Yokai Watch Is Bullshit

I don't know about the west but in Japan you almost can't go a single day without seeing some stupid reference to this stupid fucking TV show.  I hate this fucking show and the worst thing about working as a teacher for elementary and kindergarten kids is that they won't shut the fuck up about it.  They bring in toys and branded pencil cases and just blab on about the show and good lord it's enough to make someone want to die.

Yokai are these things in Japanese folklore, kind of like ghosts but not quite.  They usually cause some kind of trouble which can range from mild inconvenience to outright killing folks.  Go look up the Wikipedia article if you want a quick low down on Yokai, it's a long standing Japanese folk thing that would be way to hard to explain in a single paragraph.

So then Yokai Watch fucking comes along and just repackages years of Japanese folk tales into trite little shit shows for fucking stupid bastard children to enjoy.  Apart from the fact that I'm assaulted constantly at work about the show and it's workings, they have the fucking gall to release a number of shitty Pokemon type rip offs for the fucking DS.  I remember when Yokai Watch 2 came out and every single game store had big fucking posters for it everywhere and I couldn't move without seeing this cheap knockoff Pokemon shit everywhere.  This of course attracted lots of kids to the store and kids in game stores are the fucking worst, always begging loudly at their parents and getting all twinkle eyed over the most obvious pile of shit shovelware on the shelf.

What's funny is that hating Yokai Watch makes me feel old.  I have a buddy in his 30s who HATES Pokemon with a passion.  I don't really give too many shits about Pokemon, I stopped dealing with it a long time ago and while the games are pretty bad they are unfortunately the best place to go if you want online monster breeding action.  I never understood his deep seated hatred for Pokemon but now I do because that's exactly what Yokai Watch is, Pokemon for a new generation of thick pricks.

What's even more depressing is that I quite like reading about Yokai and shit.  Game developers, especially for JRPGs would often use these Yokai folk tales as a sort of inspiration for their enemies and bosses.  I would then go off and read these folk tales and it would be extremely interesting to see which part of the culture these things came from.  But now Yokai Watch has completely ruined all that, now I feel like a complete twat for looking any of this up because you know there's some fucktard on the internet or some shit weeaboo somewhere who will hear you mention it and use that as an excuse to regail you with their Yokai Watch knowledge.  What makes it even worse is that half the fucking Yokai in the show aren't Yokai, their either completely made up or taken from non-Yokai stuff like Shinto lore, stupid shitty writers.

Shin Megami Tensei is a great example of a monster breeding game that draws from folklore instances without being geared at twats.  Unfortunately the genre of monster breeding games is completely shit up because of mass market bullshit like Pokemon and Yokai Watch making cutsey shallow bullshit the norm for the genre.  Fuck Yokai Watch, fuck Pokemon and fuck all of this other shallow crap, burn it all.

Games for Children Don't Have to be Childish

So yesterday I bought Donkey Kong Country 2 and as I took it home and started to co-op it with my buddy I had a thought.  When one thinks of games for children in the modern day, the only thing that springs to mind is cheap, shallow shovelware crap, usually a movie or cartoon tie-in, for the kids to waste a few hours with.  When and why did this happen because I can assure you that even kids don't like this shit.

DKC2 is a great example of a game that's for kids yet manages to be entertaining for all ages.  It's a very simple setup, rescue Donkey Kong and the game play is, on the surface, very basic with most of the game just being a case of running and jumping on things.  However the reason it appeals to such as wide audience is because it's challenging.  It's easy enough at the start to draw in the less experienced players and have them work towards the end goals and get better but for the more experienced players there's tons of secrets in the early stages to find and some brutally hard stages in the games latter areas.

It's the same with a lot of games that are considered all time greats.  Mario, Sonic, Donkey Kong, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot and all these kind of games have mass appeal because they are easy enough for anyone to understand but have enough going on for advanced players to sink their teeth into.

It's basically how Nintendo have acquired most of their success from day 1.  Make games that are simple yet fun for the kids yet have challenging aspects to them to draw in the older crowd.  Mario64, for example, is an easy game to beat but getting all 120 stars is a pretty hefty challenge.  Luigi's Mansion is again, easy to beat, but finding all the secrets and getting all the treasures and stuff like that is something that only people willing to get good at the game are going to achieve.

There seems to be this worry in the modern day that challenging games will make people lose interest and that's why everything is so fucking easy.  Hell, why do you think games like Dark Souls are so popular?  It's because they provide a decent challenge that's satisfying when overcome. 

DKC is hard as balls and I loved it when I was a kid and I STILL love it now.  I feel sorry for this generation of young gamers that have had all the challenge stripped out of every game considered appropriate for their age group.