Dokapon Kingdom. It doesn't ring any bells but the Dokapon name has had earlier outings on Game Boy and the first Playstation. This game is actually hard to describe. Its kind of like a Mario Party game, because there is a large series of giant board like spaces, with shops and random events and bonus/penalty squares. But its also like a old-school RPG - with a deep job system, stats, weapons and accessories to collect and throw away.  With me so far? It gets weirder, by reducing the # of minigames to only about 4, and those are hardly used.

Instead of collective minigames, each person might land on a random battle, where they fight one-on-one with an enemy (vs. with a frienemy) in turn based battle. The fights are simple affairs, a bit like rock-paper-scissors, with a bit of Pokemon style techniques to learn (unique to the job picked). The matches by and large shouldn't take very long at all, often in a single round, but they can drag out for many against bosses.

You and another player, or up to four, are heroes that are tasked with getting the King of Dokapon's world in order. Monsters have taken over the many, many towns in the world of Dokapon. If you land on the towns and beat the monster guarding it, the town is yours, and can heal you and make money. He will also give you bonuses based on items he wants or silly things the king wants done (such as gold keys to redecorate his all gold bathroom). The player that has the most money at the end of the game wins the hand of Princess Penny and becomes the new King of Dokapon!

Graphics: 7
The graphics are good, sometimes great  - like with the cutscenes and the slick depiction of your character. There is a downside to it, for most enemies, who often look fairly blah. The enemies are also often reskinned. The variety of characters you can interact with in random events is pretty staggering, and many WTH encounters. The spells and status effects have flashy graphics, which is pretty neat. 
As far as the map, its ... ambitious, you will travel through all kinds of caves, mountains, forests, tundras, deserts - even an underwater or flying city - each with their own background.

As you play the game, mastering jobs unlocks others, and each has their own very unique look. If that is not enough, you can also change your hairstyle, a few are unlocked to start, but there are many others for sale or won from the rare minigames.   This ability to change appearance also extends to your friends-er foes. Being able to tease and torment your friends (or the cpu) playing with you can be humorous. After beating them in a duel, you can write gibberish on their face, or give them a poop haircut (or others) or even change their name!  These degrading actions are just cosmetic, and do go away eventually. 


Sound: 7
First off, you get to pick the voice of your character - there is about 4 types for each gender, and that's great. My only issue with that is you can't hear them first before you pick them. Once the game is started, and you don't like the sound of your character, tough. They are going to have that the whole game.  Most characters have some speaking lines, which is great, since you run into a TON of random characters (in place of battles), and each shop keeper has their own voice. This is done very well, just a sample-  the french item shop owner, the talking cat wizard, cheery Kira the secret travelling merchant, to the mechanized voice of the robo-assassin for hire, to the lanquid, bored tone of Green Jr., the... richest man.. in the world!  There is a lot of variety here.  What is a bit off is not all words are spoken, so they start saying the first sentence, then don't finish the next two. Or sometimes they skip the first line and read the second! Why not have the whole lines read? 


Addictiveness: 8
The best thing about this game is playing with friends. Especially those that don't get mad easy, as this game has a lot to throw at each other.  One thing that really sets this game apart from Mario Party is the ability to level the playing field. Here the ways to take the power away from your friends is tremendous; switching places, blocking each other movements, hampering their hp or movement by indirect magic, setting traps, to stealing their towns or items, even mundane things as pranking each other. The person in last place can even pull out the ultimate revenge plan, and give up all their goods up for the chance to be a darkling. This is a super powerful character that has limited time-span, making your friends run for the hills to get away from you. While you track them down, you can also reverse all the work they've done by landing on their towns and making them neutral again.
 
This is a tremendously long game if you play story mode. You have to go through the entire world, conquering cities and beating bosses until you find whatever insane item the king is looking for.  The maps are broken down by continents, each with their own shops, monsters, and castles. Also there is many jobs to master, and weapons/armor/items/magic to find.


Depth: 8
Giant maps. Over ten job classes to play as, some secret. Plenty of items and equipment. There is also special weekly events that might happen, which can be anything from shops having sales or going on vacation; droughts, minigames (with all players) to craziness like rabid monkey outbreaks or a hairstyle fashion show. You also get to customize your characters face(and voice), beginning job and your pawn color when you start the game. 

