10 Years Ago, One Pokémon Clone Actually Gave Nintendo’s Series a Challenge

If you make any kind of monster-catching game, you should instantly know people will be drawing comparisons to Pokémon. It’s an unfortunate association you can’t avoid, considering Pokémon essentially invented the genre and has continually defined it ever since. But over the decades, there have been a few games that managed to slip through the cracks, finding a space to coexist alongside Pokémon by doing something truly unique. Digimon is the obvious example, but ten years ago, a little series called Yo-Kai Watch arrived in the West — a spirit-catching game with a delightfully quirky personality. A decade later, it’s grown into a franchise all its own, a monster-catcher worth taking a detour for.

Released on the Nintendo 3DS in 2013 in Japan, it took two more years for the game to come to North America, by which point it’d already seen a sequel and turned into a franchise. But more than anything, what Yo-Kai Watch gets right, sometimes even better than Pokémon, is crafting an immersive world that’s easy to get lost in, and giving compelling narrative reasons for capturing a bunch of weirdo creatures.

You play as a young boy named Nathan, who lives in the vaguely Japanese-inspired suburban town of Springdale. While out collecting some creepy-crawly bugs for a school assignment, Nathan stumbled upon a mysterious capsule machine and inadvertently released a ghostlike being named Whisper — who gives him a device called the Yo-Kai Watch. This wondrous device allows Nathan to not just see Yo-Kai (creatures based on traditional Japanese myths and legends), but actually capture them as well. This fun little event essentially turns Nathan into his town’s ghostbuster, solving problems that the ornery Yo-Kai stir up, and making more friends than he can count.

And that’s exactly what makes Yo-Kai Watch flourish, it’s laser-focused on the one town called Springdale and fleshing it out as a vibrant interconnected city. Pokémon games are always about a lengthy journey, but because of that, you don’t get intimate knowledge of the locations you visit, and you typically don’t have a huge understanding of their culture or inhabitants — they’re simply a stop on your road trip. But Yo-Kai Watch lets you get to know Springdale’s citizens well, learn the layout of its streets and alleyways.

Among all of this, the Yo-Kai are the extra element, as they aren’t just creatures existing in the world, but ones actively taking part in it, or with stories and quirks that deeply attach them to the world and characters.

The series’ mascot, Jibanyan, is a cat that was struck by a car, and in the afterlife now lives at the intersection where they were hit, training to defeat cars in battle. Then there’s CoughKoff, who’s hilariously the Yo-Kai that causes sore throats and the cold. Even further, there’s a delightful little bat named Hidabat, who embodies introversion and spends its time in closets — but later on in the story you find out the creature is actually incredibly wealthy and the CEO of a mega-conglomerate that it started as a hobby in its isolated free time.

As you can probably tell, Yo-Kai Watch has a real, genuine, and heartfelt sense of humor, and that’s by far the game’s greatest achievement. Strong writing and a surprisingly compelling main story add to the humor to keep you invested in the world. But Yo-Kai Watch was also smartly designed for the specific demographic of young children. That’s not to say the game doesn’t have complexity and can’t be enjoyed by adults, but it’s almost like a Saturday morning cartoon in the way it feels specifically tuned for younger audiences.

And that’s most evidently seen in the gameplay systems. Like Pokémon, Yo-Kai Watch has you fight the Yo-Kai in turn-based battles, and the creatures are separated out into eight different tribes that have their own elemental strengths and weaknesses. Battles are largely simple affairs, but have a neat little touch-screen feature where you can rotate your Yo-Kai out at will, in a pretty intuitive way. But Yo-Kai Watch also manages to add a lot of variety to the gameplay by integrating side quests and adventure elements, on top of minigames that include bug catching, fishing, rhythm games, and more. It’s a game that very much does not want you doing the exact same thing every hour, and it shows.

Yo-Kai Watch may not have the depth or complexity of the best Pokémon games, but it largely makes up for it through sheer charm and personality. Sequels heavily improved on the first game’s weaknesses by making battles more compelling and the world even more of a joy to explore. And while the sequels are unarguably better games, the fact that they exist at all is a testament to how strong the first Yo-Kai Watch’s foundation really was.

Outside of Digimon, which has also existed for decades, Yo-Kai Watch is the only Pokémon competitor that’s been able to turn into a franchise and stick around, even if its popularity has waned in the West. Level-5 even has a new game currently in development.

It’s proof that there’s room for something other than Pokémon in the monster-catching arena, if you do something different and really commit to it. And a big part of that is always going to be colorful designs and pure charm.