Lost Records: Bloom & Rage
Back in late 2022, I had just gotten a Steam Deck and was so enamoured with the idea of transforming my gaming experience that I was cleaning up my Steam backlog. After playing through the entire BattleTech campaign, I needed a palatte-cleanser that was light and slow-paced. One of the games in my Steam library was the first episode of Life is Strange, since it is available for free (that’s how they get you). It seemed like a casual breeze so I started playing.
I finished the first episode in a day or two, and I needed to keep going. Fortunately, the whole game dropped as a PlayStation Plus monthly game back in 2017, so I already had it in my PlayStation library as well. I installed it on my PS4, installed Chiaki on my Steam Deck, and happily replayed the first episode on my way toward finishing the game.
That’s a lot of backstory to say, I really enjoyed Life is Strange. I later played the Life is Strange: Before the Storm prequel and found it similarly excellent.
I should say upfront: Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is not a Life is Strange game. Don’t Nod invites the comparison and there’s a shared lineage and mechanics, but this is a standalone story. I mention my history with LiS only to establish that I want these kinds of games to work for me.
Fast-forward to April 2026: Lost Records: Bloom & Rage dropped into PlayStation Plus Extra at launch almost a year ago. It looked pretty great: nineties nostalgia, a coming-of-age story, cool camcorder mechanics, etc. I installed it, meaning to play it, just never got around to it. But when it popped up on the “Last Chance To Play” section of PlayStation Plus, I knew I had to pause season 4 of Bridgerton to do some focused gaming.
I guess I’ll just rip off the band-aid and say, I was overall pretty disappointed by Bloom & Rage. While it had a lot of things I appreciated, I found it underwhelming and it didn’t really draw me in and grip me the way that Life is Strange did. The aesthetics are on point; the game is heavily stylized in a way I found contributed to the nostalgia. The 90s vibes are great, and the characters grew on me after some initial trepidation. And of course, the camcorder mechanics are pretty cool, even if the game mostly uses it for optional collectibles rather than narrative integration.
While I can’t personally relate to the experience of teen girlhood, I’m definitely here for it and I can appreciate a coming-of-age story set in the 90s. I didn’t get the same attachment to the characters and story that I felt so strongly in Life is Strange. It took me a while to get into the game, but eventually my interest peaked at the climax of Tape 1, then slowly dropped over Tape 2 as the narrative dwindled.
That ultimately left me feeling a little flat. It’s very much a slow burn, but I found it too slow, the pacing was too laid back, and the overall structure and story just didn’t work for me. The game teased at a life-changing mystery, but there wasn’t a satisfying payoff. I just wanted more depth, both in the 1995 summer and in the 2022 present where the women reunite. To be honest, I didn’t really appreciate the dual-timeline structure at all.
My favorite sections of the game were the slice of life scenes with the girls. I grew fond of them over the course of the game and the performances were pretty good. There’s a very relatable quality to their banter, their relationships, the way they grew together. But unfortunately the game rarely converted that vibe into meaningful narrative stakes.
Final thought: Don’t Nod’s signature choices-and-consequences framework returns, and as always it stresses me out about making bad decisions. Here, though, the anxiety feels misplaced: in hindsight, my choices are coloring the scenes without altering their shape. So my advice here is to just play how you want, leave the min-maxing for a second playthrough.