If the melee felt faster and more responsive, and the ranged felt tighter I think the system would be great. A generous window is provided for the dodge where it will turn into a teleport, which can also be buffed up by specific card usage. There is a dodge which is key to everything, as you’ll die quickly if you’re hit too often. Things drag on, and I eventually began to dread combat from roughly an hour in until the 8 or 9-hour mark when I was far more powerful. I eventually got used to how ranged aiming works, but any melee weapon felt terrible to use, and it wasn’t until the later part of the game where I could have incredibly overpowered combinations that I ever got through a fight in less than 10 minutes. The main issue is just how slow the melee is. As far as actual gameplay goes, this was my favorite part of Lost in Random by far. You can either earn cards through quests, story progression or by buying them from a sentient wardrobe with an in-game currency you earn from quests.
It’s a fun system and building a deck became the second biggest draw of the game for me (the first being the story). Cards range from Attacks to defense, hazards, and cheats. This number dictates how much energy you have to play the cards in your deck, which each have a power cost of their own.
Once you have a full hand you then roll your die and get a number between 1 and (eventually) 6. You use your ranged attack to knock crystals off your foes, these crystals fill up a meter which hands you up to 5 cards from your up to 15 card deck.
Let us start with just how combat works.Īt the start of the game you play a segment where you’re fully powered up and ready to kick some butt, this is a nice primer for how combat will (eventually) work. Player movement is slow, aiming with any ranged weapon has far too much acceleration, and swinging melee weapons has an annoying amount of input lag. Everything you do in this game, at least on controller, feels off. My main issue with the game is not the card system, but the actual combat and complete lack of any real platforming. It is a beautiful game, and a world I loved being a part of. Animations vary between great and stiff as a board, though I’d say they trend to the former far more often than the latter. Things can be a bit sparse NPC-wise at times, but as you progress to the fancier areas of the world the tonal shift is noticeable and welcome. The environments have a nice variety to them, and the world feels lived in. Exaggerated features and odd anthropomorphized objects are everywhere. Graphically things are quirky in a Tim Burton-esque manner. This is the period in time where you can choose the cards you want to play and it’s a great mechanic. In this land rolling a die leads one to the Dice Dimension in which time stops. Thankfully the story of this game carried me through, as it was well-written, and featured superb voice acting. I enjoyed the interplay between my character and Dicey, the magically powered and forbidden dice that I befriended early on. Your journey to find her takes you across varied landscapes as you meet a wide variety of interesting characters. Your sister believes she’s rolled a one, and you’re happy as that means she gets to stay home! Suddenly the dice flips over to six, and she’s taken away by the Queen. Depending on where it lands the child is taken and forced to live in one of six separate cities. At the 12 th birthday for children, the malevolent Queen comes to visit and rolls her die. The story centers around two sisters, Even and Odd. Additionally, the girl can use her slingshot to reach energy cubes that will power Dicey, who will be able to roll once charged, letting the players freeze the time or unleash his magic, which comes in a variety of colours, often explosive.This is a tale of a world where evil has seemingly won. Through collecting coins along the way, Even will be able to learn new attacks, abilities and more, which will give her an edge during tactical combat. Just like the theme of rolling the dice, everything in the game is pretty much ruled by randomness as the queen isn't the only one with dice at her side - Even will be accompanied by Dicey, a small living dice who plays a major part in the gameplay. The names of the sisters are also quite ironic since Odd rolled an even number when the Queen decided to take her away after the fateful dice toss. It shows the mechanics the players will use on the journey to help even rescue her sister, Odd. The news is courtesy of the EA Play 2021 showcase where we also got a sneak peek at the gameplay, via the trailer that can be seen below.