Yo-Kai Watch is a super-popular 3DS video game and cartoon about a boy who meets and befriends spirits and mythical monsters called “Yokai,” and calls upon them with a special Yo-Kai Watch on his wrist when he needs their help to solve problems. The franchise has been a huge hit in Japan where it originated, and last fall the first 3DS video game was released in the US and the cartoon started airing on Disney XD.  And now there is a brand new Yo-Kai Watch game you can play, too!  This one’s called Yo-Kai Watch: Wibble Wobble, and it’s available to download for free on iOS and Android devices (reviewed on iPad here).  It’s an action-puzzle game with RPG gameplay elements and characters straight from the original 3DS entry and cartoon!

In the game, you form a team of five Yokai monsters. Little jelly-like blobs shaped like their heads appear at the bottom of the screen, and if you tap them, they’ll pop.  Those blobs are called “Wib Wobs,” and if you use your finger to draw and connect the same ones, they’ll turn into a bigger Wib Wob for you to pop.  When you pop a Wib Wob, that Yokai will then attack enemy Yo-Kai at the top of the screen.  Bigger Wib Wobs equal bigger attacks, and if you can hold off on popping big Wib Wobs until you have a bunch to pop, you’ll make a combo.  But don’t wait around too long, because the enemy Yo-Kai can attack you, and if you lose all your hit points, you’ll lose the level.  You win whenever your opponents HP go down to zero.

After levels, you’ll gain experience points and level up your Yokai monsters so they’ll have stronger attacks. When you pop a bunch of Wib Wobs, a meter will fill and when it’s full, you can go into Fever Mode and string together attacks for a limited time and then release them for a big hit to the enemy.  Each Yokai also has a meter that fills when you pop their Wib Wobs, and when those meters are full, you can tap on that Yokai to unleash their “Soultimate” move.  These moves can attack the enemy, charm them, or refill some of your health.  It’s up to you to arrange your team strategically so they can win.  Sometimes after battles, defeated Yokai will leave behind items such as food you can give to enemy Yokai to make them like you more, or ExpOrbs that can give your Yokai more experience points.  If an enemy Yokai likes you, they may become your friends after you battle them, and you can arrange them into your party.  You can also earn money after battles that you can use to buy items and continues as well.

The game has a map screen similar to other mobile puzzlers like Candy Crush, so it’s a bit more linear than the 3DS game. But all the locations are from the 3DS title, and you can still find hidden paths that lead to super-powerful Yokai to fight, or extra maps in back alleys and sewers that lead to more Yokai to battle and rare treasures to find.  And just like in the 3DS title, later on you’ll be able to evolve some of your Yokai into new ones and fuse two Yokai together to make brand new monsters.  You’ll also fight bosses at the end of each map, and the big baddies that you fight, and the strategies to defeat them are taken directly from the 3DS game!  There are also tons of mini-missions to tackle that earn you rewards, rare coins you can use to get new Yokai with the Crank-A-Kai, and you can even scan Yo-Kai Watch medal toys to earn even more cool stuff in the game.

Since the game is free-to-play, you’ll run into a few problems that other free-to-play games have as well. But I actually didn’t find them as annoying in this one.  You can only play a few times before having to wait a while to play again.  But if you tackle and complete a level you haven’t played before, you’ll get one of your spirit points back, and waiting for them to refill over time doesn’t take very long either.  While there are in-game purchases, you can enjoy the game for free for a long time before it gets too challenging and you need to start buying coins.  Your Yokai have a level cap that you can remove by using coins, and you also use coins to continue right where you left off if you lose.  So I imagine that after a while, you’ll run out of coins and need to buy more to progress.  But again, that doesn’t seem to happen for quite a while, and this is one of the more polished free-to-play games I’ve seen.  There’s a reason why it has more than five million players in Japan.  One minor gameplay problem is that the Wib Wobs wiggle around the screen a bit and it can sometimes be hard to manage them.  But if you enjoy Yo-Kai Watch and also action-puzzlers with RPG elements like Puzzle and Dragons, then you may want to check this one out.

Kid Factor:

The violence is very minimal in Yo-Kai Watch: Wibble Wobble. Even though you fight enemy Yokai, they just fall over when defeated, and you don’t see them actually physically hitting each other.  If you’re OK with your kids playing the 3DS game and watching the cartoon, they’ll be OK with this one, too.  Reading skill is a must as everything is text-based, and parental supervision is recommended with the in-game purchases.

Tags: Game Reviews, Television