Yokai Watch VS Pokemon

Yokai Watch 2 was just announced for North American release and the most talked about part of the news is that it will release in 2 separate games just like Pokémon versions.  The Yokai Watch brand was born in the shadow of its predecessor and is rightfully compared to a lot of the clearly influenced parts of its structure and overall gimmick.  But as a long-time Pokémon fan who played Yokai Watch during the long wait between Pokémon games, I found that Yokai is not only its own game,  but it honestly does a lot of things better.

Let’s start with the obvious—catching them all.  Pokémon is about the variety of creatures with a variety of types and a variety of abilities to be used in a variety of situations.  You could spend all your time trying to collect them all, or just building your own specialized team for any challenge that may come your way.  Yokai Watch simplifies that and says, “Sure there are many types, but pick the ones you want,” and then that’s it.  There’s no drive to collect them all unless you have that kind of compulsion inherently (I do).  And you don’t get anything special for collecting them all either.  That’s because Yokai Watch has more to sell you on than just its critters.  It has personality.

The difference between Pikachu and Jibanyan is that one is a mascot that can do cool stuff and the other is an actual  talking, feeling, and funny companion who gets into its own trouble and you get to interact with it on a social level.  And that goes for all of the Yokai, really.  Each one is so specifically geared toward its purpose in affecting the world that the very premise of the game would fall apart without them.  Pokémon are animals just like ours in real life, but Yokai are spirits who possess and influence everything around us.  Feeling kind of sick?  It’s probably a Yokai.  Don’t want to do anything?  That’s a Yokai too.  There’s even a Yokai that gives you gas!  How could you not interact and build stories around those kinds of specialties?  With Pokémon it’s simple—catch them and make them fight until you’re the champ.  With Yokai, there’s no champion to beat or trainers to go against.  It’s just you and your Yokai friends that you’ve made so far versus any other Yokai that may be messing with you that day.  There’s an overarching story, sure, but there are more sidequests and Yokai to explore that there’s never really a push to keep focus.  Pokémon has only one true narrative and most of the sidequests are at the end, after you’ve battled a zillion people and Zubats to get there.

And the battles are the biggest difference of all.  Pokémon allows 6 critters and so does Yokai, but in Pokémon you have to use one at a time unless you’re doing a specialty battle of doubles of triples.  With Yokai the battles always use 3 at a time and it’s active not turn-based.  Enemies are always attacking as soon as they can and so are your Yokai, but if you want them to do special abilities then you have to be constantly engaged.  The lower screen shows your energy gauges and when they fill up on a Yokai you can perform mini games that allow them to show off their strength.  It’s randomized between tracing a series of lines, popping some bubbles, or spinning a wheel.  Each of which needs to be done quickly in order to be effective.  Another aspect is that you can rotate your Yokai out of battle at any time with a swipe of your stylus instead of having to wait a whole turn to switch in and out with a turn loss penalty like Pokémon.  And if you run into random encounters that you don’t care about there’s a fast forward button that allows you to speed up the fight so you can just move on.  You and your enemies will high  speed slap each other until one of you loses and you’re on your way back to whatever you were focused on.  That’s what I love most about Yokai—it demands engagement when it’s necessary and doesn’t punish you when you disregard it for the sake of personal preferences at the time.

Pokémon may be the forerunner here in terms of collectible critters, but honestly I felt the games were vastly different.  A Pokémon game has a linear story with a few silly comments while Yokai Watch gave me a really funny story with parts all over the place and hilarious characters at every turn.  It never tried to be anything like Pokémon and amidst all the comparisons that’s worth noting.  Yokai Watch may be launching with two different versions, but unlike Pokémon you still can’t trade Yokai to another player.  Pokémon was able to capitalize on the social aspect of their games with trading, but Level-5 doesn’t seem to be focused on that kind of model at all.

