Lost in Random oozes charme from every corner - at the same time many of other corners were cut. There are multiple points during a playthrough where certain parts of the story are so incredibly rushed that they gotta have to have been scrapped mid-development, other times the quest summary in the menu tells a completely different story than the one you actually got to experience and 60% of the cards you could use in combat are absolutely useless. There is a lot of transparency in how many things were changend during development - they didn't clean them up very well.

But I still had a lot of fun with the game. The gameplay kept me entertained throughout my 12hr playthrough, the presentation of the entire game was consistently brilliant and even the overall story was quite fun to witness in the end. Special shoutout to the sound team tho. You ppl KILLED it, especially with the VO for the characters. Every single character becomes so charming trough the voice work alone (which is direly necessary when there are like 15 models that get reused over and over again).

There are also some legit amazing moments in this, where everything - gameplay, music, and all of the visual stuff - just works so, so well together. And for those moments I will treasure this game. The rest is fine, good enough. Those cut corners are also... weirdly charming? in a way?

ps. there is I think a lot to be said about gender in this game - moreso by accident I think. Those fifteen reused character models get voices of varying gender associations and the pronouns of each character do quite often not coincide with that association - which for me at least resulted in me not assuming any characters gender at some point. At the same time, as soon as there is some degree of narrative tropes, everything is kept strictly heteronormative. There's a lot to talk about here.

Ironically, this shows a similar issue from Alice: Madenss Reurns which was also a dark fantasy fairy tale action game published by EA 10 years ago. There is a promising foundation of combat loop, but the lack of enemy variety and combat option (in this case, the deck variation) hinders the quality of this game as a whole. And aside from the combat features, this game lacks interesting non-combat elements (considering that this game is technically an "adventure" genre, this is kinda alarming). At least the visual style was fascinating though.

A great adventure game held back by some monotony. In terms of presentation it has solid writing, great voice acting and nicely stylised visuals really carrying out an endearing plot in a fantasticly creative world.

Combat is a fun hack and slash venture, which sadly could do with a bit more variety as you fight through the same enemies the entire second half of the game, in short not enough enemy or card variety to last out for as long as it did.

The world of random while fun to explore was at times a bit too samy and lacked a bit of flair to distinguish the environments , although I felt it improved with that throughout its latter half.

Some of the npcs had recycled models which killed off some of the immersion. The central characters stands out and compensates that issue in most regards.

Transitions from cutscenes felt shoddy and choppy(not sure if this is an issue outside of the switch version)

Aside from that i really had blast with this one and found the creativity and charm engaging enough to disregard its general flaws.

This game is a true hidden gem. The world of LiR is beautiful and the charm is through the roof with just about everything from the world to the many characters you come across throughout your adventure. The combat itself is alright it really didn't do that much for me when I hit the halfway point of the game since there wasn't really much of a reason to experiment with your deck as swapping out a few cards gave you a deck you could just use for the whole game. I honestly would say the combat is the weakest point of this game but it doesn't hold it back to much there is still fun to behold with the combat.

Overall I really enjoyed my time with this game and I hope more people give this one a go!

Gostei bastante desse aqui. As ideias e o mundo em que se passa são sensacionais, a história é bem envolvente e atmosférica e o estilo artístico, inspirado pelas animações de Tim Burton, é de tirar o fôlego! O combate também é muito gostosinho, e pessoalmente considero uma das melhores coisas do jogo (na contramão do que todos dizem haha). Se foi bem executado ou não, é outra história, mas tem uma proposta bem legal de se basear na aleatoriedade de um dado e cartas que variam seu estilo de ataque.

Depois de certo tempo, Lost in Random infelizmente acaba sendo uma vítima de sua própria criatividade e originalidade. Todas as ideias que eles trouxeram ao jogo em sua história e base de gameplay abriram na minha cabeça uma infinidade de possibilidades legais, mas infelizmente todas as suas mecânicas são executadas de maneira excessivamente NORMAL: o sistema de cartas não tem muita variedade, os diálogos com algumas opções não alteram a história e tem pouca variação, e o jogo NÃO TEM BOTÃO DE SALTAR T_T, o que acabou me decepcionando um pouco.

