Mizzurna Falls is the closest thing to 'Twin Peaks The Game' before Deadly Premonition, even though I might consider it ambitious for its mechanics and attempt to adapt such a dense plot into a 3D world still on PlayStation. It's difficult to say whether this game will be an enjoyable experience for everyone as it is excessively cryptic and punitive, not to mention the bugs.. It's worth it out of curiosity for us in the West, who only got something similar over 10 years later... and for the very unique aesthetic, of course...

For being more or less a direct rip of Twin Peaks, only set during Christmas in Colorado, Mizzurna Falls has a surprising amount of potential, but falls off the scope of playability all-too-soon due to technical issues and a stricter action timeline than the game cares to inform you. For all its flaws, it's really a labor of love above all else, for the developers AND the fans. You see, Mizzurna Falls didn't even get a western release, likely due to being largely unpolished, and it wasn't until recently that English fan translations started popping up. Honestly, I don't have that much to say about it, I didn't even finish it due to a bug where my car would be going too fast for the PS1 to load tiles, and I'd drift into an inescapable void where my car would rotate on the X axis instead of turning. I did want to highlight it, though, just for the sake of mentioning how interesting it is for a game like this to release in the 90s with so much potential only to go completely under the radar for everybody until almost 30 years later. It's doing Shenmue before Shenmue, and honestly coming from Deadly Premonition I really don't mind the jank at all and very well may play through the rest of this game using a guide.

If you love Twin Peaks or Deadly Premonition this is definitely the game for you, otherwise maybe watch a playthrough. If you want a good ending a guide is absolutely necessary as every day you are required to do many things on a tight schedule. The game is also rife with bugs that can break loading and will require reloading or lots of replaying. Despite all that it was a really fun experience and the game is really far ahead of its time and was a generally comfy experience as the music and setting is great for winter.

While the open world design was ahead of its time, other gameplay aspects certainly weren't and the game is really annoying to play. Not only it gets progressively harder to know what to do, but actually getting there can be a pain as the game's timed system doesn't get along with getting stuck on geometry. You can look for a guide, but since the gameplay doesn't have much to offer other than going from point A to point B and waiting, at that point you may as well just be watching a walkthrough.

It's best points are the environments and the charming cast, however the very stiff models and lack of voice acting makes for events that don't feel very impressive. The story has some interesting parts, but takes too long to get going and it's sometimes too predictable. Also at times it feels too derivative of Twin Peaks, but without the more interesting esoteric aspects, replacing then with the typical preachy Humanism-esque stuff you would see in a JRPG, so even if all you care about is watching the story unfold, you may still be disappointed.

Interesante propuesta interactiva de investigar un caso de secuestro en un mundo en el que sus personajes siguen rutinas y pueden ir a un sitio u otro dependiendo de las circunstancias y de la hora que sea, pero está tan pobremente ejecutada que es de risa. Los controles son muy deficientes y no pocas veces nos quedaremos atrapados en su arquitectura, presenta combates pobremente realizados al tener los personajes una movilidad muy acartonada, y también incontables errores de programación. Como por ejemplo, uno de ellos provoca que no cargue tramos del mapeado y nos obliga tener que buscar algún edificio donde podamos entrar y salir para que vuelva a cargar todo el mapeado esperando que no ocurra de nuevo ese error (si tenemos suerte de que haya una alrededor de donde se produce ese fallo). El juego, al estar basado en el tiempo, en ocasiones, en caso de no hacer alguna cosa específica a una hora demasiado concreta, el juego nos puede penalizar de manera que no podamos conseguir el final bueno independientemente de todo lo que podamos hacer después y sin saberlo.

The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask presenta un mundo similar en el que habrá momentos en los que no podemos involucrarnos en eventos que suceden al mismo tiempo, pero al menos nos ofrece la posibilidad de viajar atrás en el tiempo. Mizzurna Falls, en cambio, cualquier cosa que puedas pasar por alto es castigado y su sistema de guardado encima es un lastre porque de usarlo te obliga a que pase una o cinco horas, y si guardas después de haber metido la pata te tocará empezar el juego de nuevo.

