Can you beat Yokai Watch 2 using only E-Ranks? - Part 3
And we're back! It's certainly been a while, but after quite the long break, E-Ranked has finally decided to take it upon herself to visit Harrisville.
There's only one problem with this endeavour. We're all out of donuts! We were going to bring grandma some, being the incredibly nice person we are, but... Thanks for Jibanyan distractingg us, we ended up making a severe and continous lapse in our judgement and eating them on our own, on accident. See? You can't trust those D-Ranks. Good thing we're E-Rank only in this household.
Oh well. Time to buy some new donuts before we head off to Harrisville. We, of course, end up buying soul donuts as they are simply the superior flavor.
We both know this is true, do not try do deny this fact.
After our short donut-shopping excursion, we go and get some sleep before quickly heading out on our journey to Harrisville. Since Harrisville is quite a ways away, we gotta go and take a train there! But this isn't just any old fast-travel system - Yokai Watch 2 has a proper train system. This means that every train station services a variety of train lines that all go to different stops. You actually have to look at a map of all the various lines to figure out where you're going, and which train you should take.
Look at that, incredible.
While using the train system, you actually have a chance for various random encounters that can appear... well, randomly. Some are battles, some are just random interactions with strangers, and some can even give you items! This is one of the reasons why I love Yokai Watch. The game just oozes charm. They absolutely didn't have to do any of this. It could've just been a fast-travel menu. But they did, and it makes the world feel so much more immersive and lived-in. It's just a lot of fun. And by the time it starts getting old, you unlock real fast-travel, so the mechanic never ends up outstaying its welcome.
Oh! And look at that! While I was explaining the train system to you, we got our first random encounter. How convenient. It's a yokai this time, it seems. Lafallotta, to be precise. Who is... D-Rank, sadly. She calls us cute and then immediately begins attacking us. Which is a tad creepy honestly. We're like, what, 12 years old? What are you doing?
So anyways, we beat her up. Yay for conflict resolution.
We also get visited by Maya, wo ends up giving us a Gacha Coin. This is basically worthless to us, but oh well. Can't say no to gambling. Anyways, a bunch of other not particularly notable random encounters happen. Among other things, we find out by reading the yokai wiki that apparently Professor Diana Gately had previously saved a drowning child. Seventeen seperate times. Somehow. At this point that has to be intentional on her part, right? I... feel like we should be cautious around her.
So, after a while longer, we arrive at Harrisville station!
We take the bus over to Harrisvile proper, where we meet our Grandma. We then have to do an escort mission, where we walk to grandmas house with her. Truly, this is peak gameplay. Once we arrive, we give Grandma the donuts. Apparently, they were a favorite of Nates now deceased Grandfather. So, we go to his shrine, and give him some as an offering.
Now that heartwarming moment is over, guess what? Thats right, more key quests for us to complete! This time we gotta do "Secrets of Soulcery", "No Time For Fishin'!" and "True Hide-and-seek" before we get to move on with the story. So, without further ado, let's do that. We'll start with Secrets of Soulcery, for which we have to visit the local temple. Once there, we meet a guy known as the grand monk.
His job is doing Soulcery. Now, what is Soulcery you might ask? Well, its one of Yokai Watch 2's more interesting mechanics, and one that might actually come in handy for us in the future, considering how underpowered our team will inevitably end up being:
You take a Yokai, and you kill I mean, "transform them into a soul gem". Sure. Anyways, you can then equip these soulgems on your other Yokai, to give them various stat boosts! Depending on the type of Yokai used to make the soulgem, you can get different boosts. You can also fuse them to get even higher stat boosts! A bit macabre if you think about it, but like most world building details in yokai watch... its best not to.
To perform some soulcery, the grand monk follows the time-honored yokai watch tradition of pointless fetch quests, and asks us to bring him some bamboo shoots. So, we oblige. Luckily the store where we can buy them is basically next door anyways. They do cost 5 bucks each though, which is rather expensive considering our total budget is just 25 dollars. Anyways, we hand him the bamboo shoot, and the quest is done! Yeah, we dont actually have to do any Soulcery here. We'll probably come back for it later though.
