Lost in Random

 Switch
User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 25 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 25
  3. Negative: 4 out of 25

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  1. arh3399
    Oct 7, 2021
    5
    I really wanted to love this game. Its art style is beautiful, the sound design is great, but the gameplay just falls so short it hurts. Your ability to do damage is so heavily based on RNG that most fights get drug out way longer then they need to be as you just doge around until you draw a card that lets you finally do some damage. This gets better as you progress through the game andI really wanted to love this game. Its art style is beautiful, the sound design is great, but the gameplay just falls so short it hurts. Your ability to do damage is so heavily based on RNG that most fights get drug out way longer then they need to be as you just doge around until you draw a card that lets you finally do some damage. This gets better as you progress through the game and you can just fill your deck with mostly attack cards, but you start the game with 3 cards in your deck that can deal damage and the bad taste that left for me never went away. The story itself is fairly formulaic (go to new area, do a couple fights to obtain item, fight boss, move on) and the ending was so abrupt. For a game that is so heavily based around being like a storybook I really expected more of an epilogue sequence but there is none. Some of the dialogue sequences are really repetitive too and they become annoying to go through as one character will tell you to do the same thing in like three different ways. The voice acting is solid, but in some instances they just make characters grunt which felt really weird, especially if a side quest focused on them. As someone who plays mainly big JRPGs, I almost never skip dialogue in a game, but here I was skipping a lot of side quest dialogue because they just weren't interesting at all. The art style of this game is so great and I really wanted to like it, but it just doesn't work for me at all. Its perfectly playable and some of the worlds are pretty cool, but the meet of the gameplay is just not well executed. The game runs fine on switch, there are some graphical issues and it does have a lot of load screens, although most of them only last 5 to 10 seconds.… Expand
  2. XentMorgan
    Sep 27, 2021
    10
    Where's the Critic reviews for this game @ NS? It's kinda weird for a game with this quality not getting their scores.
  3. Bnois
    Sep 16, 2021
    10
    It's been so long since the last time I've played a game so unique, gorgeous and engaging. Sure it has it's flaws, but those aren't very important.
  4. chesaro
    Dec 3, 2021
    8
    This game shows the love the developers had to it, it is full of technical glitches (bad transitions, missing collision zones, almost all npcs models are reused on every level, etc) but the story is great, the gameplay has a lot of potential (is slow and feels repetitive when you start to get better at it), nevertheless, it could be a good first game, but the studio is not new at all, iThis game shows the love the developers had to it, it is full of technical glitches (bad transitions, missing collision zones, almost all npcs models are reused on every level, etc) but the story is great, the gameplay has a lot of potential (is slow and feels repetitive when you start to get better at it), nevertheless, it could be a good first game, but the studio is not new at all, i just hope they keep a good pace for the next project.

