REVIEW – YO-KAI WATCH Blasters: Red Cat Corps and White Dog Squad

Have you ever wondered what all those Yo-kai get up to while your tucked away in your warm, cozy bed? Sure, some may try to inspirit your dreams, or make you want to go number one in the middle of your slumber, but what about all the others? Some get up to no good in Nate’s neighbourhood, but others form the infamous Yo-kai Watch Blasters, fighting crime in Terror Time!

Is YO-KAI WATCH Blasters: Red Cat Corps and White Dog Squad as pumped (up) as a Blazion, or as disastrous as a Buhu? Find out in our review, after the break!

YO-KAI WATCH Blasters: Red Cat Corps and White Dog Squad
Nintendo 3DS Family Systems
Developed by Level-5
Published by Nintendo
Released: 7th September 2018
Review copy provided by Nintendo
Screenshots/Art Courtesy of Nintendo

YO-KAI WATCH Blasters: Red Cat Corps/White Dog Squad follows the adventures of one of many Yo-kia Blasters, whose aim is to solve any problems that occur during Terror Time. Unfortunately you team starts off being pretty… lame, though to be fair, they do have Whisper as the leader. Never fear though, as Sgt. Burly has been tasked to take over the reins in an attempt to make your team the very best like no-one ever was… oops, wrong franchise.

Those of you who are familiar with YO-KAI WATCH 2’s Blasters mode ought to feel right at home here, as YO-KAI WATCH Blasters is essentially a big expansion of that mode. You’ll be tasked with completing a bunch of different missions in beat-em-up styled gameplay in a group of four different yo-kai, much different from the mainline games.

Missions will usually involve defeating a certain amount of yo-kai, or a specific yo-kai, though every once in a while you may need to fight a big yo-yai boss, like Gutsy Bones. Luckily, throughout your adventure, you’ll get chances to befriend even more yo-kai, expanding your supernatural entourage. There are more than 300 to befriend (more than 400 if you have the free White Rabbit Crew expansion installed).

There are four different classes of Yo-kai to bear in mind when creating your move-out group: Fighter, Ranger, Tank, and Healer. The fighter is good at close range combat, rangers are good at ranged combat, tanks are great as a line of defence, and healers… well, heal. It is very important to try and use a yo-kai from each class and utilise their strengths.

As video game law states (which not all games follow), each mission will get more difficult the more you complete. As you explore Terror Time and defeat yo-kai, you’ll collect oni orbs, these orbs can then be traded to level up your yo-kai, making them stronger in battle. Though some may find it a bit intimidating that there is a whole different process to levelling up compared to the usual exp gains, I feel that it’s quite a nice change, especially since you can also level up yo-kai that aren’t even on your move-out team. It’s a great way to buff up any yo-kai you are eyeing up in your Medallium.

There are plenty of other ways to get a bit of help at your home base… which seems oddly familiar to a base of a spectral buster of some kind. You can go to Happiere to swap out your yo-kai, Nekidspeed can level up or evolve your yo-kai, you can craft stat enhancing equipment with Signiton, and more.

If your yo-kai are at a high level and you are still having difficulties completing a mission, you are also able to play the mission co-operatively either locally or online. Let’s be honest, a human player is more like to take evasive action from Gutsy’s capsule machine than your AI players. Though the game doesn’t include voice chat, you can use a range of different pre-determined messages to communicate with your mates or even use the distress button on your map.

The gameplay can become a bit repetitive at times, more-so during the beginning chapters. Luckily, due to the nature of the 3DS system, I barely noticed this as it is great for short bursts with missions usually lasting about 15 minutes… I do admit however there have been times I’ve been playing until the unsociable hour of 4am on several occasions.

Aside from Story Missions, there are a few other modes which help to keep the gameplay from becoming stale. In patrol mode, you have free roam of any area during Terror Time that you have already visited 20 minutes at a time. This is the perfect opportunity to collect a hoard of Oni Orbs or befriend new yo-kai. There are also mini missions you can complete which will usually task you with beating more yo-kai or, occasionally, send you on a fetch quest. Be sure you don’t get too greedy though as those 20 minutes do go by pretty quickly. I would’ve preferred a bit more substance to patrol mode, more specifically the mini missions, they just feel a bit too repetitive. It would’ve also been cool if there were a way to travel to different areas on a single patrol rather than one area per patrol.

You can also take on big boss missions. In this mode, you can take on any big boss yo-kai that you have previously defeated. Want more of a challenge? You can also have a go at the boss’ ‘Super’ and ‘Ultra’ strength too, those the have been proven to be quite difficult. It’s worth it though if you want lots of Oni Orbs or some rare equipment. Once you’ve really proven your strength, you can even go up against subsequent versions of that boss.

Downloading the free Moon Rabbit Crew expansion will also unlock even more goodies. Not only do you get a bunch of new post-story missions, new yo-kai to befriend, as well as new areas to explore, there are also a couple new modes. I’ll leave that up to you to explore for yourself (or you can just look at the YO-KAI WATCH Wiki). Either way, they are quite a bit of fun!

There really is a boat load of content packed into this YO-KAI WATCH spin off. It took me a good 20 or so hours to complete the main story, even then though, I still have loads more to do like sub-missions, befriending all the yo-kai, and even completing the Moon Rabbit Crew missions.

YO-KAI WATCH Blasters: Red Cat Corps/White Dog Squad is very different from the mainline games, but it’s a nice deviation for those who wish to play something a bit different but love the yo-kai world. True, the gameplay does run the risk at getting a tad repetitive at times, I feel there is enough varied content to keep you going… and there is a lot of content! Who doesn’t like beating up hoards of bad guys anyway, especially supernatural badies.

As you can probably tell, there are two versions of YO-KAI WATCH Blasters. Other than a couple very small story tweaks, the only real difference is that each version has around 50 exclusive yo-kai, as well as a couple exclusive bosses. You are however, able to access all content in any version as long as you play with people using the opposite version as you, you can even trade exclusive yo-kai medals.