Roll your dice to victory in this remastered RPG party game. Was Dokapon Kingdom Connect worth it?
Full disclosure: We received a review code for the Nintendo Switch version of this game. Rest assured that this will not affect the quality or candor of our review.
Table of Contents
Background
Have you ever played Monopoly and wished it got a little more hands-on? Dokapon Kingdom Connect is essentially that. This is Mario Party with RPG elements. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because this is a remake of a PS2/Wii title.
Now, huge caveat: I played this game prerelease, so there wasn’t anyone online to play against. This is the type of game that benefits hugely from playing against other people, because we all know the computer cheats.
What does Dokapon Kingdom Connect do well?
This aesthetic is cute and the premise is quite simple. As you would expect from a party game, it’s easy to pick up and play. You start off with a few simple classes, but as you master them, you can change into other classes. Mastering classes has an immediate, obvious benefit in that subsequent level ups grant additional bonuses. For example, mastering the Warrior class gives an additional one attack point per level for every future level-up.
What could Dokapon Kingdom Connect do better?
You’re at the mercy of the dice roll. You’ll first notice this when you try to leave the tutorial area. On my very first playthrough, things were going swimmingly, until I got to the end of the stage and couldn’t get the exact roll to leave. There are items (crystals) that allow you to move a prescribed number of spaces, but I didn’t have those consistently enough, and it was frustrating to watch the other players cheekily breeze past me.
There’s a definite lack of agency when the die roll is a simple button press, and as superstitious as it sounds, I felt like I was being screwed by the game. You’ll also notice lucky (but unlikely) coincidences from the AI a lot. All in all, this is an argument for playing against people, not the computer.
Was Dokapon Kingdom Connect fun?
I’ll be the first to admit that I get tilted quickly by RNG. Seeing the AI cheekily speed past me because I kept getting bad rolls was frustrating.
Is Dokapon Kingdom Connect good value?
There’s a lot of replayability if you can work this into your party game repertoire, though a single complete run is going to take about 30-40 hours.
Who is this game for?
This game is for people who like party games but want to try an RPG spin on the formula.
Was Dokapon Kingdom Connect worth it?
The mechanics of Dokapon Kingdom Connect make it a divisive title. It’s not a bad game by any means, but the amount of fun you’re going to have is directly predicated upon your tolerance for random dice rolls.
The other big consideration is your friend group: I don’t recommend this for solo players. Everyone has multiplayer games that they gravitate to, but I can see how a Switch-only title would be a hard sell compared to the availability of something like Fall Guys, Among Us, Jackbox, etc. Even on the Switch you have fierce first-party competition from Mario. There’s also the long campaign length. You won’t be finishing a run in a single session. Does your party have the patience and commitment?
Dokapon Kingdom Connect has a lot of potential, but make sure you have a friend group that’s up for the adventure.
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