If David Lynch had written The Craft and all four girls had loved each other—instead of being evil and manipulative—sprinkled in some mystery, and neon aesthetic from the 90s, you’d get Lost Records: Bloom & Rage. And I mean this all in a very, very good way. I want to start by saying that Bloom & Rage was a therapeutic experience for me, and I believe other Don’t Nod and Life is Strange fans will feel the same.
It is difficult for me not to make any direct comparisons to the Life is Strange franchise because all the gameplay enhancements give me that constant thought of “what could have been.” Bloom & Rage kicks things up a notch by focusing on individual relationships and how each dialogue choice affects them in addition to your actions and outcomes, as opposed to just your actions and consequences. I played this game twice for this review and plan on playing it a third time. Honestly, I feel like you have to play it at least five or six times to really get the majority of possibilities and combinations, but unfortunately, you only get three save slots.
The game has a backend metric system that keeps track of your relationship levels with each of the three main characters. It kind of reminded me of The Sims. You talk to a Sim with similar interests and your relationship meter increases by a few points. If you get into an argument or disagree on something, you lose points. The interesting thing about Bloom & Rage is you can say something that can increase your bond with one person while simultaneously decreasing your bond with another. So choose wisely—it appears that there is no such thing as a perfect run, here.
Speaking of choosing wisely, time is incredibly important. While time was of the essence in Life is Strange, and you could rewind it in the first installment, time seems to pass in real time. When you’re in Swann’s (the main protagonist) room, you’ll notice an alarm clock on her nightstand that you can examine. The more time you spend in her room, the more time passes by. If someone tells you to hurry up and you fool around looking at other things before interacting with them, you may lose out on an opportunity.
I accidentally noticed that time can truly affect the outcome of situations, even small environmental cases. There was a scene towards the beginning in a bar in the present time; I was sending an email and hadn’t paused the game, so time was continuing to pass, and other characters were conversing and doing other things. I then walked to the other side of the bar where I was spoken to by other patrons and given an option to engage in small talk.
My network was annoying and it was the start of the checkpoint so I rebooted the PlayStation 5 as well, but this time I didn’t wait and started walking a lot sooner. The small talk never happened because the opening in the conversation between the two patrons had yet to occur.
This made everything feel very real, and it was incredibly easy to lose myself in the environment. Which brings me to a point that might turn off some folks: Tape 1 is a slow burner. Its purpose is to get you invested in the girls and familiar with the origin story. To develop the relationships and who you want Swann to be. Personally, I didn’t mind this at all and loved it. To me, the pacing is well done and evened out—something I feel Life is Strange 2 suffered from: when it was up, it was up. When it was down, it was down. Tape 1 was like opening a perfect Reese’s peanut butter cup. No cracks or divots. Just a perfect, smooth, delicious treat.
A lot of that is thanks to the memoirs. Instead of collecting polaroid pictures like you did in Life is Strange, you’re collecting video clips with your camcorder. There are story memoirs and collectible memoirs. An example of a collectible memoir is finding fifteen different types of birds in the wilderness. You can rush these things if you don’t care (if you want to do them at all), or you can take your time with them and have fun with it, because these things get put together in little mini films of your footage you get to watch.
This means literally no playthrough will ever look the same. You can choose all the same dialogue choices and actions, but your film clips will never be identical. I’m really excited to see what kind of content is going to pop up on social media surrounding this. It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of stuff the community creates in-game and posts online. Everyone has a different idea of what is artistic, or what a certain type of film should look like. Bloom & Rage allows anyone to show their version of what that is and that’s really fucking cool.
In regards to the memoirs and collectibles comes my biggest gripe though. In the camcorder mode, you’ll see gray frames around memoir (both story and collectible) items to film. There’s a small checkmark in the corner if you’ve already collected that specific item (you can still film it again and edit the footage later), and it’ll tell you the category and how many of that category you’ve collected. These can be hard to see, and I do wish there was an accessibility setting for those with low vision to be able to better enjoy the game. Some might welcome it as a challenge to find these things amongst the lush and detailed environments, but I worry it will be a roadblock for many others.
Graphically, I was overall very impressed and only noticed one thing I felt could use tweaking and improvement. It is possible this could be addressed in future patches (and possibly better on PC), but in regards to the facial motion capture, the mouth movements weren’t always accurate to the spoken words. It felt a bit stiff in most scenes, which was surprising considering how well the rest of the faces were done.
One of my favorite details was the eyes. Not just the movements and the way the facial muscles around them moved to make expressions and emotions feel organic, but how they actually looked. I did a lot of interesting facial closeup shots in my character highlight memoirs, and in the present-day scenes, you are playing in first person, so your conversations with other people feel more personal, and look how a real conversation would.
You’re free to look around while these conversations happen too, which made it more engaging for me. I’m not the type of person to just look someone in the eyes throughout a whole conversation—I’m always aware of my surroundings. There are a few emotional cinematic cutscenes that focus on the eyes as well, and they were just really well done. It’s a bit difficult to explain, but hopefully, when you play Tape 1 for yourself, you’ll understand what I’m trying to convey.
