Dokapon Kingdom is a celebration board sport that’s usually talked about in the identical breath as Mario Occasion. Extra particularly it’s usually thought to be the crueler and extra sadistic model of the 2, incessantly pitched as “what if Mario Occasion was additionally a full-length RPG?” Over the past two weeks, I’ve been enjoying the sport with my associates from Mario Occasion Month-to-month, the month-to-month stream sequence on the NWR Twitch channel the place now we have been competing towards one another in Nintendo’s premiere sadomasochistic celebration franchise for the previous a yr and a half. We’ve barely scratched the floor to this point—it is a full-length RPG in any case—however we’ve already seen sufficient for me to know that Dokapon Kingdom is a board sport expertise in contrast to the rest that’s held again solely by how troublesome it’s to persuade folks to really sit down and play it.
The story of Dokapon Kingdom takes place in a regular fantasy RPG setting: a darkish lord is threatening the world and the king has despatched as much as 4 adventurers to defeat the darkish lord and win the princess’ hand in marriage. The gamers all have the identical aim, however they aren’t working collectively. Every participant’s standing is measured by their web price, which is most importantly influenced by cities on the board that the gamers have taken possession of and invested cash into for improvement. That’s proper: Dokapon Kingdom has extra in widespread with Monopoly than it does with Mario Occasion, however cash isn’t the one factor you should maintain monitor of.
Like I mentioned, that is an RPG, and you should additionally take note of your stats, your gear, and your class abilities. Cities will not be purchased, however are as a substitute liberated from monsters that have to be defeated in battle. These monsters aren’t simply filler enemies, they’re formidable opponents that can soundly trounce any underleveled participant who tries to take them on. Gamers who get a great construct going early will scoop up cities shortly, leaving opposing gamers in poverty. Every chapter of the story mode additionally options distinct aims resembling defeating a boss or retrieving an merchandise for the king, and the participant who completes an goal first will obtain large and sometimes everlasting rewards.
Success in Dokapon Kingdom relies on how properly you’ll be able to steadiness all of its varied mechanics, and falling behind the pack signifies that you’ll usually be pressured to decide on violence. Fight takes place in turn-based battles that leverage a rock-paper-scissors model system of benefits and counters. The attacker can select to make use of a easy primary Assault which the opponent can weaken with primary Defending, however they’ll additionally select a robust Strike assault that may break by means of the enemy’s protection. Strike assaults are dangerous although, for the reason that defending participant can fully negate them with a Counter, which dodges the assault fully and hits the attacker for extra harm than the Strike would’ve executed. Distinctive abilities add a bit of additional depth and complexity to battle, and fight between two gamers is commonly a big gamble on how properly you realize what your opponent is considering.
The draw back of Dokapon Kingdom is that it doesn’t do an excellent job of explaining precisely how its mechanics work. There’s a assist menu the place you’ll be able to learn up on the fundamentals, however loads of essential particulars are sometimes left unsaid. One good instance is the Native Objects that may be given to the king as a present to spice up your web price. The assistance menus clarify that Native Objects may be obtained at cities you personal, however what it doesn’t say is that these cities have to be upgraded to degree 3, after which they’re collected from the city alongside taxes. Battle stats are additionally by no means defined so it isn’t clear precisely how your stats translate into harm, and even what the pace stat does in any respect (it impacts hit accuracy). We’ve needed to do loads of google looking to determine how some main mechanics are presupposed to work, and there are a couple of elementary mechanics we nonetheless don’t totally perceive after eight hours of play.
Talking of these eight hours of play, the daunting scale of Dokapon Kingdom is each its biggest energy and its biggest weak spot. The size of the story mode closely relies on the folks you’re enjoying with and the way effectively you full aims, however dialogue of the sport on-line tells me that it takes roughly 25 hours to complete a single playthrough—and that’s when you’re fast! This allows an unimaginable alternative to craft an ongoing journey with associates that devolves into spiteful chaos as time goes by, with stress increased than every other multiplayer sport I’ve ever performed. The apparent downside is that you should determine easy methods to get a bunch of gamers to sit down down and play a single playthrough for over 25 hours. The 4 of us are all adults who’re out of faculty and have jobs and tasks to handle, so these eight hours of play over the course of 4 classes constituted each free second we might discover collectively over the course of two weeks. Even now I’m unsure if we’ll ever truly be capable to end this sport, and that may be a substantial crimson flag that I really feel needs to be included alongside any suggestion of this sport. This isn’t one thing you’ll be able to casually choose up with the lads; it’s a substantial dedication that can take a really very long time to complete.
In fact since Dokapon Kingdom Join is a Change remaster of a Wii remaster of a PS2 remake of a Tremendous Famicom sport, probably the most urgent factor I’ve to handle is the model new on-line mode that this model is known as for. Our whole playthrough to this point has been fully on-line, and that have has frankly been immaculate. We now have not skilled a single internet-related drawback within the sport to this point, and a glossy autosave system backs up your progress each flip in order that nothing is misplaced when you do must restart the foyer for a sport in progress. Every participant additionally receives their very own copy of the continued save file, so nobody particular person must be relied on because the host for a whole playthrough. At any time when we have to load the save file, it’s a easy matter of loading the save file, after which the sport routinely connects us collectively. In an period the place long-form on-line multiplayer video games usually wrestle to have an intuitive save system, it’s a nice shock that Dokapon Kingdom Join simply works.
In fact, we’ve barely scratched the floor of what Dokapon Kingdom has to supply, and there’s nonetheless an extended journey forward of us. It’s going to take us a very long time to complete this sport, so I’d like to ask you to hitch us so we are able to witness the journey unfold collectively. We now have been recording our whole playthrough to this point identical to it was a sport of Mario Occasion Month-to-month and can be broadcasting it on NWR’s Twitch channel as a part of our new sequence: Dokapon Kingdom (Form Of) Month-to-month. Starting Friday, Might twenty sixth, we can be broadcasting our whole playthrough to this point, and as soon as the recordings meet up with us we might even begin streaming our classes dwell as we play them.
The journey has simply begun, and we’ve acquired loads of Dokapon Kingdom forward of us, however I’m extremely excited to proceed this journey. Examine again with us as Dokapon Kingdom (Form Of) Month-to-month progresses to see extra of our impressions on this legendary celebration board sport.