No geral, é um bom jogo, que vai ser divertido na maior parte do tempo, mas que pelas suas ideias e universo incríveis, merecia um orçamento e uma execução um pouquinho melhores. No fim, fiquei um pouco frustrado pelo potencial de GOTY que acabou sendo desperdiçado, mas ainda considero um dos grandes lançamentos de 2021.

Video games that are considered moving art are rare and don't happen as often as they used to. Games like Shadow of the Colossus, Okami, Journey, Monument Valley, Echochrome, and various games from large to the small budget would be among that crowd. Lost in Random takes visual and character design inspiration from the likes of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, Alice: Madness Returns, and Psychonauts. Now, I don't know if those are exact inspirations, but it sure does feel like it. I feel like I'm playing a Tim Burton cartoon.

You play as a girl named Even. The world-building in Lost in Random is very well done. By the end of the game, I completely understood this world and the horrible things people have to go through. There is an evil queen who rules a black die. When she rolls a die it determines where a child gets sent to. There are six realms in the world of Random. You, are, of course, starting out at the bottom and have to work your way up to Sixtopia where the evil queen resides. Children are used for something and the queen also takes your sister Odd back to Sixtopia with her. The people of Random used to have their own dice and the evil queen didn't like this so she took them all away and only she can decide anyone's fate.

Each realm is very well done. They all look different and each realm plays an important role in serving the queen. One realm makes the cards, one realm offers the garbage to create the evil robots, and so on. As you climb through the realms you meet the people and can do side quests which surprisingly aren't that annoying. You mostly finish them all just by completing the main quests in each area and I rarely felt any made me go out of my way. Exploring is one of two major parts of the game and it's quite enjoyable, in fact, I enjoyed it more than the combat which there is more of. I loved seeing the beautifully crafted areas, talking to the crazy NPCs, and learning how each realm is dealing with everyday life. This kind of detail isn't put into games as much these days unless they're a strict RPG.

As you explore the realms you can shoot down pots to earn coins to buy cards. Cards are used in combat, but it's not like Hearthstone or anything like that. This is real-time combat with cards that give you what you need in the battle. You can carry a deck of 15 cards and there are around 30 or so in the game in total. You can carry usually 2-3 of each one in your inventory. The deck is varied and broken down into categories. Weapons, traps, hazards, assists, and so on. The problem is that because the combat is in real-time it can drag on and take a while to get any battles over with. You start out with just you and your die. You only get to roll a one at the beginning and as you climb realms you get more sides. This is an issue because until you get at least four sides you can't roll very high. You must run around the arena shooting crystals off of enemies to build up your hand. I find this whole process tedious and really dampens the combat a lot and nearly kills the fun. Once you gathered enough crystals you can roll your die and that determines the spending points you get. Each card has a number from 0-3. The strategy is picking the right cards for the situation and making sure you have a varied deck. You don't want to be caught without a melee weapon or health for example.

Once you play your hand you have to shoot crystals all over again or "blink" through enemy attacks. An important card is Blink Attack which damages enemies as you dodge because without a melee card you're weaponless. This also drags out combat as I wish the slingshot would automatically do some damage. You're stuck just running around shooting crystals and hoping a hazard or weapon card comes up so you can attack and do some damage. This also makes for cheap deaths, especially in the board game areas as there are no checkpoints there. Board games have various rules in which a game piece is moved around and your roll determines the moves. There are hazards, enemies, traps, and obstacles to overcome and I absolutely hated these. They dragged out the already dragged out combat and if you died towards the end it was another 20 minutes to fight your way back to the end.

As you can see, the combat has some great ideas like the real-time combat mixed with card battling, but getting to that sweet spot is a chore. There is also so much combat in this game. Once you left a town you just went into one arena after another and it felt like it would never end. The only reprieve in combat was the boss fights as they changed things up. The same five enemies repeat throughout the entire game and then after a while, it just becomes a game of survival rather than strategy. You already know how to kill these enemies after the 50th time so the strategy is gone early in the game. I wound up just equipping the cards that did the most damage, dropped my spending requirements down, gave me more spending points, and required fewer crystals to get to the cards. I stuck with melee weapons, bombs, healing, blink attack, poison, and that was about it. Most other cards end up becoming useless as the game gets harder.

