony for my tastes, they still are relatively slick and colorful. I also enjoy the rustic look and feel of the 1950s timeline.
There are also a couple scenes that stood out at me among the jokey nature of the series. The first was when a theater owner handed me a filmstrip of a cartoon that wasn't doing well; and he was under the impression that it was because it wasn't in color rather than the off-putting premise. This may be a stretch, but I can actually consider this to be somewhat metafictional about how the game is doing here: basically, the opposite of what happened in Japan did here. Rather than be the entries that helped the series break out, it got buried against the highly-anticipated Pokémon Sun and Moon and Final Fantasy XV (the latter I've been wanting to play since it was originally the spinoff VS XIII). While many fans seem disappointed about the matter and do have valid points about it, they seem to be under the impression that the series is being actively sabotaged rather than being merely something the mass audience isn't really interested in. Sure enough, the games have not "bloomed like a flower" as Hino hoped; and have only sold a combined 160,000 units in the US as of May 27. One consolation is that they have sold 130,000 copies in Europe in just under two months, a figure that took North America several to reach.
The other was some yokai battles in a graveyard by the shrine. Despite the humor and bright colors being the biggest selling point for others, the ultimate irony for me is that the battles I've enjoyed most about the game are ones set in dark cemeteries or dingy old factories. With the fourth movie planned to have more supernatural horror elements, dark storytelling and new characters while still retaining its humor, this is what I want as an older player: the future of the series is not jokes and toys, it's stories and characters.
While I'm still trying not to expect something on the same order of magnitude as Ni No Kuni or Pokémon Sun and Moon, I would definitely appreciate something that can be understood from both the level of an 11-year-old and a 25-year-old. Call me crazy, but it's rather jarring when one scene shows your player character honoring your late grandfather (I will address this more in my next recap) and the next shows yokai antics in the bathtub and an outhouse. Even Michael Bay would be telling this game to take it easy on the mood whiplash!
I will keep playing the game throughout the summer, and in between some of what I have planned, I will continue to give you my thoughts on it. I am about halfway done taking screencaps for my next recap, you should see it not long after I'm back from vacation at my dad's on Friday. After that, I want to start getting caught up on my plans from last month. That will be all for now. See you, space cowboy.
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