Alright, onto quest number two - No time for fishin'!
We go to the river up north, where Walkappa is having a bit of a problem: He wants to go fishing, but there's a bunch of fidgephants who keep inspriting him every time he tries. In case you weren't aware, fidgephant is yokai whose ability is making you want to pee. Truly, high-brow comedy. So, to avenge Walkappa's bladder, we set out to beat the shit out of 3 fidgephants.
We get an encounter on our first try, beat them up and return to Walkappa. In return, he gives us a fishing rod! Yes, there's fishing in Yokai Watch too. Walkappa also immediately challenges us to a fishing contest - we gotta catch three carp.
Which, of course, we quite easily accomplish. In contrast to the rather finnicky bug catching minigame, Yokai Watch's fishing is fairly straightforward. I won't explain it here, but its basically just an easier version of how Stardew Valley does it, in case you've ever heard of that game. We catch the fish, walkappa runs of to go take a piss, quest completed! Alright, moving on. Time for some hide and seek!
Yep, the last quest is just some regular hide-and-seek. This is actually a reoccuring quest type in Yokai Watch 2, for some reason. I think this is the first time we're encountering it? Anyways, we expertly catch everyone with about half the time still remaining, because im just that good. Aaaand, with that we're finished with the key quests! Time for more story!
We immediately hear a mysterious voice shouting for help from somewhere nearby.
Venturing to mount middleton, we find a Mirapo laying there, completely exhausted. These guys will be our ticket to unlocking fast travel. Anyways, we quicly carry the guy down the hill, where he immediately befriends us.
If only thing were this easy for every Yokai... And, with that, we've unlocked fast travel! We'll be able to use any Mirapo to travel to any other Mirapo we've previously discovered on the map. Teleportation! This is by far the nicest quality of life feature you unlock in Yokai Watch 2. Now that we're done with that though, we'll have to climb to the top of mount middleton.
We arrive the top, and discover... Nothing? Well, it is a pretty nice view i suppose.
Aaand, it starts raining pretty much right away.
Lucky, Pallysol shows up to cover us from said rain.
What a nice guy!
Apparently, Pallysol is quite famous in the yokai world.
Yes, yokai celebreties are indeed a thing.
But, before we really get to know him, he mysteriously gets very tired and teleports away.
Time to-!
Actually, nevermind. It's getting quite late, we should probably just go home.
Aaand here we are, back at grandmas house.
After grabbing some food, we quickly go ahead and go get some sleep.
It's quite late, after all.
Also, yes, there is an eating minigame. Because Yokai Watch.
Suddenly, however, we get woken up by Jibanyan! Who... really just needs to go pee. That's it. Gee, thanks Jiba. So yeah, we escort him to the bathroom.
While waiting for him though, we hear another cry for help! Apparently, it's a poor Tongus that's getting pushed around by Snobetty. Yeah, she's exactly what it sounds like. A really snobby yokai.
Snobetty over here is suffering from a terrible disease... Getting older. I know right, truly disasterous. So, in true looksmaxxing fashion, she's trying to get Tongus over here to "heal" her. Sadly, healing abilities don't work like that. She doesn't take no for an answer though, so we calmly talk it ou-
Yeah im just kidding, we beat her up - Remember kids, violence is always the answer.
Thanks to all of those shenanigans though, we befriend tongus!
And, guess what? Tongus is a E-Rank! Hurray!
And, on top of that, she's a dedicated healer that we can actually use!
Truly, this is good news - Because this means, that we've now got one healer for each side of the yokai wheel. Meaning, we'll never be in a situation where we won't be able to have at least one healer on board as the same time as an injured yokai. Her ability is also quite nice, allowing her to purify herself when healing others. For most fights this doesn't come particularly in handy, but it just so happens that the most difficult fight in the story involves us having to do lost and lots of purification.
