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.