Yo-Kai Watch 3: One Year Later (Video Game Review/In-depth Analysis)

Hello everyone. First, let me state that I don’t consider this game or the other ones I’ve played in this series bad; even if I didn’t feel the same way as others did. Second, as we near five years since I first began addressing the series; I now admit that many of the things I said about the series in my earlier recaps (I formally retired in 2018 before I started doing periodical reviews in 2019 onward) were overly harsh in hindsight. Namely, I not only considered the TV series and the first two movies to be bad anime, but I went so far to suggest that the ones who thought it wasn’t bad (one of whom I am referring to as Murdoch) were “not entirely stable” in this area. However, despite this; the choices I make about anything I cover have always been my own; so I will make the final decision whether or not I want to watch or play something to write about. There are still things I dislike and I will not hold back in explaining why, nor will I bow to others’ demands. That is your one warning to click away before I continue.

So, allow me to say: “and now for something completely different.” I have briefly talked about some video games related to series I’ve recapped and reviewed in the past; but this is my first formal video game review as an experiment. With one year having passed since its US release, here is my review of “Yo-Kai Watch 3.”

And. Here. We. Go.

Please keep in mind that there will be spoilers if you’re interested in that, and this review is purely based on my experiences during my play through of the main quest. I will be focusing mainly on factors that are objective to explain my point of view in terms of gameplay, graphics and story. So, let’s get this going. First, I named the avatars that I would be playing with. The default name for the male one is Nate (Keita in Japan), but I named him Max as I did in previous games.

"My world is fire and blood. As the world fell, each of us in our own way was broken. It was hard to know who was more crazy: me, or everyone else." 

Rather than Katie (Fumiko in Japan), we have a new female avatar called Hailey Anne Thomas (Inaho Misora in Japan). As for why I chose to name her Ripley? (sighs) Well, there is the way the game itself portrayed her, and we’ll get to that.

As for why I’m not addressing sound this time around: I mostly ended up playing with my 3DS on mute while listening to other music instead. I will state the opening theme is good, especially as it’s not more warmed-over Jeff “Swampy” Marsh (I do love his other stuff, for the record).

The story begins with agents Blunder and Folly on assignment, no doubt a take-off on Mulder and Scully from the hit show “The X-Files” (they were even called such in the JP game, but were changed to avoid legal issues with Fox; now a subsidiary of Buena Vista Entertainment).

"This is the worst assignment we've ever had." "Worse than that time we were attacked by the flesh-eating virus?" "No, this is much more irritating."

After that, there’s a dinner-themed minigame that kind of reminds me of what’s in the WarioWare games; as it did before.

Then, we get the big catalyst of the game’s oft-delayed localization: the premise of the story. The plot revolves around your family moving when your father transfers to a new job. However, while in the original; this was simply moving from Japan to the United States, because the previous games were localized in Idaho, this was changed to the fictional country of “BBQ.” Might as well say they’re moving to Los Santos or Liberty City if that’s the way you’re going.

Even my avatar lampshades this, saying that’s “almost a whole other continent,” or a parallel universe; in my case. That’s one benefit Pokémon has had by setting their stories in worlds influenced by our own; but are clearly fantasy settings like the Mushroom Kindgom, Hyrule or Talon IV.

So, in short order; everyone hops on the plane to their new house in (sighs), BBQ; to the point where the loading screens even were altered to reflect the changes. I will get more into this later on; but at least, it fits what they’re going for.

"After five years on the east coast, it was time to go home."

It took me almost two pages of notes just to cover the first 15 minutes of play; and I will be including these screenshots I’ve taken. Aside from some cropping on a few of them, these are all from my newest 3DS and haven’t been modified in any other way.

After quite a few cutscenes (thankful for the skip button) and a brief bit about finding my mother’s glasses a la Velma Dinkley; we then get to the switching mechanic: back in Springdale, we are formally introduced to Hailey Anne, who I have named Ripley. Though the anime was subject to lots of mugging, not only did the dub thankfully tone her down; she’s more restrained in this game. Plus, this whole pop culture obsession is actually more relatable than the supposed main character of the male avatar. Her baby brother Joshua is another story.

"Did IQs drop sharply when I was away?"

Anyway, slipping into her yellow Converses, she heads to the entertainment mecca of “Sparkopolis,” a sort of pastiche of the real-life Akihabara district of Tokyo. I have more to say about this later, but for now; this first part of her story is similar to how it played out in the anime: she goes to look for a special collectible from “Sailor Cuties,” but the store doesn’t have it. Again, why I check stock online before I head out the door.

