DescriptionLost Records: Bloom & Rage is a 3D narrative-driven game with filming gameplay. You play Swann Holloway, a 43-yo woman who goes back to her hometown after 27 years radio silence to try to piece back together why she and her friends made a promise never to see each other again.
The game takes place roughly 85% in summer of 1995 as Swann spends an epic summer with her new group of friends and tries to record everything with the camcorder she got for her 16th birthday, and the rest in 2022 as she tries to unlock her repressed memories with two of her three friends from the past.
Filming things in the game is a core mechanic in that it is required to advance the story and is the main mechanic by which you accrue collectibles. You will be rewarded for your effort by multiple remixes of your recordings along the story.
Game is divided into Tape 1 and Tape 2. That is more of a historical mark as Tape 2 was released a couple of months after Tape 1. It leaves some traces in the achievements and game menu, but you can mostly ignore the distinction.
The three friends from 1995 are all potential love interests, though to qualify them as such feels restrictive. Depending on your choices in the game, you can end up anywhere on an impressive scale from "We're cool" all the way to "First love" going through "BFFs", "Crush" and more. Note that all four people in the friend (or more) group are cis women.
Pros+ Rock solid soundtrack (a very relevant thing to the plot)
+ Stellar voice acting
+ Good-looking graphics aiming for atmosphere more than photorealism
+ Poignant and slightly tragic coming-of-age story
+ Deep relationship system that feels more realistic (for better and worse) than that of most dating sims
+ Impressive amount of details change based on choices (for maximum replayability and headaches for guide writers)
+ Realistic teenagers with skin problems and various body types
+ Most achievement-hunter friendly system ever (collectible mode is a godsend)
Cons- Choices never impact the big beats of the story, only the details... butterfly effect this is not
- UI tells you when you have gained or lost points with your friends, but not whom... often obvious, sometimes really not so
- Slow pace of the game in general and rare option to skip cinematics (mostly you can only do so in collectible mode)
- Some funny non game-breaking bugs (YMMV)
- Best ending is still no happy ending, brace yourself
VerdictDisclaimer: as an older lesbian dork millenial, I am so much the target demographic of this story, I feel seen. I'll try to be as objective as possible, but know that this game resonated with me on many levels of my identity.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a good story. One that would have probably found its audience as a movie or TV show just fine. The gameplay of trying to capture the best moments of the most epic summer ever with a camcorder is simultaneously a clever trick to force you to pay more attention to your surroundings and to identify more deeply with the protagonist.
Swann Holloway will live rent free in my mind forever. So will Kat, Autumn, and Nora, to a lesser extent. DON'T NOD did not just tell a random story, they created people that felt genuine, raw, exasperating at times and only more lovable for their imperfections and asperities. A love letter to the 90s, to punk music, to bullied kids, to baby lesbians, to self-doubting artists, and to introverts who love their humans.
I will recommend this game to anyone who isn't a raging homophobe. Note that romance is not a necessary component of the storytelling: you can be "just" friends with all three of them. And that friendship will be no less deep and meaningful, as it should be, for friendship is more precious that most media give it credit for.
For achievement hunters out there, my suggestion is to play the game once without any guidance, to enjoy the world and story. Then play it a second time with a guide to achieve good relationships with all three friends (necessary for some achievements). Everything else can be cleaned up in Collectible mode, so don't ruin your time in Velvet Cove with it.
See you in hell! You'll fit in well 5.0