Juiced! is a colorful story-driven old-school action platformer about a brave space explorer who ventures to an alien planet to retrieve an ancient artifact and save the Universe from a terrible evil.

The game looks and plays like many old DOS platformers. This means we must traverse several beautifully designed platforming stages by jumping, double-jumping, interacting with the environment, and killing various nasty enemies that roam around.

We also collect coins and fruits, but contrary to most classic games where we did so to increase our score, the coins can be exchanged at vending machines for useful consumables. And the fruit charges our “Juiced! Meter”, which turns us into an unstoppable devastating force when full.

What I like the most about the game is its abundance of different unique mechanics. In addition to regular jumping-and-shooting, we swing on ropes, swim across the water, unlock chests with keys, ride vehicles, shoot cannons, plant seeds that grow into climbable plants, and dig holes in the ground using a driller mole.

The diversity of the weapons also amazes me. Not only do we get to fire conventional weapons with projectiles that fly straight, along an arc, bounce off of walls, or automatically seek targets, but we can also release a hungry hound that follows enemies around, or throw a crab-like crocodile that locks them while we jump on their heads.

I also enjoyed the game's elaborate story with lots of bright characters and funny dialogues, its creative boss battles, and the option to play cooperatively with a friend.

Overall, it's an amazing high-quality platformer that fans of the genre will definitely enjoy.

Juiced! is absolutely free on Android, with no ads or iAPs. On iOS, it costs $0.99.