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Dokapwned Kingdom By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman I know I’m going to sound terrible saying this, but sometimes I hate my friends. I don’t actually hate them; it’s just a lot of times I think I like the concept of my friends better than how they actually are. So many times have I gone to a friend’s apartment or party and at the end of the night I’m secretly wishing I had spent the night drinking by myself. This bizarre ambivalence towards my friends is similar to the mixed feels I have for Dokapon Kingdom. Dokapon Kingdom is a party game with a really bizarre twist. Taking the board game element of Mario Party and mixing it with a job/class based RPG, Dokapon Kingdom seems like it would be an amazing game to play with a group of buddies on a random weekend. While it kinda is, there’s something that holds this game back from being a truly great party game.
The game starts out with you making a character. You choose your: name, class, gender, facial expression and character’s color. The choices are somewhat limited (ie: you can only be a warrior, mage or thief); however, things get a bit more in depth as the game progresses. After getting your characters and turn order established, the game begins. Generally, turns follow this sequence: item/spell phase, movement, and actions. Actions normally include battling monsters on the map or annoying little events (such as: playing roshambo/rock-paper-scissors/jan-ken-pon against a girl in a bear suit for money or paying off some bandit to steal from another player). Battles play out in typical turn based RPG style. One player makes an offensive move, the other player defends; and then the roles are reversed and reversed again until someone is dead. However, as opposed to standard RPGs a death doesn’t equal a game over; rather the fallen just has to sit out for 2 turns (3 turns as the game hits the second half).
The object of the game is to accumulate the most money by a predetermined week (weeks equating to 7 turn cycles). This can be done with either cash on hand or by property assets (such as: owning towns). However, towns are by far the best way to go, as liberating a city will yield you about 100,000 gold (in property assets).
While the game sounds very fun on paper and one of those ideas that should have been available decades ago, it gets kinda annoying and begins to wear on your gamer soul after awhile. Part of this problem is the unfair AI, even on easy the computer does not mess around and seldom makes a mistake. Josh and I noticed this after his roommate had to leave mid-game and we changed him out to an easy AI. Within 2 weeks the computer controlled character began to devise a clear and decisive plan to take Josh and I out of the game (and got very close to doing so). Playing against the computer in Dokapon Kingdom is like trying to play against Ron in WoW, you’re just going to get steamrolled by some player that knows every little nuance in the game. Another thing that hurts the game is the lasting appeal. Maybe we were too drunk, but by week 20 Josh and I just didn’t have the drive to finish the game. Perhaps, if we sneaking in a few turns in-between studying marine biology and geometry theorems, our play through might have been more enjoyable. However, playing the game for 5 hours straight, only stopping for cigarettes and chicken nugget breaks really tears away at you. The main reason for this is probably the idleness between turns. While you can make comments on the in game action (a lot of times Josh and I will laugh at some ridiculously random event happening), the game leaves you with too much time to think about things. You’ll start to think about: your resume you were supposed to revise last week, that application for school you needed to get paperwork for, calling your girlfriend because you haven’t talked to her in awhile. This isn’t a bad thing at all. In fact Dokapon Kingdom leads you to be a better person; since you start to feel guilty knowing you have all that stuff to do and are foregoing it all to play some RPG board game. Though I say that the game eats away at your gamer soul, it’s somewhat of a joke. The game is actually a lot of fun. However, that fun comes with some major caveats. You must play the game with friends (use no AI), you can’t make a day of this game (I’d play a week or two per sitting), and you need to be drunk or high (since you need to be able to laugh at some of the situations in this game).
I know I didn’t go too in-depth on the gameplay mechanics of this one. However, there’s so much random/one time thing stuff going on the game it’s hard for me to mention it all. It’s like what I told Josh’s roommate, if something weird happens I can explain it as it happens. But I’m not going to list the hundreds of weird random events that could happen.
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