The northen-american branch of Atlus, a company specialized in role-playing videogames ports from the japanese market, just announced the coming of Dokapon Journey as an exclusive Nintendo DS title. It is in charge of translating the game which is supposed to hit our shores April 14 2009 - while its country of origin, Japan, has the chance to play with it since July 21 2008. Developer Sting asks players to save a kingdom, no more, no less.

Dokapon Journey has a board game style which is everywhere to be seen and should really set it apart from the competition. More than a role-playing game, this one’s also a good mix of humor and strategy. Monsters have invaded the kingdom of Dokapon and the player must liberate it and claim a huge prize by doing so : the king’s throne and the hand of the princess. This game features the possibility to invite up to three friends for four players action and cooperation. Battles, level ups, cities to conquest, there’s much to do and see in this hybrid of genres.

The game system allows for trahison in order to win. One of the ’’evil’’ tactic in place is being able to jump into any fight, destroy all monsters and rake in the precious experience points, leaving the ally with nothing. There are even some items which only serve one purpose : making life more difficult for other party members. As a reminder, the release date is set to April 14 2009 on DS.

  Michael Bertiaux