The Snack World: Trejarers delayed to August 10 for 3DS in Japan, 2018 for smartphones
There’s been bits of discussion about this game on the gaming boards, but also quite a bit of confusion about what The Snack World is – despite it coming from a big name like Level-5 and being groomed as the successor of Yo-kai Watch. Hopefully this thread will be informative and provide a good place to discuss the series while we move towards the game’s Japanese release. And in light of the collectible aspect of the game, I figured it might be nice to see who is planning on getting the game (and the toys) so we can trade doubles and stuff :).
The Snack World is the newest crossmedia project by Level-5 (known for Ni no Kuni, Professor Layton, Yo-kai Watch, Fantasy Life), spanning an anime tv show, game, comic, movie, and of course a monstrous toy line. It’s meant to be the “new” Yo-kai Watch, after YW has sorta kinda died in Japan, and is even supposed to surpass it. The cgi anime series started last April, and the game, called Snack World: Trejarers is coming out on August 10 in Japan for Nintendo 3DS, with a smartphone version coming in 2018. Level-5 abby will be “bringing the ip to western audiences in coming years” (meaning a localization is likely) and Level-5 even released a fully English voiced pilot video. Other than that, we don’t know anything about a western release (when/what).
The Snack World is described as a hyper casual fantasy rpg. The world of Snack World, called French Toaster (almost all of the names in the series are references to food), is your typical medieval rpg town, though there are some differences. For example, adventurers walk around with smartphones and there are things like vending machines, department stores and convenience stores placed around the city. Hence the “casual fantasy” bit.
The anime is centered around Chup, a young boy whose hometown was burned down by the villain Vinegar, and his companions Mayone and Peperon. The game however, lets you create your own avatar(and possibly party members as well). The anime and game share many resemblances, but in this thread we’ll focus on the game, for obvious reasons.
Gameplay footage and information on the game is scarce, but The Snack World is most likely best described as a (light) dungeon crawler rpg. You stroll around the city, buying and selling equipment and taking on quests, and then set out to randomly generated dungeons to complete said quests, gain loot and exp, and return to the city. That’s the basic gameplay loop. But wait, there’s more!
Jara and Snacks
The game is centered around these keychain accessories called Jara. Jara are miniature versions of equipment dangling from a keychain, varying from swords to shields to staffs and axes (and perhaps more). They form your party’s equipment. You can take a maximum of six or seven Jara (still unclear on that) with you on each quest, and you can (un)equip them on the fly as you fight your way through the dungeons and against the bosses of the game. Weapons have brands, and each brand has their own style and specialization, and brands vary in rarity (drop rate).
Here comes Snack World’s main gimmick, and what is like to bring in the big cash for Level-5: you can buy real Jara key-chains, packed in blind chests, which have a NFC chip in them so that you can scan into the game. Not every treasure chest contains a Jara though, because there’s one more piece to the puzzle: Snacks.
Snacks look like plastic cards (the website describes them as “crystal plates”), and each one has the illustration of a monster or character on it. In the anime, Snacks are used to summon monsters, but in the game their use is a bit different, unlocking pieces of armor or special quests if you scan their NFC chip.
Each Trejara Box contains one random Jara orSnack. Series 1 contains 11 Jara + 1 “Secret” Jara, as well as 10 Snacks, making for a total of 22 items to collect. One chest costs 500 yen (+tax) ($5), or 5000 yen (+tax) for a box containing 10 chests. Of course, more Series/Waves are expected to hit stores later.
What do the Jara and Snacks do?
We won’t know what each Jara/Snack does until the game comes out, and it’s also unknown if the effect is randomized or if each Jara/Snack has a predetermined outcome. By now it’s safe to rule out that scanning a specific Jara does not guarantee you will get the in-game version of that Jara right away, though it may open possibilities of you attaining that item in other ways. We’ve seen the following kind of effects so far in gameplay demonstrations and published information, though it does not guarantee this all made it to the final game.
Scanning Jara:
– Unlock special quest that leads to the Jara
– Get materials for weapon upgrades
– Increase odds of winning Jara at in-game raffles
– Increase drop rate on quests by way of “Jara Skills”
– Receive discount on scanned Jara in in-game shop
Scanning Snacks:
– Receive equipment or accessoiries (non-weapon)
– Unlock special quests
Now then, let’s look at all the Jara and Snacks.
As mentioned before, the Trejara Box Series 1 contains 22 collectibles in total (12 Jara + 10 Snacks). However, there’s more than that to collect, as Level-5 is bundling many toys and accessories with special Jara. Here’s a list of all the known Jara available on launch.
Trejara Box Series 1
As described above, 22 items in total, of which 12 Jara and 10 Snacks. One Trejara Box costs 500 yen (+tax) and comes with either one Jara or Snack. They’ve made it in such a way that you can’t figure out which one it is by holding it in your hand.
Packed in with game
The first print run of the game comes with the Jara “Crystal Sword alpha”.
Fairypon (Blue & Pink)
These are the “smartphones” the main characters carry around in the anime. The blue version comes with the exclusive Jara “Clear Crystal Sword” and Snack “Butako”. The pink version comes with the exclusive Jara “Clear Pink Panther” and Snack “Butako (with flower pendant)”. These are electronic toys and light up and play sounds when you use Snacks with them and stuff.
