Don't Nod's adventure games have a familiar formula by now. They are characters who are on the higher end of their teenage years, so they have an idea of what's going on but still have room to figure things out. There's a rural setting. There's a soundtrack that evokes the feeling of an indie movie from the early 2000s. Someone has some personal trauma they're trying to deal with, and there's a tinge of something supernatural to keep things interesting. The formula isn't bulletproof, but it works most of the time. Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is the latest adventure game from the developer, and it's the first title from their Montreal studio. The game has promise for the future, but the start is clunkier than expected.

The game is split into two episodes called "tapes," and in both episodes, you play the role of Swann Holloway. The game starts in your hometown of Velvet Cove, Michigan in the year 2022. You're meeting up with some friends who you haven't seen in 27 years, and it concerns a package addressed to Bloom & Rage, the band you formed in the summer of 1995. From there, you'll get flashbacks to when you were getting close to moving to Vancouver and you met these friends for the first time, ultimately leading to the discovery of a mysterious chasm out in the woods.

The story's main characters, the quartet of girls who form the friend group, initially seem like they'd slot in perfectly with expected tropes. There's the optimistic Autumn, Nora the rebellious punk, Kat feels trapped in a small town, and Swann is trying to enjoy everything before her inevitable life change. As the story moves along, each girl becomes more endearing and fleshed out beyond those aforementioned archetypes. Their dialogue sounds exactly what someone of the era would say without feeling like their lines are overly scripted or off the mark. The same applies to the 2022 setting, where the characters are more beaten down but still carry some of their teenage traits. Don't Nod has a knack for creating good protagonists and antagonists, and that streak continues in Lost Records.

The story gives the characters some very good opportunities to shine. Just hanging out in the woods and watching sunsets will give you the same feelings as a typical "coming of age" film. Scenes where the band is making music and music videos evoke the goofing off that teens are wont to do. The bad conclusion to their impromptu concert and eventual setbacks show the pain and eventual anger each person is going through. As far as moments go, the story has them.

Like many of Don't Nod's previous titles, Lost Records comes wrapped up in a gorgeous presentation. The graphics are excellent all around, with the vegetation in particular looking very lush. The character models and animation are also good, and the lighting in various situations brings out the beauty of the small Michigan town. Meanwhile, the sound is good as usual, with some excellent voice acting and a soundtrack that properly evokes a mix of soulful tunes and punk ballads from indie groups that feel at home in a small indie movie.

All of this sounds great on paper, but there are a few things that significantly drag down the tale. The first thing is the pacing. The first tape goes with a very slow-burning story, and the big revelations only occur when the tape ends. The second tape goes through the ugly aftermath and eventual conclusion. The second tape goes through all of this rather quickly without providing enough time for things to sink in. Big events happen at a rapid pace, so there's a good chance that you'll be numb to what happened by the time the end credits roll. This isn't exactly intended, considering everything that occurs in that final tape.

That feeling of dissatisfaction also comes about because the last moments of the game only set up an eventual sequel. Without spoiling anything, the chasm found in the forest near the end of the first tape plays a bigger role in the second tape — but not in a way that anyone expects. You question why no one else has noticed this, and similar questions arise when the final action occurs. This creates a very open-ended cliffhanger that feels unearned, since the back half of the story is so rushed.

From a gameplay perspective, the formula largely remains unchanged when compared to the studio's older titles. You'll enter a whole bunch of different environments where you can do limited exploring. You'll gather up key items that have a purpose either immediately or a little later. You'll see plenty of voiced cut scenes and get a good number of dialogue choices to shape the different story branches. For a dialogue-heavy adventure game, this has been the expectation for quite some time.

There are a few things that Lost Records does to shake up the formula a little. The first has to do with dialogue choices. There are moments when you're presented with a choice, but not everything is revealed yet, and the space for a mystery choice is left blank. If you wait things out, the mystery choice will eventually reveal itself after the correct piece of dialogue or action has played. The mechanical tweak is neat, but it requires fast decision-making and reading comprehension. Almost all of your choices are still governed by a timer, and there's no option to disable that timer.

The other cool element has to do with your camcorder. While item searching is still a thing, most of those expected sections have been replaced with ones where you take out your camcorder and take short clips of everything around you, such as your cat or other animals or some curious scrawls on a wall. The clips can be edited for viewing later, but they're not essential to the story. Still, it's a neat feature to have as an alternative for gathering collectibles.

If you plan to play the game on the Steam Deck, the experience is good enough. The game hits the device's screen resolution of 1280x800 just fine, while the game defaults to low settings in almost all areas. Except for a few odd shadows and textures, the game still looks great on the small screen. The frame rate hits a 30fps high with drops in some heavier areas, but it's nothing debilitating considering how this is a slower-paced title. Battery life also fluctuates wildly depending on the scene, but you'll get an average of around three-and-a-half hours on a full charge on the LCD version of Valve's device. For those running on a Linux PC, the game also runs just fine with no need for extra tweaking or command line augments to get a full resolution range.

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a game that's saved by its characters. Their personalities are as fleshed out as we'd expect from a Don't Nod adventure game, they're the driving force in getting you through the story. The presentation is top-notch as usual, and the tweaks to the choice system give the game enough room to feel a little different from the studio's past adventures. It's just too bad that the story isn't paced so well, and the tale feels like a setup for something bigger in a future game rather than something that is more self-contained. The game is still fairly enjoyable if you know what you're getting into, but don't expect the title to feel as complete as others, like the first Life is Strange or Tell Me Why.

Score: 6.5/10