Yo-Kai Watch 2 Beginners Guide: Tips and Tricks for Getting Started

Yo-Kai Watch has been a massively popular series in Japan for many years, but the games are just now hitting the US and other areas of the world. Yo-Kai Watch 2 is the latest entry to make it across the Pacific, and the game has a lot of stuff that new players might find odd and confusing. The game works a lot like Pokemon and some other JRPGs, but you might still have some questions about how to get started. So here’s our Yo-Kai Watch 2 begginners guide full of tips and tricks for getting started in the game.

Before we get started, this won’t be super in-depth. For that you’ll want to check out other guides we’ll be producing. This is just general stuff to make sure your first hour or two goes smoothly, and you understand how the basics of the game work.

Stick to the Main Quest

The first few hours of Yo-Kai Watch 2 are dominated by the main quest, and with good reason. The game has a lot of info to dump on you, and it uses the main questline to do so. You might finish a mission and think “man, glad that intro is over.” You’d be wrong, the intro stretches for a long time, and you’ll still be learning about, and even unlocking new abilities for its entirety. To speed this process along, just focus on this main quest. Don’t go exploring, don’t hit up any off the beaten path sidequests you might think you see, just go from one mission to the next until you feel like you’ve actually finished.

How to Fight

While a lot of Yo-Kai Watch 2 may feel similar to Pokemon, the fighting is anything but. You may enter combat with a team of six characters, but everything around it is different. The fighting is not turn based, instead you hit Fight and let your characters do the rest. You have a wheel of your six team members on the bottom screen, which you can spin to get any of the others into the fray. Only three characters can fight at any one time, so you’ll want to balance them out so that you’re doing the most damage, while possibly healing your own guys.

On top of this you have the Soutimate move. Every Yo-Kai has one, which will act as a sort of ultimate move that deals extra damage, or helps your team in other ways. Watch the meter near each Yo-Kai to see when it is full, and tap the Soultimate button to activate, then just choose which Yo-Kai you want to perform their move. Follow the instructions on the bottom screen to pull it off.

You’ll also want to watch out for your Yo-Kai getting “inspirited”, which essentially takes them out of combat. Tap Purify to get rid of this, but before you do, you might want to spin the combat wheel to take them out of the fight.

Finally there are items, which can be used to either help befriend an enemy Yo-Kai, or perform actions on your own team.

Pay Attention to Tribes

Every Yo-Kai will be a part of the following eight tribes, which will give them the specific effect mentioned: “Brave – Attack increase. Mysterious – Technique increase. Tough – Defense increase. Charming – Speed increase. Heartful – Healing moves. Shady – Change status effects and absorb HP. Eerie – Inspirit chance increase. Slippery – Harder to inspirit.” This is important by itself, but you also should pay attention to it when forming your six Yo-Kai team. Putting Yo-Kai of the same tribe next to each other on your wheel will increase the effect of the tribe.

How to Find and Befriend more Yo-Kai

As you walk around the world of Yo-Kai Watch 2, you can pretty easily find new Yo-Kai to befriend. Just keep an eye on the Yo-Kai meter in the top right. If it starts pinging off something, move around until it’s in the red. If there is an object nearby, such as a tree, go to it and interact with it. Otherwise just activate the Yo-Kai lens and scan the area for any wayward Yo-Kai.

Most will initiate combat with you. During the fight there will be some items that can increase the odds of befriending the Yo-Kai after the match, use them whenever it’s a particular Yo-Kai that you want. Otherwise you just need to finish the fight, and there is always a chance of the Yo-Kai befriending you.

That should be all you need to know to get started in Yo-Kai Watch 2. If you have any specific questions be sure to let us know in the comments below.