If you’ve played Dead by Daylight or are familiar with the game, Obakeidoro 2 may feel familiar in some ways, but it brings its own lighthearted charm that makes it especially fun to play with family and friends. Developed by Free Style, Obakeidoro 2 is a quick, accessible game you can enjoy online or offline. Saucestudios received an early review copy to try hands-on, and I’ve really enjoyed it.
I haven’t played the first game, but after seeing Obakeidoro 2 at PAX West last year, I immediately wanted to play it with the whole family. The matches are short, just three minutes, and feature adorable chibi-style humans and monsters.
The objective is simple: if you’re playing as a human, you need to hide, evade the monster, and survive for three minutes without being captured. If you’re the monster, your goal is to track down and capture all of the humans before time runs out.
The simple rules, short matches, and cute presentation make Obakeidoro 2 easy to pick up and play, especially if you’re looking for something fun to enjoy with friends or family.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
Obakeidoro 2 can be played online or offline. During the review, I didn’t play online because I didn’t purchase the Nintendo subscription, which is a downside of playing most online games on the Nintendo Switch 1 & 2. However, that did not stop me from setting up an offline party with my family. We had enough controllers to play. So whether you want to play solo or offline, you can play with up to 4 players, or 8 if you set up a local LAN party. To start, you can select one of three available humans, each with a special skill that you can activate to either help each other or make it harder for the monster to find you. There is only one monster available, and you can unlock more monsters and humans by playing the game to earn coins.
There is more to unlock from the store as you play more. For human players, you will run, hide, dodge, or use your lantern to stun the monster to prevent capture. If one human avoids capture for three minutes, everyone wins. Sounds easy, right? Well, you only get one lantern charge, and to get more, you must be captured and freed from the cage. Beyond that, hiding will reduce your visibility, and you can double jump (though it causes you to have a small pause) or hold the lantern to stun the monster within a certain radius; the stun lasts roughly three to four seconds.
Monster, your task is simple: chase the darn humans and capture every last one of them. Each monster has a special ability and ghoulians to help them capture the humans. This will make it easier, but it is not enough. You only have one special ability that will have a cooldown, and missing an attack will temporarily slow you down.
Three minutes is all you need for a quick game, and honestly, I think that is fine for a relaxing match or for playing with the family. There are plenty of times when games are too long, and it can get tiring, but this game is very quick, and you can always come back to it without having to pause or try to wrap it up.
Screen, Shop, and more
Split-screen is a thing, and you don’t have to make sure that everyone has a copy of the game; only one person needs to have it. I suppose two people if you are trying to do 8 players total. Depending on whether you have a big TV at home, this can be fun or hard to see. The screen can be split either into two or four screens. Everyone connects their remote, picks a character, and has fun. Beyond that, it can be confusing to figure out who is who sometimes in the midst of fun if you are all playing the same character. Since the map isn’t very large or complex, cheating can be easy. So take it as you will.
As you earn coins here and there playing online or by yourself, you can earn coins based on how well you do. Collect enough coins to unlock new lanterns, humans, and monsters. There may be more as the game updates, but for now, this is what you will get. Each human and monster has a unique skill tree. As you complete certain conditions, this will boost the monster’s skill or ability to give you a slight advantage in the game. I won’t be spoiling it for you, so prepare to grind it out. There are more features to find, and this game hits a sweet spot for Halloween that is coming up soon, and a quick time to spend with family and enjoy laughter. I cannot speak to the online mode or competition, but there is supposedly an expected ranking system.
Though the game was recently released, I expect more updates and more content to be added. The game is already out on Nintendo Switch, and yes, you can play it on the Nintendo Switch 2, so don’t fret if you have one and not the other.
