https://www.cybersport.ru/games/articles/obzor-lost-in-random

Do you want me to tell you a story? But I will warn you right away, it will be very scary. So creepy and scary that you can tear your stomach with laughter. In it, I will tell you about a world so gloomy and terrible that you will certainly fall in love with it. And the main character will be a tiny little girl, because only she can do something truly grandiose. Well, haven’t you changed your mind? Then welcome to Lost in Random.

In some kingdom …

… there was a girl named Even lived in a random state. She was a small individual, an inhabitant of the forgotten town of Odnokraft. No one expected anything from Ewen and did not make any plans at her expense, because she was so tiny and unimportant. But you know what? This did not bother her at all – she could play with her friends as much as she wanted and enjoy life with Odd’s sister.

And everything would be wonderful in Even’s small and unremarkable life, if it were not for a fairy tale. In fairy tales “happily ever after” must be earned, and in scary tales – also to live to the end, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Odd’s 12th birthday has come, the most important in her life. It is upon reaching this age that each child in the land of Randomness decides his fate by throwing the royal dice. One will drop out – and you will spend the rest of your life in Odnokraft, where all other cities throw garbage. But if you are lucky enough to throw a six, you will move to live in Sixtopia, where you will be surrounded by luxury, chocolate and marmalade. Odd was lucky.

Even was so happy for her little sister. Rather, it should have been – it’s a dream come true. But why, then, did the cats scratch their souls? She probably just missed her best friend. Or maybe the nightmares, in which Odd had oh how hard, is to blame. And the ghost calling Ewen to run away from home, most likely, was also somehow involved in this.

But we can agree that Ewen is a very smart girl. She must have realized that being abducted by a giant robot and living at the court of the world-fearing Queen does not bode well for Odd. And since Ewen is not only intelligent, but also a very brave girl, she went to help her sister, although she did not know where to go and how, in fact, to help.

With the latter, however, everything was decided pretty soon. Barely starting her journey, Ewen was caught in a storm that brought her to the abandoned ruins of a once majestic place. It was there that she met a new friend – Kubik. Once upon a time, there were many magic dice in Chance that allowed people to decide their fate. But the Queen destroyed them all (well, or almost all), and now all the power of chance (well, or almost all) is in her hands.

Thus, Ewen became the Keeper of the Cube, a powerful warrior, capable of distorting reality itself by the force of chance. Now nothing could stop the heroine on the way to rescue the kidnapped sister from the evil Queen. But only does Odd need to be saved? After all, by the time Ewen gets to Sixtopia (and she will definitely get there), a lot of time will pass. Will it be the same Odd as before? Only the most courageous heroes will know the answer to this question, who will not be afraid to go on adventures with Ewen.

The inhabitants of Odnokraft live in teapots and sleep in matchboxes

Now seriously, well, or almost

Sometimes children’s works sin by making the main characters too obedient, too kind, too ideal. And it happens even worse – the protagonists turn out to be almost faceless, devoid of any individuality, so that the widest possible audience can associate themselves with them.

Ewen, of course, has most of the clichéd virtues: courage, kindness, ingenuity, etc. But she still stands out from the gray mass of typical heroes. For example, her chosenness was the result of the Queen’s actions, chance and Ewen’s own choice. That is, no prophecies. In addition, it is very funny to watch her straightforward and even impudent communication with other characters. She will not go into her pocket for a word and will not respectfully communicate with adults who do not deserve it: fools will hear the whole truth about their stupid behavior, and liars will receive a ton of barbs for lying. What can we say about enemies – there is no fear or at least caution here.

In the course of his adventures, Ewen will visit six worlds of the Kingdom of Chance in turn. Odnokraft is the poorest city in the kingdom, where others dump their trash. Next to it there is a Two-city, in which each inhabitant has two personalities at once, which the Queen switches every day with a roll of a die. In Triboda, there is an ongoing civil war between the triplets of the deceased ruler. Chetyreburg is a citadel of excitement, the Queen tried to destroy it, but it again grew in the same place. Pyatitropolis was once the center of science and arts, but now it has become just a big robot factory. Sixtopia is the capital of the kingdom, the place of life for the most fortunate.

Each of them is a spacious level where you can find side quests, caches of coins and puzzles. Why the latter were needed is frankly incomprehensible. Most of them are solved to disgracefully easy and obvious.

From the standpoint of core mechanics, Lost in Random is a linear third-person action game. At first glance at the game, it may seem that it is also a three-dimensional platformer, but no, Even can’t jump. The gameplay is divided into two parts. The first is the battles, which we will talk about later, and the second is the study of locations and communication with NPCs. And you can’t tell which one is more interesting at once.

Amazing creatures and even more amazing places where they live

Each world in Lost in Random has a unique character, which is primarily transmitted through the creatures that inhabit it. Yes, not only people live here, but also monsters of varying degrees of horror. The mayor of Two-City has his evil counterpart growing out of a hat. In Tribode, instead of streets, there are trenches, over which three huge robots fighting each other rise. And in Chetyreburg, everyone is ready to wager to put everything on the line.

It is easy to guess that the characters on the way of Ewen will match their surroundings. My favorite is Bernie, an incredibly naive kid who will one day need to be rescued from a mess by going through something like a text quest. And then there is the Duke, for whose mission you will have to learn court etiquette. And how can you forget the terrible Rem, who can be defeated in battle either with a sharp sword or with no less sharp rhyme. All this I mean is that the gameplay of Lost in Random is not fixated on battles.

