this game is kinda unexpectedly amazing. me and 3 other friends booted this up with no knowledge except the fact it was like mario party but really long. we also didnt allow each other to look anything up at all, with a couple exceptions about a couple items, but it seriously was such a great experience that went so much further than we initially thought.

the game itself can be pretty unbalanced but you wont really notice some of these imbalances later on. for example, the alchemist class can just dupe items and consumable magic spells in their inventory as many times as they want which is already an insane skill if you get the right things in your inventory and sell any other garbage you have. on top of this, the alchemist gets a battle skill that lets you earn money based on how much damage you deal and take in a fight. if you use this ability on basic ass baby enemies and hit it with moves that do ~1000 damage, you instantly get 200000 gold. a friend figured this out, went to the casino area and just gambled a fuck ton with a loop he figured out with shop items in the casino area and eventually hit it big getting the best sword in the game and 50 million gold. if this friend hadnt been killed by another friend and all of that money hadnt slowly dwindled away, he would have won the game even after i beat the final boss and got the last reward. at the time i thought the game was over but i pressed on and progressed the plot anyway because i figured there was nothing else i could do. i did end up winning the game but it seriously was in contention for a little while when that huge sum of money kept passing hands. its moments like these and more that make me adore this game even if its so batshit insane with some of the stuff youre allowed to do in it. this game just makes for so many great moments like this that evoke so many emotions from everyone in the room playing.

i think even though this game has some crazy shit that really feels like it was either unintended or misunderstood how powerful it could really be, its the exact type of stuff that will make for such a good party game experience and will create stories within the game. it has to be the best party game experience ive ever had and might ever have. im convinced there will be no two campaigns of this game that will be the exact same and it makes me wanna go back and play again even after finishing it tonight. the long ass sessions me and my friends had after we were done with classes for the day made for such good memories i never thought i could have with a game. if you can convince 3 other people to play this game with you and spend about 30-40 hours together over the course of multiple sessions with no prior information about this game, please do. it will be some of the most fun youve had in a party game and it will have you dying to play more after each session

played with my wife (and one CPU) over the course of a week for 30 hours and was one of the most emotional experiences i've ever had with a game. we banded together against the CPU guy who, without fucking fail, ALWAYS rolled exactly what he needed to get where he wanted and had ungodly luck - until he was repeatedly sent to Brazil, foot-blistered, purse-cuttered, and killed only to revive back in Brazil. little did my gorgeous partner know, however, that i was only leveraging our mutual hatred of the CPU to get the heat off myself. i became an unstoppable killing machine, i got so rich Dr. Exile meant nothing, only to attain a hollow victory. i did nasty shit. evil shit. she got a cool shield that reflected attacks, i killed her and took it. i'm not proud. i don't love what i learned about myself through this game. i don't love circling around an exit for a week, the bullshit of unlocking the Acrobat and Hero, the way the cpu kept saying 'shazbot' making me cringe every time, or the music in the tower of rabble - but i do love my wife. and i loved the time i spent with her playing this. it was fun :)

Mi experiencia después de jugar una sesión en modo normal por 5 horas:

Bo este juego es una mierda
No entiendo nada
Bo está demás
Creo que ya entendí
La puta madre perdí todo
No voy a jugar más
LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOO
AAAAAAAAA PERDÍ TODO DE NUEVO
Qué juego de mierda
Muy bueno

Look the main thing with this game is it's a port of a PS2/Wii game that grew a cult following and this version has online play. There's nothing new added outside of that I don't think, but the online play works fine. After a full playthrough of the main game mode with a friend over several play sessions, we only disconnected I think 3 or 4 times. Considering this was a 15 hour playthrough, that doesn't sound too bad. The rest of this review is going to be on the game itself since I never played it on the PS2 or Wii.

Dokapon Kingdom is certainly an interesting game. Basically imagine if Mario Party and Fortune Street had a baby and that baby decided it wanted to be an RPG when it grew up. It's incredibly fun, but it does have some caveats with that combination. Like if you REALLY want to test some friendships, play this.

