Lost in Random: The Eternal Die proves roguelikes don't need to fill 100 hours

I'm a sucker for action roguelikes in general, but particularly those that have followed in the footsteps of Hades. Like Supergiant's foundational Greek epic, which has sucked about 200 hours out of me, many of them are designed to be games you just keep coming back to. After all, isn't that the roguelike mantra - the promise of near-endless replayability? Yet one of my favorites in recent memory, Lost in Random: The Eternal Die, was over remarkably quickly, especially given the veritable buffet of systems it brings to the party. Rather than being a complaint, however, it's exactly why it works.

Lost in Random: The Eternal Die is technically a sequel to the original Lost in Random, and brings across its Burton-esque aesthetics and the friendly magical dice that accompany you into battle. Beyond that, The Eternal Die is a very different game. It strips out the exploration, world-building, and most of the narrative elements in favor of a much more central focus on the action, which is, at its core, basically Hades. You have a selection of weapons to choose from, each with several forms, and must fight through four regions with a boss at the end of each to succeed. There are shops, NPCs to bring back to base, and meta upgrades that gradually increase your starting strength between runs.

From there, however, developer Stormteller Games breaks out of the mold, and that's where The Eternal Die truly shines. You can find cards on your run, each offering a unique spell, with a wide variety on offer that ranges from time-stopping spears and cluster-bombing poison flasks to a chilling tempest that bounces around the arena. All of these come with a 'perfect' bonus that increases their effect if you're able to charge and release them with immaculate timing, rewarding you for playing well. You can also toss your companion die, Fortune, at people, and he'll deal more damage depending on the numbered face he lands on.

The real feather in its cap is the relic system. These bonuses are drafted from an offering of three at a time like Hades boons, but must then be slotted into a grid to activate them. Every relic is also assigned one to three colors, and lining up three or more in a row grants you a significant bonus to a particular damage type. Red boosts your weapon damage, for example, while yellow increases the effectiveness of cards, and purple the potency of conjurations, which include just about anything spawned by your relics or attacks.

There's a tremendous diversity to the buildcrafting. I always felt able to put together some synergies, but was constantly faced with tough decisions. Opt for a relic boosting the damage I deal to any enemies who get chilled by the homing icicles I spawn with every critical hit? Or take something less directly suited to my build, but with a red and green border that lets me complete a double match-three on the board, buffing both my weapon damage and crit chance?

Even more pleasingly, all of the elements tie together nicely. Several relics cause Fortune to unleash effects when he lands on particular numbers. One significantly increases the crit chance of your next card after a dice roll. Another guarantees that your first weapon attack after a card will be a critical hit. There's a relic that makes card attacks buff your subsequent dice throw, and one that causes charged weapon strikes to boost the damage on the following card. It's a buildcrafter's dream; a beautiful Rube Goldberg machine of chain reactions. I'm constantly thinking about how I play, and shifting my approach slightly with every piece I slot in.

The level design is solid, too, with you exploring a series of interconnected rooms rather than following a linear path. Minigames play into the chance factor of dice rolls, and the boss battles are particularly strong - in fact, I'd say they might have at least the base-tier versions of Hades 1 and 2's big bads beat. The Eternal Die has its problems; after how much of a storytelling tour de force the original game was, I'm sad that most of that is lost in the transition to a more pure action game. But it gets the action right - and, perhaps remarkably given the depth of its systems, wraps it all up in relatively quick fashion.

My total playtime for Lost In Random: The Eternal Die is just shy of 21 hours, and I pushed through the difficulty levels and saw just about everything, including its secondary ending. All I missed were a couple of achievements and upgrades. I was completely satisfied, it didn't outstay its welcome, and I'm still thinking about it fondly now. Were I not 50 hours deep into working my way through Hades 2 (and only just past its first full credits, with likely a longer stretch still ahead of me) I could see myself putting another ten or 20 hours into The Eternal Die, just for the fun of it. But I don't need to, and that's okay with me.

Lost in Random: The Eternal Die is currently 45% off in the Steam Spring Sale, priced at just $13.67 / £10.99. It's also available through the Xbox Game Pass library on PC. There's a demo as well, in case you're curious to try it first. If you're a Hades-head like I am, I'd certainly recommend it.