Yo-Kai Watch 2 Reviews
If you’re waiting for a monster-collecting RPG to play this fall, it will likely be best to wait until Pokemon Sun and Moon release next month.
Yo-Kai Watch 2 may enamor younger audiences with its charm and simplicity, but its appeal for adults will largely depend on how much patience they have.
Is Yo-Kai Watch 2 a good game for that kid gamer in your life? Absolutely. I would have personally been crying at how creepy some of these ghostly monsters can look, but (and I hate to bring it up) if we’re going to love Pokemon in all its simplistic, weird monster ways, then there’s no reason that Yo-Kai Watch 2 can’t be considered an excellent gift for a child in your life, or maybe even you if you’re a fan of the show.
Instead of evolving, Yo-kai Watch 2 plays it safe by fusing new content – some good, some trivial, and some bad – onto a recycled frame, and the result is what we refer to as a sophomore slump. There's still a lot here to like, but we can't help but feel that this is an entry only diehard Yo-kai fans will be comfortable purchasing at full price. Some players will love it despite its issues, while others will feel cheated by the flagrant and numerous similarities to its predecessor, as well as become frustrated by its traversal-related blunders. Whichever is the case, it's obvious that this sequel could have been so much more. Now we wait and hope that Yo-kai Watch 3, which is already out in Japan and looks to feature drastic changes, gets localized and steers this incredibly promising series back on track.
Yo-Kai Watch 2 builds up on the original game and delivers what is expected of a sequel. It's full of content that is well likely to push the game's lifespan into over one hundred hours of gameplay for the most ambitious players, it includes a very welcome online multiplayer feature and an interesting combat system, even if it's not the most thrilling system ever designed. Its similarities to the original game are many and those already familiar with it will find the first hours rather uninteresting but Yo-Kai Watch 2 is a competent and entertaining sequel worthy of the time of any JRPG fan.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Yo-Kai Watch 2 is far from being a bad game: its storyline is pretty entertaining and rather funny if you are fine with comedies made for 10 years old kids. However, the gameplay mechanics are not as good as we are used to with Pokemon games, especially the fighting mechanics, which become quickly boring.
Review in French | Read full review
Yo-Kai Watch 2 is quite literally a case of more of the same, albeit with a minor sprinkling of new ideas and some brand new annoyances to go with the package. It’s still massively likable and perfect for kids, but it’s not to shy to hide its lack of originality this time around behind a curtain of fetch quests and endearing characters.
Yokai Watch 2 improves on the previous chapter and introduces some new interesting features and a rich multiplayer mode
Review in Italian | Read full review
Yo-Kai Watch 2 squanders room for improvement with a lot of superfluous content, but the game's writing saves it in the end.
What impressed me most about this game was moving about in the world. The graphics are crisp and there is a fluidity that surpasses Pokémon Sun and Moon, with an additional level of interactiveness
Yo-Kai Watch 2 doesn’t offer anything extremely different or new to the series, but if you have the patience to sit through it and collect every Yo-Kai medal, then this is the game for you.
Yo-Kai Watch 2 is a fantastic sequel to a fantastic game.
A solid sequel with minor improvements to a successful formula.
Yo-kai Watch 2 is a disappointing sequel that introduces more grinding and repetition to the fun premise of the original title.
Yo-kai Watch 2 is an iterative sequel that plays too safe too often, but, taken for what it is, also delivers a solid JRPG experience, enriched by almost twohundreds new Yo-kai, online battles and new areas to explore. Your enjoyment of the first game and of the anime really is a factor here.
Review in Italian | Read full review
After the disappointing original title, I was hopeful for a sequel that would fix some of the major problems and emphasize what the series does well. Instead, I got a sequel which made marginal if any improvements over the original game, only this time with no novelty whatsoever. It's very disheartening and doesn't bode well for the series' popularity in the West.
Maybe with Yo-Kai Watch 3 – which is a sure-fire bet at this point – Level-5 can take off the safety gloves and really give us an adventure that moves the series forward. But for now, it just proceeds with caution, and buyers may want to take the same route.
It can be completely disorientating to be playing a monster game without direct control over your creatures, I appreciate that. But Yo-Kai Watch 2 is a game that asks for your patience. After an initiation period the cultural context of the game will grow on anyone who has ever had an interest in Japan, and that charm, humour and raw personality of the game carries it through. I’m still surprised that Nintendo ever thought that there would be an audience for Yo-Kai Watch 2 in the west, but boy am I glad that they did.
Yo-kai Watch 2: Fleshy Souls isn't a game that's going to change any pre-existing opinions on the series. At its core, Yo-kai Watch as a series is more about the adventure than any specific goals, and that's evident in every part of the game. There are lots of good reasons to take time to thoroughly explore every inch of the game, but it's not really built for those looking for a more straightforward RPG experience. That said, for fans of the charming world of Yo-kai Watch, there's only more to love this time around.
I had a lot of fun with Yo-kai Watch 2. If you can deal with fetch quests and a passive battle system that requires a bit of patience, Bony Spirits is a great sequel with a fun story that feels refreshingly nostalgic to experience. This is the game you wanted the first Yo-kai Watch to be.