Hello again. I've been very busy with Spanish lately; and I also plan on going on vacation soon; so I hope to get the recap I've been working on posted before I leave.
Even so, I have a couple things to tell you. I just got Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon a few days ago; and I'm enjoying it so far. Despite not being familiar with prior entries (I had only played Red Rescue Team on GBA a while ago) or the "roguelike" subgenre of RPGs as a whole; I can honestly say the latest entry in one of the more successful Pokémon spinoff series is the best Mystery Dungeon title yet in terms of graphics, gameplay and story.
Now comes the part where I must once again address Yo-Kai Watch. There was an aura of doubt that the latest Japanese video game juggernaut could go toe to toe with Pokémon in the US; and it seems that my skepticism has once again been justified.
In its first two weeks on the market in the US; the title has only managed to sell slightly over 30,000 units, far less than even the initial launch in Japan. As I pointed out before, it doesn't help that the game was put against a murderer's row of anticipated entries from established franchises. Super Mystery Dungeon alone quickly snatched the eShop crown it briefly held (meaning my statement of being an eShop novelty may have been too generous); and launching against Call of Duty: Black Ops III effectively left the title dead in the water. This is further compounded by Fallout 4 launching the following week (note: westerners have often had "cute" RPGs that aren't Pokémon be a bit of a hard sell; tending to skew towards darker ones or ones that take themselves with some degree of seriousness like Fallout); and things could potentially get worse once sales for Star Wars Battlefront come up.
It's one thing to bring up stuff from VGchartz, though. How does the "sitch" sound coming from an ordinary person like me? Well, I wish I could say that my area took to it like a duck to water; but that is not the case. When I went to get minutes for my phone at Walmart, there were seven copies of the game in stock; as well as 2 of the 2DS bundles. When I came back a week or so later; they were still there. Nobody touched them.
At Gamestop; when I went to preorder Super Mystery Dungeon, there were two copies of the game and 2 more 2DS bundles on the shelf. When I picked it up; only one copy of Yo-Kai Watch had sold compared to most of the ones of Super Mystery Dungeon being gone.
Furthering this was the fact that on my Streetpass function; only two tags out of at least 170 users had the game in my area, factoring folks from multiple counties and other passersby. All of this, on a handheld which has sold 15 million units at minimum; points to the fact that using the same strategy as Japan to launch Yo-Kai Watch may not have been the best idea.
Despite this; Hino still plans to bring over the sequels in the near future, and the game has been doing a bit better on eShop than it has at retail. Still, it doesn't really inspire all that much confidence when Inazuma Eleven flopped in the US; and Ni No Kuni sold well enough to get a "Greatest Hits" label on PS3.
Personally, I still don't plan on buying the game anytime soon. I might pick up a used copy later on down the line, but that probably won't be till 2016 at the earliest. I'll probably recap more of the anime then too; because I'm stretched thin with the rest of this year and I want to see what happens with the toys in spring 2016. Since retailers are now taking preorders; only time will tell if it will be as big for Hasbro as Star Wars, Transformers, GI Joe and Marvel have been; but as for "the next Pokémon:" with that series turning 20 next year, the writing's on the wall. Bang.
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