Some Thoughts on Lost Records: Bloom & Rage
Playing through Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, it made me realize that Dontnod has a niche that they have and they do it well. The young teen interpersonal drama that they started with Life is Strange continues here and it is another franchise that is on solid ground. You have to get get past a few graphical glitches here and there, but the story and drama that ensues is really good.
In Lost Records, we meet our protagonist, Swann. We meet her in the present as she is supposed to meet with a handful of old friends that she knew from the summer of 1995. It seems that a package has been delivered from a friend that is gone, and they are unsure how it came to them all these years later. This has the three of them remembering back to that summer to find out what happened to them, as they all seem to have forgotten what happened. As they go through these memories, we start to find out that something otherworldly might be happening here with the girls.
Lost Records does the bouncing back and forth between the two time periods pretty well. Occasionally, you will here present day characters comment on things that are happening in the past. Time jumps can be a mixed bag when it comes as a story mechanic, but it works well here. You get to see how the decisions you are making in the past influence the interactions that are happening in the present. These informed choices do seem to make for some wild changes in the story.
Dontnod also seems to have made a pretty big engine change here with Lost Records as the characters here seems to express more emotion in their faces and body posture. Gone are the more stylistic graphics that came in Life is Strange. Here, Lost Records is going for a lot more realism in its characters. Here, the emotional expressions that are displayed help build the story and the decisions. When one of the girls betrays the group, you can see the sadness and disgust from the other girls. Or when love starts to bloom, you can see the subtle hints at it in their faces and body movements. I really enjoyed how the new graphics helped with giving more flavor to the game.
What did not make me happy was the graphical glitches that came with the new engine in Lost Records. Nora, one of the girls that shows up in the present, had this weird hair glitch happening that would be very distracting. Her hair would just bounce at the shoulder. At another point in the game, a major glitch happened where the characters started to shake on screen, or disappear. This is happening in a rather large climax of a scene near the end of the game and kills the moment. I know that graphical glitches can be a thing with new engines, but this game has been out for several months and it seems like it could have been fixed by now.
Even with the weird glitches that happened, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage really is a great experience to play through. Seeing the choices that you make start to influence all the different choices was a lot of fun. It also seems to capture the spirit of a group of girls forming a close bond. Even when the game moves into the more sci-fi elements and otherworldly oddities, it still seems to find a way to be grounded. I hope that Dontnod comes back to this series to put together another entry, as it yearns to have its story continued.
