TPG writes "The meat of this game can magically eat hours, possibly days of your life without relenting. Dokapon is a hybrid board game/ RPG. That means all the wonderful things RPG fans like have been reduced to a mind-numbing and often unfair one-move-per-turn mechanic. At first glance, it feels fine. You choose your characters' and/or competitor's job class and allot some skill points amongst 5 attributes.Unfortunately, there really in no difference in the classes except for special skills though and this leads to lack of depth and customization arguments."
GamingTrend writes: "Dokapon Journey does have multiplayer available. If every person has a cart, then it can accomidate four players. Even if you don't have multiple copies of the game, you can play with up to four players off of one cartridge. Some of the player options won't be available in the single cartridge mode, but it is still a nice bonus that you can play with four players on a single cartridge. I was really hoping that Dokapon Journey would be a great blend of a board game with an RPG. Eventually it left me bored when I was waiting for my turn and frustrated at how sometimes the CPU seemed to get just the rolls it needed to mess up my progress. I do think that the gameplay is solid, and a couple of tweaks could make this a great game. Hopefully some subtle changes can be made to fix them in a sequel".
GamerDad writes: "As a big fan of boardgames as well as role-playing games, it was with a bit of excitement that I set out to take a look at the recent Atlus title, Dokapon Journey. My knowledge of Japanese games is limited, so I can't tell you anything about previous incarnations (if any) of this title. Unfortunately, what I can tell you is that the game was a disappointment. There is the making of a somewhat interesting boardgame in the vein of Talisman, Return of the Heroes, and other sorts of RPG/adventure boardgames, but it fails to provide much in the way of meaningful decisions."
Jason Fanelli writes his first review for GamerNode.com by taking on Dokapon Journey for the Nintendo DS. Read on to see (and hear) his thoughts.
Egads. It hurts just to think about it.
So it's addictive but not very good? I'm conflicted!
The game is a down right dirty cheater and mind-numbing experience. :(