Yo-kai Watch 2: Fleshy Souls (Nintendo 3DS) Second Opinion Review

For the most part, Yo-kai Watch 2 stays true to its predecessor, and those who played the original will slot right into this new adventure. Yo-kai Watch already boasted a nice, clean art style, with large character models and a clean, easily-navigated UI, and it's nice to see that none of this has been fiddled with, while the battle system stays largely unchanged, for better or for worse. This automated mechanic, which sees Yo-kai control themselves, with the only player input being the use of items and the activation of special moves, proved to be one of the original's more controversial aspects, and those who weren't convinced by its presence in the first entry won't be particularly swayed by this game either.

Even the opening theme is largely the same, using the same cringeworthy lyrics sung to a new, even cheesier tune. It's clear from the very outset that this is a game squared at children and, while there's nothing wrong with that, the handholding and the plodding pace of the early game are so frustrating that it's hard to imagine a lot of kids not getting rather bored. It takes a few hours for anything of note to real-ly start happening in the story, by which time a lot of younger players will likely have put down the game for good.

It's a shame, too, as they'd be missing the best of what Yo-kai Watch 2 has to offer. The story, while still quite basic, offers its occasional moments of genuine intrigue, and its focus on the conflict between two rival factions of Yo-kai almost gives purpose to the Pokémon-aping release strategy of have two versions available at retail (with a third version released afterwards in Japan). Sadly, Bony Spirits and Fleshy Souls aren't quite different enough to justify a dual purchase, with only a few version-exclusive characters between them (negated entirely by the ability to trade online).

If the dual-version strategy seems like a decision made solely in the interest of making more money for Level-5, it's because Yo-kai Watch 2's entire existence exudes this same philosophy. There's certain-ly more charm than before - as the first release in Japan following the launch of the franchise's anime ad-aptation, there's much more personality injected into the characters this time around, both visually and through the dialogue, and everyone feels much more fleshed-out and refined this go around - but it seems lost on the decision to reuse too many old assets, retain the setting of its predecessor, and even retread old plot points like supporting character Jibanyan's origin story.

There's a sense throughout the entirety of this game that it's less a sequel and more an expansion, and that it would have perhaps benefited from a Pokémon-style approach that switched up the setting en-tirely (something that the currently Japan-exclusive Yo-kai Watch 3 does indeed succeed in), and even introduced brand new central characters beyond the player character and their Yo-kai butler, Whis-per, who is admittedly a much more interesting character before.

That's not to say that fans of the original will hate this one - the new Yo-kai are just as adorable as those that came before them, with clean designs, hilarious voices, and pun-based names that fall just on the right side of corny - and it may even serve as a decent jumping-on point for newcomers, thanks to a slightly-too-long tutorial that uses the vintage trope of a protagonist with amnesia to reintroduce familiar mechanics and characters. It's just a shame that it innovates so little; where Yo-kai Watch welcomed us into a sprawling world filled with life, making for a genuinely exciting adventure, Yo-kai Watch 2 brings us back to the same world without taking the time to breathe new life into it.