Yo-kai Watch World is the next game in the kid-friendly monster collecting series, but it’s not just any sequel. World is the series’ direct answer to the Pokemon Go phenomenon that swept the world in 2016. The game is being developed by GungHo, the same team behind the Arms meets Splatoon-style Switch game called Ninjala. Like Pokemon Go, World tasks players with traveling around the real world with their smartphone looking for monsters to collect.
The basic premise is similar but slightly different than Pokemon Go. When you arrive at a new real-life location, you use the “search” function to find nearby creatures. Selecting a nearby monster will transfer you to a battle screen. Defeating the monster will give you the opportunity to befriend it and use it in future battles. This does sound a lot like Pokemon Go, but it’s here that Yo-kai Watch World improves upon the formula started with Go.
You have the ability to “tag” your creatures onto other players in Yo-kai Watch World. This will result in the yo-kai traveling far away to new places that you might not be able to physically travel to in the real world. The yo-kai has the chance of returning from their short-lived trip with special gifts or even a new yo-kai that can’t be found in your area. This basically solves the issue that Pokemon Go has with Pokemon that are exclusive to other real-world locations that require you to travel there to get them.
While Yo-kai Watch World is arriving a couple of years after Pokemon Go’s release, the timing might not be so bad after all. Pokemon Go is seeing a resurgence of players with the upcoming release of the Let’s Go! games later this year. World has a chance to capitalize on that popularity with an experience that seems to take what Pokemon Go started and expand upon it in some interesting ways. Yo-kai Watch World is available right now in Japan with no release date yet for the West.