"Goodbye moonmen..."

She dejectedly tries to leave, but is instead beckoned into buying a “UFO-Kai Watch” that just happened to be at the store. Well, at least it’s not in comic sans this time.

In short order, she looks for the voices speaking to her; and sure enough, they find her in the form of Usapyon; who I named “Hicks” to keep up the parallels to the “Alien” series. Hailey Anne then comments that a yokai “should really look more imaginary and fantastical.” It’s like someone at Level-5 was reading my mind.

So, that’s going to be one big thing with the stories: while not as much finesse as in the “Ni No Kuni” games, this game will feature the parts of the world going back and forth in the first half or so unless the story has to be in one area to progress. I find it odd Whisper is describing BBQ as “rural:” based on this overhead shot of St. Peanutsburg and the previous games, it’s more like they crammed Yankee Stadium into a shot glass.

Hailey Anne also got the toy she wanted, and her reaction is the same as mine when I got my Legacy Megazord. Again, this will be part of my analysis; but despite the intent of the developers; what appealed to me probably weren’t the parts Hino intended.

We’re then given a choice of which story thread to follow next: Nate’s is “That Boy Buck,” but I decided to go with Hailey Anne’s first, “A Rocket Full of Hope.” After a certain point, I had to go back to Nate’s in order to progress further; but I decided to take this in stride while MST-ing the game as I went. 

Case in point: Nate comments on being able to wear shoes in the house while in “BBQ,” which means I can pull this Awkward Zombie comic gag out of mothballs.

On that note, this early mission revolving around a language barrier was indeed extensively rewritten for the English release; with the new neighbors now having thick accents rather than a different tongue. Even with what lies ahead, I personally would have just cut the mission entirely; but that’s just me.

For what it’s worth, the accents in St. Peanutsburg are so cartoonishly Southern that they all come off like the unholy spawn of Foghorn Leghorn and Yondu Udonta.

At one point during my exploration, I got buzzed by a truck that’s as big as Motormaster; and Jibanyan got clipped again.

There are also some missions involving getting pizza for a police officer; giving me another way to use this music.

I’m honestly not a fan of fetch quests no matter what game they show up in; though after three hours of meandering (no joke), I was able to go back to Hailey Anne’s story. Thankfully, the game and dub made her more tolerable; and that’s coming from someone who once said she made Tingle look like Rambo. By that same token, it’s ironic this fangirl and where she treads are more appealing to me than characters and a location that were intended to do just that.

So, after the first five hours of gameplay (pay attention to the time stamps I’m mentioning); I did finally get all the pieces I needed to complete the rocket. Though I cut off my look at how the anime handled things, now; we get to launch the rocket.

This reignites the doctor’s dream; and it’s better than how the anime handled things in execution. The next chapter keeps up the weirdness, and even though the design isn’t the best; the actual gameplay is thankfully the most polished of the three main games (I count all the versions of the second as one, I don’t have any plans to play the “Blasters” spinoffs at all).

As we roll over to chapter 3, this next section now involves side missions of doing detective work. Though Usapyon suggests a portmanteau of his name and the female avatar, I instead picked another reference: the “Spirits ‘N Such” Agency from “Mob Psycho 100.” These parts are actually not that bad, and I honestly think the game should have focused more on stuff like this. There’s more variety than simply “fetch item X, befriend monster Y;” and it reminds me of how delightfully weird many of the classic Lucasarts/Double Fine PC adventure games were.

That said, (sighs); I am really not a fan of how they redesigned the Gargaros missions. Now, they happen at pure random rather than how the first two games did it. Somehow, playing the Metal Gear games for the first time in years was easier than dealing with that lummox. It took six hours, and it was the first example of this game’s spikes in difficulty. I am fine with a reasonable challenge, a game that gets progressively tougher as you go or even what some refer to as “Nintendo Hard” (one of my main counterarguments to the “just for kids” claim some try to invoke). It’s doing something like this that irritates me. To put this in perspective, it’s like if you had to fight Ghetsis right after you got your first badge or the final boss in Ni No Kuni right after you got to Ding-Dong Dell.

Still, with persistence, I did get past the impasse; only having to go back to Nate’s missions around the 8-hour mark of play. The next stretch of story missions are in a junkyard, with some sidequests of getting food for Tomnyan.