There were plenty of other things that stuck out to me, too. I felt the lighting was beautifully done; with the way time passed, and how you spent a lot of time in lush, forest environments, the way the sunlight came through the foliage was stunning. It was peaceful, and relaxing. And on the opposite side of that spectrum, using the camcorder’s flashlight in night scenes made me feel like I was out in the dark with just a small light source. The light bounced off different materials (concrete, wood, etc.) as they would in real life, and that reflected in camcorder mode. For example, if you were filming too close to a concrete pole at night, you’d see a bit of overexposure in your footage.
Time passing was shown in objects, too. I honestly can’t remember a game I’ve played in recent years where it was shown this naturally (in terms of pace—like how in Final Fantasy XIV you go from having a full plate of food, to half full, to then totally empty). In the present time, you eventually get drinks with another person (you do have a choice in what drinks you get). I chose carbonated beverages. When I sat down at the table and looked down at them, I noticed plenty of bubbles fizzing and making their way to the top, just like a freshly poured carbonated beverage would in real life. Later on, after another flashback and jumping back to the present, the drinks were half finished and time had clearly passed by. The bubbles had slowed down a bunch, and the ice had partially melted. Maybe I’m aging myself, but details like that are really interesting to me.
If you like picking stuff up and examining the hell out of it, you’re in luck. Bloom & Rage has all sorts of stuff for you to look at. From books to keys to toys to candy bars and so much more, pick it all up. Look at it, zoom in, zoom out, spin it around. A lot of work went into these things—the good lighting carries over to this (I had too much fun examining a CD), and the textiles look really good.
I also appreciated the small detail of sound added to the examining feature. If you picked up keys, they’d jingle as you spun them around. If you picked up a piece of paper, you’d hear the crinkle as you flipped it over to the other side. Subtle details, but again, small things to keep you lured into the experience as a whole.
There is a scene in present-day where you’re on the phone with someone, and you can pick up a wide variety of things during this conversation. I, being the ADHD person that I am, absolutely examined everything in my vicinity during this scene. The person on the other end had actually commented, saying they heard me fiddling with something. On my second playthrough, I decided not to pick anything up, and just look around at everything. Lo and behold, no comment was made, and the conversation went just a tad bit differently. If you play twice (I highly recommend you do), you’ll most likely have moments like these where like me, you’ll be sad there are only three save slots because you have to wonder: how far does each dialogue tree go?
The sounds in the environments are just as well done. In areas with other people, conversations will go on regardless of how close or far away you are. The triggers here seem to be time, not distance to an object or character. So as you turn the camera, or walk behind or further away from a building, the sounds of the other voices will adjust accordingly. It’s very dynamic and makes the game come to life.
On the topic of sound, if you’re even slightly concerned about the soundtrack, don’t be (has Don’t Nod ever let us down?). Don’t Nod put together a soundtrack that’ll make any Gen X or millennial feel like it’s July 1995 all over again. Waving some magic wand (I was very excited to see and hear this), they got Ruth Radelet, Nat Walker, and Adam Miller—former members of the Chromatics—to get back together specifically for this project, in addition to Canadian electropop duo Milk & Bone and Canadian punk band Nora Kelly Band. It’s a blast, and it feels good.
As I always love to tell people when they ask me what kind of music I’m into: “shit that sounds like it’s from a Life is Strange soundtrack.” And to whoever put the Nine Inch Nails references in there: I salute you. May all your French fries come out warm and perfectly salted.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1 does a fantastic job of making you feel like you’re in some tiny town in the Upper Michigan peninsula in 1995, and it handles the time jumps really well. They happened when I felt like they needed to, even in certain areas where they were shorter and more frequent. I think folks who lived through and remember that time will especially appreciate it, but I feel those who didn’t will too, especially if they are fans of Life is Strange and Don’t Nod’s other works.
Tape 2 will be a free update that comes out on April 15th, 2025. While I selfishly do not want to wait, I think it’s a reasonable amount of time for people to get in two or three playthroughs at their own pace, and get ready for the conclusion. As I mentioned earlier, Tape 1 is a slow burner, but incredibly well paced. It ends on a cliffhanger, but it does so in a way that made me realize Tape 1 was truly setting the foundation for the chaos that is yet to come.
If you’re a fan of story-driven games with interesting characters and high replay value, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a no-brainer, especially for the price of $39.99. If you take advantage of all the game has to offer, take your time immersing yourself, and exploring the environments, you’ll get some incredible value from it.
I still have a lot of collectibles to go back and grab (reviewing a game always puts you in a bit of a time crunch) on both playthroughs, but I’ve already gotten 28 hours out of it—and I plan on investing a lot more. Don’t Nod Montreal did a fantastic job introducing us to this new world, and I’m very eager to see what’s next.
This review was written based on a digital review copy of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1 for PlayStation 5 provided by Don’t Nod.
