Single Player content?

[Wicca-san]

Im not much of a MP person, but Im a fan of the style and premise of the game. Is there anything for me here?

[Rally]

Its not really a SP game. Its meant to be played with a friend or make a game with 2 characters adn control both

[Arkblade]

In fact, only an opponent character exists, but the control of that character can seamlessly switch between human and CPU.

[Xuande]

I have many 100s of hours in singleplayer, so I'd say yes, but it depends on what you're looking for. There's three levels of AI difficulty ranging from casual to almost-intermediate levels of play. Most players should find that the AI will meet their needs as a reasonable opponent, at least for the first few playthroughs on Story Mode. Regardless of mode, a run has 2-4 total players and each can freely change between human and AI control.

The non-Story modes have balance/pacing issues that the AI is not particularly well-suited to handle, but I'd strongly argue that Story Mode is the main way to play when all involved have the time to finish a full run of ~300-600+ turns.

Originally posted by Rally:

Its not really a SP game. Its meant to be played with a friend or make a game with 2 characters adn control both

The AI exists and is competent enough - I'd levy this complaint at Heartwood Heroes (itself based on a Famicom game that did have AI, yet manages to not include AI support). If a player is really casual or tilts easily at short term swings of luck, then perhaps, but then I'd argue that Dokapon Kingdom is a poor fit for that player to begin with.

[Fuhrer]

It's really not designed to be played alone. The AI cheats (documented) to a rather violent degree. Due to some rather extreme rubber banding mechanics that can go a bit overboard with small player counts, it's ideally played with 3-4 people.

[Xuande]

The AI also has well-documented serious flaws in its playstyle that more than compensate for its ability to fudge a 1-Spinner turn when nearing a personal objective. But to go into those in a thread about someone considering a first-time play would be spoiler/meta territory.

[Wicca-san]

Im 99 percent interested in story mode. How long will that last me?

[Xuande]

Originally posted by Wicca-san:

Im 99 percent interested in story mode. How long will that last me?

So a typical Story Mode run will last in the 300-600+ turn range - that's each player spinning after an optional item/magic use, moving on the map, and doing an action there. For a new player playing will a full set of AI...it'll likely be in that over 600 range, especially if you play on the easier difficulty settings. How long in hours will that take? Depends on your play speed and how much you speed up the AI (there's settings for animation speed, AI-specific battle speed, and text banter), probably 15-20+ hours for the first run and at least half that on future runs?

After the first run, it'll come down to how much you enjoy the core gameplay. The story itself plays out in the same way each time, with minor variation (for example, the boss of a chapter might be in a different location). There is a series of side quests that the AI doesn't pursue starting with the King wanting a specific city's product brought to them, and if the human player(s) aren't diligent in pursuing them, it may be several runs before you get to see the full quest chain. There are also randomized Weekly events, a few of which are very rare to see trigger particularly in games with more players, to the point where you could play a few runs and not see them all...but I wouldn't call them a major reason for replayability.

If you're playing for plot related reasons, once you've seen it in one run, you've seen most of it. If for gameplay reasons, there are a number of secrets to find and the AI is not coded to find the majority of them. It knows of one particular hidden piece of loot and one particular requirement for a hidden job to unlock, but there's several more hidden loot and more hidden jobs to find.

[Wicca-san]

Tyvm for all the info!

[Geneticfreak69]

Originally posted by Xuande:

The AI also has well-documented serious flaws in its playstyle that more than compensate for its ability to fudge a 1-Spinner turn when nearing a personal objective. But to go into those in a thread about someone considering a first-time play would be spoiler/meta territory.

If I guess right, one of the NPCs special skill 'Hellfire' could damage your weapons for good, if you're playing sneaky AI level there's a much higher chance this NPC skill could damage your weapons

[Xuande]

I doubt it. Recently played a 2 player + 2 Sneaky AI Story Mode run on the Switch version, and Hellfire (along with all of the other monster job skills that destroy equipment, except Strikeout/Delete which are supposed to work often) didn't succeed a single time. Nearly all of my playtime involves one or more Sneaky AI and as best as I can tell, the given rates are accurate.

Originally posted by Wicca-san:

Tyvm for all the info! :steamlaughcry:

No problem. I used to do a lot of info posting for Dokapon Kingdom back in the PS2/Wii days when GameFAQs was still relevant.