If you’re a fan of Pokémon, then you’re probably going to love the variety of critters and the more engaged battle system.  But don’t go in thinking that it’s going to be the same.  Yokai will introduce you to far more interesting characters and it will never take itself seriously enough for you to feel like you should over-invest your time and energy. For me, it was everything I needed to quell my Poké-Fever between games and I ended up enjoying it probably far more than a Pokémon game anyway.  It’s not a competitive romp or a deep rolling thriller–It’s just a fun time with some cool spirits.  So enjoy!

LET’S TALK: Virtual Reality News

Let’s talk about Virtual Reality.

This past weekend I got to experience firsthand exactly what VR is like through the Oculus Rift.  I have to say…I had expectations and I had a bit of pre-knowledge going in after trying out the Samsung VR, but what I experienced with the Oculus was beyond what I thought it could be.  Everything from the rendering to the sound quality blew me away.

The coolest part of the whole thing was definitely the level of immersion.  I thought maybe some peripheral stuff would be added and maybe it would have some kind of 3D effect similar to what the Samsung had shown plus maybe some of that 3DS stuff, but NO—this was a fully immersive, fully rendered, 360 degree world.  Even something as cartoony as Lucky’s Tale was an amazing feat to behold.  To everyone outside the headset, it looked like a typical platformer like Sly Cooper, but inside the headset it was a completely different experience.  You and your eyes are literally the camera and when you stand up, it adjusts to where your camera in the game is.  When you move forward to look at something closely it adjusts your camera closer to whatever that is.  It could be behind you or above you and the camera will react the way your vision would in real life.  It may sound simplistic, but when you’re in it it’s different.

So, I’m excited.

VR seems to be taking off and it honestly has way more bite than bark.  Not only is it selling well, it’s also picking up even more universal steam.  HTC held a conference in China where they announced a brand new investment endeavor that will likely skyrocket VR to the very top.  They created an organization called the Asia-Pacific Virtual Reality Industry Alliance (APVRA) that would be tasked with accelerating the development of the VR market.  Huge names involved like Warner Bros., Disney, Lionsgate, NVIDIA, Ubisoft, and more deep pockets to sweeten the deal.  The project will no doubt launch many ventures into exploring the technology and building up every single use for it.

And there are TONS of uses.

VRS.org has put together a list of applications for VR and it is mind-blowing.  Everything from Sports to Engineering to Film…there’s no limit to what a simulated reality could be used for.  And that gets me even more excited.  I’ve been lucky enough to be alive during a huge technological boom and this is just the next step upward until we have flying cars.  Maybe even hover-boards for real this time?

Anyway, If you haven’t tried it out yet, some select Best Buy stores have VR to sample.  I recommend it because it really doesn’t do it justice just seeing Markiplier play around with it.  Inside that world it is a fulllworld that will captivate and hold you.  It’s real and once we start developing environments that look like our own, you might not even recognize the difference.

Cheers

Got thoughts or expectations on VR?  Where do you think it will take us and are you excited to find out?  Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter.

LET’S TALK: Nintendo’s Future

Today I’m introducing a new segment entitled Let’s Talk.  This will be a place for strong opinions about gaming news and the industry and hopefully a place for conversation amongst fellow fans.  So without further ado…

Let’s talk about Nintendo.

 

It was a bad day for them and honestly it looks like it’s not going to get any better for another year or so.  Another consecutive year of losses was a big bummer, but the cherry on top was the announcement that not only will their new console, the NX, release in 2017, but so will their last big thing on the WII—The Legend  of Zelda.

Now this hurts and a lot of people have thrown in the towel and loudly voiced their groans online already.  But that’s not what I’m here to do.

Let’s talk about why this may be the best decision they could have made.

We’ll start with the sad facts.

