Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2 Reviews
There's much less game in Tape 2, but a strong narrative conclusion is worth seeing. It won't take long, either.
Stronger emotional stakes and faster-paced drama promise an explosive climax that ultimately pulls its biggest punch.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage’s second and final episode is a mostly satisfying conclusion. I just wish it could have had space to do more than just wrap things up.
It's rough around the edges in parts, but the overall sentiment is clear. With the story complete, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is dazzling.
DONTNOD flexes its narrative muscles with an interesting offering that, without any major gameplay innovations, is engaging. While the first film drags on revealing all the cards, the second seems in a hurry to wrap things up quickly (it's half the length). That doesn't stop it from being a game DONTNOD fans will enjoy. The rest...
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Lost Records: Bloom and Rage pays tribute to 90s angst and the riot grrrl rock in a deeply moving coming of age story.
Well, at least I'll still remember this game for the friends made along the way.
A teen drama adventure with a lot of nostalgia and a good atmosphere, but with a lazy script and boring gameplay
Review in Italian | Read full review
Lost Records is a visually gorgeous game and proves that the team who pioneered Life is Strange still have the aesthetic nailed down. Unfortunately this and some smart adaptations of mechanics do little to hide a story that tries in vain to recapture the same energy, managing to totally lose itself by the end. I can see what they were going for here, but that vision is lost in a game that doesn't know what it wants to commit to. A deeply personal story is subsumed by what feels like an obligation to the supernatural. A story about the supernatural is lost in a story about the personal. Neither is done justice and both feel like they deserved more.
The story gives satisfying resolutions to many of the complex, multilayered narrative threads, but some of the more ambitious supernatural elements fail to deliver a full payoff.
The second Tape of Lost Records is a big step up from the first tape with a great conclusion to this coming of age story of a group of friends. Some technical issues still linger here and there, while a very confusing sequel bait ending leaves us with more questions than answers.
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.
With the release of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2, developer Don't Nod's summertime saga has a lot of loose ends to tie up, as ...
Unfortunately, Lost Records is not a good game, but it could be a great movie, if only it was edited differently, with shorter dialogue and without unnecessary sequences. This game tells a very emotional story, but I had a little fun actually playing it.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Really, pretty much all of Lost Records: Bloom and Rage works so well for me. It’s the kind of story I would’ve wanted as a little girl who grew up playing videogames, and the kind of story I want to write someday as a woman who writes videogames.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage - Tape 2 not only fails to conclude its story in a meaningful way, it highlights all the ways the entire story's structure doesn't really work.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a beautifully directed, melancholy tale of friendships forged and lost. Resonant performances and strong visual direction across two vastly different time periods will immerse you in the stakes and drama of Velvet Cove. The journeys of the characters across both parts beautifully render the power of friendship in your youth, and the harsh reality of drifting apart. As is the case with all strong supernatural stories in the New Weird genre, the core story is relatable and human. While some minor narrative stumbles in the ending, with answers that may have better been left unsaid, do detract from the concluding moments, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is not a story to be missed.
If the first episode deserves an 8/10 for its intriguing plot and quite interesting gameplay, the second episode did not meet all the expectations and deserves more like a 6/10. All in all, the game gets a 7/10. It's decent enough, but not comparable to the original Life is Strange.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a quality adventure game that, as a follow-up to the cult classic Life is Strange, perhaps suffers a little from over-expectation.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Don't Nod returns to its roots with a story split between past and present that shines in character development and atmosphere, but suffers from dilated pacing and a rushed resolution to the central mystery.
Review in Italian | Read full review