Publisher/Developer: Atlus/ STING
Genre: RPG Board Game
Price: $29.99 US
Pros: If you like dice throwing and AI that cheats, this game is for you.
Cons: Graphics are circa Gameboy color-esque, must have 2 cartridges to save multiplayer games, no end in sight.
Verdict: Like Crack, this game might feel fine at first but will end up rotting your brain.
Long Days Journey into Night
It’s a fact: Dokapon Journey is a loooong game. In fact, this review was due a week ago but had to be sidelined due to the lack of game progression after 30+ hours of play. That’s right. It took me 52 in-game weeks to realize that this game was going nowhere. So why couldn’t I stop playing? Possibly because I have a penchant for leveling up and anytime I see “Portable RPG” I begin to drool. But its more likely I kept playing because there was no noticeable goal and I wanted to know what “surprises” were in store. The answer is “Not an ‘effin one.”
The goal of Dopakon is simple: Run Monsters out of towns. Earn gold. Give it to the King. Other than “Chapters” which interrupt gameplay with ridiculous errands and tepid quests, I have yet to find out what exactly it was I supposed to do.
Dokapon Journey is a shadow of its former self from PS2 and Wii with the 3-D graphics being reduced to GameBoy Color standards in a palette of 64 colors. I jest, but not really. Upon loading Dokapon, you will wonder if you’ve been duped. Sure, there’s the whole Chibli/ cute anime feel but the presentation is so 1999. Even the font will begin to hurt your feelings.
The meat of this game can magically eat hours, possibly days of your life without relenting. Dokapon is a hybrid board game/ RPG. That means all the wonderful things RPG fans like have been reduced to a mind-numbing and often unfair one-move-per-turn mechanic. At first glance, it feels fine. You choose your characters’ and/or competitor’s job class and allot some skill points amongst 5 attributes. Unfortunately, there really in no difference in the classes except for special skills though and this leads to lack of depth and customization arguments. Everyone will end upgrading to the same weapon type and magic is pointless much of the time, resulting in utilizing a basic attack come your turn. But there are frustrating coin tosses that precede each battle, so let’s just examine how the flow goes:
1. Spin the dial.
2. Move to either Town, blank space or treasure chest.
3. Rest/ Pay taxes, fight monster, or get random prize.
4. If you enter combat, pick a card. 50/50 chance to begin with an attack or end up defending.
5. Choose your method of attack or defend. I recommend you choose “Attack” or “Defend” All other methods are a waste.
6. If you win, level up. If you die, you lose 1/4 of your earnings. Wait, what?!?
7. Repeat until brain-dead.
That’s right. The game is a down right dirty cheater and mind-numbing experience. Because you’re on a board that limits your forward and backward movement, spinning the dial becomes a burdensome task when you’re trying to do the simple things, like buy new weapons, armor, magic or items. I understand that because its built as a multiplayer experience the turn-based mechanic is there to keep players in line. But unless you have friends with the game, (you can’t save your “progress” via wi-fi play) you’re stuck with the seedy CPU competition who amazingly rolls the exact number they need EVERY TIME. Then there’s the game itself, which seems to pick inopportune times to force you into a non-sequitir mini-game that has a 75% chance of taking your hard earned gold.
I could go into the whole “burn your friends” mentality behind the game and the “Darkling Mode” where you power up and become an unstoppable vanilla menace, but I would rather just stop promoting it all together. This game haunts me, begging me to roll the dice and pick a card- and though I know better, I should just toss it under the bed and get through the portable RPG withdrawals some other way. How long til Dragon Quest IX gets to our shores again?
Popularity: unranked [?]