The Wii was a huge success and it put a lot of money in the Mario bank, but the Wii U has literally eaten up all of the gains.  It flopped hard and here’s why—the technology is a dated concept.  The appeal of a second screen was useful for a portable console, but not entirely necessary for a home console.  Sure, some games have used it well enough to validate its existence, but most of the time it’s the “I don’t want that controller to beat your ass in Smash Bros with, gimme the Gamecube controller” controller.  Its other use was to free up the TV so Mom and Dad could watch the news and you could still play your big-girl games at the same time, but what Nintendo failed to understand was that the world was past that.  TVs didn’t need to be freed up anymore, because TVs exist everywhere.  Phones, tablets, laptops, on freakin’ watches now–EVERYWHERE.  And TVs aren’t as hard to come by anymore either.  So you playing your little game isn’t hindering anyone else from pirating that new episode of Game of Thrones and watching it wherever they want.  It was a bad idea and it flopped, because Nintendo lost their connection to the outside world.  If they were paying attention, they would have come up with this idea way back before the age of streaming.

Okay, that was harsh, but true.  Let’s get scarier.

I’m betting by 2020 we will either have a Nintendo or we won’t.  Simple as that.  And I think they know it and I think they are preparing.  Investors and fans are losing faith over years of lackluster products and negative sales figures.  Their only hope was pushed back another year and we still don’t even know what the hell it is yet.

Now to the good stuff.

Many fans are upset that Zelda isn’t gracing the Wii U until next year and then there’s nothing else in between.  They say it’s a slap in the face of Wii U owners everywhere and it won’t sell anymore consoles.  I say, “Duh,” and I bet Nintendo would echo that.  They know the Wii U failed and they know that any more money thrown into that broken basket is money wasted.  So why not send it off with some fireworks that were already being prepped anyway?  They shouldn’t spend money or time on the Wii U and that’s why there are all these rumors about developers working on “secret projects” for Nintendo.  Newsflash:  It’s probably stuff for the NX!  And here’s another prediction I’m making—Nintendo will reveal the NX as a next gen console on par or greater than the current systems.  Why do I think that?  Because it would be an instant flop if it wasn’t.  No gimmick and no nuance design choice can save them against a market dominated by Sony and Microsoft.  VR is taking the world by storm and right now only PCs and those consoles can handle it.  Nintendo is the odd plumber out.  So they will make a grandiose console that can match weights with the big girls.  So if the NX is such a huge deal then why is it so far out?  Because Nintendo is smart enough to survive long enough for the biggest cash cow in their stable to finally hit the scene and you’ve probably already forgotten about it.

A mother****ing theme park.

Universal announced earlier this year that a Nintendo theme park was in the works for worldwide distributions and Nintendo was sinking lots of dollars into its investment.  There was no release date and no official statements other than the initial announcement so it’s been off the map for a lot of you.  Just think about it.  A gamer/ nerd heaven based on everything you loved and still love in the industry.  A Disneyland of Gaming.  And it’s going to make so much damn money that Nintendo will no doubt bounce back up to where they need to be to stay in the game indefinitely.  You think Sony could pull that off?  Or Microsoft?!  Only Nintendo has a legacy stable so strong and consistent that they could pull a Mickey Mouse with their main man Mario.

 

 
So that’s the game plan.  Stay afloat until the money rolls in.  And hedge all bets on the NX being a competent console that will have consumers begging for the next Unreal engine-looking  Zelda.  But there’s a scary part to that too.  All the eggs are in one basket.  It’s a long game gambit that will either make or break Nintendo in the next 3 years.  Yeah, the portable market is still their bitch and yes, they could always do ONLY handhelds, but that’s not who they are.  They are Nintendo—the Godfather of gaming.  They invented most of what the other companies are beating them at and it’s high time they started re-claiming that throne.

Here’s how I see it—if the NX isn’t a hit based on first impressions alone, Nintendo is up the creek.  And if it is, then that’s icing on the cake that will take them just long enough to eat that the theme park money will make it just in time.

Nintendo did the right thing for once—they planned ahead.  And hopefully they will find themselves more involved in the current state of worldwide technology so that they can develop stronger products to compete in their field.  It will all depend on whether or not the NX is good enough, but one thing is for sure:  either way we’re getting the coolest ****ing theme park ever and Nintendo will remain alive in some form or another.

Hail Bowser and tell me what you think!  Did Nintendo screw the pooch so badly that there’s no coming back, or do you think what I’ve said could save them?  What else do you think they should do?  Let me know in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter @RAT_FOX .

Cheers!