Lost Records: Bloom & Rage

[olivermoss]

The first half of the game is out, and the rest will be out in about two months. This is by the people who made the original Life is Strange, I guess the most recent entry in that franchise is by another studio? Life is Strange, Tell Me Why and Lost Records are all DontNod games and by that same group with the studio. It sounds like the game actually takes some jabs at what Deck Nine did to LiS?

Anyway, I've played the first bit, staying ahead of spoilers.


It's good, but very slow paced and sometimes and save points are too far apart. It feels like this was originally going to be at least 3 chapters, because I was about 2/3rds of the way through and it really felt not only like a chapter ending storywise, but also there was a big change in music, leading to an actual song and other structural signpostings. Which made the last 3rd feel very weird.

There are a lot of things that imply choices that matter, but the game is very linear so far. I've peeked at a few streamers to confirm my suspicions. The second half might have all these choices play out, and honestly that would be a great way to structure an episodic game: make people lock choices and not see what happens for a while. I really hope that's what's going on, because Tell Me Why was so much more dynamic.

Vibes-wise, it's depictions of the 90s in granular detail is insane. I remembered shit I haven't thought about in years. Would recc based on that alone.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

I'm impressed at things that really nail the details of recent history, in part because I can so easily recognize when things are off, but even when I think back to things in my own life, my recollection of what things happened at what point in relation to each other can be hard to sort out. So it impresses me when it's done well.

Though interesting about the pacing and the fact that it feels a bit like maybe there were supposed to be more pieces than they wound up with.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, especially since it's not a era that's used as often as the 80s. Some impressive work went into the game.