‘100% Orange Juice’ game review
By Lauren Paulsen, Senior Columnist
4/5
What do you get when you throw together cat girls, a thief, other dimensions, dice, cards, stars, battles, and pudding? 100% Orange Juice, that’s what.
This interesting computer board game is surprisingly quite addicting. Developed by Orange Juice, it takes all of the characters from their other games, throws in a few new ones, and gives you some wacky personalities to play as. These include a Santa with bunny ears, a strange little creature that steals things and runs away, an airship pilot, and a pudding-loving dog girl. Each character has unique stats and traits within the game.
Using a deck of cards and dice, players make their way around a board with three other players and try to achieve their goals before their opponents do. These goals can either be to collect a certain amount of stars, or to defeat a certain amount of other characters. Each goal completed will level you up until you reach level six, winning the game. You can land on a variety of different squares that can teleport you, send you into battle, give you stars, or take them away.
No game is ever the same, and the outcome can be utterly unpredictable. Weighed heavily by chance (though some strategy is involved), it doesn’t matter how well or how horribly you are doing through most of the game. Things can turn around in an instant, and the underdog can suddenly come up on top, or the player doing really well can suddenly fall from grace. This certainly can cause sessions of rage when you lose game after game, but it also keeps you coming back for more.
Losing isn’t all bad. You always get stars, no matter which place you come in. You can use these stars to buy things in the shop, such as more cards, different characters to play, and various other things to enhance the game. When you play multiplayer, you’ll always gain experience, even when you come in last. This experience levels you up so that you can access even cooler items from the shop.
The story isn’t all that grand in the campaign mode. There are four characters’ scenarios to play through, though they are all basically the same: Mariepoppo, a strange creature who looks like a little girl with animal ears, keeps stealing items from different characters, and they all chase after her to try and get their stuff back. Even though the plot is silly and repetitive, it’s still fun to try and beat all of the campaign levels.
But where 100% Orange Juice really shines is its multiplayer aspect. You can set up lobbies and play with strangers or friends. Absolutely screwing them over is highly amusing. Of course, they can do the same to you, but even that can be entertaining.
100% Orange Juice is such a unique and entertaining game that it can keep you playing for hours. Once you’ve started playing it, you’ll be hooked, and then you’ll want all of your friends to get it too. Go look it up on Steam. If you notice it going on sale, get it. You won’t be disappointed.
