Lost in Random

Genre: Action-RPG / Card RPG

Players: 1

.

Review:

Lost in Random is an Action-RPG with Card RPG elements released in 2021 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. This game is set in a dark fantasy world in a kingdom divided into six numbered districts, each corresponding to a side of a standard dice, with the denizens sorted into these realms via an enchanted (and rigged) dice roll by the realm’s dictatorial queen. In this game, players take the role of a young girl named Even who chases after her sister, Odd, when one such dice roll forces her to leave her family to be taken to the queen’s district.

Lost in Random features a distinct visual style that seems directly inspired by the stop-motion animated works of Henry Selick and the Laika animation studio, such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and Coraline. I also detect some similarities to some of Tim Schaefer’s works, particularly Psychonauts. However, comparisons aside, this game looks absolutely gorgeous, in a deliberately ugly and off-putting sort of way. The game’s world and characters are brilliantly imaginative, with odd proportions, slim bendy extremities, and some truly imaginative odd quirks, such as a recurring shopkeeper you encounter who seems to have built himself into the cabinet showcasing his wares. Heck, there’s even a literally two-faced mayor, perhaps a wink and a nod to Nightmare Before Christmas… though the nature of this particular mayor’s two faces is… somewhat different.

Anyway, all of this is to say that this game’s visual style is absolutely incredible, and it’s backed up by some pretty solid graphics on a technical level too. There’s tons of detail in environments and characters, great textures, good lighting and reflection effects, some nice distortion effects. In many ways, this game is a visual treat for the eyes. Now, this has clearly all been downgraded for the Nintendo Switch – some textures are a bit lacking, there are no real-time shadows, the overall resolution and framerate has been dropped, reflection resolutions are pretty rough… and there’s also a distracting issue that’s present in every version of the game – characters’ flapping mouths don’t even attempt to match up with what they’re saying. In any case, back to what I was saying, yeah, there are definitely sacrifices that were made to bring this game to Nintendo Switch, but honestly it’s still pretty impressive that this game still looks as good as it does.

It all sounds quite excellent too. Lost in Random has an excellent cinematic soundtrack that helps to channel the same sort of spirit as those films I mentioned above. Of course, it’s not quite on par with Danny Elfman’s work, but it’s still quite good. The full voice acting of this game is also excellent, with this game’s characters absolutely oozing personality. Of course, much of this is thanks to the excellent writing, which is delightfully witty, and full to the brim with character.

The gameplay has quite a bit of character too. The player fights using a combination of a large magical dice (singular) and randomly-drawn cards. In combat, Even at first only has access to a slingshot, which cannot damage enemies, but which the player can use to target crystalline growths that appear on enemies and release “dice crystals” when struck. Upon collecting these crystals, players gain access to various cards they’ve filled a small deck with, each with a corresponding temporary weapon or ability. Once you’ve gathered enough cards, you can roll your dice to get the energy to empower those cards, with higher rolls enabling you to use more cards, or more powerful ones.

At its best, this allows for a lot of freedom in strategizing about what cards to add to your deck to empower your character, ideally in ways that synergize with each other. However, this system of combat seems a bit overly-convoluted, and it’s frustrating that not only do you have no way to directly attack enemies at first, but battles seem to have a constant stop-start cycle of fighting, then using your slingshot to shoot crystals to gather energy, then fighting again, and so on.

There’s one other complaint I have to make about this game. To be sure, this game’s world is fascinating to explore, and I absolutely love doing so, but it’s also highly constrictive and linear, which doesn’t make for the best RPG-style experience. In fact, as you’re helping various characters with odd job tasks, this game often feels more like a Graphic Adventure than an Action-RPG… and that’s fine, except every now and then combat will start up again, when maybe you were just getting into looking for the next person to talk with or doodad to collect to get further interactions with one of the game’s fascinating characters.

I don’t know what the proper solution would be here, but I suspect it would involve either workshopping the game’s combat and exploration to make it more streamlined and open-ended, or simply dropping the combat entirely.

However, despite my complaints about the overly-complicated combat and restrictive world design, Lost in Random is still a delight to play thanks to its fascinating, beautiful, imaginative world filled with delightful characters. This is a game bursting with original ideas, and while not all of them work brilliantly, this game is so wonderfully unique and inspired that it’s easy to look past the game’s occasional flaws to enjoy the many things it does right. And if you’re a fan of the art style of Henry Selick and Laika, I’d argue this is definitely a game you’ll want to check out.

tl;dr – Lost in Random is an Action-RPG with Card RPG elements set in a dark fantasy world where characters’ fates are decided with a rigged dice roll, and the game’s protagonist sets off to defy that fate and find her kidnapped sister. This game’s visual style, writing, and overall presentation is phenomenal, seemingly pulled straight out of a movie like The Nightmare Before Christmas. The characters and story are great too. Meanwhile, the game’s card-and-dice combat, while creative, is a bit overly-complicated, and the map design is too restrictive. However, while it isn’t without its flaws, this game is still so filled with imagination and eye-popping visual style that it’s well worth playing through despite these issues.

Grade: B+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Ben, Andy Miller, Exlene, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Ilya Zverev, Jared Wark, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}