    Update: Just finished the game... Not sure if they know how to wrap a story.. really weird ending.    … Expand
  5. SuperkenGaming
    Oct 19, 2021
    7
    Lost In Random
    An interesting adventure
    Lost in Random is creepy, it’s a 10 hour long card based action adventure game where you play as Even, out to rescue her sister Odd as they’ve been split up on Odds 12th birthday, where all the kids in town roll a die to figure out hwere in Random they’ll ive, she rolls a 6 and is swept away to live with the queen.. Along your way you meet a dice,    Lost In Random
    An interesting adventure
    Lost in Random is creepy, it’s a 10 hour long card based action adventure game where you play as Even, out to rescue her sister Odd as they’ve been split up on Odds 12th birthday, where all the kids in town roll a die to figure out hwere in Random they’ll ive, she rolls a 6 and is swept away to live with the queen..
    Along your way you meet a dice, and you set off an adventure to git the dice more pits so it cann roll higher numbers, to eventually get to the kingdom of 6…
    youll also get cards to build of a deck of 15… these cards help in a variety of ways during combat, essentially youll hit weakspots with slingshots, fill up a card so you can roll dicey, the number you roll is how many action points you get to play a card such as having a word, or throwing out a bomb.. even healing.. just to name a few.. and youll do a mixture of combat and exploring these creapy tim burton like towns solving the problems of its residence to help you move on.. .
    The greatest aspct of lsot in random is its world building.. I loved living in thise creepy little land.. meeting its colorful cast of charcters.. however I felt like eventually it all just became too much.. I felt like I was mostly sitting through dialog, waiting for my turn to choose a dialog option that didn’t change anything in the world or its gameplay, it was just an artificial choice wasting my time, pretending it was important.. causing me to get bored about halfway through, just wanting to push forward and explore the world, but instead these charcters just wanted to talk and talk and talk.. I stopped caring.. skipping dialog just trying to move on, go to the next section to throw down some dice and mess enemies up, til that too became a bore.. combat here just isn’t satisfying, it’s a novel idea at first reminding me a bit of kingdom hearts unchained memories, I love the idea of deck building for combat, but with how slow cards come out, and how annoying it is to aim for weak spots on enemies in general in terms of all video games, it just felt like a slog at times.. Something I feel that could be fixed with these shtos of my slingshot at least doing a little damage, encouraging me to use cards to be more powerful rather than rely on them to progress forward..
    Overall I appreciate the world of Lost in Random, the characters are crazy, the world is intriguing, and there are many great life lessons to be taken, but the pacing from the combat to the story is just awful, its bad and brought this nearly great game down in my eyes.. not by much.. but I found myself noticeable liking the game less and less the more I played it…
    I give Lost in Random
    a 7/10    … Expand
  6. abrus
    Feb 16, 2023
    9
    This is such a cool game! A great story, interesting characters and atmospheric settings, well paced. The story of Lost in Random is a fun and memorable adventure. I was hooked with this adventure and thoroughly enjoyed working my way through this game. The combat is perhaps a little repetitive, but I appreciate they they have tried something new here and it is fun experimenting withThis is such a cool game! A great story, interesting characters and atmospheric settings, well paced. The story of Lost in Random is a fun and memorable adventure. I was hooked with this adventure and thoroughly enjoyed working my way through this game. The combat is perhaps a little repetitive, but I appreciate they they have tried something new here and it is fun experimenting with different combinations of combat cards. I got this on sale and it is an absolute bargain!… Expand
  7. stremlenye
    Oct 13, 2021
    2
    I was hooked by the trailer yet regretted the purchase half an hour later.
    The visuals which sold me the game through the promotional videos in the first place turned out to be quite bland and repetitive. Throughout my playtime, I kept getting the feeling the original concept art gut butchered due to the budget shortage and what was supposed to be the unique dystopian world neighboring    I was hooked by the trailer yet regretted the purchase half an hour later.
    The visuals which sold me the game through the promotional videos in the first place turned out to be quite bland and repetitive. Throughout my playtime, I kept getting the feeling the original concept art gut butchered due to the budget shortage and what was supposed to be the unique dystopian world neighboring the one of Alice American McGee and those of some of Tim Burton's animated movies became a corridor with assets recycled over and over again to the point I kept finding myself disoriented running into the opposite direction I initially intended to.
    Even though the story is entertaining the delivery plummets by the end of the second chapter with the out-of-place cut scenes interrupting the flow abruptly frequently reiterating what the player learned about a minute ago.

    The combat system makes an attempt to merge the deck-builder genre with 3D beat-em-up which is not a bad idea per se yet in given game implemented rather awkwardly: the protagonist has no means to deal any amount of damage without using the cards and may only collect the energy through dash-dodge mechanic or shooting small crystals from the enemy's body. That makes every encounter look and feel exactly the same and full of repetitive chores to run before the actual brawl begins. Talking about brawl: those cards available to you lack what makes a good deck-builder - card effects combinations that compose different and unique playstyles depending on the hand dealt.
    In the first half of the game, you are practically limited to choose only one card at a time which boils down to few options out of necessity: do you want to deal damage, heal or use those few useful utility perks other cards have to offer. The rest is mostly mindless dodge-hit loop against recycled enemies with one or two attacks which nevertheless feel the same since you have no options to deal with them differently. And that's just the basics. Here come the annoying bits: the mace's spin attack doesn't knock enemies away neither gives you invulnerability frames yet lasts for few seconds which means you are staggered for that time while enemies still can attack you canceling your attack, marking targets takes three buttons to be pressed at the same time to work reliably, dash-dodge through enemies can fail to register for now good reason, you can find yourself in a situation where an enemy is unreachable by any means but the bow and you have nowhere else to collect energy from apart from that enemy which turns into the hide and shoot sequence until you finally draw the bow card and get lucky to throw at least two with the dice to use it, sprint accelerates protagonist by what it feels ten percent at best and barely noticeable, the effects like that healing bell which supposed to act like a billiard ball bouncing from the walls can leave the arena fazing through the walls or falling from the cliffs. As a result, it felt reasonable to resort to a handful of cards that work reliably and keep iterating over them.

