In the summer of 1995, a group of teenage friends experience
a series of events that will change them forever; a summer filled with both beauty
and tragedy, love and sadness, and a summer that, mysteriously, fades from
their memories after it ends. They reunite in their 40s, after one of them
receives a mysterious package addressed to her that may provide some clues and
closure as to the events that drew them together and then pulled them apart.
Lost Records: Bloom and Range sees Don’t Nod Entertainment,
the creators of the Life is Strange series and developers of Life is Strange
and Life is Strange 2, returning to the story-driven Adventure Game genre for
the first time in many years, and the results are incredibly good, albeit a
little rough around the edges and with a somewhat flawed second half.
The game features main character Swann, a girl whose family
is planning on moving away from their sleepy suburb of Velvet Cove at the end
of the summer. She wants to create a documentary to commemorate her final two
months in Velvet Cove, and it’s while she’s filming outside the Video Store
that she’s harassed by two bullies before 3 girls nearby witness it and step
in.
Autumn, Nora, Kat, and Swann become best friends shortly
after this, and Lost Records: Bloom and Rage alternates between the teenagers’
nostalgia-drenched summer adventures in Velvet Cove, and their 43-year-old
selves as they sit together in the bar, meeting for the first time since and trying
to recall the fateful events that led to them never seeing or speaking to each
other again. As always with these types of games, your dialogue choices and the
decisions you make shape the characters’ relationships to each other, and have
some impacts on the story.
Though the Life is Strange series has continued without Don’t
Nod Entertainment’s involvement courtesy of Deck Nine Games to mostly solid
results (with Life Is Strange: True Colors being a true highlight) there’s just
something so special about Don’t Nod’s storytelling; their ability pull beauty
and warmth from what on the surface seems like the most mundane of moments.
Velvet Cove is a town wrapped in mystery; you get to see the bar, the video
store parking lot, a deserted park under a freeway ramp, the characters’
houses, and some scattered other locales, but much of your adventures take
place in the forest, with the main characters creating a world (and a final
summer together) that’s all their own. You
don’t ever really get to see or know the town very much, and the cast of characters
that Nora, Swann, Autumn, and Kat interact with is incredibly small. Though
this might at first glance seem like a flaw, the fact that Lost Records is so
devoted to the 4 main characters and their time spent together in their secret
world that’s so close yet feels so far away from their quiet suburb helps to
create a truly transporting and dream-like atmosphere and vibe, and a feeling
that stuck with me long after I completed the game. The music is top notch, providing
a nostalgic backdrop, and the visuals are incredibly pretty (bearing in mind that
this is an indie game and there are some rough patches) with the number of
things to interact with in the environments being incredibly high as well.
Swann’s video camera also provides a cool gameplay mechanic,
with your ability to take photos and videos of the main characters and numerous
things in the environment to complete her collection of memoirs both addictive
and compelling. The space that you have is limited, which is something that I
wish the game had made clearer to you up front so you don’t have to delete some
stuff later, but other than that minor issue, it’s one of Don’t Nod’s better
mechanics.
Though Lost Records: Bloom and Rage provides an intimate,
atmospheric, nostalgic, and compelling journey across its 2 tapes, it does have
to be said that there are numerous flaws as well. The voice acting is
generally good, but there are a few times where it feels like they could have done
another take, with some moments of awkward delivery and strange dialogue taking
me out of the story. And despite many instances of great writing, it does feel
like the game would have benefitted from another draft or two to iron out some
of the rougher moments. In particular, the personalities of the villains feel
inconsistent, with the two of them becoming so ridiculously evil by the end of
the game that it’s hard to take them seriously, especially given the circumstances.
Fleshing them out a little bit more and making them more human and less over
the top definitely would have helped, but I just found it hard to understand
their motivations, and why they treated a certain character the way they did.
It has to be said too that the first tape is by far the
stronger one; a major event happens at the end of tape 1 that changes things
pretty dramatically, making tape 2 a lot less fun as a result, with the story
in both the past and (especially) the present becoming a pretty big downer. The
game redeems itself with a beautiful ending, but aside from that, its best
moments are in its first half, which is a bit of a shame. The dialogue system also
lets you know pretty much right away with a visual cue when you make the “right”
or “wrong” dialogue choice, rather than keeping that a mystery, which
seems slightly outdated for the genre and makes things feel a little
frustrating when you make the “wrong” choice, something that happened to me
increasingly in tape 2. On that same note, while the game ends in a beautiful
way regardless, the present-day section for most who play it will lack a major piece
of closure, as it’s locked behind an ending that’s very hard to achieve, as evidenced
by the statistics revealed at the end showing how few players achieved it. It
doesn’t end up affecting the game much, because quite honestly I think the
normal ending’s better, (which, as of this writing, is the ending that the vast
majority of Lost Records players received) but it does seem like kind of a
weird decision on the part of the developers, and does a pretty big disservice
to the 43-year-old versions of the characters.
Despite its flaws, however, Lost Records: Bloom and Rage is easily
an adventure game worth playing. Being a part of these 4 characters’ lives as
they experience one final summer together was truly a memorable and thought-provoking
experience. The world created here feels like a dream, a beautiful and slightly
surreal trip through the garages and video store parking lots of 1990s suburbia.
Though the first half is much stronger than the second half, and the occasional
bits of iffy writing and acting and some bugs serve to remind you that this is
a self-published indie game, ultimately Swann, Nora, Kat, and Autumn’s
adventures together will stay in my mind for a long time to come. Definitely
recommended to fans of the Life is Strange series and similar games, or to
anyone who appreciates a good character-driven story that may not be full of
action, but one whose emotional journey is everything.
4/5
