is a 1998 Japanese

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developed and published by

Human Entertainment was a Japanese video game developer and publisher founded in 1983. The company produced games for a number of platforms, including home consoles, portable consoles, and personal computers. Human declared bankruptcy in 2000 and disbanded. Its for ...

for the

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

. The game is one of the first open-world

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

s ever made and focuses on the search for a lost classmate in a small rural American town. The game has never been localized outside of Japan but in 2021 an English-language fan translation project was completed and released to the public.

Plot

The game takes place in Mizzurna Falls, a fictional town in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

near the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

. On Christmas Day 1995, a young girl, Kathy Flannery is discovered unconscious in the forest, apparently attacked by a bear. Soon after, high school student Emma Rowland goes missing. Emma's classmate Matthew Williams becomes involved in the mystery surrounding the disappearance and the dark secrets of the town.

Gameplay

The player has seven days to explore the town and countryside talking to the residents in order to solve the mystery. One in game hour is around five minutes in real time. The strict seven-day time limit makes it difficult to see all the events and get the best of the three endings. The player can save the game by sleeping for either one or five in game hours. The game features the "tank style" movement controls made famous by ''

Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known in Japan as is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...

'', fighting and shooting systems, and quick time events. The game also features a full weather cycle and the residents of the town have individual daily routines. The player has access to a

Volkswagen Beetle The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, ...

and a boat to move around town quickly. Matthew can eat at the local diners, and must keep his car fueled. Matthew can also use his mobile phone to call other characters and certain businesses in the town.

Development and release

It is the only game by designer Taichi Ishizuka (The Firemen) as a writer and director, who followed this by moving to Canada as a nature guide. The game is reminiscent of ''

Twin Peaks ''Twin Peaks'' is an American Mystery fiction, mystery serial drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered on American Broadcasting Company, ABC on April 8, 1990, and originally ran for two seasons until its cance ...

''. The game was released on December 23, 1998 in Japan for the Sony PlayStation, and was published by Human Entertainment themselves. The game was never localized nor published in the West.

Reception and legacy

Upon release, four reviewers from ''

Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...

'' gave it a score of 22 out of 40. Its legacy is in being one of the first open-world video games. ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' commented that the title was "quirky, weird, and rife with references to a

cornucopia In classical antiquity, the cornucopia (), from Latin ''cornu'' (horn) and ''copia'' (abundance), also called the horn of plenty, was a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers ...

of media, namely ''

'', and traces of it can now be seen in cult favorites like ''

Deadly Premonition ''Deadly Premonition'' is an open world survival horror video game developed by Access Games. Set in the fictional, rural American town of Greenvale, Washington, the story follows FBI Special Agent Francis York Morgan as he investigates the mur ...

''."

Localization attempts

For a while the game was "little more than a 20-year-old curiosity" according to ''Waypoint'', which could only be played via poor emulation or by purchasing a Japanese version of the game. However, in 2017 Tokyo-based freelance translator Resident Evie translated the script into English as part of a playthrough project. She also set up the

Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...

Project Mizzurna, a hub for discussions and content around the game. Evie noted that "The game was so innovative that it was even slightly broken". In mid-2019, an unofficial English localization patch based on Evie's translation was released in an incomplete state. However, the patch was quickly pulled off various sites due to a copyright complaint, as the publisher had compiled all the code from the authors without permission. In late 2019, a game translator under the pseudonym "Mr.Nobody" published a Spanish translation patch based on the aforementioned English patch, making it possible to play the game in Spanish. On March 30, 2021, professional game translator Cirosan and professional mobile game developer Nikita, using Resident Evie's translated script as a base, released the first full English patch for Mizzurna Falls. In order to make this project possible, Nikita built a special compression tool in order to fit most of the game's notably large script onto a single-disc format. Despite this new tool, Cirosan still had to edit and revise parts of the script, with Evie's permission, in order to fit the entire story into the translation. This release effectively ended the 22-year wait for an English localization.

Notes

References

{{Reflist

External links

Project Mizzurna
1998 video games Adventure games Detective video games Human Entertainment games Japan-exclusive video games Occult detective fiction Open-world video games PlayStation (console) games PlayStation (console)-only games Psychological horror games Single-player video games Video games developed in Japan Video games set in 1998 Video games set in Colorado