I recently sat down with Abdallah to talk about Yo-kai Watch and find out more about everyone’s favorite Yo-kai Watch YouTuber and livestreamer! The interview transcript below contains just a few highlights from the full interview, please watch the full video to hear all of Abdallah’s complete answers!
Q: Let’s jump right into our first question… Before we talk about Yo-kai Watch, we’d love to know a little bit about some of your favorite games and toys you enjoyed as a kid?
A: Yea absolutely, favorite toys and games as a kid. When I was a little kid, I think before kindergarten I always hung out with a babysitter. Right, because parents have to work and everything. The babysitters had an NES, and I was always afraid to play the NES when I was super small, but after just watching, I guess, my friends play it I was really involved with going in and learning the intricacies of the NES. […]
Q: Do you remember doing anything like host gaming sessions with your friends, or recording your game play-throughs, or maybe pretending to be a newscaster… things like that that may have foretold your interest and success in gaming for an audience online?
A: Oh yeah, absolutely. I would often host parties where my friends would come over and we would play the latest games that had come out. One thing to note that I remember, was in high school, the Game Cube was a huge thing back then. And Super Smash Bros Melee was the huge thing back in high school. So what I did was I organized an actual club, and we called it the Nintendo Cube Club […]
Q: What would you say is your favorite part about live streaming?
A: I enjoy the live streams because everyone comes out to them, and I can see a lot of people in the comments section, a lot of familiar user names just come on board to comment and say hello. I think that’s the best part, it’s the instantaneous feedback, and with some of the lifestreams that I’ve done for like, say, Yo-kai Watch 3, where it’s a completely blind live stream, or Yo-kai Watch 2 or Busters for example; we did all those during live streams and it was pretty fun because we were experiencing it together as an audience. […]
Q: What has been your experience partnering with Level-5 and Nintendo? Are there any favorite, particular opportunities that you’ve had via those connections?
A: As a Nintendo brand Ambassador you automatically get some pretty cool connections with Nintendo. I actually received an email from Level-5 when I was doing my Yo-kai Watch 1 walkthrough. […] I fell in love with the series from that (first game) and Level-5 genuinely saw that in me. They kept close contact with me through out my Yo-kai Watch 1 video series and live streams and everything like that. It has opened up a lot of doors […] I love everything that Level-5 does, Level-5 is a very small team. I love the fact that I’m on board with them, and they can communicate with me about whatever they want and I will always be there for them. We are working on some more content together, but I’m not at liberty to say what it is, but you guys will see soon enough. […]
Q: When did you first become aware of Yo-kai Watch, and what drew you in to playing? …do you feel that your appreciation of cats is part of what drew you to try playing Yo-kai Watch?
A: Being a huge fan of other monster collection games, I’d heard that Yo-kai Watch was on the horizon for US release. A lot of people were saying this was going to be the next biggest hit. So immediately that intrigued me, I did see pictures of Jibanyan and I was like “that’s kind of a cute mascot, I love cats so why the heck not.” […]
Q: Before Yo-kai Watch came out in English you did an amazing job creating awareness of the franchise and getting fans excited. Was Yo-kai Watch your first time attempt at playing a game that wasn’t in your native language? And what were some of the hurtles you had to overcome in order to share Yo-kai Watch in Japanese with other non-Japanese speaking fans?
A: That was not my first experience playing a Japanese game, I went though and I played a game called Detective Pikachu. That was a Japan only title. I was able to play Yo-kai Watch, Busters, Yo-kai Watch 2, and Yo-kai Watch 3 fully, just based on inferencing and learning the intricacies of the first game and then applying them to the other games, so that was a little big easier. The message I was trying to resonate throughout my Japanese playthroughs, was that Yo-kai Watch is such an accessible game to any kind of audience. […]
Q: Out of all of the Yo-kai Watch games you’ve played, which was your favorite and what do you love the most about the series in general?
A: It’s really a tie up between Yo-kai Watch 2 and Yo-kai Watch 3. I really liked that Yo-kai Watch 2 was one of the first games we played in Japanese, and we were exploring it blind. The post game was so massive. […]
Q: As a huge Yo-kai Watch Buster’s fan, I’m especially stoked for the upcoming Busters T update, and hope that will lead to another stand alone Busters title. What do you hoping to see in this huge update with Sukiyaki and Busters T?
A: It’s going to be fun. I’m excited for Sukiyaki, I’m not excited to play through the whole stormed again if it’s going to be the same thing but I am excited to see the new yo-kai and Busters T. […]
Q: Level-5 has said they will take a “lengthy break” now that Yo-kai Watch 3 is out in Japan (aside from the planned major updates… one of which we’ve seen coming up along side Sukiyaki’s release). When the franchise returns from this “long break” what’s the main thing you’d like to see?
A: I don’t know if they’re honestly going to do that. I know they’re working on a lot of stuff like Snack World… but I think that Yo-kai Watch is just so huge that they’re just going to keep on doing it. They say they’re going to take a break but they’re probably going to be on the down low, saying they’re on a break, and then boom, something huge comes out. […]
Q: We’ve talked about the games… now how about all these wonderful toys? Level-5 and Hasbro are doing a phenomenal job creating this huge assortment of toys for all ages. What are some of your favorite Yo-kai Watch toys?
A: I really enjoy the Yo-kai Watch dream medals, I love those things so much. The fact that they have an NFC chip inside them and can use them with the amiibo scanner is amazing. It’s genius, it’s taking the toys to a next level. […] It’s really fun to collect the yo-kai medals, I love having the medallium and filling it in with all the different medals. […]
Q: Finally… a very important, possibly the MOST important question; You can only have six yo-kai on your team for the rest of your life, which six are they and why those six?
A: I’d have to go with a lot of my favorites: Shmoopie, Shogunyan, Sgt. Burly, Pandanoko, Hovernyan, Darknyan […]
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