Topic: Thoughts on if Yokai Watch 4 will ever get localized.

Publicly they never gave a reason for why the American branch shut down. Given that most of their hits games were published by Nintendo in the West but when they did it themsleves they didn't find the same level of sucess it's a safe bet to say it wasn't making money. There's still the chance of Ninty or someone else picking their games like before though.

@Adhik762 that really doesn’t matter to their US branch but their games aren’t preforming as well as they once did even in Japan too. Yo Kai Watch is no longer seen as the Pokemon beater, the last Layton game was bit of an embarrassment etc. Not that they are likely to go under but they certainly aren’t as prolific as they were during the DS/3DS days.

I love YW4. It's my most played game on the Switch.

It's not going to get localized.

Yokai Watch 3 getting localized was basically a miracle, but due to being released so late on the 3DS it sold poorly internationally. Which is unfortunate, since that's my favorite in the series.

Yokai Watch 4, on the other hand, sold poorly in it's own country. For general JRPG standards, opening at ~200k is alright. But compared to YW2 and YW3 which opened at over 1M on their first week, YW4's sales were kind of pitiful.

That said, I think that's less about the game itself and the state of Yokai Watch in Japan. It's not nearly as popular as it was in 2014 or 2015. YW4 released months after the anime series it was based on (Shadowside) finished. The Shadowside anime did well, but took a different direction compared to what Yokai Watch was up to that point. On top of that, around the same time Level-5 announced a new series which took a very different direction than either Shadowside or the main series. What 'Yokai Watch' is now in Japan is a bit of a marketing mess.

YW4's only chance of getting localized was through Level-5, but now that they can't do that anymore it's at the mercy of a third party. Meaning it's in direct competition with every other mainline JRPG, and there are plenty games with stronger international followings NIS and Xseed will take over Yokai Watch.

I feel like Nintendo could pick up localization, but I doubt it honestly, due to how poorly the games sell in America. Maybe they'd do it out of obligation to fulfil a promise? But that promise wouldn't be for anyone's benefit except for a small amount of fans. It's like with Fossil Fighters, where we won't probably get another game since the fanbase is really small now.

@Adhik762 I don't think that's the reason why it failed. It failed because Nintendo kept marketing it as a "Pokemon killer", making people compare the game to pokemon itself. Most people knew that the town in the game was Japanese, and not an American town, mainly based on the Japanese architecture, and Japanese spirits.

@Adhik762 The only things I remember were changing the names of the locations and Yen to dollars. It made 3 pretty confusing, since they literally go to America, so they had to change it to fit the localized version.

@Adhik762 I really doubt many people cared that deeply about the town names changing. I just think more people saw it as a kid's game or a pokemon bootleg.

@VoidofLight
I was thinking same way too when Yokai Watch 3 got localized.
In English version, the Yokai made Nate's Dad suddenly can talk in ghetto English, very contrary with Japanese version that made him suddenly can talk English.
Not gonna lie, i got helped a little bit with English words in Yokai Watch 3 Tempura i got last month.

@Anti-Matter I don't think he was talking Ghetto English, it was moreso country from what I remembered. But yeah, I remember thinking 3 wasn't going to get localized since 2 didn't do so hot, and the fact that the game addresses a language barrier.

You know what was a good localisation? Dragon Quest XI. And it was a damn good one at that. The translation for the script is so good that it appeared like it was originally written in English. There’s so many neat jokes and place names that really show deep, native understanding of English.

The English voice acting is also fantastic, because different actors voiced characters by location. Of course in Japanese you wouldn’t be able to tell between an Italian accent and a French accent, but in English the way it’s done means it’s not false or an impression. It sounds like someone is actually speaking to you in English with a few French words. It really helps the world building and immersion.

The town quirks are also fun. The Japanese speak exclusively in haiku for everything. The Heliodorians speak with nobility. The Gondolians speak with a lot of flair and passion. It’s all there.

Reason I say this here is because it’s about a game getting localised. And I’ll likely never play this but they’d better not mess upZ.

Another reason why I doubt 4 will get localized is because the game depends on you watching the movies for each world. You need to watch Shadowside and Forever Friends in order to get full context onto what's actually happening in the game itself. And after the failure of the original anime, I highly doubt the other two would've been released.

@Snaplocket Yeah. Yugioh itself had loads of changes, and yet it's still a pretty huge thing. Not to mention, some of the Dub isn't actually half bad. It's just that they made some really questionable changes to the material that ruined a few scenes.

@Adhik762
I remembered when Yokai Watch anime was heavily censored on Western but still stay same for Asian version.

@Adhik762 Why do you believe Yo Kai Watch being "censored" is the issue? If you're gonna keep saying it can you at least expand upon your point of how and why.

@Snaplocket the first one was pushed hard at the time though. With the Wii U struggling Ninty put a more effort than I would expect into It but when it failed to deliver the same size results in the West as it did in Japan the sequels’ push were scaled back so it was more in line with a realistic goal rather than a massive one.

Yeah. Yokai Watch 2 sold poorly, mainly due to releasing the game into two different versions, then a third better version a few years later that not many people bought. 3 sold poorly since so many people already wrote off the series, and it hardly got advertising. It even released a few months later, despite being localized already in English for the UK. When the game did release, it had limited physical releases, and was practically mostly a digital game.

I always thought 4 wouldn't come to the west, mainly because of the terrible sales of the third game, and the fact that the anime itself was needed for people to understand the plot, with the anime completely halting after they got to the Yokai Watch 3 stuff.

@Snaplocket how exactly short was it short by?

I would buy the game if it gets localized!

I would certainly buy Yo-Kai Watch 4 if it gets localized, but I admittedly don't have high hopes. Earlier posts by others have covered my thoughts quite well.

I would have loved to pick up Yo-Kai Watch 3 physical, but that didn't happen thanks to its very limited North American release. I was expecting it to drop in price like the previous games (I rarely buy anything on launch day) and wanted to snatch it up a few months later. When I started looking for copies...hello scalpers. If there had been any warning that there weren't going to be a lot of physical copies, I certainly would have placed a pre-order.

There's always digital I suppose, but I'm highly reluctant to upgrade my Micro SD card again.

@Tyranexx
I think we have to play the Japanese version if there is no choice.
Reading Japanese letters is really challenging but nothing wrong with learning Japanese language.
If we really want to play the games, language barrier shouldn't be issue.
I have played some Japanese only games, there were some moments i just have no idea what they said or what words i saw but i just skipped them and try to understand the gameplay rather than reading the foreign texts. There were also some easy to play Japanese games, the Japanese texts were not an issue at all as the games only use Hiragana and Katakana with a few basic Kanji words for grade 1 - 3 students. To understand how to play in those games, you just need to see and try by yourself and they were actually easy to understand even without reading the Japanese texts.
I'm also pretty baffled to see what did they say from Yokai Watch 3 Tempura 3DS but i have managed to reach some progress.
If i can play other Japanese games without issues, why not for Yokai Watch 3 Japanese version ?
And remember, Yokai Watch Sangokushi and Yokai Watch Buster 2 Magnum / Sword are Japanese only.