Hey Hive!
If you didn't catch the last couple of posts, this is a new series where I write about games that I've played; what they're about and my experience playing them! I'll try my best to keep these posts short and sweet, hence the name; it's a reference to Games Done Quick (GDQ) - a charity speedrunning event!
I've recently been reminded of this old Wii game that I always wanted to try but never got to because it's ridiculously rare and expensive. But thanks to emulators, I finally got to play it last week! This is Dokapon Kingdom!
Developed by Sting and published by Atlus (the company behind the Persona and Trauma Center series), Dokapon Kingdom is a board game RPG that was originally released for PS2 in 2007 and later ported to the Wii in 2008. If you've never seen this game before, think Monopoly mixed with Mario Party, but with knights instead of plumbers and battles instead of minigames, all covered with a cutesy coat of anime paint.
STORY
Unlike Mario Party, the story mode in Dokapon Kingdom can actually be played with multiple players! Basically the Kingdom is in danger of being taken over by monsters, all the towns got conquered and the King has recruited adventurers (i.e. you and your friends/CPUs) to help rid the world of monsters and save the kingdom! And at the end, whoever saved the most towns and has the most money gets to marry his daughter and become the next King of Dokapon!
It's a hecc of fun but it takes a pretty long time. There are 7 regions in the whole Kingdom, each with about 7-8 towns each, and Story Mode itself has 9 chapters in total including the Prologue! The chapters call on you to fulfill a certain objective and it is only by doing that that you gain access to other regions.
The average playtime for 2 people to complete story mode is about 24 hours but of course that really depends on how much you dawdle about and mess with each other, because there's plenty of opportunity to do that. You can basically impede your progress by killing each other continuously, or just spend a lot of time grinding levels; it is an RPG after all.
GAMEPLAY
Other than story mode, there is also normal mode (which is basically the same but you limit your play time to a certain number of in-game weeks of your choosing) and battle royale, where you're assigned a mission.
On your turn, you'll spin a spinner and then move to any spot on the board that is reachable by moving that number of spaces. Players will have the freedom to choose the direction they want to go. Landing on an "empty" yellow space or another player will typically cause a battle, but sometimes the player will encounter a strange traveler that may allow them to play them at a minigame, or hire their services to steal or harm the other players.
The battle system plays out in roshambo/rock-paper-scissors style, with attack beating counter, counter beating strike, and defend resisting attack. Multiple magic spells and stat changes can play out both in battle and on the game board, while class-specific skills increase with player's job level.
Three starting jobs are available to the new adventurer (warrior, thief, and magician), and following a pattern of leveling, eleven character jobs and darkling (if someone hears the whisper of the dark revenge, usually the current last place player) are possible.
It's a little complicated but it's not that hard once you get to playing. And the main objective is simple. Train to level up and increase your skills, so you can fight monsters to reclaim towns and get more money! That's pretty much it.
GRAPHICS
Visually, Dokapon Kingdom is actually really cute and aesthetically pleasing. For the most part the whole game is bright and colourful, and all the characters are pretty well designed. Some of the in-battle animations look really cool too!
Most of the NPC dialogue is voice acted, which can be a little weird since their mouth movements don't sync up at all. And some of the voices are little strange-sounding, but they're hilarious and entertaining all the same.
RECEPTION
I think Dokapon Kingdom got pretty mixed reviews when it was first released, which might've been what drove Atlus to not print so many copies the second time around. But overall the game's review scores weren't too bad, especially with the Wii release averaging
about 8/10.
Personally I didn't even know about Dokapon Kingdom until I saw my favourite Youtubers, TheRunawayGuys, start playing it back in 2014. And even then I didn't start watching it until 2016, because by that point there were over 100 episodes of Story Mode! I got hooked soon after I started watching and I binged the whole playthrough in a month or so.
Since then I've been wanting to try it for the longest time and I always felt bad about emulating but I think given the circumstances I didn't really have much choice if I wanted to play it. I'm glad I did though, because we've been having a ton of fun playing it!
If you're interested in trying it out for yourself and ruining your friendships, here are the links:
Dolphin Emulator for Wii and Gamecube games
Dokapon Kingdom rom
Have fun and thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
