100% Orange Juice - Syura & Nanako Character Pack DLC

New characters to play as if you like this game!

I've decided to make reviews on these DLC packs to discuss my thoughts on them and how well they've held up to today in their current state. What better place to start than the very first dlc, released more than 10 years ago? (wow where did the time go?) Anyways, I'll start this review by talking about Syura. [u]Syura[/u] Syura has 4 HP 0 ATK +1 DEF 0 EVD and 4 REC, making her pretty average in battle, but having a better than average recovery when compared to the rest of the cast. Things start being interesting when we take a look at her passive ability and hyper. If Syura enters a battle at 1 HP, she will be given a +1 in both ATK and EVD. This is a nice boost to help make her less of a sitting duck, but her real potential comes from her hyper, Beyond Hell. For every missing point of HP, Syura will get a +1 in every stat (except HP and REC). What initially looked like an easy KO for your opponent can suddenly become a +4 ATK monster that also has a pretty good chance of evading your attack thanks to having +4 EVD. This isn't even mentioning the fact her hyper is free and playable from the very start of the game thanks to being Norma 1. I think the strongest part about Syura are the mind games that you're able to play on people thanks to the existence of her hyper. When Syura has cards in her hand, you have no idea whether or not that any of them could be her hyper and because she's able to use it any time she wants in battle, attacking her recklessly when she is low on HP can backfire very badly. This introduces some interesting risk and reward scenarios for both Syura and the opponent. Does the opponent risk attacking Syura when she's low on health or wait for a card that could help deal with Beyond Hell? If the opponent does attack and Syura isn't at 1 HP yet, does she use her hyper to have a better chance of surviving their attack now and get a chance to counter attack or risk saving her hyper for later when she may need it most? Despite being a pretty simple character overall, I think Syura holds up very well in the modern day. Now let's see if Nanako holds up as well. [u]Nanako[/u] Nanako has 3 HP 0 ATK +2 DEF +1 EVD and 4 REC. What immediately stands out is that low HP stat combined with her high DEF. I think the idea is to use her like a psuedo-tank by using her DEF against high ATK rolls and using their EVD on lower rolls to preserve their HP. In practice this sounds good, but in my experience using her, it usually doesn't work out like that. With only 3 HP, even taking 1 point of damage feels pretty bad. Cards that can deal damage out of battle to Nanako are the bane of their existence. Those good defensive stats won't really count for much when she can be whittled down to 1 HP so easily. They're even prone to being KO'd from full health from certain characters hypers pretty early into the game. For example, starting from only Norma 3, Marc can target and KO Nanako from full HP using their hyper and there's almost nothing that she can do about it. Now to be fair, having low HP isn't the end of the world. Her 4 REC means that even when she does get KO'd she won't be down for too long. For as much as they suffer from their low health, Nanako also benefits a lot from even weak sources of healing. A mere 1 HP heal from something like Saki's Cookie or landing on a home restores a third of their HP and can let them take advantage of their solid defensive stats for longer. Finally, she has one more trick up their sleeve, and that is their hyper: Deploy Bits. Starting from Norma 2 and at a cost of 10 stars, Nanako can use this card in battle and gain a massive total of +7 to their stats, but with a catch. The stats are randomly distributed between ATK, DEF, and EVD. This means you could end up with some statlines that either really help you out, or are useless to you at the moment you use the hyper. There is no way to influence what you get from the hyper and that makes it very unpredictable to both you and your opponent. Unfortunately, I can't say that Nanako is a very good character nowadays. With her low HP becoming more and more of a drawback as new characters and cards are added and the unreliable nature of her gameplay, she is not a character I can recommend unless you are okay with the possibility of being KO'd a lot. Despite being one of the oldest DLCs for the game and my mixed thoughts of Nanako, I think it holds up reasonably well. It's far from the best character pack, but the characters in it are easy to pick up and start playing with even if you're new to the game and overall I can recommend it.