I never played the original Dokapon Kingdom on either PlayStation 2 or Wii, and I’m kind of bummed about that because it looks like a hoot. When it was announced for a Nintendo Switch release, though, I finally took notice of the role-playing board game. There have been two English trailers released for the game so far (watch them here and here), but this latest one is my favourite. It’s narrated by the hilariously snarky King, and describes what players have to do to win the game (and the Princess’ heart).
But first! I’d like to just talk about the game a little bit. It’s set in Dokapon Kingdom, where everyone is money-hungry – especially the King. When monsters start attacking his peaceful land, the economy collapses and nobody is paying their taxes. So the King gathers the bravest warriors around to rescue the attacked towns, and the one who collects the most money will be given the throne and the Princess’ hand in marriage (how retro). The gameplay is basically a board game. Soon the roulette, move that number of spaces, and something happens (or not).
Here’s today’s whacky trailer:
Dokapon Kingdom: Connect features online play, unlike its predecessor. There’s an auto-save function that saves after every week. If anyone in the party is disconnected from a match, all remaining players get grouped into a new lobby. If anyone chooses to leave but the others aren’t ready for the game to end, they can tap out and pass the controls to a COM to finish the game.
There are five play modes. In Story Mode, travel around the Kingdom clearing various challenges. In Normal Mode, choose the number of weeks you’d like to play and the winner is whoever has the most money at the end. Battle Royale has three different races. The first is Town Race, where the first person to liberate a certain town in the winner. Second is Kill Race, where whoever defeats the other players a certain number of times wins. Third is Shopping Race, where the winner is whoever brings a specified item back to Dokapon Castle first.
Developed by Idea Factory (Idea Factory International is the publisher), Compile Heart, and Sting, Dokapon Kingdom: Connect will be released for Nintendo Switch on May 9. It will be available digitally and physically.
