Late last year Atlus released Dokapon Kingdom for the PS2 and Wii. The game combined elements of RPGs and party games to come up with something wholly unique – a deep, complex multiplayer experience that allowed for plenty of backstabbing and duplicity between players. This made for hilarious multiplayer sessions, at the expense of a coherent or worthwhile single-player mode. Now they’ve brought us Dokapon Journey, a recreation of the concept for the DS.

Like its big brother, Dokapon Journey takes place in the kingdom of Dokapon. The various towns and villages of the kingdom have been besieged by monsters, and the king is beside himself. No, he’s not worried about his people; he’s upset about all the tax payments he’s missing out on, of course! So the king declares that whomever can raise the most cash can lay claim to the throne and marry the princess. This is where the player steps in – as a wandering adventurer, you’ve got to get your hands on more money than the other guys, as quick as possible.

 
All players start at the castle together, before going their separate ways to pursue huge amounts of cash.

Dokapon Journey features plenty of little changes and improvements over Dokapon Kingdom; the first one you run in to is at the character creation screen. Where Kingdom had starting players choosing between 3 basic classes (Fighter, Magician, and Thief) with more advanced classes available later on, Journey offers all eight classes up immediately. This may have been a concession to the faster, shorter matches that handheld gaming is known for, but I call it an improvement – more choices earlier on means each game session feels more unique. The classes range between melee-focused (Fighter, Valkyrie, Paladin, and Amazon), magic-based (Mage and Witch), and rogue-style (Spy and Bandit) character types. Each different class has unique abilities, both in battle and on the field, and your character class will pretty much determine your style of play, so choose carefully.

 
The ninth character class, Darkling, is only available under special circumstances.
It’s incredibly powerful, but comes with significant drawbacks as well.

Once you’ve got four adventurers ready, the game begins. Game flow will be familiar to anyone who’s played Mario Party. The kingdom is represented by a game board, and players take turns moving a random number of spaces. Landing on a standard space usually leads to an enemy encounter, but sometimes triggers an event, which could be a mini-game, special quest, or have other beneficial or detrimental effects. Between the standard spaces you’ll find shops (for buying new equipment/items/magic), churches (heals your status, and acts as a checkpoint if you die), Dokapon Castle (where you can heal for free), and towns. Towns are the key to victory in the game: if you can defeat the boss monster in a town, you’ll liberate it – and earn its tax money in the process. Each turn advances the calendar one day, and at the end of every week you’ll get a status update, and sometimes special events will occur.

 
Liberate a town and its citizens will celebrate you, most notably with cold, hard cash.

At first the game seems relatively straightforward – liberating as many towns as possible to earn the most money. But once each player has a few towns under their belt the game’s depth begins to show. You can take the noble route if you want – investing money into your towns improves them, which in turn increases their tax payout – but there are plenty of more underhanded tactics available for the more devious-minded. You can raid your opponents’ towns, for instance; by challenging the mayor to a game of chance, you could claim the town’s taxes for your own if you win – or get a huge bounty on your head if you fail, which the other players will be happy to collect. Similarly, you can rob shops, and even attack your fellow players directly. Win and you can take anything the other player owns (including towns), or even change their name, but if you lose you’ll have to face the dire consequences.

Like any party game, Dokapon Journey’s multiplayer is definitely the game’s focus. There is a single-player option, but this simply replaces your human competition for AI-controlled characters. Since Journey has such strong roots in the RPG genre, just as with Dokapon Kingdom there are bound to be players disappointed with the game’s relatively substandard single-player story mode. At the end of the day, though, this is a game designed to be played against your friends, preferably in close range so that you can throw things at each other when someone manages an especially underhanded victory.

 
The game gives victorious players the ability to do very mean things to their defeated competitors.

Random chance plays a huge role in Dokapon Journey; most of your actions are governed in one way or another by a number-generating spinner, and even combat forces you to try to predict which of their four actions your opponent will use next. This is bound to irk some players, who think that multiplayer competitions should be won or lost by skill alone. While I do admit that it can get pretty frustrating to not be able to visit the shop you need because you keep rolling a 3 instead of a 4, I see the heavy random element of Dokapon as the game’s way to a) make sure that interesting events happen frequently, and b) give less-skilled gamers a fighting chance, right up until the end. Besides, once you’ve spent a little time with the game you realize that there are all kinds of ways around the randomness, like items that allow you to travel a specific number of spaces.

The game’s presentation is functional, though less than impressive. The anime art style is cute and fun, but the basic spritework doesn’t do developers Sting Entertainment (known for the beautiful Riviera and upcoming Knights in the Nightmare) justice. Everything works well enough for purposes of this game, and it doesn’t look bad in the least, just a little underwhelming. The same goes for the game’s soundtrack, which is as generic as fantasy RPG music can get.

Dokapon Journey is a very niche title, but in that niche it thrives. No, it isn’t a 40-hour epic RPG, but it isn’t trying to be. Taken on its own merits, the game provides an incredibly fun multiplayer experience, now more convenient than ever thanks to its portability. If you’ve got friends and the systems to play it on, Dokapon Journey can and will devour hours of your life, though you’ll be having too much fun to notice or care.

Gameplay: 8.0
It’s like an RPG in board game form. That simple description is accurate, but doesn’t do justice to the huge number of interesting, fun, and evil things you can do to your fellow players. Whether you’re trying to rob a burly shop owner, helping a would-be dancer shed a few pounds, or hiring a robot assassin to take out your chief rival, you’ll never be bored.

Graphics: 7.0
The sprite-based visuals serve their purpose, but don’t push the DS technically or do much to dazzle players. The game does have a cute anime vibe going for it, which keeps the game feeling lighthearted even when the competition gets devious.

Sound: 6.5
The music isn’t bad, but it is bland and forgettable. If you’ve ever heard a J-RPG soundtrack before, you can probably imagine what this game sounds like.

Difficulty: Medium
Once you’ve gotten the hang of the various systems and complexities of the game’s rules, your challenge is going to come mainly from the devious minds of your fellow players, and of course Lady Luck.

Multiplayer: 9.0
No other game in recent memory (except, of course, for Dokapon Kingdom) gives a group of friends the ability to rob, cheat, murder, and humiliate each other, and have so much fun in the process.

Concept: 8.9
The blend of RPG concepts with board game style and delivery makes for a truly unique gaming experience. They’ve made some slight refinements in bringing the game to a portable system, which has only improved play.

Overall: 8.7
Here’s a little quiz: 1. Do you have three friends with DSs? 2. Are those friends RPG-savvy enough to know a Hit Point from an Item Shop? If you answered yes to both, then congratulations! You’re just a copy of Dokapon Journey away from having some of the most fun the DS can provide.