Lost Records: Bloom & Rage shows that life can get stranger

The Life is Strange series first debuted ten years ago and all parties connected to it have been celebrating. Publisher Square Enix recently kept the series moving along with last year's Double Exposure, but the original development team at Don't Nod Montreal has spent the last several years working on a new series that follows in its footsteps. Lost Records: Bloom & Rage begins its tale this week and it shares a lot in common with Don't Nod's original adventure. However, after bouncing across memory lane in Tape 1, it's more accurate to say that the Life is Strange team has further refined the formula that made it famous, making Lost Records the start of an unforgettable coming-of-age story.

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage starts in the modern day and follows Swann Holloway, a middle-aged woman returning to her hometown of Velvet Cove after moving away to Vancouver thirty years prior. She's meeting up with her friends from high school, as a fateful package has brought them together to reminisce over the summer when they first met. The story bounces around from the current day to 1995, illustrating a blossoming four-way friendship in the vein of movie classics like Stand By Me, while also gradually hinting at a haunting crossroads moment that not only split the four apart, but made them all vow to stay away from each other. A mysterious box in the current day, addressed to the foursome's band Bloom & Rage, has led to an uneasy reunion.

Throughout the story, players are presented fully fleshed-out and unique characters. Swann is a shy introvert, desperate for friendship; Autumn is an outgoing skater girl, willing to express herself, but only to a certain limit; Nora is a hormonal extrovert, hungry for fame and for life beyond Velvet Cove's small borders; and Kat is a homeschooled poet, gradually driven to madness by her sister and her controlling boyfriend. Don't Nod does an amazing job of illustrating the bonds between these four friends, both as a group and individually, but that's only half the battle in a gaming environment. The studio also goes to great lengths to give players agency in developing their friendships, allowing them control in how deep these bonds go and also giving players the ability to forge a potentially deeper relationship.

There are some timely references in place, but Don't Nod doesn't get overly hamfisted when it comes to establishing the 90s setting of the past. Rather, the team takes advantage of the time period for one critical gameplay mechanic: Swann's camcorder. Players will frequently use the camcorder to help put together reels for Swann's last summer. Their recordings often double as a collectible with players organizing their archives into different categories. There's a lot of attention to detail in place with Swann's recordings, as some story instances will see the characters watch her tapes back and they'll be watching the footage as originally shot by the player. Players can later go back and edit their reels as they see fit, subbing in certain clips to make the timeline that they prefer. Think of it as a primitive Windows Movie Maker interface. It's a cool concept and one that capitalizes wonderfully on the flashback idea, especially with attention to details like VHS tracking lines and changing aspect ratios.

Ten years after Life is Strange, Don't Nod Montreal has spent ample time tinkering with that game's original dialogue-driven formula. Lost Records is perhaps the most refined instance of this blueprint to date. Numerous variables have been incorporated, making players much more deliberate in how they approach conversations. Swann can sometimes eavesdrop on some conversations and cut in. While some dialogue options will pop up, new ones can be added by looking around at the surrounding environment. More intriguing is that new options can show up if players wait and allow characters to express their thoughts more fully. In a few instances, however, some dialogue options will close off if players wait too long to answer. Other dialogue options will show up depending on what players find while exploring the world or on how they approached previous conversations with other characters.

It pays to be patient in most instances, but that's not always the case. Is there ever a "right" answer? That's the beauty of this kind of adventure game dialogue system: it's meant to emulate what a real person would do and Don't Nod is inching closer to this concept's perfection. It also gives this game ample replay value, just because the narrative can branch off into some wildly different directions depending on how players choose to approach it.

One last thing to note is that, without giving away spoilers, Lost Records' story didn't entirely go where I expected it to, but there are also enough loose ends in place that I'm interested to see what happens in Tape 2. One negative is that Tape 1 feels like it ends almost too abruptly, going from setting an atmosphere and inching towards a climax only to throw out the dreaded "To Be Continued" tease almost out of nowhere. There's also no real preview for the game's second half, giving players nothing to latch onto between now and its release in April.

Having said that, there's enough in Tape 1 to get me excited for what's next. Don't Nod Montreal has always been about telling a grounded, real-world story with just enough supernatural stuff in there to make one wonder if things are about to take an otherworldly turn. That definitely happens in Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, where life just keeps getting stranger.

These impressions are based on a Steam code provided by the publisher. Lost Records: Bloom & Rage's Tape 1 will release later today on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S for $39.99 USD. Tape 2 will release on April 15 for no extra charge. A full review will be posted upon the release of Tape 2. The game is rated M.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?