Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is far from the first video game about teenage girls ever made. In fact, it isn’t even the first game from developer Don’t Nod that centers teenage girls. But unlike Life is Strange, Lost Records’ heroines are presented in a more realistic way. Rachel Amber wouldn’t have looked out of place among the cast of Gossip Girl, but the quartet of teens that lead the new ’90s set adventure game look much more like the people you actually knew in high school.
From Acne To Zits
I’ve never cared too much about graphical tech being used to make hyper-realistic characters. Give me a game with vision over a game attempting to replicate 20/20 vision everyday of the week. There’s very little overlap between the games I think are masterpieces and the games that capture the sheer detail of a 4K camera. Sure, I love The Last of Us and Uncharted, but I also love games like Inside and Neon White that aren’t aiming for anything resembling reality. What matters most is always going to be art style, and ‘wow, you can see the pores on this character’s face!’ is not a compelling art style in and of itself.
Well, unless the pores are clogged, I guess. As I played through Tape 1 — the first of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage’s two planned chapters — I was struck by its willingness to present its teenage characters as actual teenagers, with all the physical flaws and blemishes that entails. Of the four main girls in Lost Records, two have notable acne. Nora Malakian, the wild one in the friend group, has inflamed patches on her cheeks that she covers up with blush. Autumn Lockhart’s skin is darker and her acne is less noticeable, but she also has bumps on her cheeks.
Related
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Is A Necessary Evolution For Adventure Games
Don’t Nod reworks its own formula.
Two of the girls, Swann and Kat, have clearer complexions. But Kat is facing her own invisible demons and Swann has other body image issues. In the 2022 timeline, she can make a preemptive joke about how she was chubby and awkward, showing that you don’t leave the person you were in high school behind completely, even decades later. She voices that self-consciousness in the past, too, and it physically hurt me to hear her called “fatso” by some twentysomethings her friend group has run-ins with.
Teenagers Rarely Look Like Teenagers
We see teenagers in media all the time. Teen shows, like Riverdale and The OC and Dawson’s Creek and Beverly Hills, 90210, have been a staple of TV for decades. But realistic portrayals of what it looks and feels like to be a teen are a lot rarer — especially since most of those casts include actors well into their twenties.
I’ll never forget when I found out that Jason Earles, the actor who played Hannah Montana’s older (but still teenage) brother, Jackson, was 30 during the show’s second season.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem got some attention in 2023 for its increased focus on the “Teenage” part of the equation, with the turtles being more goofy, youthful, and annoyingly hyperactive than in past movies. They had always canonically been teenagers, but that film thought through what that meant more seriously (and cast actual teens and let them riff with each other). That means some jokes will get a little cringey with age — like the turtles using the word “rizz” — but that’s okay. Being a teenager is cringey.
With Tell Me Why and its two Life is Strange entries, Don’t Nod has made multiple games about teenagers and young adults in the past. But comparing the presentation of the teen girls in Lost Records to the teen girls in Life is Strange reveals how much of a step this is. Added graphical texture can be used to make perfectly beautiful people, sure. But I’m glad Don’t Nod used it to show us teens who actually look like teens.
Next
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage – Tape 1 Review: Windows To ’95
Don’t Nod’s ’90s-themed return to adventure games is more than nostalgia bait.