As more reviews trickle in for the live-action Ghost in the Shell now that the embargo has broken (Rotten Tomatoes sits at 56% and dropping as of this writing, in stark contrast to the original's 95%); I will most likely do my review roundup tomorrow. Today, however, I will do something that I have been meaning to for a while.
With E3 being this summer, Nintendo has much planned for their new console; the Switch, with plenty of content to support the console. Many games from both first-party and third-party developers will help give more reasons to pick one up, given how the console is on track to outsell the 14 million units the Wii U sold in its lifetime before the year is out (given how demand has outstripped supply by a considerable margin in my area, I personally plan to look into it for Christmas or my 26th birthday; then work on getting more for my PS4 and getting further in Breath of the Wild).
That said, (sighs), I can now officially be the bearer of bad news towards the success of Yo-Kai Watch outside its native Japan. When Akihiro Hino was promoting the international release of the sequels, he expected that the series would "bloom like a flower" in America by this year. So far, with six months having passed since their release: it hasn't. As of this writing, Bony Spirits and Fleshy Souls have only sold 160,000 copies here; in stark contrast to the upwards of 3 million they sold in Japan, and critical reception has been significantly more mixed than it has been in Japan (though those who have played the games have said they were an improvement over the original Yo-Kai Watch). Bringing up the 14 million copies that Pokémon Sun and Moon have sold so far is just overkill at this point.
With the puzzle mobile game spinoff "Wibble Wobble" (a sort of Bejeweled clone known as "Puni Puni" in Japan) launching in Europe and the sequels launching on 3DS there next week, only one question remains: where do we go from here? Since the anime and toys have also underperformed in the West, how will plans to continue the franchise proceed further?
Even with Level-5 and the fandom interested in continuing with plans to localize the third game (the matter will be addressed in a future post, possibly in another recap of the anime); is it even worth the trouble at this point? While the 3DS may hold on a bit longer even as the industry makes way for the ninth generation, it just might be that the whole idea of it being successful here just wasn't meant to be.
I still feel the same way overall: even if Yo-Kai Watch had the template for something I might have enjoyed, Pokémon Sun and Moon actually filled that template in with life and more than just flickering lights and toys. I think a comment on Nintendo Life put it succinctly: "North America is not Japan, and Yo-Kai Watch is not Pokémon."
I have a prior engagement to take care of, I will return tomorrow with the review roundup of Ghost in the Shell. That will be all for now. Bang.
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