That'll still be a good while away, but it is nice to know that we're now prepared!
Anyways, we finally go and get back to sleep. Time to solve that umbrella mystery!
But, before we can do that, we hear a scream coming from our grandma! Cries for help seem to be becoming some sort of theme here...
Anyways, the reason for the commotion is that one of the donuts we offered grandpa suddenly drastically increased in size!
Spoooky, i know.
Suddenly though, as quickly as the thing appeared, it floats away.
Naturally, we follow it.
Remember that huge cat we met at the start of this chapter?
Yep, its that guy!
Meganyan, apparently. For now, at least. We'll get to that.
First up though, we gotta fight the guy!
We, of course, win handily. And discover... a valve. Apparently.
Jibanyan unplugs it, and there we go!
Hovernyan!
He's probably at least in my top 10 favorite Yokai. I mean, look at him! He's so cool!
Anyways, we sadly can't use him. He's A-Rank. Not that we can befriend the guy yet anyways.
Apparently, he's been waiting for us for years now. 60, to be exact. That's... a tad creepy, but sure.
Apparently, he needs our help to save a friend of his. We're already here, so, sure. Why not.
Apparently, this friend of his is our grandfather. Who died. 60 years ago.
...A bit late, isn't he?
Well... As it turns out, we can just timetravel!
Yep, hovernyan just... Has a stone that lets you timetravel. We will ignore the implications of this.
So, 60 years earlier, we arrive in Harrisville!
Somehow, this place looks basically the same. The shack is a lot nicer, I suppose.
Anyways, We go and ahead and try to find Kenny, our grandpa. After a bit of searching, we-
Wait, that isn't normal...
Apparently this guy has been inspirited by wicked yokai.
These guys are the villains of this game, basically. They take over people and yokai and then do evil stuff. Also we can't befriend them and normal Yokai Watches cannot detect them.
Suddenly, by a mysterious hero!
Yeah, I'm gonna cut to the chase, that's Kenny.
And as quickly as he arrived, he left.
Time to chase after him!
Hovernyan guides us to Kenny's secret base, where he is rather mad at us intruding on his personal space, which like... fair. Hovernyan explains the situation to him, with E-Ranked being his grandchild and all. Immediately, Kenny gets rather mad, insisting that he doesn't want help. Ungrateful. I mean c'mon, hovernyan waited 60 years for this! Anyways, he pulls the whole "I dont have any friends" lone wolf spiel, and then promptly leaves. Immediately after we leave, we start rummaging through all his stuff - like good guests do - only to find plans for the first ever yokai watch! Yep, it was made by our grandpa. How convenient.
He doesn't quite seem like the engineering type to me, but oh well. We promptly take it upon our selves to try and help him finish this watch - because, unlike our current one, the first ever yokai watch could see wicked yokai! Wicked! (as in, cool. Please laugh.)
So, we make our way to old springdale, via train.
As we get there though, Hovernyan reveals that, apparently, he's all out of convenient time travel plot devices. Oh no! We're stuck here!
Except, not quite, because there's actually a yokai that can fix that for us!
How convenient!
And even more conveniently, he's only a couple meters away!
Behold! Miradox! Besides giving out free hugs, he's also a convenient way of timetraveling!
Since we're friends with Kenny, he immediately befriends us.
Now, if you were pedantic enough, you could argue that using Miradox to timetravel is cheating, since he's A-Ranked...
So anyways, moving on-
We go ahead an take the train to old springdale. For once, this is actually quite easy. We just buy a train ticket, and bam! One cutscene later, we're there!
Behold!
Aaaand, this is where we're going to call it for this episode of our... Let's play? Sure, let's go with that. Anyways, the end of the game is slowly encroaching on us. We're like, halfway now, i think? So far, things have been going quite swimmingly. But there's two fights coming up that I'm quite sceptical we'll be able to beat without a ton of grinding. We'll see about that though. For now, I'm gonna cut it short seeing as we're almost at 300 words. I hope you had fun reading, and I'll see you again in the next part!