The Dokapon series has been a sleeper hit in both Japan and America for a long time. It’s been revered in Japan as a gem for decades, but American releases have been few and far between and were largely limited to portable devices outside of an Atlus release of Dokapon Kingdom on the PS2. Thankfully, in 2023, Sting Entertainment released Dokapon Kingdom on both the PC and Switch with revamped graphics and that opened the door to a whole new era for the series. The third entry in the series, Ikari no Tetsuken has now been released as Sword of Fury on PC viaSteam.
Dokapon Kingdom: Connect Bringing RPG/Board Game Hybrid Fun to PC This Fall
This was the first PS1 entry and one that features sharper 2D graphics than the ones featured in the Super Famicom entries beforehand and very much feels like a throwback now given that we’ve seen so many kinds of 2D art in games and we’re getting into more PS1-era visuals getting seen in modern-day games, resulting in this feeling a more modern-looking than one might expect. Like the other entries in the series, such as Dokapon Kingdom, this is a blend of a board game with JRPG and a ton of fun to play with others. An average run will have you play with friends, defeat monsters, buy enemies and level up before facing bosses, while also wanting to get rich at the expense of everyone else.
Turn-Based Tactics
Players can join their friends or fight against them, and if they want to have fun with friends online, then this version alongside Dokapon Kingdom allow that to happen. Having an online board game alone allows for players to enjoy something that’s different from the norm because even though this is an older series in some ways, it’s fairly new in North America as far as getting formal English releases and it’s brand-new for modern consoles having only hit the Switch in the last two years. The blend of RPG battles and board game formatting is a bit of a prototype for Mario Party, only with mini-games there instead of JRPG trappings, and it’s even more fun to play these games when viewed through that lens and seeing it go through so many different visual styles.
The blend of RPG battles and board game formatting is a bit of a prototype for Mario Party, only with mini-games there instead of JRPG trappings.
This modern revamp of Sword of Fury tightens up the graphics and allows for four player local and online play alongside speed settings just like Dokapon Kingdom to speed up the pace of the game to your liking. There are also drop-in and drop-out saving to resume a larger game later on if you want. DOKAPON: Sword of Fury can be yours on PC for $19.99 with a 20% launch discount that ends on February 4.
