Rest in peace my SEO (Search Engine Optimization). That ō in “Yōdanji” is the real yōkai here.
“Yōdanji” was released in 2017 for Steam, Nintendo Switch, Apple, and Android devices. It was made by KEMCO who publishes games. Although “Yōdanji” was both published and developed by KEMCO.
I only found this game when browsing the Golden Week Sale on Steam this year. That ō really makes it hard to find on Steam. I picked it up since yōkai intrigue me and it’d be cool to learn more about them.
The Yōkai
When “Yōdanji” starts, a scroll of text explains the simple story. There are even corrections made during the intro of rewriting rude remarks, that's pretty funny.
Although, this is the only story we get in the “Yōdanji.” I completely forgot the story for most of my playthrough of “Yōdanji.”
After the story is explained, we get three random yōkai. I got the Kamaitachi, Chōchin Obake, and Nekomata.
The Nekomata and Chōchin Obake look cool, but I can’t tell if I should be laugh at the Kamaitachi or be terrified of it. On one hand, it’s a weasel with blades for hands. On the other hand, it has blades for hands.
The yōkai are all playable characters with unique skills and stats. There's no real objective in "Yōdanji" besides unlocking all of them. Each yōkai provides a pretty illustration and accurate story about the yōkai. Going for every yōkai nets around 12 hours of playtime, almost double its $6.99CDN price.
Each yōkai has four skills, such as how the Nekomata resurrecting the dead, or how the Chōchin Obake can spit fire.
To level up your yōkai and their skills, the player must find the Hitodama and hit it. They're found on each floor of the dungeons, but sometimes an enemy will drop the Hitodama if they got to it before the player. Be warned enemies with the Hitodama are tougher.
Funnily enough, the Hitodama is playable. Imagine being whacked by a blue flame.
Each yōkai has their individual strengths and weaknesses, which makes strategizing important. For example, the Kodama can use grass to heal during a fight to gain the upper hand, but without that grass, they're at a disadvantage due to their low defence.
However, the weaknesses apply to enemies too. However, their skills vary, so an enemy yōkai like Yuki-Onno might have a projectile attack or not.
It's overall well-designed. Unlocking yōkais is always satisfying, their differences make for a huge cast of characters that all feel different, and the weaknesses and strengths of each yōkai leads to careful thinking on how to combat them.
One downside is that RNG determines the difficulty of the game, due to the randomized yōkai at the beginning, as some yōkai struggle more then others or make the game too easy.
You could end up with Nopperabō, who uses corpses to become her enemies. A cool idea, but she doesn't learn skills and without skills, killing enemies is tough. The Nurikabe on the other hand has such high defence, that some enemies flat out can't damage him.
The Yōkai and Their Kooky Dungeons
“Yōdanji” is a Mystery Dungeon where you explore randomly generated dungeons. Every time the player moves, attacks, and etc., that takes up a turn.
Attacking normally is done by walking into an enemy. This form of attack is something I only recommend doing in real life with your parent’s permission.
As a Mystery Dungeon game, it controls and feels well. Then again, it's hard to screw up the control of a Mystery Dungeon game.
There are multiple modes. In Yōkai Hunt and Yōkai Picnic, the latter being slightly easier, the player must find three scrolls and place them in the bottom floor to summon and defeat Emna Daiō, the king of the underworld.
Emna Daiō is the only boss in the game. While tough, he's a piece of cake with the right equipment.
I do like these two modes, they're fun and challenging. Unfortunately, Yōkai Hunt and Yōkai Picnic are locked forever when all yōkai are unlocked. The good news is that there's Challenge Quest, Endless Mode, and the Tutorial you can still play.
The incentive to play goes from unlocking every yōkai, to getting the highest score you can. The high scores are tracked daily, weekly, and globally.
Also, to address the elephant in the room, this screenshot says 2021/05/07 because I am from the past future. It’s actually because I’ve written a lot of my reviews ahead of time and am still working on my writing style, but the future past thing sounds cooler.
The score system is great and getting to the top of the weekly and daily lists is always satisfying.
