Lost in Random - Review (PC)

Take a pinch of Tim Burton, add a couple of tablespoons Neil Gaiman and his Coral, mix well and season with pleasure Alice: Madness Returns. Here is the simple but tasty recipe for Lost in Random, the new gothic fairy from the kitchen of the wise chefs Zoink for the programme EA Originals. The umpteenth clique proposed by this intelligent project of Electronic Arts, aimed at highlighting the real pearls of videoludic entertainment that, given the independent nature of production, would risk not getting the right recognition. After that masterpiece It Takes Two, always stable EA Originals, we didn't expect anything less from Lost in Random, who had hit us since the very first pictures, and we tell you immediately: expectations were fully met.

N.B. I decided to play the title in the original language given the richness of word games in dialogues and in the names of places and protagonists. However, I will try to bring back as much as possible the Italian counterparts of the various nomenclatures, so as to make known also the complex localization work of which the team took charge, which is rare nowadays also for more blasoned titles.

Glory to Random!

In the reign of Random (Alea in Italian) everything is entrusted to the case. The mighty queen is in possession of the last dado remaining in the kingdom, a dark black nut that the wicked queen uses to decide the fate of her subjects: at the completion of the 12 years, every child is called to throw the aforementioned dado and the result will fall into one of 6 cities part of the realm. Impossible to escape the domain of fate, they know it well Even and Odd, two sister inhabitants Onecroft (Primagora), the town of poor of all, where the inhabitants survive in catapecchies in the form of teapot. On the day of the 12th birthday of Odd, this is forced to throw the dice, obtaining a clamorous 6, which makes it right worthy to live next to the queen in her dark castle, in the prestigious city of Odd's Sixtopia. He spends a year but Even still can't accept the disappearance of his sister. Then one night, a mysterious signal wakes her up and convinces her that Odd is in danger. Decided to save her Even escapes home and follows the signal, which leads her unknowing in the legendary Valle dei Dadi. Here Even makes the acquaintance of something that was believed to have disappeared forever: a nut, a living nut!

These are the premises of Lost in Random, a gothic fairy tale clearly inspired by the Burton of the origins, cup and sometimes even grotesque, but full of emotions from the beginning to the end. Start the journey of Even, which will lead her to cross all the cities of Random, starting from Two-Town, a town where the bipolar mood of the inhabitants is daily decided by the launch of the queen's dice; or Tri-dom (Triscordia), a part of the kingdom devastated by a fierce civil war between three heir twins to the throne of a mysteriously murdered father. But in this long and tiring journey Even will not be alone: to accompany it there will be the warm and comforting voice of the ion Narrator not Sayy, his trusted Dado companion with whom he immediately tightens a relationship of deep friendship, as united by the fact of being alone, in the chaotic and absolutely random vortex that is the realm of Random.

Audaces fortune iuvat

The adventure in the realm of Random is basically divided into two phases: those Exploratory, where we will enter into the meanders of the various cities of the realm, continuing in the main one and completing absolutely optional secondary missions; and the phases of combat, in which shoulder to shoulder with our trusted Dicey we will face the increasingly numerous and fierce robotic troops of the queen. The exploration in Lost in Random is quite linear and, as much as the developers start the player in feeling lost and nostalgic at home through the emotions of Even, seldom you have difficulty in understanding what to do or where to go.

Random is the home of numerous bloated and bizarre NPCs, with which we can interact and from which we can accept assignments that, in addition to rewarding ourselves with coins, will allow us to live exhilarating scenes, even with some curious easter egg. Most of the latter are actually fetch this, but they will not miss also in this case the chicks in which much of the work will be done by choosing the right options of dialogue (and personally were the secondary ones I prefer). Too bad that many of the NPC models are recycled in the long run, inevitably bringing down the sense of immersion, but the desire to discover Random's secrets and to continue in the plot makes us overcome this small defect agilely.

One of the not prominent players is definitely Mannie Dex (Max Mazzieri), a giant half man half a closet, traveling seller of cards. The good Mannie will follow us pedissequamente in the course of all the adventure always ready to exchange his cards for our precious coins. But one moment, what does the cards have to do, will you ask? Well, I'll tell you right away in the next paragraph.