An utterly fascinating but too-ambitious-for-its-own-good PS1 curio that often feels like it's being held together by duct tape. I'm grateful to the individuals responsible for making this game available to western audiences with a fan translation, but man, I sure can see why it wasn't localised, despite being so obviously influenced by Twin Peaks. The game is a mess. Trying to be Shenmue before Shenmue was a thing, and on PS1 tech no less, was one hell of a goal, but clearly not one that was realistic.

If you are going to brave a playthrough, then use a guide. I can't stress this enough. Use a guide, or you'll likely lock yourself out of anything but a bad ending early on. And play it on something that allows you to use save states.

holy shit, i can't believe i actually played this game. for a bit of context, and i played deadly premonition years ago on PC. i picked it up when i was on sale, iirc i bought it with some CS GO skins i sold lmfao. long story short, i absolutely loved it lol. i was getting into lynch's work at the time, specially twin peaks, so the "small town open world detective" genre really appealed to me. i was kinda disappointed to find that there weren't much games like it though, maybe alan wake or la noire had some of it but none had THE dp feel, except for this one obscure japan-only PS1 game: mizzurna falls, developed by none other than legendary HUMAN entertainment. these guys were responsible for a lot of PS1 horror classics, such as clock tower, or other still untranslated but legendary games like suda51's moonlight syndrome & twilight syndrome.

so yeah, i probably spent years drooling over this game, i almost started japanese classes with the sole purpose of playing this (and maybe SMT: DS, thank god i didn't cus devil summoner sucks lmao), but after a while i forgot about it i guess. then, one fateful day last year i read a news article about this game, and it said that a fan translation has been completed and released!!! holy shit!!!

so it was time to finally download, burn the cd and play it. i have to say, though, that it took me like six months to finally sit down and play it lol. part of that is cuz of work, and university, but mostly i was just afraid that i was gonna be disappointed. i had so much expectation for this game...

and yeah, upon finally starting it, i found all the glaring issues: the controlls are stiff as FUCK, the framerate is all over the place, the graphics are buggy as hell, the music is really annoying and repetitive in the first hour of gameplay or so, the fighting is horrible, the in-game schedule is INCREDIBLY demanding, to the point that multiple events can happen at the same time and crash your playthrough alltoghether. some necesary stuff is completely missable, and there's little hint that it's important. honestly, i recommend playing this game with a guide to make it enjoyable lol.

but all that aside, i loved this game. the town clearly feels more alive than deadly premonition lmao, even for a PS1 game it still has a rather nice open world experience. the story is pretty interesting, it's not a total cheesefest like clock tower. the characters are interesting, the exploration is really fun, and the mystery just works! it's a lot of fun just going around the town meeting new characters and getting into fist fights with random people for no reason. finding clues, following leads, idk i love a good mystery lol.

i honestly can't recomend this game enough if you're like me and love PSX horror and deadly premonition, this game is absolutely for you. hell, anyone who's willing to move past the stiff gameplay is gonna find a really ambitious and different game, even to this day, and it's really something coming from relatively smaller company than other psx developers.

so yeah, that's it lol. mizzurna falls is probably one of my favourite PSX games so far, not because it's a masterpiece, but in part because of all it means to me, and how unique it is (pls game companies make more open world mystery games!! i literally live for this shit). btw massive thanks to the translation team! ngl after all the drama that ensued after project mizzurna and how much dialogue this game has, it's incredible they managed to pull it off. kudos!

Absolutely incredible for the time. You can see the game engine buckling under the strain of the sheer amount of systems present.

The concept and ambition are both fantastic, and the translators really did a bang-on job. Sadly, the game itself is too fiddly and strict to be truly enjoyable; the time limit, combined with the controls, puts undue strain on the player. Even if you play with a guide you will struggle, and it's easy to save yourself into a corner.

I'll give this another shot if someone makes a patch to 'pause' the timer as, other than this design choice, I really liked what I saw.

Although Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel considered Science of Logic essential to his philosophy, it has received scant commentary compared with the other three books he published in his lifetime. This book rescues Science of Logic from obscurity, arguing that its neglect is responsible for contemporary philosophy’s fracture into many different and opposed schools of thought. Through careful analysis, the book sheds new light on the precise problems that animate Hegel’s overlooked book and their tremendous significance to philosophical conceptions of logic and reason. The book’s overarching question is how, if at all, rationalism can overcome the split between monism and dualism.

Are the zoomers gone? Good. Anyway this game sucks.