Being a Yōkai is Tough
In "Yōdanji," when you die, you lose all of our items and levels. You have to gain them all back from the beginning. It's a frustrating system, but in a good way, and it works.
There are status ailments, traps, enemies with projectiles, and more. This is the type of game where one mistake can mean death.
While fun and mostly well-designed, there are some unfair elements that'll plague any Mystery Dungeon game. It's even worse here since, like I said, one mistake means death.
Not every yōkai has a ranged attack, leaving some yōkai defenceless to ranged attacks. Their only option is running away or enduring the damage so the enemy runs out of SP. However, with limited resources, the latter isn't recommended.
Some traps will also be in the way of the only way to progress. Bear traps do a ton of damage, so this is really unfair.
There is also the hunger system that requires the player's yōkai to eat food, otherwise their ability regenerate SP is lost. If they're too hungry, their health will drain. However, if a yōkai is full, their defence increases.
While the hunger system works well, it does suffer from not properly showing when your yōkai will go from hungry. A yōkai can go from peckish to starving, which stops SP regeneration, without warning.
The hunger system provides one of the only reasons to kill enemies, to eat their corpses. This paragraph is concerning without context.
Corpses aren't too filling, but they're helpful in delaying your hunger from getting worse.
This paragraph is also concerning without context.
Dungeons are filled with food items and powders (ex. restoring HP). Dungeons also have amulets that give stat bonuses (ex. +2 damage). Some food items can increase a stat for a limited period of time or even heal.
Most of the time, the beginning room of the dungeon has healing powder next to your yōkai. I'd say all the time, but the game seems to bug out and not spawn it every time. Thank you "Yōdanji," very cool.
However, while all of these items are great due to being useful, you only have five inventory slots. Two or three of those slots have to be dedicated to carry the scrolls to summon the boss too.
Although, the limited inventory made for some intense moments. It gives more weight to what you keep and what you don't.
However, the controls for the special abilities and inventory, not so much. You need to press the I key of all keys to access it. While I got used to it, it's still cumbersome.
Yōkai Need Better Décor
“Yōdanji” looks bad. Well, excluding the illustrations for the yōkai. They're adorable to the point where I’d buy a plushie of Yuki-Onna in this art style.
Unfortunately, the rest of the game looks stale. The pixel sprites look fine, but there’s nothing special about them.
The dungeon visuals are depressingly boring with their browns and grays, with little visual variety. There just isn't anything here.
While you can zoom out to not look at the bad dungeon visuals, you end up seeing a lot of black space instead. It can also make the game an eyesore to play with the tiny sprites.
The sound effects are fine, although some choices can be odd. For example, the scream of the Aobōzu is the Goat Scream. Maybe this is related to his folklore legends, but I find it kind of distracting since I recognize the source.
The music it easily the worst part of "Yōdanji's" presentation. While thematically appropriate with the yōkai theme, it's all short and repetitive. It only took my second time playing to keep the music off for good and to listen to my own.
The songs and sound effects even have lag problems... HOW?! THIS GAME HAS 8-BIT GRAPHICS!
The game has some odd visual glitches, but nothing game-breaking.
I believe in trying to replicate the visuals of NES games, that "Yōdanji" failed to not only capture what made it so excellent in the first place, but make a visually displeasing game as a whole. The repetitive 8-bit presentation, the sprites, the short music, and more.
If they added lighting effects, more colourful dungeon designs, longer music, and more, the game would've been visually pleasing. As it is now, it's just visually bad.
Overall (B)
“Yōdanji” is one of those games for those with acquired taste for yōkai and Mystery Dungeon gameplay. I love both so “Yōdanji” was up my alley. If you don’t find either of those appealing, “Yōdanji” might not be for you.
While it’s gameplay is very fun, it does have apparent flaws like no numbers for the hunger system, the starting yōkai will either make it easy or too hard at first. Furthermore, apart from its illustrations of the yōkai, the presentation is repetitively awful.
However, despite those problems, I still want to play it more for its gameplay. Once you get into it, this game kind of hooks you.
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