With over 1100 chapters, nearly as many episodes of the anime, movies and OVAs, a live-action Netflix series, a card game, and much much more, One Piece has become its own media empire. The tales of the Straw Hat Pirates are beloved all over the world, and now One Piece: Luffy’s Bento Panic, a new board game from Kess Entertainment, brings the crew to your tabletop! This party game is fun for even those that haven’t hopped on the pirate ship themselves.
Designed by Anthony Thorp, three to nine players take on the roles of crew of the Straw Hats, returning after a successful adventure. In typical fashion, Luffy and his crew decide to celebrate the only way they know how – with a giant feast full of the crew's favorite delicacies. What follows is a mad rush as each person tries to eat as much as they can before Luffy devours everything and the party's over. The goal of Bento Panic is to amass the most points (finished piles of food) by the time the bag of food is empty or Luffy wakes up the third time. This is a fast game where a full session, even at larger player counts, won't take you very long, making it perfect for parties.
Each turn is fairly straightforward, with each player being able to take one of five possible actions: grab food from the bag, eat piles of food that are in front of them, try to steal your neighbor's food, block someone trying to steal yours, or use your character's special ability. Each action is associated with a simple one-handed gesture that each player performs two at a time. Stealing, for example requires you to point at one or both of the players to your left or right while grabbing food tokens from the bag requires you to simply reach out towards the bag. It makes for a silly time, and it's the fact that everyone performs the actions together that makes the game so quick to play.
When I first saw the player count of Bento Panic could go up to nine people, my immediate concern was that this game would quickly spiral into chaos. Few games manage player counts so high, but luckily I never found this to be the case here, because you really only need to worry about the people on your immediate left and right. It's only your neighbors that you have to worry about attempting to steal from you, so regardless if you are playing with only three of you or the full roster of nine, your risk of being stolen from never increases beyond those two people.
One of the ways the game can end is when Luffy wakes up for the third time. In the grab bag that contains all of the food tokens (a nice fabric drawstring bag adorned with the iconic Straw Hat pirate logo no less) are special "juicy meat" ones that move Luffy down his sleep track. Once that track hits zero, Luffy wakes up and will steal all the food that hasn't been eaten yet from whomever has the biggest pile of meat in front of them.
Fans of One Piece know just how "on-brand" it is that Luffy would lose control when meat is involved. This mechanic also provides the game with a good "push your luck" feeling, where you have to risk waking up Luffy and losing your piles of uneaten food, or do you play it safe and try to eat a smaller pile or two first, and have others take the risk?
This is a fast game where a full session, even at larger player counts, won't take you very long.
“
Another aspect to take into account when making your choice of actions are the special abilities that your other opponents have at their disposal. Each Straw Hat has an ability that can be activated by striking a dramatic pose as your action, with abilities like Jinbe’s “Fishman Karate” that cancels out any steal actions being taken against you while letting you then take a food pile from any pirate that attempted to steal your food. Once these are used, they can’t be used again until you've been stolen from, which means sometimes you want someone to steal from you. Using these skills is completely optional, and the game is fun with or without them.
Bento Panic can still offer up a good time for folks who may not be into One Piece and can't tell one Straw Hat from the other. At its heart, this is a set collection game mixed with reading other players' intentions. It's fun, but it doesn't offer much depth. However, it also never overstays its welcome, which makes it great as a party board game, or as a palate cleanser between other complex games. Bento Panic gets better with more people playing it – in my play sessions, even at the max player count of nine, everyone was still having fun, which a lot of other games can't say.