Gambling and cruel robots

So let's talk about the second phase in which the game develops, and perhaps the most curious from the point of view of the gameplay, that is the fight. Our little Even is armed with a sling and a few bullets, and is therefore almost harmless to the mighty killer robots put in place by the queen. To help you there is definitely Sayy and, as I anticipated, his deck of cards. In short, during each Even fight you will have to recover crystals to increase the power of Dicey and fish cards from its combat deck. Once you get a good hand you can throw Dicey and the number you get will basically represent our mana, which we can exploit to play one or more cards from our hand.

There are different types of cards, some more defensive, such as healing potions and shields, other more offensive, such as bombs to be placed on the battlefield or fire-fighting turrets; there are cards that will allow us to hold weapons like spears and swords, and finally "cheat" cards that will give us the chance to "bar" increasing for example our mana at no cost. Our deck can consist of up to 15 cards, even with multiple copies, and it will be up to us to build the best combination to better deal with the fights. And here we come to help the aforementioned Mannie Dex who will be omnipresent to sell us always new cards. More coins we will spend more different types of cards we will unlock.

Fights that, there is to say, never represent a real challenge (I will be dead 3 times throughout the adventure) and in the long run they become repetitive and unveil their excessive macchinos, especially when enemies make themselves several and resistant. To mitigate this feeling there are "special" fighting in which the fighting arenas will be practically table games, in which the result of the dice will not only serve to get the mana to play our cards, but also to advance the pawns on the game plan.

The gameplay mechanics, however innovative, inevitably collide with the fact that Many cards, at the end of the day, are really disappointing compared to others, also denying the pleasure of experimenting alternative combat strategies, but leading us to always use the usual 3-4 cards capable of determining as much damage as possible in the shortest time. Even the quantity and variety of opponents is certainly not exciting, while the boss fights are well done, even with some totally unexpected and intriguing twists.

Technically speaking

We tried. Lost in Random on the following configuration:

AMD Ryzen 7 3700x @ 3.60 GHz

Gigabyte RTX AORUS Master 3080 Ti 12Gb

Kingston Hyper x FURY (2x8Gb) DDR4

Resolution 3440x1440 (21:9)

Although it was initially somewhat flattened by the complete lack of editable graphics settings in the options, I must say that I understood the reason for this absence already after a few minutes of play: Lost in Random is almost perfect, maintaining a frame rate on very high values (140-144fps constant) under any circumstances, ensuring a plug and play gaming experience that makes a lot of gaming consoles, but not having to fight with graphic settings to achieve a satisfactory performance is increasingly rare and we were therefore pleasantly impressed.

It is true that graphics are not particularly challenging, but the aesthetic chosen by the boys of Zoink is absolutely on point, from the design of the characters to the setting. Also excellent the sound sector, with exceptional fairy music and with an original dubbing really well done that manages to best convey the pathos of every situation; sin only that Even does not speak during the situational dialogues with the various NPCs (dialogues among other writings by Ryan North, author award-winning at the Eisner Awards of Adventure Time and The Unbeatable Squirrel by Marvel Comics), but probably the workload would become excessive.

In conclusion

What to say, if the quality of EA Originals titles is this, we can only say compliments Electronic Arts. Lighting small pearls as Lost in Random, daughters of smaller reality but of enormous talent like Zoink, it is really a move that we appreciate, first of all as players and long-time enthusiasts, always looking for something new, that knows how to excite us and rape us as they were able to make eons does the games of our childhood. Lost in Random is an adventure that in its dark and distressing nature hides deep emotions, such as the unrollable love of two sisters, able to break the walls of a hierarchical society based on the case and the wickedness of a queen and her secrets. A title that, while inspiring audienceally to the Burton of the origins or to Coraline of Gaiman, maintains its distinctive style and its undeniable stylistic and narrative independence. To complete the game were necessary 15 hours, probably the best hours I spent playing a long time video game.