Dokapon Kingdom is a rather peculiar game on paper. It’s a board game that does not want to just stay as a plain old board game, so it implements RPG elements, player growth, various events and a whole lot of other small features that try to make the game stand out. Can all these features make the game fun, or does it deserve to just collect dust in the corner of your game collection?

The game’s initial presentation gives off a rather simplistic summary of the game: Collect money by saving towns, getting on the right slot on the board and defeating enemies, hinder opponents, and use the rpg elements to make your character stronger. Whoever has the most money at the end of the game wins. Sounds simple enough, right? The game is not as simple as such a summary would lead you to believe; indeed, as the opening movie shows, the initial generic story hides surprisingly deep gameplay that causes things to be utterly chaotic, somewhat random, and just plain fun.

The game’s movement system is like most board games: you spin a spinner and move the number of steps in whichever direction you like. You can only stop on a spot after moving the specific number of steps on the spinner, but the system is merciful to people who mess up the path where they want to go (to go back a step, simply backtrack). However as the game goes on you get crystals and items that help boost the general number of steps that you can go on average, and even some of the available classes affect your movement. As a result, the system has the element of chance but also a surprisingly large amount of strategy as well.

This element of strategy applies to other areas of the game as well. You and your opponents, at the beginning, have very few options on what to use as a class (warrior, mage or thief) and start off very weak with no equipment, spells or skills. The king (in story mode) will give you the initial task of getting to his castle in 2 game weeks; whoever gets to the castle first gets a large number of stat points to distribute in his character’s attributes. Even here, in the beginning, the strategy shows itself: do you head straight to the castle to get first place and get a large number of status points, or do you sit around on the board for a bit and improve your characters in other ways? The board is simple but offers a large amount to do: you can visit item shops and towns, get equipment on item spaces, get money on chest spaces, skills and magic on corresponding areas, and fight enemies and see events on blank spaces. You can also eventually switch classes (most of which aren’t available when creating the character) to make your character more flexible and stronger. As such, your character’s strength isn’t the end-all-be-all due to the need for equipment and leveling…. but at the same time you can’t simply rely on wondering the map and not doing any events either, if you want to win.

There is also the matter of stemming the flow of your opponent’s momentum; sure you can go the entire game without directly causing misery to your enemies, but where’s the fun if you don’t do that in a game that PROMOTES such a thing? You can pick up a variety of spells and skills and then choose to use them on the opponent to debilitate them in some way or another. You can also directly attack the other players by simply landing on their space. By winning the battle you get the option to mug the poor sap of one type of item they have or simply take all his gold, putting you that much farther in the lead compared to him. Battling them is not a guaranteed win however, so you can just as likely get stolen from by the enemy as steal from them.

Speaking of battling, the game offers a deceptively simplistic engine for fighting: you pick one card out of two at the beginning of battle, which decides the order on who attacks first. The battle system is similar to rock-paper-scissors, except there are two things that keep it from being so black-and-white. First, the game offers alternate choices on what you can do; you can for example charge up your attack power rather than attack the enemy, or you can opt to pickpocket the enemy and take one of their belongings. Second, your hero’s stats play a large part in your damage and defense, so picking a winning selection when attacking does not necessarily mean you will heavily damage your opponent, and picking the correct option while on the defense does not mean that you saved yourself from being wiped out (which would send you back to Dokapon castle where you have to rest for a set number of turns before moving again).

The developers have put most of their time developing the gameplay of the game as talked about above, and this focus can be seen in the quality of the graphics and music… or lack thereof. The graphics are bright and cheerful, yet also simplistic as well. Then again the graphics also add to the whole theme that the game is apparently going for: an overly basic setting that belies the fact that the game is deep. The graphics as such do a great job in hiding the true nature of the game but at the same time will scare away players who will only glance at the game and dismiss it as kiddy or something similar. The music of the game is decent background music, but is entirely forgettable. It is pleasant to see that the voice-acting - what little there is - is great. The actors apparently realized that the story and characters were not supposed to be taken seriously and thus had a lot of fun acting the characters out, which in turn (ironically) makes the characters more loveable and grin-worthy.

One final thing to note: If it is not obvious by the fact that it’s a party game, Dokapon Kingdom is best played with friends. The AI and the depth of the game make the single-player games somewhat fun, but the AI players are downright brutal and almost always “coincidentally” land on just the right spot and get just the right item to become more powerful than you (in all the single-player games I tested, I got beaten down severely in fights with AI players simply because they always got armor and weapons that trounced mine far earlier than I could improve mine). Furthermore, the game is fairly long for a party game so don’t expect to finish the game in a 1-hour sitting or something similar. The save function is there for a reason after all.

Dokapon Kingdom is a fun game that combines both strategy and luck to keep the game refreshing no matter how many times you play through from start to finish. The variety in options will make sure that no character will ever be the same in one playthrough and the different events and fights you can do will make sure that you won’t get bored of playing the game for a long while. The learning curve is steep (you really can only learn how to properly play the game while actually playing it so you will suffer a lot at the beginning), but once you get past that you will find a game that is enjoyable and refreshing.

SCORING BREAKDOWN

Story - N/A

Monsters have popped up at all the villages, and it is up to you and your backstabbing companions to rescue them. Whoever can get the most amount of money gets both the kingdom and the princess. That’s the story in a nutshell essentially. It’s mainly there to get the actual game going.

Gameplay - 9/10

A ton of options on what to do, with almost everything having a strategic value in some way or another. Do you level up? Switch classes? Beat the tar out of opponents? You will have a ton of fun no matter what decision you make. The learning curve is a bit on the steep end, but get over that bump and you’ll be in for some gameplay gold. Just be careful that the natural board-game element of luck doesn’t end up knocking you flat.

Graphics - 7/10

Lacks detail and is rather simplistic, but shows the effects of equipping different items and succeeds in enhancing the atmosphere of the game thematically.

Sound - 6/10

Completely forgettable soundtrack, but the voice acting is… “fun”, for the lack of a better word.

Overall - 9/10
It’s obvious that the developers focused entirely on the gameplay of Dokapon kingdom and succeeded in making a largely enjoyable game despite the graphics and sound. With a large amount to do and no two playthroughs ever being the same due to the random chance that the board game element gives, Dokapon Kingdom is a game I’d highly suggest for anyone who is looking for a good multiplayer game.