Ewen vs. the army of robots — Even vs army of robots

The only confusing thing is the visual style. There is no doubt that it is charmingly creepy – the authors were clearly inspired by the work of Tim Burton. By the way, this is not some kind of art history analysis, it was directly written about this in the cover letter of the publisher. The whole environment is grotesquely crooked and disproportionate, and the monsters (and people too) are frighteningly insane, but at the same time are often very cute. I recall the words of the daughter of the hero from “Ant-Man”: “He is so ugly! I love it! “

However, in the end, this artistic decision led to the same problems for which Burton himself is sometimes criticized. Despite the fact that each world in Lost in Random is unique in its own way, they all look almost the same. The eye hardly manages to catch on to any visual features. Hmm, sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? Imagine twins: outwardly they are identical, but their characters are completely different. One may be an eccentric fidget, and the other a quiet nerdy. They are the same only at first glance, and if you get to know them better, you will understand that the guys have almost nothing in common. It’s the same with cities in Lost in Random.

The best part of the game

I can honestly say that the best thing about Lost in Random is its Storyteller. Yes exactly. A simple voice in the background that describes what is happening is by far the most wonderful element of the game. If this sounds strange to you, think about it, isn’t the storyteller the key link in every fairy tale, isn’t he an integral part of any adventure?

At first, the Storyteller simply states what is happening, he is also responsible for the narration through the environment. At the same time, he does it very well, flavoring the monologues with a fair amount of humor. For example, if you click on the portrait in Ewen’s house, the Storyteller will tell about her aunt, who could play all musical instruments, but equally badly on all.

Even against a huge robot — Ewen versus a huge robot

Over time, you will notice that the Storyteller is not at all an impartial detached storyteller. He is as much a participant in the adventure as Ewen and Kubik. He worries about the heroes and expresses his own opinion about what is happening. Towards the end, he is even kidnapped and replaced by another. And Even feels it, although he does not even suspect the existence of his ethereal comrade.

Weaving a faceless narrator directly into the thread of the narrative, turning it from a purely utilitarian source of information about a story into its hero is a very interesting technique. He breaks the familiar tropes of the fairy tale genre, thereby refreshing it and giving it new facets.

Manny Dex, who either lives in the store, or he is the store itself

Cards, dice, two slingshots

As we remember from the beginning of the review, Ewen is just a small, albeit very brave, girl. Therefore, most of her powers are concentrated in the Cube. He can endow the heroine with supernatural powers, hand her powerful weapons and summon various dangerous creatures to the battlefield. However, I repeat: this is most of Ewen’s powers, but not all.

The heroine starts any fight in Lost in Random empty-handed, practically unable to attack enemies. There is no use from the Cube at this moment either – energy is needed for its magic tricks. It can be obtained from opponents by breaking crystals on their bodies with slingshot shots. The second way is to go through enemies in ghost mode, for which you need to dodge their attacks at the very last moment.

In the course of knocking out crystals, Even pulls out ability cards from the deck – she can find them during adventures or buy from a traveling merchant. When she has enough energy, the heroine can roll the die and get as many action points as the dice roll. And for these ODs it will be possible to use cards of different denominations. For example, for one point you will get a simple sword, and for three – a huge mace. There are also various buffs, debuffs, bombs, cheating techniques, etc.

It sounds a little confusing in words, but in reality everything is very simple. First, we run around the arena and shoot robots. At the right moment, roll a die, call a weapon, heal or use another ability. We repeat to the bitter end.

The main complaint about the combat system in Lost in Random is its simplicity. Perhaps the difficulty of the game will be just right for children or for those who do not play very often, but for others it may seem too gentle. If a igrozhur, who, by definition, has hook hands, has never died in the entire passage, then this is already a bell.

At the same time, it cannot be said that game designers were lazy. The game has several types of enemies with different fighting styles and even defensive tactics. And their number (in terms of diversity) is often enough. It’s just that they are quite slow, and too much time is allotted for perfect dodging. Plus, it makes it possible to pass through almost all enemies, and if you have certain abilities, it also gives them damage at that moment. In this situation, opponents can be lazily clicked with one button.

Plus, the game does not benefit the game (which simply does not have a difficult level in the settings) and a tactical pause. The moment you roll the dice and choose cards, time stops. Thanks to this, Even can easily get out of the encirclement and go behind the enemy lines.

But every cloud has a silver lining. A tactical pause pretty quickly convinces the player that during its action he is completely safe, and the enemies are on the contrary. Therefore, when a boss appears who can ignore these rules, a real break in the template can happen.

Board games are a separate type of battles. Basically, these are the same battles, but supplemented by one more condition. For example, you will need to move a figure across the field, determining the number of steps by throwing a die. Tactics may change accordingly. Instead of waiting for the full energy to fill up to reveal all the cards, it will be more useful to roll the dice more often. Or, you will need to focus on a specific opponent that interferes with the advancement of the chip.

The goal of this board game is to destroy the enemy tower, for this the chip must be placed on certain cells

Sun spots

Lost in Random is a wonderful game in every sense, but there is something to scold it for. First of all, it is a shame that it was not translated into Russian. It has a lot of humor and funny situations that make up the lion’s share of the title’s charm. It can be justified by the fact that the vocabulary in the game is quite simple and even the school curriculum should be enough to understand it. But the situation is still unpleasant.

It is also worth noting here that the price of the PC version in Russia practically does not differ from the console version – ₽2 thousand. Such are the realities of games published by Electronic Arts. For show, I will also repeat about the monotonous visual design and light battles, which I have already complained about.

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