On May 22, Level-5 announced Yo-kai Watch Jam – Yo-kai Academy Y: Waiwai Gakuen Seikatsu is a “large-scale download game with regular updates”. A physical version and the game’s price are currently TBA. Yo-kai Academy Y is scheduled to launch in Summer 2020 in Japan, for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.
Yo-kai Academy Y is described by Level-5 as a “student life RPG”, where players aim to become a cool kid at school by making friends, resolving incidents, and solving the school’s secrets. Level-5 plans to regularly release free updates for the game about once per month. The playable content of the game will steadily increase.
As explained in the schematic above, players will only be able to play alone at first. However, a multiplayer mode will be added via a free update sometime after release.
Yo-kai Academy, judging from what scarce information was revealed so far, seems to be an action RPG where you most notably need to impress the gallery as you fight. You get Likes if you fight in a cool way, but other students stop watching you and leave if you don’t fight with style.
Yo-kai Academy Y was announced by Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino on Twitter on December 27, 2020, with an in-development screenshot. Akihiro Hino mentioned back then the game would have a “different system than Yo-kai Watch“. Now we know what he meant.
ゲーム「妖怪学園Y ～ワイワイ学園生活～」ですが、今回は「定期更新型」の大型ダウンロード版ソフトという形でリリースします。初の試みですが、進化していくゲームとして長く遊んでいただける作品になりますので、ぜひお楽しみに。 https://t.co/YP9IakGEJa
— 日野晃博 (@AkihiroHino) May 22, 2020
Simultaneously with Level-5’s new announcement, Akihiro Hino tweeted : “Yo-kai Gakuen Y ~ Waiwai Gakuen Seikatsu ~ will be our first large-scale download game with regular updates. it’s a game that will keep evolving and can be played for a long time, so please look forward to it.”
New screenshots for Yo-kai Academy Y have also been published and can be found below.
An anime, Yo-kai Gakuen Y: N to no Sōgū, is also airing in Japan since December 2019. This new game is linked to the anime.
The latest released Yo-kai Watch game is Yo-kai Watch 4 ++, available on PS4 and Switch in Japan. It’s the enhanced version of Yo-Kai Watch 4, first launched on Switch. It’s available as DLC for those with the base game.
Yo-kai Watch 4 ++ is the first Yo-kai Watch game ever releasing outside Nintendo consoles, showing Level-5 is switching its strategy after the huge decline the Yo-kai Watch franchise suffered from. Yo-kai Watch as a media mix project launched in 2012 and was Pokemon‘s direct rival in the early 2010s, however the series greatly reclined in popularity starting 2016 or so.
Yo-kai Watch 4 was announced in the west with no release date. Yo-kai Gakuen Y wasn’t announced in the west yet.
The post Yo-kai Academy Y: Waiwai Gakuen Seikatsu Will be a Download Game With Frequent Updates by Iyane Agossah appeared first on DualShockers.