Overall, the game also overstays its welcome. The combat isn't interesting enough to last 10 hours. As you battle your way through six worlds each with multiple bosses, quests, side quests, and cards to buy the game grows tiresome towards the end. I just wanted to explore the beautiful worlds and enjoy the scripted events towards the halfway point. Every time another board game came up or another arena I groaned. That's not a good thing. I liked the mix of combat types, but getting to that point with the crystal shooting is just such a chore and slows the whole game down. What's here though is a wonderful story, great characters, fantastic voice acting, and a beautiful world to explore.

Hatte mich bisher gewundert, weswegen lost in random so untergegangen ist, nachdem ich es jetzt bis zum Ende gespielt habe verstehe ich dies nun besser.
Es ist echt grob und ungeschliffen. Ein paar nette Ideen ( narrator z. B), aber größtenteils verschenktes Potenzial.
Von sehr repetitiven Gameplay und Quests ( 80 % regel der 3 Dinge) bis hin zu fehlenden Animation ( lipsync ist kaum vorhanden), Bugs und einer nur durchschnittlichen Geschichte (äußerst vorhersehbar) ... Ist es leider oftmals auch ziemlich hässlich. Es ist im anzumerken das die Entwickler hier etwas Eigenes versuchen wollten, geglückt ist es für mich leider nicht.

I covered this game as part of my coverage of the Xbox Game Pass for April 2022

A unique adventure game but one that has a few issues.

Lost in Random has an interesting premise. Players will draw cards when getting card power from enemies. Then our hero can roll a friendly dice which gives them the power to use the cards and summon their abilities. The whole package is a pretty fun concept that mixes deck building and games of chance, and while playing the game I found myself enjoying both ideas quite a bit. The actual combat is also heavily dodge-based and focuses on a familiar adventure style as well. It takes almost an hour to get to that point but once it does, the game starts to sparkle.

The concepts for the world are equally good. It is similar to Hunger games with a multi caste system, where ones are the worst off and sixes are the best, but also it’s a heavy dystopian world here. Yet the pacing is all over the place. Your character is often just thrown into a different view or position after a cutscene for no reason but it’s done noticeably. The dialogue constantly seems to try to talk over itself. You either have to sit and wait for each voice line to finish or likely miss something.

Pick this up if you want an interesting combat mechanism. I might come back just to play more of the card and dice game, but the pacing issues happen far too frequently to be ignored. I’ve also heard that the opening chapters are the better part of the game, which if so, I’m kind of worried about how this will finish

If you want to see the video this was taken of, or more from me on the Xbox Game Pass, check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntlfep_luQw

Terriblemente irregular y es una lástima porque las cosas buenas son genuinamente buenas. El worldbuilding, el guion en general y buena parte de la trama son estupendos, pero lo lastra muchísimo el tener un ritmo tan raro.

Jugablemente es muy original, pero es una pena que los combates no se vuelvan realmente interesantes hasta el final y que toda la primera parte sea más tediosa que divertida.

Estéticamente y en cuanto a tono es estupendo, eso sí. Muy reminiscente de algo salido de la mente de Tim Burton y con una sátira afiladísima e incluso el humor meta que caracteriza a Ryan North. Esto eleva un juego bastante soso a algo que sí vale la pena probar.

Esperaba que me gustara más, pero tampoco puedo decir que sea un mal juego.

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Terribly irregular and it's a shame because the good parts are genuinely good. The worldbuilding, the writing as a whole and a good chunk of the plot are excellent, but it's really dragged down by the bizarre pacing.

It's very unique gameplay-wise, but it's a shame combat doesn't become truly interesting until the end and the whole first half of the game is more tedious than fun.

Aesthetically and tone-wise it's great, though. Very reminiscing of something out of Tim Burton's mind and with a very sharp satire and meta comedy that's Ryan North's trademark. That elevates a pretty bland game to something worth playing.

I expected to enjoy it more, but I can't say it's a bad game either.