To fully explain the beauty of a game like Dokapon Kingdom requires the use of an anecdote. You see, while playing a game against my nephews, one of them engaged me in a battle. It was a tough fight, but he pulled it out. I was beaten, but the worst was yet to come. Not content with just besting his uncle in combat, it came time to doll out some humiliation. From the several options offered by the game, he chose to draw on my character’s face rather than change my name or steal any of my possessions. After being forced to wait a few turns until my character revived, I sought him out for a rematch, looking to regain some of my lost dignity. Once again, though, I was left feeling the sting of defeat. This time he passed on humiliating me and decided instead to steal all of my hard-earned gold. The result was a ton of good-natured smack talking, another vow for vengeance and a boatload of belly laughs. No wonder Atlus humorously refers to this as “the friendship destroying game.”
It is just unbelievable how much depth there is to this game. Players can improve the towns they capture. They can undertake various quests for the townspeople. They can help out the king of the land, or even give him something he likes as a presents. For that matter, they can even don a disguise, use the local temple to send him an item he doesn’t like and then blame it on another player. They can set traps for one another, rob cities or shops, swindle the tax money from another person’s village, or even change their hairstyles! Every time you think the game might be starting to get a little repetitive, a little tedious, you find some exciting new wrinkle that fires you up about playing the game all over again. It’s a good thing, too, considering the fact that, at least in story mode, this is one long game. Fortunately, you can save after each week of gameplay time (every seven turns), because this is definitely not the kind of video game you can finish all in one sitting.
