Game review
Dokapon Kingdom: Connect
6.5 / 10
- Developer
- Idea Factory / Compile Heart / Sting
- Publisher
- Idea Factory International
- Released
- 7 September 2023
- Platforms
- Windows
- Genre
- RPG, Party, Board Game
- Monetisation
- One-time purchase. No advertisements, no microtransactions.
- Players
- Local and online multiplayer for up to four; each player needs their own copy, and there is no cross-play with the Switch version
The short version
Dokapon Kingdom: Connect is a PC remaster of a cult-classic Japanese RPG board game, crossing the format of Mario Party with a full character-levelling, item-collecting, monster-fighting RPG — and a reputation, going back to its PS2 original, as one of gaming's great "friendship destroyers." Released 7 September 2023 by Idea Factory, Compile Heart and Sting, it sits Very Positive with English-speaking players, 87.8% across 839 reviews, almost entirely on the strength of chaotic, backstab-driven multiplayer sessions reviewers describe with genuine affection even while recounting the friendships those sessions strained. Working hard against a higher score are two specific, dominant, near-unanimous complaints: a PC port reviewers call lazy at best, with no proper keyboard remapping and a controller-only interface that doesn't bother replacing button icons, and a price that turns a four-player group session into a collective outlay several reviewers explicitly total at close to two hundred US dollars.
Biggest strengths
- The core multiplayer loop — levelling characters, collecting items, freeing towns from monsters, and repeatedly sabotaging, robbing or outright killing your friends along the way — is described with genuine, if conflicted, affection across dozens of detailed reviews as a uniquely memorable social experience
- Playthroughs with friends are consistently described as running for dozens of hours, in some cases spread across many months of sessions, giving genuinely dedicated groups an enormous amount of shared content to work through together
- The RPG systems underneath the board-game structure — classes, equipment, spells, and a large explorable world map — give reviewers real, specific strategic decisions to argue over well beyond a typical party game's minigame structure
Biggest weaknesses
- The single most consistent complaint in the entire sample concerns the PC port itself: no proper keyboard remapping, controller button icons left unchanged throughout the interface, no fullscreen or borderless option, and reported aspect-ratio warping when the window is resized away from a 16:9 ratio
- Price is the second dominant complaint, with reviewers repeatedly noting that since every player in a multiplayer session needs to own a full copy, a group of four faces a collective cost several reviewers explicitly calculate at close to two hundred US dollars for one game
- There is no cross-play between the PC version and the existing Switch release, and no working Remote Play Together support, meaning friends on different platforms or without their own copy simply cannot join a session together
Who it's for: Groups of friends specifically looking for a long-form, RPG-flavoured party game willing to strain real friendships for the sake of a genuinely memorable shared experience.
Our recommendation: A confident recommendation for the right group of friends, all of whom should expect to buy their own copy; play with a controller rather than keyboard and mouse, and budget for a full price tag per player unless you catch a sale.
6.5 / 10
Introduction
Few games have earned a reputation quite like Dokapon Kingdom's. Since its original PS2 release, it's been passed down through cult status as the board game that turns real friendships into casualties — a full RPG, with classes, spells, equipment and a sprawling world map, wrapped around a Mario Party-style structure where every turn is an opportunity to help yourself or ruin somebody else's day. Dokapon Kingdom: Connect, released 7 September 2023 by Idea Factory, Compile Heart and Sting, brings that legend to modern PC storefronts, and it sits Very Positive with English-speaking players, 87.8% across 839 reviews. Reading through that sample is one of the more entertaining research exercises this library has had this session — reviewers recount genuinely memorable, often devastating multiplayer stories with real specificity, even as a striking number of them agree on exactly the same two things holding this particular release back.
A friendship destroyer, lovingly documented
The praise in this sample doesn't read like typical game-review enthusiasm — it reads like people processing something that happened to them. One reviewer lays out "how to properly play Dokapon Kingdom" as a seven-step cycle ending in friends no longer speaking to each other, then instructs the reader to repeat it. Another describes killing a friend specifically to steal a pair of in-game gloves worth 30,000 gold, adding dryly that the friend hasn't returned their messages since. A third recounts finishing a 37-hour playthrough, personally defeating the final boss, only to lose first place to a friend who spent the entire game gambling instead of questing. These aren't complaints — they're being told with obvious, if slightly rueful, pride, and the sheer volume and specificity of stories like them across this review's sample is the clearest possible evidence that the underlying game, whatever its faults, delivers on a genuinely rare and memorable kind of social chaos.
A port that tested that goodwill
Set against that affection, one specific, mechanical complaint recurs so consistently it's clearly not a minor nuisance for a small number of players. Multiple detailed reviews describe the PC port as barely adapted from its Switch source: on-screen prompts still show controller button icons rather than keyboard equivalents, there's no proper way to remap keys, no fullscreen or borderless display option, and resizing the window away from a standard 16:9 ratio reportedly warps the image rather than scaling it correctly. One reviewer states plainly that the console price of roughly fifty euros might be reasonable, "but on PC this should be 30€ at an absolute maximum" given how little adaptation went into the release. Nearly every reviewer making this complaint still recommends playing with a controller as the workaround, which works, but doesn't excuse the underlying laziness they're describing.
