it's pretty much exactly like pokemon but without the branding.
Bullshit, and the only part of your post I completely disagree with.
The two are quite similar, but they're really not the same. The most they have in common is catching magical creatures in an RPG and some base elements like a max party of six (not exclusive to Pokémon), being of Japanese origin, being tailored to kids and having a bird's-eye view for the camera (which they've ditched since 4).
Every Yo-Kai game is not turn-based; it's an auto-battler where, in any given battle, all you have to do is command three of your Yo-Kai at a time to target specific creatures by throwing a single pin on one while catching floating orbs that come across the screen every second or two.
If you're not doing that, you're paying attention to the bottom screen to do a dumb touchscreen minigame to supercharge their ultimate move or save them from the effects of an opponent's.
If you're not doing that, you're shuffling through your inventory to heal a member or try and entice an opponent to join your team (which has a very very high chance to fail until the late game).
Note that you're doing all this while your entire party will not shut the fuck up and stop screaming any given member's catchphrase every single time it makes an attack or gets injured.
It's a lot more fast-paced, with minimal involvement from you in terms of actual attacking (save for special moves or inspiriting) and a lot more emphasis on reflexes and team-related buffs.
Also worth noting is that Yo-Kai has a
much cornier tone, and the monster designs follow suit. I think there's maybe like 20 "serious" monster designs in the entire franchise, and probably half of those are Jibanyan reskins.
I could go into more gameplay differences here, and I kind of want to, but I don't want to go on another autistic ramble like before and I haven't played through the YKW games nearly as much as I have any Pokémon title so it'd be harder to draw proper comparison between the two. Just know that the two series are very different, even if they don't appear to be on the surface, and that a fair amount of the similarities between them often come from Pokémon adopting them after Yo-Kai's release.
The entire YKW fever that hit Japan a few years back sent GF into such a panic that it's a miracle the entire company didn't implode right then and there. Probably didn't help that the whole fad struck just as so much stuff was changing hands at GF (lol Masuda -> Ohmori).
If Level-5 hadn't driven YKW into the ground so quickly, maybe that panic could've actually lasted and kept GF on their toes...