    If you feel like the story might be appealing you would probably find yourself running mindless errands like fetch quests to get to the next bit which by the fourth hour made me resent each new character coming my way. As you could imagine, side quests are not better at all.

    For me buying this game was a waste of money.    … Expand
  8. NindieSpotlight
    Dec 17, 2021
    9
    Full disclosure, up front I’ll admit that I’ve always tended to be fond of games from the Zoink crew, in particular finding their off-beat sense of humor to be great fun. In the case of Lost in Random I really think they’ve stepped it up though. Taking on an ambitious visual design that borders on being Burton-esque in many ways and mixing it with a terrifically dark and distinctive storyFull disclosure, up front I’ll admit that I’ve always tended to be fond of games from the Zoink crew, in particular finding their off-beat sense of humor to be great fun. In the case of Lost in Random I really think they’ve stepped it up though. Taking on an ambitious visual design that borders on being Burton-esque in many ways and mixing it with a terrifically dark and distinctive story would already have made me quite happy. However, what really won my heart was the game’s fabulous melding of strategic deck-building and brawling action, resulting in an overall feel of combat that I found utterly unique and that I can only hope to see occur in even more games down the road. I’ll admit that my enthusiasm for those battles, getting to test out my carefully-selected combination of cards, tended to make the more story-driven adventure beats in between feel a bit more bland in comparison, but that’s also where the developer’s trademark humor and quirky characters tended to help keep me happy even as I lusted for more combat. Undeniably distinctive, even if not always perfect, this felt like a perfect compliment to the coming holiday season with its darker tone, and I’d hope that even people who have come to dread seeing the term “deck-builder” would see how its pairing with consistent action makes all the difference.

    https://www.nindiespotlight.com/2021/10/mini-reviews-october-8th-edition.html    … Expand
  9. Dhumost
    Apr 11, 2023
    4
    The game is good but has no level select for clearing up the collectibles of the chapters and this is very annoying because if we end up clearing the chapter missing any of the collectibles, the game gives no chance to get back and complete them. This really pisses me off.

Awards & Rankings

93
#93 Best Switch Game of 2021
100
#100 Most Discussed Switch Game of 2021

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 7 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 7
  3. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. Gaming Age
    Nov 22, 2021
    67
    Everything looks blurry and unfocused, and the game makes use of the old “shroud everything in fog to hide shortcomings” trick that horror games used a few generations ago. Even worse, you can practically see the world falling apart, whether you’re looking from a distance (and you see gaps where buildings need to pop in) or up close (where the game’s assets don’t fully materialize). It’s bad, and there’s no way around that unfortunate fact. And it really is unfortunate, because, as I said, there are quite a few good elements to be found here. I’d even go so far as to say that if you can overlook how hideous it is, then Lost in Random is incredibly rewarding. But at the same time, there are some very real performance issues here, and if you don’t want to spend dozens of hours straining your eyes at ugly graphics, I certainly wouldn’t blame you.
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  2. Nintendo Force Magazine
    Oct 7, 2021
    85
    It's brilliant, challenging and an absolute joy to strategize with the cards randomly dealt to you. [Issue #55 – October 2021, p. 24]
  3. Nintendo Life
    Oct 1, 2021
    80
    If there’s an idea no one’s done before, it’s probably because it’s just a bad idea. But Zoink has managed to hit on something original that actually works with Lost in Random. Its audiovisual world-building is tremendous, ably lifting a servicable quest structure and story, and inventive combat plays to its strengths and is taken carefully up to the limits of its potential. However, the layers of interaction during battles make a promise of strategic complexity that isn’t kept, and encounters last too long without the depth to sustain interest. Nevertheless, everything is packaged beautifully and Lost in Random doesn’t outstay its welcome, either, leaving you craving one last roll of the dice.
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