With Yo-kai Watch established as a major cross-media money-spinner for Level-5 - with its TV show, toys, video games and assorted merchandise - the company is plotting its next major project that'll employ a similar strategy. We've known about The Snack World for a little while, but the recent Level-5 Vision 2016 event has shown more of this upcoming IP.
The IP's debut will come with a Manga in the CoroCoro monthly comic this Winter, before the iOS / Android game comes to Japan in April 2017; the 3DS version is coming later, in July, but as you can see in the footage below it looks like a match of the smart device game.
As for the gameplay itself, it's described as taking place within a 'hyper casual fantasy' RPG world, with lots of stores and places to visit. Controls will be simple and - here's the moneyspinner - small real-world toys called 'Jara' (part of a range of merchandise by Takara Tomy) will have NFC chips that allow them to be scanned into the game on smartphones or the 3DS (presumably via the touchscreen on the New 3DS models). There'll no doubt be a lot of varieties to collect and deploy in game, and they'll likely be key to this franchise making a lot of money.

You can catch a glimpse of how these Jara will be pitched in the trailer below, which shows off the CG animated show.
All of this is applicable for Japan, of course, and we'll have to wait and see if / when this IP heads to the West. Do you like the look of it?
[source gematsu.com, via youtube.com]
Comments 19
With a name like that, I would expect all merchandise to also be edible! Om nom nom...
July 2017 release in Japan? If the NX is what it's said to be, wouldn't it make sense to release it on the new platform instead of/as well as the 3DS?
Ohohoho.... similar with Fantasy Life.
2017 ? Oh my... i hope i still remember that title.
Btw, why Medusa ?
She's not edible to eat anyway....XD
But how is movement going to work on smartphone? Finger on screen? Buttons? Price? What the trump is Level 5 doing, I love the attention for details and creativity that they put in their games, but this new smartphone/3DS plan is unclear (and probably stupid, don't cross that line Level 5, DON'T, we don't want new Konamis).
Really similar to Fantasy Life.
@FragRed They might still not be allowed to announce NX games. I realise we've already had a few announcements from some third-parties but it's possible they only got the go-ahead from Nintendo because they weren't too revealing of what the system would be like.
gotta love that the 3DS version is coming out later, I would have done the inverse to maximize sales potential (also because I want it sooner than later).
@hepgius Level 5 has been on smartphones for awhile now, remember Wonderflick?
I knew NFC toys weren't going away anytime soon, let the proliferation begin!!
Question, if NX is a tablet with pop-off controllers does it get the 3DS version or the mobile version? Maybe both? Though who would pay $30 for a free game on the same handheld? Well besides people who REALLY don't like touchscreens and need physical buttons.
Are all Level-5 games trying to be the next big franchise? Seems that's all they're interested in.
@hepgius yeah I keep thinking this. Either the app will have to be really expensive, the 3DS version extremely cheap or the 3DS will have to have much more content else this makes no sense.
You know; you'd think we would have seen more cg that explicitly looked like claymation. Especially in the early days.
Looks fairly good. We need to see a lot more gameplay!
Hm...nah, I think I'll pass on this one. I didn't really like Yokai Watch either, myself.
I like the idea of the game, but I am definitely not going to buy any figurines for it if it comes to North America. For that reason, I hope they aren't at the core of the game experience or I won't be getting this one.
Look's realy good i like games like this hope it comes to Europe.
@hepgius It's probaly QR code via Camera, not NFC.
Just that Nintendo life making weird assumptions of NFC when previous Yo-kai watch toys had QR code so the natural assumptions here are QR codes not NFC.
Looks quite similar to Fantasy Life by the first glance, will keep an eye on this one since I didn't get Fantasy Life.
This a "wait and see" for me.
This looks like Return to Popolocrois except the battles are in real-time. I'm getting Ys vibes, too. "It's Ys for kids!!"
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