I am tempted to give this game a 9 in depth, but the combat is for the most part too simplistic, and is the bulk of your random occurrences. The 4 choices for types of strikes (and 4 for defense also) are limiting, and the computer foes don't mix up their attacks enough to be interesting. That said, when you fight a regular foe like a magician, for example,  you often start to see a pattern in how they plan their moves. It makes combat quick and dirty battles, but lacking polish or much strategy.
 
The jobs/class are very clever, with each having a map ability (like the thief being able to steal from players just by walking past them!) and two combat abilities to unlock as you play as that class. Not all jobs are created equal, some have better abilities, some can hold more items, and some do it all! Each has a different look for the female and male, and I really appreciated the detail. The robo knight has to be one of the coolest looking classes, the female version has wings!


Difficulty: 6
Fighting is not so tough, and you should be squashing the enemy most of the time, which makes it a ho-hum activity you only use to raise your job points, level and maybe gain a after-battle item.  Fighting against your friends, who can curse you or even heal the monster your fighting - raises the stakes considerably. Bosses are also immune to the 'strike' battle tactic, which is high-risk/high-reward, forcing you to slug it out with them and their sometimes overpowered special moves.

While the majority of the fights are easy, the random spinner you use to move around is anything BUT random. This is the real difficulty, realizing there is no RNG.  If you save your game, see you roll a 4, then reset and try it again, you will roll a 4 again. The game has already got an algorithm for what it will give you for the next couple turns. And if you are destined to meet the dreaded money-taking Dr. Exiles on a random space that turn, you will meet him - unless you change the odds by landing on something different, or using an item to change where you could land. Then you can change your fate.


Overall : 7.5
This is a weird party game that is more fun to me than most party games. It has a lot of unfair situations, but it takes about as much as it gives - there are great items and windfalls for players as well. I did enjoy that the person in last place is often the most threatening player - due to the chance to be the darkling - which compared to Mario Party's end game - was refreshing and exciting. Its strange, and you have to be willing to tolerate its rpg-ness to play, but if you can, its one crazy ride with friends. Play nice, or don't, the game works either way!

So would you say that this game is worth $40-$50 for someone who loves board games/party games?

Examples of games that this reminds me of are Mario Party, Crash Bash (to a much lesser extent), and oddly, Rugrats Scavenger Hunt. Are these fair comparisons? I can tell though that this game seems to have far more depth and be much more fun though.

I'm tempted to pick a copy up sometime but it's currently listed on Amazon for $44-$55 I believe, and I'm not comfortable throwing that much down on a game I don't know about. Thoughts on the above questions would be invaluable.

Eirinn : The rpg elements of this game are fairly minor. The combat, while it has some RPG structure (random battles) to me it feels more like battles in POKEMON BLUE/RED - limited to a small set of moves, which you can customize.  Since you are not a fan of turn -based battles, I would say probably no in your case, but watch some Youtube of people longplaying it, see what you think.  

However, if you have some friends who can sit on your couch and you enjoy a highly competitive, decidedly japanese game - this is a very, very unique game. Me and the wife love it, I come from a background in RPGs and boardgames, but its not for everyone, thats for sure.

Edit: If you have a Wii, this game is available there as well, and might retail for a cheaper price.

True, I don't enjoy turn based battle, however I did enjoy Lufia - Ruins of Lore and Zoids Legacy despite the turn based battle systems, so I can handle it if it's done neatly enough or not abused (like FF II generating random battles every few steps), as long as the rest of the game makes up for it. So I won't entirely discount it for that.

Couch multiplayer? No, sadly. I would be playing mostly against CPU, so if most of the fun is in multiplayer, I'd likely do best to sit it out unfortunately unless I find a bargain for it (I have no Wii).

Alright, thanks for the feedback, man. I'll pull it up on YouTube sometime.

Eirinn : The computer opponent(s) do have variable difficulty you can change on the fly (you can even turn them into other players mid-game) but the game can be sometimes be cheap with them, giving them *just* the right spin to land on towns to rescue. We tend to play games with no CPUs or just one.