I really had a great time playing Yo-kai Watch.

Doing the story while exploring and unlocking new areas really did give me that cool pokemon feel of discovering new creatures for me to fight and capture. The combat system is really nice and addicting, encouraging you to use all of your 6 yokais in combat and the Yokais themselves all look fun and creative.
There are some flaws here and there like the basic and episodic plot and a lot of RNG BS in capturing Yokais but other than that, it was a very good time.

Ngl, this is better than Pokémon. (sorry Pokémon fans, I tried with Pokémon it didn't get my instert) I feel their fun moments in this game than I thought, including my favorite Yo Kai characters, Blizzaria, Fidgephant, Everfore, and Spronk! The bosses are Fun! (especially Spronk, Hoggles, and McKraken!) Terror time is fun to defeating to Oni's! (Thankfully they brought the good one back in the 3rd installment) The songs are great too! The story is a bit confusing and all over the place but thankfully it gets on track in the end. This is a good Pokémon "Competition" it's a shame that it didn't get this attention around the world unlike on there home place (Japan, which even then is losing popularity). I hope one day this series get the good treatment like Pokémon did.

stop comparing this to pokemon already. This game is cool, but it's also kind of incredibly obsolete considering the fact that the sequels of this game are more updated versions of this game rather than being their own standalone things, so it's really hard for me to give this a rec proper over those. I think yo kai watch is super cool in that the entire game world is just one city, so there's an immense amount of detail and care put into every crevice of that city, which makes for a smaller yet more explorable world to catch critters in. the yo kai series is absolute vibes and this game is also an absolute vibe. I will say however that there is an unncessarily large amount of luck when it comes to actually getting the yo kai that you want which isn't that fun and can make the game extremely grindy. Banger game but really if you have a 3DS and want some yo kai goodness play 3

The way this game portrays summer vacation is fantastic. I had a total blast walking through the town, speaking with the locals about the weather, fucking around while catching bugs, and hanging out with those friends who aren't reaeeeally all that nice but you are stuck with because you are a little kid. It's very well realized, and very charming. But it's not what the game is actually about.

Attached to the amazing presentation you have a monster collecting game which is perfectly serviceable but falls into many of the same pitfalls of the genre. The most dissapointing of all is the combat system, which is way too passive and way too easy. Early in I decided not to use the super powerful moves each of the monsters had and I was still beating every single encounter, first try, with literally no inputs from my end. The story is very cartoony and has charming moments but I just didn't like the Yo-kai focus all that much to be honest. I was more enthralled with the summer vacation than all the little ghosts from this other dimension that cause every single problem the humans have, it practically removes all interesting character drama from the equation.

Level 5 often gets criticized for focusing their attention too much on the style and very little on the substance, but I disagreed because I always found their games to have really fun core gameplay, even if they were not particularly deep. Here, though, it's the first time I mostly agree. There's just not a lot to enjoy aside from the charm.

Dropped it, but I will probably give a chance to the next entries. I heard they improved a lot.

Inevitable comparison for me, I didn't want to play a Pokémon game at the time cause of all their cons.
Yokai Watch doesn't have the cons of Pokémon: lack of story, grinding... but has others: boring combats, shit befriending system.
The combat system isn't really bad, but once you understand all its possibilities, you also understand that to take advantage of them you're gonna need to grind befriending yokais, bug catching and fishing to exchange with rare objects and it's boooring.
Stupid sidequests.
It has all the charm of a Level 5 game.