Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Review (PS5)

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1 is the first in this intriguing two-parter, and an ambitious undertaking from the original creators of Life Is Strange. Establishing two timelines, both in the mid-90s and present day, Bloom & Rage is a return to Don’t Nod’s roots with a killer setting, lovable characters, and plenty of nerve-wracking decisions to make amidst a mystery narrative. However, Tape 1 is a slow burner, and while we’re onboard for the scene that it sets, it’ll be down to Tape 2 to dictate whether it’s all worth the ride.

It’s been almost 30 years since protagonist Swann has seen the titular Bloom & Rage friend group. In a modern day setting portrayed in first-person, the crew are reluctantly brought together by an ominous box addressed to them. We don’t know what’s in it or who sent it, but it’s all tied to their summer together in 1995.

That’s the big narrative hook that gets you in the door, but Lost Records takes a step back and slows things down. Reminiscing about their summer together, we're transported back, where we control a 16-year-old Swann from a third-person perspective.

Exploring Don’t Nod settings isn’t anything new, but what Lost Records does to stand apart from the developer’s previous work is it asks you to seep in the very essence of a time period. With warm fuzzy visuals, a comforting synthy score, and plenty of 90s knickknacks to dial up your nostalgia, it’s one of Don’t Nod’s best settings to date.

Whether it’s Swann’s bedroom, plastered with posters of bands, books, and movies, or an unbranded Blockbuster complete with movie displays, Lost Records goes all-in on the handful of settings you explore. It’s par for the course with narrative games like this, but Lost Records really sells the atmosphere of each of its settings, making all of them more memorable in the process.

However, the setting is just one part of Lost Records’ appeal, with its characters being at the forefront. Bloom & Rage Tape 1 is a tale of friendship, with protagonist Swann, along with Autumn, Nora, and Kat, coming together in a chance encounter. Don’t Nod really takes its time to establish these relationships, with the girls simply getting to know each other taking up the bulk of Tape 1’s six-hour runtime.

It’s in these performances that the characters come into their own, both as ambitious, energetic teens, and worn down, mature adults. The writing is much improved from something like Life Is Strange, which was riddled with the “hella” cringe dialogue of angsty teens. It’s not entirely gone in Lost Records, with the “we’re weirdos” patter wearing a bit thin at times, but it all feels much more authentic to the characters and its setting.

It meant we were eager for any morsel of information on how these characters' lives panned out when cutting back to the modern day. How did seeds planted in 1995 sprout in the 2020s, all while being drip fed information regarding the girls' separation 27 years prior?

It does get a bit “and then that thing happened” as we flit back and forth, like the characters are waggling their fingers at the screen saying “not yet”. While the time spent getting to know these girls will likely be worth it, you still spend a lot of your time wondering when anything nefarious is going to happen.

Of course, with this being a Don’t Nod game there are plenty of narrative choices to make. From this tape alone, it’s hard to really gauge if anything will truly impact the outcome of the narrative. So far it dials down to your cat being a different colour depending on what you decide to call it, or romance options with each of the main cast seemingly having no carryover to the modern day. It’s another 'wait and see' aspect that we’ll be keen to know more about.

In addition to the Don’t Nod hallmarks, Lost Records has mechanical gimmicks to spice up its simplistic gameplay. In Life Is Strange it was the time-rewinding and in Twin Mirror it was the Mind Palace. Here, Swann, an aspiring filmmaker, always has a camcorder at hand. As you revel in the 90s setting, you’re tasked with filming certain items contributing to Swann’s memoirs.

Filming things like graffiti, nature, locations, or even your cat, you rearrange the footage in a simplistic editor, and then watch back your work with Swann’s added commentary. It’s got a lovely aesthetic appeal, which flits from wholesome home video to Blair Witch. However, this quickly became more of a chore for us, as you film items, waiting for a circle to fill before moving on to the next thing. Watching the footage back wasn’t often worth the grind either, and for us, it became something we almost entirely ignored in the latter part of the game.

But what we’re really here for is the mystery. There’s a certain point in Lost Records, just when we thought it was about to lose us, that it switches gears. We don’t want to get into spoilers here at all, but with pangs of horror and foreboding narrative threads, it left us eager to know how it all pans out. Tape 1 is all about drip-feeding that mystery narrative, whether that’s the reason the gang parted ways in 1995, or why they are so nervous to be back together again in the modern day.

As if the 'Tape 1' tag wasn’t enough to indicate, this is firmly a piece of a larger puzzle, with this first chapter putting in a lot of the legwork for the concluding half. It makes it difficult to really say how great or worth your time Lost Records really is. We enjoyed it and we would like to see more, but whether the whole experience is worth it is yet to be seen.

To quickly note performance, we played Bloom & Rage on the PS5 Pro (although it should be mentioned that it isn’t Pro Enhanced). The game looks utterly stunning, with sharp details and brilliant lighting — with a particular shoutout to sound design. However, performance pre-launch was a little choppy at points, and texture pop-in was all too frequent. We never experienced any crashes, however, and with the slower-paced gameplay, frame rate dips never bothered us too much. It was a far more technically sound experience than something like (ironically) Life Is Strange: Double Exposure.