Lost Records: Bloom & Rage – Tape 2 review: "Don't Nod's new coming-of-age series ends with teen defiance and queer rage"

The last we saw of our teenage girl gang (in our Lost Records Bloom & Rage – Tape 1 review), things had taken a turn for the worse. After putting on a punk concert in the local dive bar's car park – an outpouring of unashamed anger and teen angst met with disgruntled bar patrons – one of the girls, Kat, coughs up blood and gets rushed to the hospital. Swann, Autumn, and Nora are left in the empty lot, shaken by the discovery of what their friend has been hiding from them. Just a moment ago the four had been unstoppable, but this revelation changes everything.

Just like Life is Strange, the series that put Don't Nod on the map, Lost Records is split into episodes, and Tape 2 is the fallout of the first tape's crescendo. As each tape's title suggests, Tape 1 was the Bloom of a newfound friendship, and Tape 2 brings the Rage. It's a little rough around the edges, but the conclusion of Lost Records is everything I wanted it to be: full of heartbreak, gay kissing, dreamy pop ballads, and supernatural scares. As a finale to Don't Nod's new teen drama series, it's magnificent. Break out the waterproof mascara for this one, girlies.

Tape 2 follows the same structure as Tape 1. We see Swann and friends as teens during the 90s and also as adults in the present reminiscing on the summer they all met. This reunion 27 years later has been prompted by a mysterious package addressed to them all, its contents threatening to dredge up a past they would rather forget. There's a palpable tension between the women as the mystery of why they promised as teens to never meet again after that fateful summer slowly comes into focus.

The past has its invisible tendrils curled around them, and this meeting - which in the first episode signified a step towards healing - might actually be the opposite. In Tape 1, we saw these snippets of the present as an ominous sign of what's to come, but now we see a group of women who all have their own - often conflicting - ways of dealing with their shared traumatic past.

It's excellent drama, and is just the first of many incredible ways Lost Records depicts the friendship dynamics of women, especially teen girls. Tape 1 was filled with the girls goofing around, angsty band practice, and dreamy sunsets. This tape is different. We see the gang get angry, rebellious, and even violent. The ominous pit the girls find in the woods has them firmly in its grip, and its power is beginning to seep into their lives. Lost Records understands that teen rage, especially from a group of girls fueled by a supernatural force, is fierce, and beautiful.

Grrrl Power

The girls' fraught relationship is heightened by the game's decision-making dialogue system. In the first tape, I felt there were no 'wrong' answers, feeling at ease picking dialogue options even when my opinion differed from the gang's. Here it's different. The situation has changed. In Tape 2, I really did feel like I was messing up my responses. I was a teenager again, not sure how to help, or what to say to make things better. There's a moment where Swann and Autumn have a conversation about the car park concert. We feel differently, she regrets the whole thing, but I don't. I bumble through my choices and pick dialogue options in a panic. I want to tell her how I feel and stick to my convictions but am also scared about pushing her away. It's heartbreaking.

It feels intentional on Don't Nod's part, and incredibly evocative. In this episode, the game continually pushes you out of your comfort zone. It perfectly communicates that friendships are messy and complicated. You might say the 'wrong' things, or get an outcome you didn't want, but it's always in service to the story. The game has multiple endings based on your choices, but, surprisingly, none of them feel particularly like 'good', 'bad', or 'true' endings, which is quite the feat.

Teenage dirtbag

Even though we're well into the story by Tape 2, poking around environments is still a great way of learning extra story details. There are some new spaces to explore, but you also return to several of the same places from Tape 1. These familiar spaces house the same objects you've seen before, but given the story, they take on a more melancholy meaning.

The girl's woodland cabin, once filled with vibrant energy, is now cold and somber when Swann visits alone. Swann's own bedroom – which she's still packing away getting ready for her big move to Canada – constantly reminds you of a lost future. A note on a paperback book from Autumn thanks Swann for lending her the book, and you know you won't be able to share books in the future. Swann's calendar, full of gel pen scribbled activities the girls planned that Summer, is now a reminder that you won't get to do them anymore.

The camcorder takes on a new meaning too. Instead of goofing around making music videos, or recording whatever Swann finds interesting, it's now a time capsule to remember. Looking back on what I've recorded in the game's camcorder menu is bittersweet. The girls in the recordings don't know what's coming. What I chose to record in Tape 1 is different from Tape 2.

