Original Release: Atlus, 2007, PlayStation 2
Other Releases: Wii (2008), Switch/PC (2023)
An Itadaki Street riff that de-emphasizes the investment and adds RPG elements in its place
Dokapon Kingdom (PS2, Atlus, 2008)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: PlayStation 2 Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
Atlus and prolific developer of oddball RPGs in the 00s, St!ng, bring us this iteration on the Itadaki Street board game series. The twist here is adding RPG mechanics, as players pick a character class and battle it out with monsters (and each other) all over the game map.
Reviews from the time indicate this game absolutely needs to be played with other people to be a good time. I don’t have anyone handy to test this with, so all I can tell you is that the single-player experience is definitely brutal boredom. But it seems like one of the key failings is one that would be present in multiplayer too: your characters are pansies that are overmatched by all the random monsters that are within just a few steps of your starting position, and it’s way too easy to get killed at the outset.
You start out each game by picking from one of only three character classes (the first warning sign): warrior, mage or thief. Each has the advantages and disadvantages you would expect. The game world map you’re then placed on is impressively sprawling, but good luck surviving to explore any of it. Each dice roll forces you to move exactly that amount of spaces, but it seems no space is safe from random monster attacks, and if the first one doesn’t get you they’ll weaken you enough so that the second finishes you off.
If you could survive to get to them, the game world apparently gives you a lot of options. You can drop in on kingdoms to get quests for money, items and glory (well maybe levels). The Itadaki Street element comes as you can take over towns and invest in them for passive cash flow (though it doesn’t seem to be nearly as necessary here as it is there). Apparently you can upgrade your character class eventually, but don’t ask me the details, I couldn’t even sniff such advanced levels while getting insta-raped by Imps and Lovecraftian monstrosities with lightning bolt spells immediately upon starting out.
The games seem like they take an excessively long time to resolve (typical of the Itadaki mold) even if you know what you’re doing, but getting killed constantly drags it out to insane degrees as you have to wait three whole turns to revive PLUS your corpse gets looted. Some of the enemies steal a big chunk of money and run away too, and you can’t really defend against that since you can’t afford to leave yourself open to actual attacks at the beginning. It’s a real F’d up situation.
There is a Story Mode meant to cater to solo players and provide a more gentle introduction, by having a starter sub-map you can grind for a while where there’s tons of low-level treasure and the enemies are extremely weak and die in one hit even if successfully defending. But you run into another balance problem here. The computer AI opponent basically cheats. It always gets highly favorable rolls and items. I tried this out three times and it always similarly sprinted ahead of me and just had the best of luck. A little reading online this is actually the way the game is programmed and is a well-documented “feature” of it.
All I can say about this game is, absolutely put it out of your mind if you only want to play by yourself. It is complete trash for that purpose. Interbutts scuttlebutts indicate maybe it’s worth a try if you have a friend group who is into the concept, but I’d make sure it’s in a format you can return it and get your money back if you paid for it.
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