At the 10-hour mark or so, I made it to the junkyard; only running into a character I was hoping to avoid after a half-hour of grinding out XP. His name is Buck Hazeltine, by the way; and I have more to say about him later. For now, I prefer Buck the treasure hunter from Sinnoh.  I bypassed a lot of the cutscenes, and thankfully; the game doesn’t penalize the player for doing events out of order. I’ve played enough “Metroidvanias” in my life to do that without any trouble. The scrapyard itself is at least decent; though I don’t remember operating any cranes at Nate’s age. I was more of a Tekken/House of the Dead guy in those days; and I still am.

Anyway, the boss of this stage is Junkernaut; and while it looks like it escaped from the live-action Transformers films; the fight ends up being much easier than I expected. So, this chapter closes out without too much trouble. The next chapter, however; is another story. For once, I agree with Whisper.

Right on cue, Buck appears before the player; causing Nate to ask how he knew where he lived. Forget that: how did he even get in the house? This unfortunately starts a long running gag of the character interjecting himself into the story regardless of whether or not he’d fit. At least Roman gave you a phone call before he asked if you wanted to go bowling or play darts.

After that; we go to city hall; with Whisper remarking that “you’d think he [Buck] wouldn’t ditch us.” Honestly, I’m this close to ditching him.

We then bump into Miss Stickler, related to Mr. Stickler from the previous games. Very odd, but she’s actually not coming off as annoying as Buck; to be honest.

He then compares yokai with aliens, and has a “UFO Stone.” Hopefully Thanos doesn’t find out about that. After some side missions, though my enjoyment has been dampened by Buck; the gameplay is at least the most polished of the main trilogy. Whisper then remarks the setting has a “rustic old-fashioned charm to it.” Eh, I prefer Onett personally.

At the 12-hour mark, I’m roped into more shenanigans with Buck; including going shopping for “thangs.” Well, that just makes me want to play more of the Octo Expansion in Splatoon 2.

So, we go to the grocery store; which has the cart move forward by pressing up on the directional controls. Oy, I thought we left controls like this behind in the ‘90s. Hardest thing to do for me always was making the cart go straight. I wonder if this counts as revealing my pop culture age. It gets harder when it’s full of groceries. Suffice to say, I didn’t like dealing with borderline Resident Evil tank controls. This was worse than dealing with Mamoswine in X and Y (always used Fly to bypass that section after that).

There’s also side missions known as “Zombie Night,” which are honestly much less fun than they sound because of sluggish melee combat controls and uneven collision detection. I only did what I needed to progress in the story; and as of this writing, I have yet to pick them up again.

This also ties into another mission involving a “Zombie Supermarket.” I find the disbelief at shopping zombies odd. Clearly, the people in this game have never seen Dawn of the Dead (both the 1978 and 2004 versions). The cart controls are still tricky, especially when you have to elude the sentries: you have to tap the button just at the right time for the ramp jump or it won’t work. For some people, there’s a bit of trial and error; and we’ll come back to that later.

Back in Sparkopolis, another mystery is at hand; and Hailey Anne remarks that she sees “why we were asked to investigate,” or maybe wondering what’s in the water. I still think the game should have been about her, especially given what lies ahead.

Seriously: even with the drudgery of BBQ, the Sparkopolis sections were my main motivator to keep playing. This kind of trippy misadventure is the kind of absurdity that always makes me curious enough to follow the white rabbit. In the course of this mystery, I ate a farcical omelet while dressed as a maid running along with neon Champies. THIS is what the game should have focused on. Ironic that the BBQ missions were intended to be more appealing to me, yet the Sparkopolis missions are ones I find more fun to play.

Hour 14 also involves some rhythm minigames, meaning I couldn’t play them in mute. They kind of reminded me of some of the Hatsune Miku games if you’ve played them at all. Not exactly Guitar Hero or Rock Band; but it’s all right. Also, the theater I did this in was called “NOH.” OK, you guys walked into this one.

The next boss is called “Hoaxy-Coaxy,” and he welcomes us to his “Daydream Domain” as he emerges from one of the big monitors in the city. Call me when your nightmare gets here, especially if it's like the TVs in Persona 4.

He’s not the toughest boss I’ve ever fought, but still another case of recurring difficulty spikes I’ve dealt with. Sometimes they’re easy, other times they’re as tough as bosses in “Castlevania III.”

