Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1 Review - Kinda Funny Games Daily 02.18.25
Tue, 18 Feb 2025
Go to http://joinbilt.com/kindafunny to start earning points on your rent payments today. Go to http://factormeals.com/factorpodcast and use code FACTORPODCAST to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. Go to http://get.stash.com/KINDAFUNNY to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. Our review of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1, Shuhei was given an ultimatum at PlayStation, and GTA 6 might be going after Roblox and Fortnite. - Start - Housekeeping Today after, KFGD, you’ll get: GAMESCAST - Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Review The STREAM is us playing 2 sponsored indie games back to back: Monoco 2 and Lost Skies If you’re a Kinda Funny Member: You can get today’s Gregway Thank you to our Patreon Producers: Delaney Twining, Karl Jacobs, OmegaBuster, & Karin Lindner The Roper Report - - 'Lost Records: Bloom & Rage' (Tape 1) Review - Ad - Shuhei Yoshida says he had to take PlayStation’s indie role or leave - Jordan Middler @ VGC - GTA 6: Rockstar is reportedly planning Roblox/Fortnite-style user-generated content - Andy Robinson @ VGC - Nintendo is discontinuing Gold Points on the Switch eShop, ahead of Switch 2 release - Ed Nightingale @ Eurogamer - Skater Tyshawn Jones claims to be in upcoming Tony Hawk game remaster - Sal Romano @ Gematsu - Wee News! - SuperChats - You‘re Wrong - Breaking News tease: Netease laid off 'Marvel Rivals' Director and his team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Today's stories include our review of Lost Records Bloom and Rage Tape 1, Shuhei was given an ultimatum at PlayStation, and GTA 6 might be going after Roblox and Fortnite. We'll have all this and more because this is Kinda Funny Games Daily. Yo, what's up? Welcome to Kind of Funny Games Daily for Tuesday, February 18th, 2025. I'm one of your hosts, Blessing Adelie Jr.
Joining me is The Lock, The Tastemaker, Roger Bocorny. What's up?
It's good to see you. First try. First try. First take to be great. Plus, I had a transformative experience last night.
I know. Tell me about it. Of course, I'm a FOMO. I'm somebody that experiences FOMO pretty heavy. And y'all came to me yesterday. Well, Tim came to me and was like, yo, we're going to go watch Captain America.
Yeah.
Like the new one that's in theaters right now.
Yeah.
And I looked at Tim and with Carl Jacobs, right? And it was going to be a very fun time.
Yeah.
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Chapter 2: What did the hosts think of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1?
I wish I had learned you can tell your coming-of-age story about a teenage girl with energy and originality like Labyrinth. I am, despite all of that, looking forward to finding out whether any of it pays off when the second and final part releases on April 15th.
I didn't realize that's what Labyrinth was about.
I haven't seen Labyrinth in a long time. And maybe I need to rewatch it because that was not really tracking with me.
To be fair, I did hop in at the end of the review. So I'm sure there's a lot of set up for the Labyrinth references there. Roger. Oh, hi. I want to start with you. What did you think of Lost Records, Bloom and Rage? Tape one. The first half of the game.
Tape one. Yeah, so this is different than the other Life is Strange games or the release strategy, right? Some of them are just the entire game. Here it is. The other ones were, hey, this is five episodes broken up. This is just two tips. It is one half of the game and the other half of the game. So with just the first half of the game played, I would actually agree more with Graham here.
I would say I would give this game a seven.
out of 10 I don't think I'm as harsh but I do agree with a lot of his points here it takes very a lot a lot of time to get to the point and the drama of this game it is at the core of it a slice of life game until the very very ending of it um and a lot of the drama that it sets up in the first half of this usually in a normal life is strange game would have been contained to just the first episode
Like literally one-fifth of a Life is Strange episode is equivalent to an entire half of this game, if that makes sense. So yeah, it takes a long time, but I will say I was, by the ending of it, into these characters. I felt like them taking the time was very, very on purpose, and it was deliberate, and it feels like Dontnod is trying to buck the trend of Life is Strange on purpose.
to, I think, varying degrees of success. I don't think that this is just them taking their time just to take their time. They're trying to be like, hey, we made Life is Strange. We created this formula. Now we're going to try to change it up a little bit. But either way, I enjoyed my time. Will it continue to feel by the ending of the next tape like, hey, this is worth my time?
