Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2: Rage Review - A Summer to Forget
Author's note: This is a review that has been continued from Tape 1. It does not contain spoilers. For more detail on gameplay and to read additional thoughts on Lost Records you can check out our review of Tape 1 here.
Swann, Autumn, Nora and Kat are back in Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2 - Rage. And after the cliffhanger at the end of Tape 1, I was pretty eager to jump back into the game to see how their adventure ends.
For a quick recap, Tape 1 introduces four teenagers Swann, Autumn, Nora and Kat in the year 1995 who become best friends over the course of their summer. In the future, twenty seven years later, Swann is meeting up with her friends despite them having sworn back in 1995, to never see each other again.
Tape 2 kicks off right where it left off at the end of Tape 1 - Swann, Autumn, Nora and Kat in 1995 have just finished their big concert and, after a dramatic finale, are all dealing with the aftermath in their own way. Revealing what happens at the end of Tape 1 would be a HUGE spoiler so I’ll avoid giving any detail, but it is something that is quite traumatic, especially for teenagers so it’s understandable that everyone is shaken up as Tape 2 begins.
As you play through Tape 2, you’ll pick back up Swann’s camera and video tape things, adding them to your collection from Tape 1. Anything that you worked on in Tape 1 will still be there for you to edit and add to. There’s only a handful of places this time around where you’ll have the opportunity to take footage, so you’ll want to take advantage during free roam moments if you want to add to your portfolio.
Tape 2 is heavy on cutscenes, as the girls navigate the trauma of Tape 1’s ending. I found especially the beginning of Tape 2 to be excruciatingly slow moving. All lines of dialogue are delivered as if every word had an ellipsis separating them. Because of this, each cutscene feels like a drag to get through and a few of them felt completely unnecessary. As you progress through the story you’ll learn a little bit more about the characters, but overall most of what happens in Tape 2 is a confusing let down leading to a disappointing ending.
There’s simply something missing in Lost Records: Bloom & Rage as a whole that just made it fall flat for me overall, but especially after finishing Tape 2. Its characters are interesting enough, but I found it impossible to really connect with any of them due to the sheer amount of awkward interactions and dialogue between them all. At times it felt as though the script was written by one too many people and somehow all of the ideas ended up clashing and became disjointed. The supernatural bits add a cool vibe, but none of it is established enough throughout the rest of the story to really make an impact.
I mentioned this in my review on Tape 1, but the issue reoccurs in Tape 2 so I wanted to be sure to mention it. The glitches and bugs are pretty rampant in Tape 2, even more so than the first. Characters blip in and out of existence regularly, some characters that have completely left the scene can be seen in the background floating around, lines of dialogue overlap one another and there are a lot of lip sync issues. I hope that these are things that can be patched in future updates, but they were jarring during my playthrough.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a game that I think will definitely find its audience. And I know that it already has based on how well it has done so far. I enjoyed Tape 1 and was excited to see how the story would play out. I think it’s fantastic that a game with so many strong women as the lead characters has done well. I always crave more games with strong female leads. This game reminds me of being a kid in the 90s, I wasn’t quite a teenager yet, but I was old enough to recognize the styles and items from the time so there is a lovely bit of nostalgia for those of us who grew up in that time. And, I’ll repeat my sentiment from my first review, its soundtrack is incredible. Unfortunately, after finishing Tape 2, I’m disappointed that the finale didn’t hit the way that I wanted it to. It’s bogged down by awkward dialogue and strange storyline choices that don’t really fit. It’s a let down, this time around.
Breakdown
Game Name: Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2: Rage
Developer: Don’t Nod
Publisher: Don’t Nod
Availability: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Game Length: 4-5 hours
Accessibility Options:
Toggle off/on head bobbing in first person perspective and camcorder view
Adjust sensitivity of camcorder view
Control the intensity of secondary movement, noise and sway in camcorder view
Interface text size adjustments
Reviewed on PC
Final Thoughts
Tape 2 of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage was a lot weaker than the first. The story is awkward and slow and certain cutscenes feel unnecessarily drawn out. The story also takes a few weird turns that feel out of place. There are even more bugs and issues this time around that, at times, make it difficult to enjoy the game at all. It’s worth it to play Tape 2 if you connected with the characters in Tape 1 so that you get to have closure, but I would struggle to recommend it to new players because of how disappointed I was with its finale.