MIZZURNA FALLS

Mizzurna Falls is a 1998 PlayStation adventure game developed by Human Entertainment. Heavily inspired by cult classic TV show Twin Peaks, the game follows high schooler Matthew Williams as he searches for his close friend, Emma Roland, who has gone missing. Notable for its unique blend of open-world gameplay, a real-time clock that sees NPCs and events following their own schedules, emphasis on exploration, and elaborate action sequences, Mizzurna Falls is considered a forerunner to later titles such as Deadly Premonition, Shenmue, and Majora's Mask. However, Mizzurna Falls was on the bleeding edge of technology at the time, and its ambitious open-world was ultimately too much for the PlayStation to handle, resulting in a number of bugs.

This patch represents a supreme effort by Evie, Nikita, and Cirosan, across three countries and over a period of many months and years, to bring this revolutionary game to Western audiences. Welcome to Mizzurna Falls - we've been waiting for you.

~ from the translation notes

The free-roaming open-world 3D adventure was an exciting prospect at the turn of the millennium. Whispers of what the new Grand Theft Auto would be was already riling up the gaming community and just before the 90s came to an end Shenmue wowed Japanese DreamCast owners leaving us English speakers salivating over its western release the next year. But what if I told you this technically impressive new way to play had already been done? Yes, in 1998 Human Entertainment gave us Mizzurna Falls for the PlayStation.

Mixing in a murder mystery and the unnerving small-town Americana of Twin Peaks, Mizzurna Falls was a title that has intrigued me for some time, if only I could play it. Only the Japanese had a chance to spin its black disc leaving me and my lack of language skills wanting. Then, almost a decade ago now, a paper translation did the rounds thanks to a uber-fan named ResidentEvie. She even uploaded a full playthough on YouTube with the translated script subtitled in post. It wouldn't be until March of last 2021 until it was finally adapted and patched into the actual game by a duo calling themselves Nikita and Cirosan. Colour me excited!

Your inventory holds a lot of useful items, including a backpack and a cellphone (left).
The map is also found here, and is very useful to find your way around the falls (right).

Then I got to playing the game. Technically, it is a marvel. It attempts things most thought impossible for the 32-bit machine; an open world, a real-time clock with NPCs each having their own scheduled events and character relationships that change depending on user decisions - it seems too good to be true. Now that I've played it, I realise that it perhaps is. The game is plagued with bugs, strange design choices and poor controls marring a horror game that had so much promise.

Let's discuss the bugs. There are the odd graphical glitches and camera angles that don't quite hide the coding behind the curtain. At some points, if you angle the camera just right, you can see NPCs hugging walls waiting for their animation code to kick in. Even the static angles in some of the in-game cinematics are guilty of this. This isn't a deal breaker and in some aspects adds to the uncanny nature of the town. It didn't bother me as much as the complete disintegration of the entire universe. When driving - which is a tricky prospect on its own - it is not uncommon to fall beneath the tarmac glitching the game into a nightmare of angular polygons. This isn't an animation or patch issue either as by all accounts this does happen on original hardware and software too. It's caused by the car moving too fast for the environment meaning you'll reach the destination before the destination has loaded. On an emulator, it a little less game-breaking as the rewind feature helps you reset the world, but on physical hardware a soft reset and a potential lost save would be required. A maximum car speed would solve the issue, but instead it will accelerate infinitely if you let it. Unacceptable.

Context-sensitive icons are assigned to the square and circle buttons. Here, you can "eat" or "talk" (left).
When the icons are in the centre of screen, it generally means a permanent choice must be made (right).

From a design perspective, the game is also a missed opportunity. Story wise, it grabs you almost immediately with its premise. A small rural American town is beset by tragedy on Christmas Eve when a mauled teenager is discovered in the forest nearby. As typical teenager Matthew, you are drawn into a mystery as you find out one of your old school friends was with her and is now missing. The dead girl was seemingly attacked by a wild animal but something seems off by this explanation and hints of the supernatural soon come into play. Like any average jock, you take it upon yourself to investigate.