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Chapter 3: How does Lost Records compare to other Life is Strange games?
like a 90s kind of like girl hang yeah uh story uh i think something that i i didn't feel super attached to all of the characters i think where uh life is strange really dials it in is the one-on-one relationships and i think you have a bigger friend group this time and it's harder to have those connection to those characters when you're trying to
make those connections with multiple characters, obviously. So I don't feel as connected to the characters when we have kind of more of those like heart stringy moments. Cause I feel like I'm like, which one were you? And then like figuring out like, oh, well this thing happened, but I really focused on my relationship with you and like that kind of stuff. So that's the part that I kind of,
was iffy on the music I think is great I did not like the double exposure like mechanic of the last Life is Strange game I think the camera stuff on this worked for me because I love collectibles and like the way that they have it listed of like you have all these tapes that you're making because you're doing this like
amateur filmmaking thing and so they have all of these like you're making a tape for each of your friends and you're making a tape for different locations and characters and things in the forest and stuff and so it tells you like how many more you have for each of those things so put me in the forest with a camera and I'm gonna go find all those dumb birds and all that stuff like I love that um and I think that that I haven't looked at the trophy list but I think that would make me go back and like maybe clean it up a little bit because I could just
through the dialogue and not really care about it but there were some things that i felt like were harder for me to figure out the beginning of the game but once i played more than wasn't big deal yeah what did you think so i got a lot of thoughts it's funny because right before this uh episode i i i finished the the tape one uh on sunday um and after i finished i was like i gotta write down notes i never found the time to write down notes until five minutes before we sat down to record here and as i started typing it just came out like so naturally of like the amount of thoughts i have about this thing
I want to preface by addressing, because I saw some people in chat being like, where's Greg? This is a Greg-ass game. One, I'll say that February, very busy month. So busy. Avowed came out this month. Guess what? Monster Hunter is coming out this month. The dice happened. So Greg is a very busy man. And so he can't be in all places at all times.
But I'll also tell you that all three of us here are very big Life is Strange people. And so you're the... We are part of the crew that you want to hear talk about this game.
I bring that into this to say that I think playing this game right after playing Double Exposure has been a very interesting framing of how I am feeling about it as I am playing through Tape 1 because I almost feel like this is the anti-Double Exposure in the sense of I came into this game thinking it was going to be another Life is Strange, even though it's not Life is Strange in title or IP.
I thought it was just going to be another one of those. And I love those. Right. I think after we reviewed the first half of Life is Strange Double Exposure, one of the things that I said was that playing Life is Strange feels like drinking like a cup of hot cocoa. There's something that is comforting. There's something that is familiar.
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Chapter 4: What are the main critiques of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage?
I think if you're like a photo mode person, you're going to have a lot of fun with this. But if you just like collectibles, you could just record like for some of the things, like the same things 10 times in a row and be done with it. So like it kind of plays to a lot of different play styles. There are some where you have to like, they kind of gate you.
You only get a couple at a time, but I really liked it.
And to loop this back to, like, and my life is strange double exposure thing, right? Like, double exposure, that first half of that game, in my opinion, started so strong, and then it lost me and I think all of us so hard in the second half. So hard. Where this first half of this game, for me, was...
the flip of the first like 80 of tape one i'm like oh man i would stop playing this if i wasn't so invested in this kind of game if i wasn't so down for a don't nod narrative you know like um coming of age story i would have dropped this in hour two but i saw it through and after finishing tape one i'm kind of like yo i could see this picking up really well in the second half of this because they leave things in a really interesting uh place right like i think
this is one of those ones that I could see myself finishing tape two, looking back and being like, oh, the build was worth it.
But here's the thing. Like I finished this, I say positive things about this. I do think it is a solid piece of, a solid first century or first half of this game. But I kind of had the moment where a few days later, I looked at Lianza and I said, this is crazy, but let's say, God forbid, Donut is like, hey, this is a Concord situation. We're refunding all the money.