When I say it's like an RPG, I don't mean in just aesthetics or that it has turn based combat instead of minigames. A big thing here that might turn some people off is the length of the main mode. It's a full 8 chapter adventure that can last a pretty long time if luck isn't on anyone's side and if nobody has a good strategy. Your typical Mario Party game can last maybe a couple hours if you play with the max amount of rounds (and less than an hour if you play with the fewest). Like I said earlier, this one playthrough with a friend and a CPU controlled player lasted 15 hours over the course of several play sessions. There's no options for shorter games unless you pick a different game mode that plays completely differently. I think it would have been nice if you could pick the amount of chapters you play with the final boss scaling to work with less chapters. It's not like there's a compelling plot in this game since it's all treated as a cute, charming, and fun "save the princess" story. Like anything in chapters 1-7 could be swapped around in terms of what happens and it wouldn't change anything.

The CPU was something my friend and I found really annoying. It tended to always get exactly what it wanted no matter what and, in the second half of the game, would often bounce between going for the story objective and running around trying to get the game's version of bonus stars rewarded at the end. The game also tended to always give the CPU the good outcome in games of chance, so it never really felt fair and balanced for my friend and me. Best advice is to never play the game with a CPU controlled character cause it just sucks the fun out of it. Find someone to play with that is willing to play through the full adventure with you.

The actual adventure itself is pretty fun. The board game gimmick combined with the RPG mechanics really helps set it apart and creates fun and hectic scenarios. The combat is very simple with you given a basic attack, a super powerful attack that can result in your death if the enemy counters it, a magic attack, and a special ability. For defense you have a basic guard, a counter for that super strong attack, a magical guard, and just giving up. Trying to strategically figure out what you want to do makes for a ton of fun and gives a great laugh when things either go how you want or fail in spectacular fashion. Only issue I have is one that didn't bug me till super late game. Some spells and monster abilities can break your equipment which can deal a massive blow to your attack and defense (unless you specialize in magic which I never saw a downside to doing). In most of the game it's fine cause weapons and shields are pretty cheap and easy to replace. In the last 2 chapters, though, getting something good is dumb expensive and most likely something you'll only get to do once. I kind of wish every weapon store carried a cheap weapon and shield for situations like this, or at least have the church give you a free weak one if you're unequipped. This way you're not having to run back extremely far distances and then running in circles to get into a weapon store to buy something, but you're also not going to get some stupidly broken weapon for free (yes I know stealing is a mechanic, but it's also a game of chance so I'm not the biggest fan of it).

I do think this game is great when you have someone to play with. I'm super glad it got ported to Switch and maybe someday it'll get ported to more systems like PC or the PS5 and Series X. Does suck it came out around the same time as Tears of the Kingdom, so even less eyes were on it (heck I didn't even know it was releasing until I randomly saw it on Twitter from Gematsu and never saw a single ad or trailer uploaded for it). Only place I even see a trailer uploaded is from GameTrailers. Not even the publisher or Nintendo uploaded it.

I finally finished my first (1st!) game after 20+ hours, so I can now say: This is the most 3-star banger you'll ever play.

This board game is all kinds of broken and it's kinda admirable that they kept the chaos unchanged for 2023.

Dokapon Kingdom is a Hate Machine 👌

What if Mario Party was an RPG instead of minigames and it hated you. I don't say that lightly, Dokapon Kingdom hates you, the player, and will take every chance it has to ruin your day. Too much money? one bad roll and you now have negative money. Too many towns? Given away to the other players. Got a really nice weapon? Broken immediately.

Sounds frustrating, right? But I gave it 4 stars anyway, because you have to embrace the madness. I played with a group of 3 others and watching the game ruin all of our lives collectively was a good time.

This was one of the worst yet best gaming experiences I ever had while having the privilege of playing with my dedicated friends that saw it through til the very end. 142 Weeks in total to beat the story mode on our first ever playthrough, and about 30-40ish hours clocked in too because we tried to unlock as much as we could in terms of classes. The Story Mode for this game is a behemoth that only a few would even tackle, let alone finish. It's a fun game, but if you're not dedicated to finishing it, most would probably abandon the story mode.

Thankfully Party Mode exist so you can have a lighter and more casual time there.

(Oh and also, really wish you could name opponents if you ever win against a player. I understand why due to people online possibly naming others some offensive stuff, but that's why in-game censors are suppose to detect that kinda stuff)