Bottom line: I beat the boss on the second try; and with the detective office open for the next chapter, I think Hailey Anne sums up my overall feeling about this game so far.

Back in BBQ, my journey leads me to… the Velvet Room from Twin Peaks. OK, I get this reference; but who in the target audience would? This leads to another minigame, known as “Blasters T.” This is the most polished version of the game I’ve played, since I don’t plan on playing the standalone spinoffs and the sequels aren’t being localized in favor of the fourth game (more on that later).

Elsewhere, I encountered Slackerjack as a boss I fought in the Springdale Mall Aquarium; and this location will come up again later. For now, it took me at least two hours of grinding XP before I could survive against this boss. It was almost as tough as my time playing Ninja Gaiden (both original and reboot games).

Again, it’s a decent game; but these difficulty spikes are absurd. It’s like if you had to fight Lusamine after your first Island Trial or the White Witch after you just met Drippy.

Then, one mystery at the mall involves getting parts to build a mecha model. On paper, this isn’t too bad; as I was able to get the first two parts relatively quickly. Unfortunately, the third took me; and no, I’m not making this up: TWELVE HOURS of grinding in the mall after hours until I encountered the third yokai I needed for the part; and that included me just saying “screw it,” committing seppuku by Gargaros and befriending the beast I needed on the second try. Trust me, that’s the cliff notes of that stretch of gameplay and I’m sparing you the worst of it. 

To put that into perspective, I was able to get seven of the eight gym badges of Galar in that same time frame; and it took way less time for me to beat the story mode of Super Mario Maker 2 as well as catch Eternatus. Thankfully, I was able to finally move past that impasse after that.

Then, I note with some joy, you get to build the mecha. Form feet and legs! Form arms and body! Now form the head!

Though the client saw through the facade, this segues into the next chapter; which involves alternating between searching for crop circles in BBQ; and what I found to be more interesting, searching for giant monsters at the Excellent Tower. Sure enough, in the latter case, they found me.

Now, it’s time for the next boss battle, “Blazikong T VS Yo-Kaiju!” We’ve got a model, now let’s make it 1:1 scale! “To fight monsters, we created monsters of our own.”


It took about four tries of trial and error to take the monster down, with it playing like one of those old FMV games on Sega CD. I haven’t played LBX and don’t plan to, but I’m once again glad it’s over.

One thing I forgot to mention was the antagonist “Mr. X,” who just happened to share a design and name with a character in Resident Evil 2; whose remake was a major competitor to this game in sales. Insert “who wore it better” joke here.

There’s also some recurring missions to upgrade your watch with Mark Orcaberg; who isn’t as awkward as he is in the anime, but still at least as awkward as the real mogul in those hearings.

One of those missions involves doing quality control, which kind of reminds me of the arcade classic “Tapper,” only with watches instead of drink mugs.

At least I cleared this part quicker than before, 40 minutes is much better to clear an objective than 12 hours. Still, Buck in this game comes off to me like the beta version of Oliver from Ni No Kuni. Try as I might, I could never really get into him the way others did; and knowning what lies ahead, you’ll all know why. Dancing like a deer doesn’t really do it for me the way a consistently-written character does.

At 66 hours in, the next mission leads to a mansion mystery just short of a hippie van and a great dane. All faults aside, if it were more like this; I honestly wouldn’t mind. Kind of reminds me of the classic “Maniac Mansion.” There were a lot of challenges and backtracking; but after another two hours and brief consultation of GameFAQs; I cleared this section.

Hour 68 brings me to the wild west-themed Pecan Port, I’m not questioning anything; but I am going to play this music.

The Dukesville missions are actually decent, to be honest; even if they do sometimes have me pining for subdued charm of Frontierland.


Yet, there’s more family drama; this time involving Unbearaboy? What is this, “Keeping up with the Hazeltines?” This leads to yet another fight with Mr. X; and though I will have more to say about the mechanics in my final thoughts, the control is decent for the most part. Now, let’s clean up these streets.


Thanks to a lot of grinding I did before, I was able to beat Mr. X again without much trouble; and even though it’s hard to tell; I think Unbearaboy kicked him in the groin. I guess that’s in-character; and it’s the first thing that made me laugh in this playthrough.

