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Tape 2, Take 2

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1 was a OK experience. As I did review it giving a score of 4/5 and saying it was “a lukewarm, but a solid experience”, “it took until the very end until something interesting happened” and “leaving me hanging until part 2 comes out”. Yes, these emotions and feelings I had before continuing the game and its story. I truly wanted to know what will happend to the characters and how the whole game will end. Well, now I know. Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2 was released on April 15, 2025 and I played this through using PS5 Pro.

Plot

Shortly, in Tape 1 four friends Kat, Autumn, Nora and the main character Swann, goes to the woods to film a music video, when something out of ordinary happens. They’ll find ever mysterious Abyss, a glowing hole in the ground. This will leave them shook and after 27 years they sit down and think about all that took place in the summer of 1995. The story continues in Tape 2 as it was left in a cliffhanger at the end of Tape 1. The story gets more interesting and it was paced better than in Tape1 and the ending was good.

Gameplay, controls, audio and visuals

The gameplay in Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2 is quite straightforward, focusing primarily on its narrative. Players take on the role of the protagonist, Swann, navigating through interactions with other characters and environments. They engage in dialogue choices and utilise a camcorder to document various locations.

Controlling Swann is quite straightforward, too. It primarily involves actions like walking, sprinting, exploring the surroundings, gathering items, and capturing footage. Given that it falls within the narrative adventure genre, the gameplay and controls are intentionally kept simple.

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2 is fully voice acted, just like Tape 1. Citing my review of Tape 1 “the characters are kinda annoying and the voice acting is one reason why. The dialogue was either just badly-written, badly acted or just both.” Yes, this is still my opinion about the game. But the music is very good.

Visually Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2 looks good. It is stylised for sure, not going in any too realistic direction. I liked the camcorder and I did use it a lot. This camcorder feature allows players to capture footage that unlocks new memoirs, accessible through the menu for deeper exploration of the story. But there were some issues with the graphics. The game ran perfeclty, but there were some intense scenes ruined by graphical bugs.

Cut!

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2 tied everything nicely together. The story was good and I liked it a lot. I did enjoy the gameplay more in Tape 2 than in Tape 1 as it didn’t felt so mundane. Now that the whole game is available I do recommend you to try this one out if you like narrative adventure genre.

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is available on PS5 (reviewed on PS5 Pro), Xbox Series X|S and Windows.

(Review copy kindly provided by the publisher)

SCORE:

4/5

“…after 27 years they sit down and think about all that took place in the summer of 1995”

RELEASE DATE: April 15, 2025
GENRE: NarraTive Adventure
DEVELOPER: Don’t Nod
PUBLISHER: Don’t Nod
PLATFORMS: PS5 (reviewed using PS5 Pro)
Xbox Series X|S
Windows

 

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