Before, I would try and capture more of the environment, building a portrait of a place. Now, it's purely about recording the girls. Close-ups of faces, quiet moments in fairy-light bedrooms, and candid shots of the gang – my perspective has totally changed. I look back and wish I had recorded certain moments differently and focused on different things. It's a time before everything went to shit, for both the girls but also me as a player. It makes my heart ache.

Something different in Tape 2 is that the camcorder is used in a more 'gamey' way. At one point you need to record a string of numbers, and then you can watch what you've recorded back to use those same numbers to unlock a gate code, which is cool. However, other experimentation doesn't quite land.

At one point biker jackass Corey hijacks the camera, and we see the girls running away from him through the camera's viewpoint as he gives chase. Controlling Swan, you need to jog away while not being able to control the game's POV. It's a cute call back to the handheld horror genre birthed by The Blair Witch Project, but it's awkward and clunky here. It feels like Don't Nod agrees because after about 30 seconds it quickly gets tossed aside.

Another experimental part of the game is a sneaking section, which is wild for a Don't Nod game. In this part, Swann is trying to sneak into Kat's house through her bedroom window, which is cute in concept, but the result is a half-baked and awkwardly implemented mini-game which feels totally out of place. After several failed attempts, the game quickly moves on, quickly shuffling you to the next scene and pretending you succeeded.

This wouldn't be too bad, almost forgivable, but what left me feeling hollow was the consequence of my failed 'sneaking'. This misstep, in my playthrough anyway, cemented a major decision in the game's 'present' – which I won't spoil here – but it was a big deal. Having the girls make decisions based on my dialogue decisions feels meaningful, but for failing a sneaking section? Gurl, delete it.

Witching hour

Thankfully, these frustrations were few and far between, and thankfully my biggest concern going into Tape 2 was not one of them. One thing that I was worried about when finishing the first episode, was that Don't Nod would try and explain what 'The Abyss' was, or why it was created. But Tape 2 keeps it mysterious and ominous until the very end, which I love.

There's an abstractness to The Abyss, which leaves it open to many different readings. Trauma, bullying, body shaming, the throws of teenagehood – it's a force that threatens to swallow them whole. It's not quite obvious what the girls gain from it, but it's a force made stronger by the group's friendship. When I say 'girl power' in the context of Lost Records, it's not the glossy, faux sentiment that the likes of Katy Perry love to capitalize on. I'm talking about young women taking back power because to be a teenage girl is to be powerless.

Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and particularly The Craft – teen girls and the supernatural have a long history together in media, and in the lives of young women and queer kids too. The 'call' of The Abyss isn't predatory, but treats the girls as worthy of its strength. As much as I appreciated what 2023's Goodbye Volcano High explored regarding queer teen drama, it's just so different here. Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is charged with a queer supernatural energy that feels electric. This goes beyond bisexual lighting, folks.

It's why I'm also so happy that Lost Records isn't set in a high school, AKA the teenage hunting ground. By following the girls during the summer, they're free from the conventions, rules, and hierarchies that make up the social fabric of high school. The girls live outside of the high school experience – the skaters, the burners, the nerds – they're bigger than all that. The teens still have to deal with the societal code of a small conservative American town, but setting a coming-of-age story outside of a high school feels incredibly freeing for a teen drama.

That doesn't mean that Swann, Autumn, Nora, and Kat are totally free from the throws of queer teenhood. On the micro level, it's navigating how to express their romantic desires as gay girls, but on the macro, it's being harassed by misogynist, homophobic men. It's an expression of 90s teen queerness that still resonates now. Their answer to this is to draw power from a dark supernatural force, but also from each other. Lost Records makes me believe that the four girls can do, quite literally, anything, which is why it hurts so badly to see how it all ends.

It's rough around the edges in parts, but the overall sentiment is clear. With the story complete, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is dazzling. Female friendship, girl power, sapphic love – it's all here, explored in depth with care and consideration. Together with last year's 1000xResist and 2022's Signalis, the sad sapphic games club is beginning to bulk up. Romance, rainbows, and dreamy sunsets are all great, but we also crave defiance, rage, and violence – and Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is exactly that.

Want to lose yourself in more great narratives? Check out our recommendations for the best game stories!