Lost Records is such an insanely beautiful game to me. I just haven’t felt as much from a game as I’ve felt from this in so long. Of course the supernatural elements are important but it’s the simplicity that gets me.
You play as a lonely girl with body image and general self-esteem issues. She meets 3 girls, all queer and all romanceable. No male love interests. It’s the best summer of her life and it’s going to end. Swann, Kat, Nora, and Autumn all wish for it not to end and it still does. Swann is running out of time in Velvet Cove and Kat is running out of time. They genuinely love each other within their little bubble—there’s no talking behind one another’s backs, no backhanded comments. They all support each other.
They talk about missing their childhoods when everything was easier. They talk about things like periods and hygiene products casually, something I literally haven’t even seen from a game up until now. Autumn talks about all the pressure she feels to be the perfect minority in a conservative majority white town—she’s always trying to keep the girls out of trouble because or else she’s suddenly responsible in the eyes of others and she takes that to heart. Nora is this neglected child who’s constantly trying to fill that void and it’s so heartbreaking to watch. Kat is maybe the most insane of all because there’s something so visceral about how angry she feels, trapped in a tiny, conservative nothing town in a family she fights against day after day for nothing because she’s here to die. And there are all these little seemingly insignificant details that are hallmarks of wlw culture, especially in the 90’s!! The Riot Grrl scene (specifically Bikini Kill) the Emily Dickinson reference, even a statement as simple as “If I was a boy, I’d kiss you.” The teenagers talk like real teenagers. And in the adult timeline, the pandemic actually fucking exists! It’s a part of the background! They talk about how it impacted their lives, especially Swann as an isolated, socially anxious and most likely neurodivergent person!
There’s such a sense of togetherness and loneliness all at once, hope and hopelessness. It’s realistic despite the supernatural aspect. It’s life. It’s beautiful and it’s unfair. It’s joyful and it’s furious. It’s finding someone who understands you with the knowledge that it will be ripped from you. But the injustice doesn’t take away the fact that it happened.
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