Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is the newest release from Don’t Nod Studios Montreal. It is a two-part adventure game that sees Tape One: Bloom release today, February 18th. Tape Two: Rage will be released on April 15th, 2025. It is available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. I remembered the teaser of this game from 2023 and was immediately intrigued so I am quite pleased to have played it for review. I was not let down. So, let’s get into it!
Game Backstory
Since Lost Records is a narrative-based game, there isn’t too much to say about the story without spoilers. The game is centered around a group of 4 former friends: Swann, Nora, Autumn, and Kat, who are trying to piece together some of their memories from the summer of 1995, but not too many as the friends agreed 27 years before that they would never again speak about that summer.
Something happens that brings them all back to their hometown, the fictional Velvet Cove in Michigan: a shabby, hunting-centered town that they all moved away from to pursue very different professional paths. You will need to play through the game to discover what is bringing them back together, what drove them apart, and what happened during that magical summer.
Graphics, Gameplay, Sound
You play as only one character, Swann, who is recording everyone and everything with her handheld camcorder. The game features an interesting mechanic where you need to film during each scene to create Swann’s “memoirs”. And if you wish, you can go into the video menu and edit the scenes to create your memoir videos. I also found that it isn’t a requirement to do it, and the game will put them together for you if you decide not to edit yourself, but it adds a fun minigame of sorts.
As Swann, you interact with certain items, animals, decorations, and belongings to reminisce about certain memories, which you will hear as a reverb ethereal voiceover that will either be a singular memory and/or a warning of something that’s going to occur for you to experience.
The game succeeded in making the summer of 1995 feel ethereal, like a fuzzy memory. The edges were blurred, like the vignette of our memories. As someone who has long-term memory loss, I have a soft spot for media involving people trying to recover lost memories.
As per usual, with adults writing as teenagers, the prose of the game can go into cringey territory, and the cadence of the characters’ speech can be frustratingly slow, Swann’s constantly stumbling over her words and dragging out her sentences bordered on annoying.
While there is a lot to say about the gameplay and graphics, there isn’t much to say about the sound. That doesn’t mean the sound isn’t good, but it’s perfectly fine. As with any remembering-the-past games, movies, and shows, there is the standard reverb = memory. And there is one stand-out scene in which you get to create a beat loop for a song and the beat continues to be used throughout your gameplay, which I found exciting and fun.
Bugs/Issues
I encountered no major bugs or issues while playing. The only issue I met was a situation where I had accomplished a certain decision path, but the game didn’t acknowledge the decision, and I was forced to perform the other path. I could have restarted the checkpoint and retried, but I decided to keep going, thinking it wouldn’t have that much of an effect. But thinking back, I had to choose a calm versus violent-ish path, so that was kind of an important decision! Other than that, I had no issues.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I truly enjoyed playing through the Bloom section of the game. I have played the Life Is Strange games and I might prefer this, but perhaps that’s my 90’s nostalgia speaking!
I will replay the game before the second half to get better relationship statuses as it turns out I wasn’t doing as well as I thought with my friendships (and possible relationships).
If you are interested in story-driven games, some 90’s nostalgia, and paranormal magic vibes, then I do recommend you check out Lost Records.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape One
Played on
Steam
PROS
- Looks Great
- Emotional
- Good variety in choices
CONS
- A bit cringey