A price built for one player, charged to every player
The second dominant complaint compounds the first in a specific, quantifiable way. Because Dokapon Kingdom: Connect requires every participant in a multiplayer session to own their own full copy, and carries no working cross-play with the existing Switch release or functional Remote Play Together support, reviewers repeatedly do the maths on what a full group actually costs. One reviewer puts it bluntly: "please lower the price so it doesn't cost a group of 4 $200 collectively to play together." Given that this game's entire appeal, by the overwhelming testimony of its own fans, lives specifically in group multiplayer sessions rather than solo play, that's a genuinely serious barrier to the exact experience being sold, not a peripheral gripe about a singleplayer mode nobody asked for.
More RPG than the "party game" label suggests
It's worth being specific about how much genuine RPG structure sits underneath the Mario Party comparison, since several reviewers make a point of it. One detailed review describes a real class system, spell research, monster-freed towns dotting a large world map, and NPCs who can help or hinder your progress depending on how you've treated them — systems that reviewer argues give the game far more depth than a typical minigame-collection party title, closer to "Mario Party on steroids with the mini games replaced by RPG mechanics." A story mode exists as a structured introduction to these systems, gating access to the full open world map chapter by chapter, though multiple reviewers agree it's clearly designed as onboarding for the real experience — standard multiplayer mode, where the entire map opens immediately and the RPG systems become tools for outmanoeuvring friends rather than following a set narrative.
When there's nobody to backstab
The gap between this game's multiplayer reputation and its singleplayer experience deserves its own specific mention, since it's large enough to change a buying decision on its own. Reviewers who tried the game solo against AI opponents describe a meaningfully worse experience than the one earning all the praise elsewhere in this sample: one reports the computer players "cheat non-stop," and when facing multiple AI opponents at once, describes them effectively teaming up against the lone human player rather than competing independently. That's a serious asymmetry for anyone considering this purchase without a group of friends already lined up — by this review's own reading of the sample, Dokapon Kingdom: Connect is close to two different games depending on whether you have people to play it with.
Final Verdict
Dokapon Kingdom: Connect earns its Very Positive reception on the back of something this library rarely sees stated so consistently and specifically: a genuinely unique, memorable multiplayer experience that reviewers describe testing and straining real friendships in ways they clearly still treasure. What keeps this specific release from a stronger score is equally consistent — a PC port that reviewers across more than two years agree was adapted carelessly from its console source, and a price structure that taxes the exact group experience the game is built around. Recommended confidently for a group of friends willing to each buy in and play with a controller; approach singleplayer with much lower expectations, and budget for the full asking price per person unless a sale is running.
Pros and cons
Pros
- The core multiplayer loop — levelling characters, collecting items, freeing towns from monsters, and repeatedly sabotaging, robbing or outright killing your friends along the way — is described with genuine, if conflicted, affection across dozens of detailed reviews as a uniquely memorable social experience
- Playthroughs with friends are consistently described as running for dozens of hours, in some cases spread across many months of sessions, giving genuinely dedicated groups an enormous amount of shared content to work through together
- The RPG systems underneath the board-game structure — classes, equipment, spells, and a large explorable world map — give reviewers real, specific strategic decisions to argue over well beyond a typical party game's minigame structure
- Full controller support works well according to multiple reviewers, once you accept it as the only genuinely comfortable way to play
Cons
- The single most consistent complaint in the entire sample concerns the PC port itself: no proper keyboard remapping, controller button icons left unchanged throughout the interface, no fullscreen or borderless option, and reported aspect-ratio warping when the window is resized away from a 16:9 ratio
- Price is the second dominant complaint, with reviewers repeatedly noting that since every player in a multiplayer session needs to own a full copy, a group of four faces a collective cost several reviewers explicitly calculate at close to two hundred US dollars for one game
- There is no cross-play between the PC version and the existing Switch release, and no working Remote Play Together support, meaning friends on different platforms or without their own copy simply cannot join a session together
- Singleplayer against AI opponents is reported as considerably less enjoyable than multiplayer, with more than one reviewer describing the computer-controlled opponents as behaving in ways that feel unfairly weighted against a human player, particularly when several AI opponents face one human
- At least one recent reviewer reports censorship changes in this specific version relative to what they expected, though this review found no further detail or corroboration to establish exactly what was altered
Screenshots
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Dokapon Kingdom: ConnectImage: Idea Factory International via Steam -
Dokapon Kingdom: ConnectImage: Idea Factory International via Steam -
Dokapon Kingdom: ConnectImage: Idea Factory International via Steam -
How the review scores each part of the gameWanderer Editorial -
The essentials at a glanceWanderer Editorial -
The short versionWanderer Editorial