It also turns out that Mr. X was just a pawn, and the “Ghoulfather” was the real culprit. So, basically, a couple of guys that were up to no good started making trouble in the neighborhood. Now, Chapter 9 takes us to “New Yokai City.” Wonder why that wasn’t the main setting, but things might be getting interesting again.

I was also able to partner with yokai that were in the second game as antagonists, which came in handy for this final stretch of the story. There’s more grinding to be had; but since I mainly chose to skip the sidequests in favor of progressing it like a regular RPG, that did fortify my team with enough XP and my avatars with enough cash to prep for the remaining boss fights. Fighting these “ghoulies” felt like somewhere in between a really milquetoast Yakuza spinoff and some of those beat-em-ups I used to play when I was younger.

I also have to gather more allies to fight the boss; I mentioned before that I’m not a fan of the “key quest” mechanic, I much prefer when that stuff is worked into the story rather than a literal roadblock to progressing further. One of them is Oridjinn, who looks kind of like Dr. Manhattan, minus the blue “Johnson” because E10+.

There’s also a miniboss called “Rongo Swirli,” who looks and sounds like someone from an “electro-swing” band. Well, it is the new 20s, so here you go.

I was able to beat him without much trouble; which segues into the tenth and final main chapter. I take Hailey Anne to meet back up with Doctor Hughley from earlier in the game, and with his help; I’m able to shoot a rocket into the villain’s lair, breaking its shield so the tower can be stormed. To borrow a line from Crow T. Robot: “So, basically the hero is THIS guy, I think it’s time we face that fact.”

Yes folks, much like the Aztec in Puma Man, Hailey Anne is the real hero of the story; despite the best efforts of Nate and Buck. We all board the elevator, which is a roulette of challenges before we can unlock the boss floor penthouse. “Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?”

OK, I admit I get some of these floors referencing events like the Chicago Fire and all these crazy theories about the moon landing; but I really don’t know if anyone in the target audience will. That aside, I am able to get through the five key floors and the other bonus ones ahead of one last encounter with Mr. X. He was initially a pain, but as the game progressed and I got more powerful partners; I was able to blow past him with breaking a sweat. Though my yokai still move on autopilot; the 3X3 “Tactics Board” is a big improvement over the wheel from the first two. The “Yokai Blaster” is also a helpful weapon; though I don’t think its design will be making the list of my favorite video game weapons anytime soon. Seriously: I’ve seen more realistic-looking Nerf guns and Super Soakers than this. I guess I’m just way too used to how the Splatoon games blend stylized weapons and raw power, but I digress.

Now, after 78 hours of absurdity, the final battle against the Ghoulfather is here. After a handful of jokes about Crystal Skull and Batman and Robin; I beat him! It was OK: the first game was the only one I never beat the main story on.

The ending is as follows, and to be honest; it’s not what I was worried about, though it’s still kind of got the issues the last games had on the whole. 

"He's old enough to know he's adopted."

Whisper even remarks it’s a case of deja vu. Definitely a glitch in the Matrix. (Note: I never encountered any of the bugs that some players did, guess they might have been patched out by the time I started playing.)

Long story short, we’re headed back to Springdale and the player family’s old job on account of “communication issues.” In other words, the whole main plot of the game is a “shaggy dog story.”

As the credits roll, Buck was apparently rich the whole time. At this point, I’m just glad it’s over with and I can go play something else a while. With just over 79 hours logged, the main story is cleared as Orcaberg is announcing something else. 

"...Our project was a divisive flop with audiences."

I may not be terribly interested in the postgame, and while it may not have been Generation VII; I give this game a 3.5/5. Still, it’s at least admirable the game that was intended to appeal to the US got released at all!

(Game only sold 4,000 units at best amid competition from Kingdom Hearts III and RE2 remake)

Mr. Plinkett: Oh...

Though “Yo-Kai Watch 4” has been submitted to the ESRB for rating, I do not know how the game will fare; nor potentially releasing the movies key to the plot of said game. I will consider doing something else if there’s official release dates confirmed; but so far, Finnish retail listings aren’t enough for me to go on, nor is a bunch of hearsay and conjecture enough to get me to stop writing. This also applies to the oft-delayed launch of “The Snack World,” which will not be localizing the “jara” toys and has yet to announce where the TV series will debut despite the English dub being production. I will probably have reached a decision on what to do next on March 26, whatever it might be. Finally, here is my response to those invoking the tired and ineffective “don’t like, don’t watch” argument.

See you, space cowboy.