In the last five years or so, I’ve become aware of an increasing number of interesting randomizers for lots of different kinds of games.
(For reference: A randomizer is a mod or alternate mode for a game which randomizes some aspects of the game. Most commonly this will be things like item placement or enemy locations.)
I’m a big fan of randomizers as a way to replay a game in a fresh, new way or to encourage strategies that may one may not have used in the original version.
Some notable randomizers include:
The Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Randomizer, which shuffles around all the items you can pick up. Very popular for speedruns.
The Super Metroid/ Link to the Past combo randomizer, which shuffles around item pickups between the two games and provides some portals on each map to jump from one game to another.
The Ocarina of Time Randomizer which gives you pretty fine control over what constraints items are allowed to be shuffled. You can make it always “solvable” without glitches, or “solvable” with some truly wild OOT tricks. Also very popular for speedrunning.
The Sonic Adventure Randomizer which “is a mod for the PC version of SADX. This mod load random characters into random stages in a random order with some custom layout to make them beatable. ” There are also versions of Sonic Adventure and SA2 randomizers which shuffle around the voice lines in cutscenes.
And, a personal favorite, the Bloodstained: Symphony of the Night Randomizer which is an official game mode unlocked after beating the main game. It gives you a lot of knobs to turn for what things you want to be shuffled!
What games have randomizers that you like, and what do they randomize?