What’s most refreshing about the first installment of Don’t Nod’s Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is its focus on everyday life circa 1995. “Tape 1” has a supernatural hook, but it’s almost beside the point compared to the more important business of getting to know four girls as they form a punk band in their small Michigan hometown of Velvet Cove. Unfortunately, “Tape 2” doesn’t quite validate that observational focus. Not only does it sloppily tie together the first part’s loose ends, its more dramatic developments feel hastily constructed to reach a particular conclusion rather than arriving there naturally.
The story picks up after something of a natural cliffhanger, with the game’s riot grrrl quartet having splintered in the wake of their disastrous DIY concert at the end of “Tape 1.” Swann, our camera-toting protagonist, is grounded. Autumn is generally distant, and Nora is off visiting relatives in Los Angeles. Kat, now revealed to be terminally ill, is in the hospital—which certainly explains her absence from the group’s reunion 27 years later over a strange, still-unopened package wrapped in newspaper that alludes to that fateful summer of ’95. Then there’s the matter of the big, supernatural hole in the forest known as the Abyss.
In essence, by splitting the game in two, the developers at Don’t Nod emphasize the time that the girls have spent apart. There are tutorial prompts to jog our memory of the controls, and several scenes rely upon familiarity with characters and events that we may, in the months since the release of “Tape 1,” no longer have. To “fail” these segments is plausible and even somewhat expected, echoing how the girls have drifted apart and begun to question whether they were as close as they thought they were. You can still pick up Swann’s camera in order to film her surroundings, but there’s less reason to do so, and less magic to it in general. By and large, you’re in locations you’ve already visited, and no longer with the whole group together.
For as intimate and well observed as “Tape 2” can be, it doesn’t effectively build toward its conclusion on a moment-to-moment basis. The higher-stakes drama doesn’t emerge naturally the way the one around the punk show did in “Tape 1,” relying more on the inexplicable influence of the supernatural hole in the forest. There’s a rushed quality to the pacing, with characters being maneuvered where the plot needs them to go just because their eyes start to glow and their voices start to echo. In particular, the hints of nuance to Corey, the jerk boyfriend of Kat’s older sister, wholly evaporate so he can slide into the role of an easy villain.
It’s tempting to lay some of the blame for this installment’s spotty conclusion at the feet of the choose-your-own-adventure structure, which tends to sacrifice thematic coherence for general proof of the player’s decision-making. The story’s ability to play out in different ways matters more than whether each path feels like a natural outgrowth of the story’s themes or the characters’ motivations. The question of whether the Abyss is malevolent or dispassionate is left open to interpretation but not in an especially satisfying way. In the end, the ambiguities of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage don’t feel intentional so much as a sign of incomplete-ness.
It’s disappointing how “Tape 2” casts the construction of the first installment in a different light. For as much as the first part’s relaxed pace reflects an earnest interest in the daily lives of our main characters, it now feels like a means of kicking the game’s weaknesses down the road to be (hopefully) smoothed out later. Several new mechanics introduced in this installment are duds, as evidenced by one confusing stealth sequence and a chase scene that outright doesn’t work and abruptly skips to the next cutscene. Not only does this installment end with a sequel tease, but it undercuts its characters’ emotional journeys in the process.
But the greatest shortcoming ends up being the game’s fuzzy grasp of its own mythology and how the story should resolve. Lost Records: Bloom and Rage is a wonder of slice-of-life storytelling, but that’s in spite of its supernatural elements rather than because of them.
This game was reviewed with a code provided by Sandbox Strategies.
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