[Meganesuki]

The worst thing of AI in story mode is they will transform to Devil asap and then steal your castles obtained from story mode. As far as I know, there is no way to get it back unless you become Devil and use the same trick AI did on you.

[Xuande]

Originally posted by Meganesuki:

The worst thing of AI in story mode is they will transform to Devil asap and then steal your castles obtained from story mode. As far as I know, there is no way to get it back unless you become Devil and use the same trick AI did on you.

The AI doesn't sandbag on purpose (so it becoming Darkling is fairly random unless being bullied), and while it doesn't use all Dark Arts, it will use a decent mix of them with a preference for the most expensive 100+ cost it can afford if at 100+, but will cast the cheaper stuff if its Trap Summon or hinders player movement in some way. Since Castle Panic happens to be in its own price bracket, it sees some use from the AI, but not particularly more than the other expensive options.

Darkling's Castle Panic is indeed the only way to claim an already claimed castle, but this is usually insignificant unless the previous owner had invested a lot of money into it. Which is why it exists - to allow something better than a check to all-in gold gaining builds. Even then, if the target has more than one castle, its not a guaranteed answer.

[Meganesuki]

Originally posted by Xuande:

Originally posted by Meganesuki:

The worst thing of AI in story mode is they will transform to Devil asap and then steal your castles obtained from story mode. As far as I know, there is no way to get it back unless you become Devil and use the same trick AI did on you.

The AI doesn't sandbag on purpose (so it becoming Darkling is fairly random unless being bullied), and while it doesn't use all Dark Arts, it will use a decent mix of them with a preference for the most expensive 100+ cost it can afford if at 100+, but will cast the cheaper stuff if its Trap Summon or hinders player movement in some way. Since Castle Panic happens to be in its own price bracket, it sees some use from the AI, but not particularly more than the other expensive options.

Darkling's Castle Panic is indeed the only way to claim an already claimed castle, but this is usually insignificant unless the previous owner had invested a lot of money into it. Which is why it exists - to allow something better than a check to all-in gold gaining builds. Even then, if the target has more than one castle, its not a guaranteed answer.

Thanks for your long answer, though, long story short, I dont like how what you obtain via story quest can be stolen by....darkling...and from my experiences, if you play good enough, at least one of CPU will end up the last rank and always becomes Darkling. Becoming Darking condition is too ridiculously easy compared to PS1 ver, being the last for certain amount of time and move the magic circle...that is all.

On the other hand, PS1 ver handles this issue better; CPU needs Evil's contract which is harder to obtain, which is why I think it is the weak point of DP kingdom

[Xuande]

I haven't played the PS1 version (as the multiplayer Dokapon games go, I'm familiar with the SNES game this is based off of, the not-good Dokapon Journey, and the crossover Switch title). Your sentiment isn't an uncommon one, though. I agree that Darkling is a bit easy to meet the conditions for, though there are ways to mitigate it (meta spoilers follow): Squall/Come Here being accessible reliably in Ch2/Ch3 respectively, Purse Cutter can sometimes hedge against Contract, while very inconsistent you can lay traps on and around the Darkling space fishing for Sleepy Time...or you can simply play in a way where Castle Panic/Global Assault/etc won't ruin your win condition.

To your point, I often contest first Darkling in 3x Sneaky games, because I like to get a swarm of Trap Summon active or because I want to "guarantee" an early castle. When I do singleplayer runs other than speedrunning, I tend to play with a "Can't buy/Can't steal from shops/Kira" house rule since it mitigates two of the biggest AI weaknesses - they don't buy movement items often enough, and they never steal unless its a weapon shop and they're desperate enough, in a game where stealing from the item shop routinely is a powerful tool. It also makes me utilize item/spell spaces more than in a normal run, where they'd be relegated to niche uses only. But yes, its hard to contest Darkling past the early game if you're doing well, since that tends to involve either holding a lot of money, LIV, or a lot of boss kills leading to city ownership.

There are other issues with Dokapon Kingdom balance, such as DF being a dump stat, but for me they're easy enough to overlook compared to other games in the series with worse issues.

I'd be interested in hearing more about the PS1 game, if you feel like it holds up well today.