Dokapon Kingdom: Major Kiddie Fun

Normally, I am not a big fan of the Wii. I consider it to be kiddie and silly next to the other consoles out there. Something for the children to play. However, Dokapon Kingdom by Atlus not only managed to grab my attention, but has consistently kept it.

The Story
Dokapon Kingdom is about a kingdom which has been taken over by monsters, severely truncating the amount of money going into the royal treasury. So the King has hired adventurers to fix the problem.

With a story like this, you would expect a typical Roleplaying game set up. You play the main character, pick out your helpers, go fight the Big Bad in order to win it all. That is not the case.

Dokapon Kingdom has more in common with Monopoly than your usual run of the mill rpg. Each player (up to four) is in it for themselves. The objective: Earn money, own towns, and complete the various chapter missions in order to earn the Castle on each continent.

The Gameplay
Like Chess, Dokapon Kingdom is simple to learn, difficult to master. You move your character around the board using spinners and crystals. Your typical spinner has 0-6 and with special items allow you to add more spinners allowing you to go more spaces. Crystals generally have a specific set of spaces assigned to them. A 2 crystal lets you move exactly two spaces. This can come in quite handy when you're trying to get out of a cave or land on Dokapon Castle.

Each player chooses a class: Warrior, Magician, or Thief. These are the three you have to start, each with their own specials. Thieves steal random items when they pass another player on the board. Warriors get random ups in attack power as they move around. Magicians get an up in magic strength which actually makes them pretty rough opponents early on. However, from these three classes, you can earn new ones. Clerics, one of the earliest secondary classes, get Hit points back at various intervals throughout the game. It becomes possible to alchemists and even cyborgs as you get further in the game.

While you spend a lot of time fighting monsters, you can also fight one another, which can lead to fun results. If you win, you can steal things (items, equipments, towns), take their money, or prank them by changing their name or drawing on their face. Seriously, if you want to get back at the person who did you in two turns ago, hunt them down, kill them, and then take their weapon. Makes it hard for them to come back and kill you.

Favorite Feature
Personally, I lose a lot. I just have crap luck when it comes to most games. I cannot remember the last time I won a game of Monopoly playing against my family members. Atlus thought about this when they made Dokapon Kingdom. They put in the Darkling class. In order to achieve the Darkling class, you have to spend some time in Last place. When you have been last place for a while, a purple bat appears over your head. When the purple bat appears over your head, go to the special gate at the bottom left of the board and offer up everything you have in order to take on the powers of darkness. If you've been in last for a while, you probably don't have a whole lot to lose, so just make the pact and go hose your opponents by summoning monsters to their towns, taking their castles, and killing them off multiple times so that they lose turns, money, and stuff. Even better, you get experience while doing this, so once your period as the Darkling ends, you still gain levels allowing you to become even more of a danger.

All in all, I still think the Wii is a kiddie console, but as long as I own Dokapon Kingdom, it will be a kiddie console I continue to play. Thank you, Atlus.