You better know exactly what you're doing and where you're going if you want to get the best ending as the clock is ever ticking... and it is punishing. Wrestling with the controls and the bugs are all the worse when you have a strict time frame in which to meet that woodsman or attend that funeral wake. It's not like Shenmue where you can wait around until you can trigger the event again - once it's missed it will be missed forever. I understand what they were going for - a ticking clock adds tension - but there's no easy way to tell how much time you have to do anything. You can open up your menu and select it that way, but the seconds wasted here could mean the difference between success and failure. What's worse, if you miss enough of them, you'll be locked out of the mystery. Any clues are forever lost killing forward momentum and confusing the player into a directionless loop so, with or without a walkthrough, it's a chore to play.

As for the controls, well, you put up with them more than you get used to them. At this time in gaming history, Resident Evil-style tank controls were the norm and for the most part the carefully chosen cinematic angles and static pre-rendered backdrops allowed for this. In a free-roaming 3D world it makes less sense. Matthew spins like a startled squirrel when he turns causing frequent taps in the opposite direction to correct yourself. I think the developers knew this too and instead of fixing it, they stuck on the band aid that is side stepping. And don't get me started on the driving controls. You'll hit trees more than you'll hit the road.

Brawling is just like Tekken or Virtua Fight, but bad (left).
Shooting is just a quick-time event (right).

Beyond controlling your character, there are a slew of mini-games too, and the most frequent is the two types of combat; shooting and brawling. When required to shoot, rather that draw your gun, aim and shoot like you would in a traditional Survival Horror, you instead enter a quick time event. Like Shenmue, this could make these encounters more cinematic but in my view they are not more exciting. You have more direct control when brawling which, again like Shenmue, plays more like a one-on-one fighter. You can punch, kick, duck, do all those basic Tekken moves but none of the cool ones.

The adventure side plays much better. You have context sensitive actions assigned to the square and circle buttons which you can cycle between those available to you. It can be as simple as a yes/no response to a conversation, or as knuckle-breaking as punching a window. The full list is detailed in the manual, which I spent way to much time poorly translating for future reference.

You can drive anywhere in the impressive open world (left) although it is a bit
too much for the hardware to handle. Drive too fast and this will happen (right).

It is this adventurous side where the game shines. Clues can be gathered from libraries to be put to good use elsewhere, mauled deer are mulled over and a wake is unceremoniously gatecrashed. The fan translation does a superb job capturing the personality of each character as well as presenting the plot in an understandable way. The first translation was so wordy it apparently wouldn't fit on a PlayStation disk, which is why the patch took so long, but the condensed dialogue doesn't feel truncated or unnatural and false. If you are interested in playing the game, this alone should be enough to convince you to give it a try.

As for me, decades have gone by salivating over screenshots and previews of this Japanese-only game and I was super psyched to finally play it. Sadly, I was left wanting. Don't get me wrong, everyone involved in translating the game has done an amazing job and I'll be forever thankful for their efforts. I can even praise Human Entertainment for attempting something so foolishly ambitious and way ahead of its time, but it pains me to say that Mizzurna Falls doesn't quite come together. In fact, I feel that the story and its translation are the only elements where it does. If you can get past the game's many bugs and flaws you may find yourself taken in by the whole thing. You may even think, like the more recent Twin Peaks-inspired Deadly Premonition, that the jankiness adds to its charm. For me, there are just a few to many annoyances that eclipse those small patches of enjoyment I got out it.
 

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses Retroarch with the Mednafen Beetle PSX, Mednafen Beetle HW PSX and PCSX ReArmed cores to emulate the PlayStation in multiple different ways. X-input controllers supported. Japanese Manual and its English translation (thanks to yours truly) included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 365 Mb.  Install Size: 510 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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Mizzurna Falls is © Human Entertainment
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

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