Randomax Review

A hectic anime-themed shoot ’em up mixed with rogue-lite elements sounds as surefire a success as a well-placed bomb in a round of Touhou. Randomax seems to be grazing many recent trends in just the right way. Will the execution live up to the expectations?

Few things are as entwined as shoot-’em-ups and anime girls, thanks to the popular Bullet Hell franchise spearheaded by Touhou. Also 2025 is gearing up to be the year of the rogue-likes. Adding these three elements together seems to be an easy way to get a lot of heads peeking at this entry’s way right now.

Randomax is truly an attention-grabbing game, for both good and bad reasons. The obvious? Fan service. Just a quick peek at the title screen of Randomax reveals some weird clothing choices and exaggerated physical proportions among most of the cast. It sure is eye-catching to say the least, but on the Nintendo eShop, this might actually work against it rather than for it. This is because the general quality of products marketed with those two specific aspects is very low, often consisting of a bunch of generic puzzle games. While not as damning on Steam where this was originally released, it is sadly a context this title will have to live with on the eShop.

The other thing that grabs attention quickly is the title’s fast-paced nature. It is hard to take a single screenshot in Randomax that does not look like a massive, beautiful fireworks display of bullets and explosions. These screenshots make it very easy to assume that Randomax will be another bullet hell title. However, it is actually quite the opposite.

Traditionally, in this sub-genre, enemies shoot a lot of bullets in beautiful patterns covering most, if not all of the screen, which you, with your minimal hitbox, must dodge, often even with the expectation that the bullets will be touching the main character’s sprite in more difficult examples of the genre. Randomax flips this on its head. In here, the heroine is given a quite massive hitbox and is the creator of the ocean of bullets in all sorts of shapes and patterns. It is quite a clever subversion of the expectations one might have about this – and for the most part it works.

This system holds one critical flaw. With so many explosions and bullets, it is very easy for the enemy’s bullets to get lost in the stream of projectiles one throws at them. It is rare to die from a bullet seen, but it isn’t difficult to miss a bullet and take a surprise hit. Sometimes, one might wish that all the bullets on screen were actually enemy bullets, as that would make it feel less cluttered with irrelevant information.

The gameplay also feels shallow due to its scoring system. What defines the greats of the genre is how they play with the scoring systems to make high-score hunting as challenging as possible once the game is mastered. Here though? Nothing besides a special mode that activates when picking up enough shield charging energy while keeping a full shield, something one will still naturally do during regular gameplay.

The one aspect where Randomax still has a chance to stand out in the genre is with its rogue-lite elements. Truth be told, the only thing it has over most shoot ’em ups on the market is a durability system similar to what can be found in any sandbox. The power-up system it markets as a rogue-lite otherwise feels very similar to many older games in the genre, which provided random power-ups as drops. Here, it comes in the form of storage units that are conveniently filled with weapons on empty screens, making said power-ups impossible to miss.

Don’t get this wrong: as a short, fun shooter, Randomax is quite lovely, especially at its low price. However, the premise of a rogue-lite shoot ’em up and the dynamic visuals paint high expectations. Expectations this hardly lives up to.