Play Youkai Club (Japan) [En by Stardust Crusaders v1.0] Online

You get jumped by a talking umbrella, then recruit weird little monsters—grumpy lanterns, giggling sandals—while the game keeps throwing weirder stuff at you. The fan translation means you can actually understand the nonsense.

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Game Overview

Youkai Club is one of those weird little NES games that makes you go "what were they smoking when they made this?" in the best way possible. It's got this bizarre charm—like if someone took Japanese folklore, gave it a sugar rush, and turned it into a Pokémon-style collect-a-thon. The fan translation makes it actually playable if you don't read Japanese, which is great because half the fun is the ridiculous dialogue.

You start off getting ambushed by a sentient umbrella (because of course you do) and before long you're recruiting everything from grumpy lanterns to giggling sandals for your team. Battles are simple turn-based affairs, but the real draw is seeing what absurd creature pops up next. Some of these youkai look like the artist was working on three hours of sleep and too much caffeine.

It's janky in that very specific 8-bit way where sometimes you're not sure if something's a bug or just the game being weird on purpose. But that's part of the appeal—it feels like digging up some lost artifact from an alternate universe where Nintendo decided to get really experimental. Perfect for when you're tired of playing the same old retro RPGs for the hundredth time.