If the Nintendo DS is all about giving you something to do when you’re standing in line, waiting for the bus, or just bored and away from home, then the role-playing game genre is a perfect fit for this portable platform. Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Disgaea DS and Chrono Trigger are all great because they let you take level-grinding on the go. But along came Dokapon Journey and screwed the whole thing up.

Dokapon Journey is a hybrid RPG and board game, two great tastes that go together about as well as Oreos and ranch dressing. The game throws the lightest RPG elements onto the world’s most boring board game and leaves you the player to deal with the fallout.

There are three modes, and the major difference between them is objective. Greed Mode challenges you to earn the most money in a given number of turns. Battle Mode is roughly equivalent to Capture the Flag. Either of these is fine for short playing sessions, especially if you have a couple friends to sucker into playing with you. The third is Story Mode, which is where things really go south.

Story Mode sets you and two to three other players free on the game board to accomplish various tasks. For most of the time, you’ll just be gallivanting about, liberating towns from monsters and thereby “owning” them Monopoly-style. But once in a while, you’ll get a task from the King of Dokapon, which becomes one of the chapters of the story. Maybe he needs you to liberate a specific town. Maybe the princess has run away from the castle and he needs you to bring her back. Or maybe he needs you to buy the fanciest dress in the kingdom for the princess to wear to the upcoming ball.

In terms of merging RPG and board game, I couldn’t think of a worse way to do it. RPGs are supposed to be about conquering ancient evils, saving the world and maybe getting the girl if you can fit it in. Instead, we get these very low-stakes challenges that could be accomplished by an errand boy on his off day. The only thing Dokapon Journey has in common with RPGs is that your character has numbers to represent his health, strength, etc., and once in a while, those numbers will go up as you get stronger.

The board game elements are even worse. The “board” is the entire Dokapon kingdom, and at the beginning of your turn, you spin a random number generator to see how many spaces you move. The most annoying thing about that, though, is that you have to spin the exact number you need to land on the space you want.

So say that the town of Arris is being attacked by a monster and that you’re four spaces away. You roll a six, so now you’re two spaces too far. You wait until your next turn, when you roll a three — you’re still one space away. You wait again until your next turn, and you roll another six. Meanwhile, the computer player rolls the exact number it needs and liberates the town while you clumsily watch from the sidelines. Repeat ad infinitum or until you nearly throw your DS across the room in frustration.

Of course, this is only an issue when you’re playing with computer players, but do you really expect two humans to stick around long enough for you to complete Story Mode?

Playing with friends in the other two modes is a bit more fun, if only because misery loves company. When I was playing with friends, we took great advantage of the fact that if two players land on the same space, they fight. What’s even better is that if one player defeats the other, the winner gets to rename the loser. So naturally we forgot all about the objective and focused solely on killing each other and giving each other names that would not even be close to appropriate to print here.

Story Mode is where the real meat of the game lies, however, and that is also by far the weakest part of the game. You start by customizing a character and then off you go to compete against the most unfair computer opponents you’re ever likely to encounter. Battles are done in a rudimentary RPG manner. When you land on an empty space, you get into a random battle with a standard cadre of RPG baddies: kobolds, skeletons, orcs and the like. You can buy new equipment, magic spells and items for your character (assuming you can roll the right number) and can rest at inns and churches to heal.

The game occasionally throws a curveball, such as challenging all the players to a minigame and doling out gold to the winner, but most of your time is spent grinding and praying you roll the number you want.

The closest comparison I can make for Dokapon Journey is to an actual board game called Talisman, in which you also play an adventuring hero who does battle with monsters. In addition to basic format, what both games have in common is that they are terrible. A game of Talisman can take anywhere from six to eight hours and usually ends up with one player being ludicrously stronger than the rest.

If you’re looking for an RPG on the Nintendo DS, there are lots of games ripe for the picking. If a board game is more up your alley, there’s certainly one out there that’s perfect for you. Dokapon Journey tries to have it both ways, but it ends up satisfying neither camp. For now, RPGs and board games are better off staying the hell away from each other.