Jara Holder (Chup Version & Mayone Version)
Keyholders designed after the ones Chup and Mayone wear in the anime. Chup’s holder comes with the exclusive Jara “Wood Sword” and Mayone’s holder comes with the exclusive Jara:?”Saria Staff”. You can fit around 6 Jara on them.
Jara Trunk & Snack Trunk
The Jara Trunk can hold 12 Jara and has a pouch for extra storage. Comes with the exclusive Jara “Clear Destroyer Axe”. The Snack Trunk can hold 12 Snacks and comes with the exclusive Snack “Carbonara”.
Beans Collection (Chup, Mayone, Butako)
Three cute plushies with each an exclusive “Light Snack”. No idea what that means, but probably some gimped version of a normal Snack :P. You get “Butako (Large)” with the Chup plush, “Mayone” with… Mayone, and “Butako (Wailing)” with Butako.
Password Campaign
Say “Jara ga hoshii jara!” to a clerk in a participating store and get the “Silver Spade Sword” Jara. Campaign active from July 15th. Details here.
Arcade Game
If you get lucky while playing the arcade game, you can get a rare “Shadow Jewel Sword” (recolor of Clanarine Crystal Sword), but I’m not gonna dive into that rabbit hole.
Well there you have it – the game isn’t out for another month but Level-5 has already made it impossible to get a full collection unless you have heaps of money to burn. I strongly suggest not to go full collection mode for this series because it can only get worse from here on out :P.
The game seems to have plenty of other features to keep you busy while you hoard Jara and Snacks. I’ll highlight a few of them.
- Full avatar customization
Male/Female, change voice, appearance and name. Also looks like you can make your own character card, with customizable background and pose. Perhaps for Streetpass and/or multiplayer? - The world: French Toaster
A bustling city with tons of stuff to do. Department store, convenience store (“Hero Mart”), vending machines, weapon shop, farm, cafe, and royal castle are confirmed so far to be in the game. - Battle System
Jara can be selected from the touch screen and changed on the fly as you fight in real time against enemies. On the world map, battles are triggered by touching enemies, and there don’t seem to be random battles in dungeons. Enemy weaknesses are decided by elements (fire/water/etc), species and even color. Dungeon ends with a boss fight, or at least some of them. - Multiplayer
– Local and wireless co-op
– Up to 4 players
– Divide roles (looks like sword/axe/staff/bow)
– Short messages are hotkeyed for communication
– Explore dungeons together and search for rare items
– Fight against bossesAbove sounds very similar to Yo-kai Watch 2’s multiplayer mode. If so, it’s probably an entirely different mode from the main game, disconnected from quests/dungeons in the main story mode. In other words, you probably can’t play the “campaign” with friends, but this is unconfirmed. - Dungeons
The official site has revealed a couple of the dungeon areas you will visit in the game. Almost all of the names are food puns. Take a closer look at them here.- Taraban Ganian: marine themed area with water type enemies, “sea god” (Neptune?) boss lurks here
– Minestrone Forest: a forest distant from French Toaster. There be Sirens here.
– Makaro Mountain: A haunted mountain peak, with tons of ghost and undead type monsters.
– Lost Beef: Mines with mountain ridges shaped like meat. Many adventurers have come here and become lost. - Monsters
The Snack World contains many enemies with cute designs, as well as bigger badder boss monsters. You can find some examples of their designs here. - Jara Brands
Above you can see examples of four Jara Brands. So far we know about 10 brands (of which one is “brandless”). You can see the rest of them here. At the reveal of the game Hino said that the in-game drop rate of the rarest brand would be close to 1% and this would also be reflected in the way Trejara Boxes are packaged… Collectors beware :P.
Screenshots
Videos
3DS Gameplay demonstration – Shows a bit of everything – town, Jara scanning, world map, dungeon, battles, boss
Nintendo Direct segment
Trailer
TV Spots
Who’s that guy!?
Fight Using All Sorts of Jara!
Secrets of the Dungeon!
Which Jara is most effective!?
Chup isn’t the protagonist?
As mentioned before, The Snack World: Trejarers is very likely coming to the west. Level-5 abby’s official website states that it will “bring the franchise to western audiences via various touchpoints, including animation, toys, comics, music and more”. Games aren’t specifically mentioned, but it wouldn’t make sense to bring the toys over and not the games, so it’s safe to assume the game will be localized as well. It may take some time before it happens though, as Level-5 only mentioned “in coming years” as a timeframe, and of course we don’t know if imported Jara will work with localized games, or vice versa. In the meantime, you can check out the English PV here.
If you want to import, don’t forget that the Nintendo 3DS (as well as all its brothers & sisters) is region locked, so you’d need a Japanese 3DS to play the game. If you don’t have one and don’t want to import a 3DS, you could wait for the smartphone version of the game, which was recently delayed to 2018. Don’t forget that if you want to play around with the NFC toys, you will have to import those as well, and there’s no guarantee they will work with an eventually localized version of the game.
