JALECOlle Famicom Ver. Yokai Club

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Yokai Club is an Action-Platformer released on Famicom in 1987 and never ported to the West until this release on Nintendo Switch in 2024. This game has players venturing through various odd locations and fighting the demonic “yokai” monsters by flinging knives at them.

Probably the closest game I can compare Yokai Club to would be the original Kid Icarus, which places a similar emphasis on vertical traversal in an Action-Platformer that has you using short-range projectile attacks against enemies. Unfortunately, Yokai Club is a poor substitute for that Nintendo classic, as its movement is slow, its hit detection is absolutely atrocious, and the platforming is nearly as bad.

As you’d expect from a game from the Nintendo Entertainment System era, this game makes use of 2D pixel art visuals and a chiptune soundtrack, and though this game’s imagery is interesting, I wouldn’t call it good, exactly. That said, the soundtrack isn’t bad, with some catchy tunes throughout the game.

Despite that Yokai Club wasn’t even a significant enough release to even get localized when it first came out, the Nintendo Switch version of the game has gotten a lot of love. This release comes with a gallery of box art, instruction manual art, and promo art, achievements to pursue, a quick save feature, a rewind feature, display and control options, and a frame that includes helpful gameplay info. This is far more than I would have expected for such a niche game.

Still, I absolutely would not recommend Yokai Club even to those curious about a game that was never before released in the West. The gameplay is so poorly-made that I think most players will lose patience with it within minutes.

tl;dr – Yokai Club is an Action-Platformer that was never released in the West, and it’s easy to see why. While the gameplay bears some similarities to Kid Icarus, it’s so poorly-made, with bad Platforming and terrible hit detection, that I can’t see any modern players actually enjoying this.

Grade: D

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