Star Collector - A Hoshino Reika Guide

A guide on how not to despair when losing despite having 16 wins.

Hello, and welcome to a (hopefully) comprehensive character guide for a 100% RNG-based board game.

There's a decent chance you may have bought DLC 34 on a discount because it came with the cute pet cat Mashiro, or simply because you thought Shifu's Hyper Art looked really cool.

Well, the DLC also came with Reika, so you might as well give her a try.

Thumbnail art by siumai112.[www.pixiv.net]

Hoshino Reika boosts a +2 attack stat, alongside neutral defense and evasion. Very good rolling stats, which would make her comparable to Yuki, Tomomo and her alter ego Star Breaker; if it were paired with a high enough health pool to sustain as many fights as those characters are able to.

Reika's passive forces her to only choose Star norma, but helps her achieve this goal by providing her +1 star from every source. These sources include:

• Bonus Panels
  
• Encounter Panels
  
• Boss Encounter Panels, should she come out on top.
  
• Star Rewards from Minigame Panels
  
• Treasure
  
• And, of course, K.O'ing opponents.
  
  

Reika's card synergy is very much alike that of her fellow 3-HP units. She's appreciative of Saki's Cookie, as it helps Reika deal with chip damage while conveniently being a 0-cost card, and Dinner.

On the other hand, the addition of more powerful healing cards such as Pudding and Portable Pudding can, and often will prove detrimental. Reika does not benefit nearly as much from them as the bulkier units do, while still giving her opponents a good chance to draw one of them.

Cards that buff her stats are very appreciated. Rbbits can allow her to sustain as much damage as Nanako for the fairly low price of 3 stars. Rainbow-Colored Circle, while a bit more inconsistent due to the nature of the Evade mechanic as a whole, allows her to more safely prevent chip damage and keep her small health pool intact.

Reika's Hyper, Star Collector, is admittedly a bit underwhelming, despite its attractive effect length of 3 chapters and its 0-star cost.

When it is used, if any opposing unit gains stars from a panel or through achieving a KO, they will receive up to your level fewer stars from said instance of star gain, which will then go to Reika instead. The effect lasts for 3 chapters, or until the player is KO'd.

This effect is underwhelming for a few reasons: for starters, the number of stars gained can be exactly 0 if she is K.O'd early, or if other units get particularly unlucky turns. There's even an achievement for not getting any extra stars after using Reika's Hyper.

Hypers such as Poppo's Ubiquitous, Noble Fernet's Affluence, Teotoratta's Beast Witch and Aru Scramble's Santa's Job tend to be more reliable at this. They're either more versatile in their usage, have the advantage of being Gift cards with a passive benefit which stays active so long as the card is in your hand, or won't rely as much on how well the other units are doing at collecting stars.

For this, it is recommended to bring Mimic in your deck. Strong boost cards such as Kyupita's Saint Eyes, Suguri's Accelerator or Sham's Delta Field have a much better chance at providing a hefty amount of stars, while also taking them away from rival units.

Reika's playstyle isn't nearly as straightforward as that of other +2 attack offensive units.


Hoshino Reika's health pool of 3 makes her very frail, and every single point of chip damage hurts her survivability to an even higher degree than it does for Peat or Nanako. Not only that, but having no boost to her defense or evasion means she's terrified of everything she cannot instantly K.O, as even a 4-roll could potentially down her from full HP.
Not only that, but unlike her fellow 3-HP'ers, she has a REC stat of 5 instead of 4 for some God-forsaken reason.

Safe to say, Reika does not appreciate being hit, and we can tell this is a fact if we carefully inspect her in-game voice lines.[100orangejuice.fandom.com]


Much like Kae, Reika is often forced to strike first in order not to walk in front of enemy units, stopping on their panel instead. However, because of her +2 attack stat, she is quite good at this most of the time.

She should be able to make easy work of Encounter Panels as well, while not fully depending on them like her doppelganger Star Breaker does.

Heal Panels and Damage Panels alike are quite helpful for Reika. The former helps her mitigate chip damage, as she can only defend twice at most before being forced to evade to save her life and hard-earned stars.

However, Damage Panels allow her to K.O. herself in a relatively safe way (there are urban legends that speak of a terrifying card by the name of Forced Revival) while keeping her stars and continuing to collect bonuses every new Chapter; remember that being unable to do anything with Wins means she gets hurt the most out of losing half of her stars and spamming left click until she's allowed to revive 4 turns later.

Well, why play Reika if she's kinda bad? Might as well play Peat if I want to be able to put out great damage, eat a bunch of cookies and flex about the fact that I bought DLC 24 just so I can never take Metallic Monocoque out of my deck, laughing at those idiotic Long-Distance Shot abusers, right?

And not only that, but Peat's Hyper is an insanely strong battle steroid. He still has the choice of going for Wins norma if he's making good use of his +1 defense and +1 evasion and lower REC stat if he does go down because of his low HP pool. Peat is also a free character, and has a lot more cosmetic options if that's something people care about. Doesn't he just excel at everything Reika tries to accomplish with her stat distribution through the versatility of being a great offensive and defensive character?

Well, yes. But Reika is cuter, and gets +1 star for it. If you disagree I'll have to rewrite the whole guide.

So, don't.







Art by Maritan.[www.pixiv.net]

My fellow Orange Juicers, ao6, turtler, lu, droppu and komod for testing.
Blau for proofreading.
The 100% Orange Juice wiki for images and data.



Art by Rakkidei.

[𝐆𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐲 ☂]

It's like playing a fighter and going "this guy has the best range so why's this other guy's range low?!", forgetting the former is weaker up-close. We also have to look at + 2 ATKs and remember she has the least luck, cost, earliest Hyper, that makes common cards like [I'm on Fire!], free (Tommy's lvl 4, Yuki Higher cost / lvl / no wins / kill self = catch 22 ect).

Peat has 4 REC cause if he's 1st, an enemy like Tommy / even a passive Unit is likely to live and retaliate VS Reika. He has +1 Def / Eva to "brace" him for this.

Thus, his Hyper, which not only does his hand size reliance hinder use of other cards, Crow alone gives equal ATK to Reika as an atker, which can be lost via Discard or Gift Exchange (she can run), so all other temp boosts are warranted.

4 REC on Reika would promote self KOing to heavily injure -> KO, which is not how she's designed. She's meant for picks, not bullying, and if spaced enough, like Miu, she runs hard with a lead. Reika has her own niche.

[𝐆𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐲 ☂]

I adore Reika. I agree with the general consensus in the Fruitbat server though, in that she doesn't need a buff, she's just not for everyone. I agree with your early segments but the Hyper and post feel specious.

[Star Collector] is great value. Her character's built off robbery. +2 ATK always has the % of returning Reika to the game and on top of it, she steals Stars without even killing you. It's often that on Medium - Large maps where I should be 170 stars, I am 200+ due to this passive, which scales via game length, x2 Star Panels, Fishing, Holy Night (people can't resist), easily killable mobs, ect and I'll win very fast.

She can be KO'd early, but Reika should be competent to use it when she's got distance regardless. You're stealing Stars for literally no reason, it's the least a player can do.

Comparing her Hyper to ones like [Beast Witch] (less % to trigger) is dishonest. Ex. Teo and Aru have entirely different identities than Reika. It makes sense, given her differences.

[Azarayn]

TL;DR

[kwmudu]

like si es cierto

[los palmeras]

Oh, also, I think the Fish-a-Fish minigame is bugged and doesn't seem to give Reika any additional stars.