While the western world… (sorry Europe) is slowly getting into Yo-Kai Watch’s’ first installment on the 3DS, with the anime and toy lines slowly popping up around the world, Japan has been on the Yo-Kai Watch train since 2013. With 2 mainline games (and a handful of iOS apps) it’s only natural the series starts to spin off into different genres and ideas, and this brings us confusingly to … Just Dance?
As most of us know, Crossovers in Japan are a common occurrence and as with any hit multimedia franchise they will attach their license to anything and everything. Just Dance is actually surprisingly large over in Japan, spawning 3 of its own Japan-only versions of the game featuring various anime and idol groups current with the time of release. Releasing a Yo-Kai Watch exclusive version raises some flags, the first thing you may be wondering is, Does Yo-Kai Watch even have that many memorable songs? Short answer is no. It does not.
While most Just Dance games are filled with 40+ songs, Yo-Kai Watch Dance only has 10. Yes you read that right, it’s only 10 songs aka about 35 minutes of content if you’re being generous. Did I mention this is also a retail release? as in full price, roughly $50 AUD at time of this review? Yes, this isn’t DLC, this isn’t a standard download version on the eShop, this is a full priced retail game that I spent way too much importing express from Tokyo.
So what are these 10 songs? Well 10 is even being a little lenient, as 4 of the songs are just remixes of Gera Gera Po. They are the numerous variations to the anime opening, and 3 of the 4 songs are the opening to Yo-Kai Watch 2’s various versions. While these are different songs yes, it still feels like a major cop out to include 3 variations to an existing song in an already tiny selection, and highlights the laziness of this game.
The other 6 songs, include Yō-kai Taisō Dai-ichi, Jinsei Dramatic, Dan Dan Dubi Zubā!, Uchū Dance!, Yo-Kai Taisō Dai-Ni, & Idol wa Ooh-Nya-Nya no Ken, Idol wa Ooh-Nya-Nya no Ken. All of these song are various Opening & Ending themes from the anime, and the Dance in game is nearly identical to the dances featured in the film clips or anime itself, which is quite neat as going in I knew exactly what would be coming up next.
As standard with Just Dance, there’s a calorie counting “exercise mode” and playlist, which is under the banner of Bully’s Beat Camp. I don’t know the reason you would really need a playlist for the 10 songs, but it’s there if you need it. And lastly it’s japan, so it’s only natural you unlock various icons for your profile with Gashapon machines. These can either be played using Just Dance coins you gather from playing songs, or QR codes on the back of the collectable medals. As these haven’t released in the west yet, it’s unknown if these will be region locked, but my medals I have from Yo-Kai Watch 2, Busters & Dance all scanned in fine. With over 90 to collect, you’ll be playing this game quite a lot, unless you have a tonne of Yo-Kai medals laying around..