We're not going to release a tape two. I would be like, cool. Like I'm not, I'm not really, I'm like, I'm done. I'm not dying, and that's the crazy thing about this, is that Life is Strange, at the ending of pretty much every episode, that's how good that game was, or all those games are, is that you're like, fuck, I can't wait, oh my gosh. That's a crazy twist, that's a crazy cliffhanger.
At the ending of the halfway point of this game, there is not that, right? It is very much focused on... Again, everybody like if you're going into this expecting life is strange because of don't know, which I understand the marketing kind of leads that it is that but it's not that remember that this is going to be something that is more character based. It is a slice of life thing.
It is more akin to I think the the Greg Miller games of the world.
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Chapter 5: What are the standout features of the game?
Yeah, the fine arts building, the fab. But here, I am looking around, and I'm like, I can feel the budget here, right?
The areas are way bigger.
The areas are bigger. You're seeing more of them. I think there's a presentation here that works. I do wish that there was a performance mode, because I don't love the frame rate of it. I wish it was...
There's some don't not jank in here. There's some don't not jank. It's charming. I think they updated it because in the beginning when I was playing it, I was having an issue where every single time the camera would cut, there would just be a stutter. And I thought that was so frustrating. I think they've updated that, so I don't think the 1.0 people will have that. But there is the lip syncing.
Lip syncing is rough, right? Lip syncing is rough. I think some of the writing is rough, especially from going from double exposure to this. It's not as human and natural. I look back at double exposure and I'm like, man, For all the faults that game has, I fucking love talking to people. I thought it was so natural.
I've talked to so many real people that talk like people in Life is Strange, for better and for worse. But this one, it's just a little stiffer. And I understand because it's a bunch of 16-year-olds, right? They're awkward. They're weird. But it is just even the adult versions of them are just a little weird.
It reminds me of Life is Strange 1 and the complaints people had with the writing in Life is Strange 1 as well. Which was also a huge positive for a lot of people. But you can tell that these are grown men writing girls, writing teenagers.
See, I don't feel like that at all.
Oh, really?
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Chapter 6: How does the release structure affect player experience?
They didn't give him the ability to move up, or this was like a slow, like, all right, cool, we're going to put you here because we have other people that we want to occupy that role that you're already in, but we're going to continue to... We're going to still, you know, pay you to, like, you know, do a role that we know you're going to like because you're Shuhei, and this is something that fits within your passions.
But it's also... The tough thing about this is, I think... my natural reaction to this headline is to be like you know what the fuck Jim Ryan you know what the fuck PlayStation yeah and I think I still retain that a little bit of like you know what the fuck like you know are you are you screwing over shoe hey guys my god my god like you
I'll throw hands over Shuhei.
But it's also that tough thing of not knowing the behind the scenes enough at PlayStation to know like, okay, but why? Like, why didn't you see Shuhei continuing on with that role?
Was it actually like a demotion or was it like, hey, we have this new initiative. We want a head that people know, right? You're the guy, like you're doing a lot of good stuff, but also you're perfect for this. Put you here. You can make this something bigger than it is right now.
i mean i think that second part is true but also say that is for sure demotion sure like you don't go from president of worldwide studios to then being like okay you're the president of the india initiative yeah for me if i'm shu i'm like damn yeah all right like i'll do it like you know i love this company i love the games like i'll do it but like goddamn you know no i totally i've never heard shu hei say goddamn but you know what i mean
i totally get that but i also think that like again he has done such a great job with uh the indie initiative he has really made this he feels like oh no i'm a leader in this field like he never treated it at least outwardly like this was a demotion like this was lesser than right like he always looked around and said i'm going to bolster everyone around me and make sure that these amazing indie games are seen and heard and gave people voices so yeah i totally get what you're saying yeah but it definitely is a demotion on paper
but also he didn't treat it like an emotion. So I think that's a sign of a good leader right there.
And I do want to shout out a chat from Zillan who said he literally said the status with indie started to improve after he worked on that initiative. The Switch was outselling them with the same indie games by a lot, and now it's more even. I would say I agree with that assessment of...
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