Mizzurna Falls

The player has seven days to explore the town and countryside talking to the residents in order to solve the mystery. The game operates on a day-night cycle, and each NPC in the game follows an individual schedule for each day. The town exists as a single integrated map, where one can seamlessly follow an NPC from location to location for their scheduled appointments.

The player can move in all directions and has total freedom to explore the town. The player has access to a Volkswagen Beetle 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.

The game takes place in Mizzurna Falls, a fictional town in Colorado near the Rocky Mountains.

On Christmas Day 1998, a young girl, Kathy Flannery, is discovered unconscious in the forest, apparently attacked by a bear because of the claw marks. When brought to the hospital she dies, and the cabin where the attack took place is now the site of a police investigation. Soon after, high school student Emma Rowland goes missing and the lead investigator Morgan believes the two cases are linked.

Mizzurna Falls is the only game written and directed by designer Taichi Ishizuka, who previously worked on the 1994 action game The Firemen. Originally conceived as a closed circle mystery set in an old mansion, the scope was expanded to eventually encompass simulating an entire small town. Ishizuka was strongly influenced by the work of American filmmaker David Lynch—the game's setting is reminiscent of Twin Peaks, with story elements inspired by Blue Velvet. Many elements of the town of Mizzurna Falls were drawn from a 3 month long cross-country roadtrip from San Francisco to New York which Ishizuka took after the release of his previous game.

Ishizuka led a team of contractors named Sun Studio, consisting of three graphic designers and four programmers. Music and sound effects were produced by a team of three Human Entertainment employees.

Upon release, four reviewers from Famitsu gave Mizzurna Falls a score of 22 out of 40. The game is considered a precursor of popular open world games such as Shenmue, and an unusual title for a Japanese video game of that era, with its stress on realism.

Rolling Stone commented that the title was "quirky, weird, and rife with references to a cornucopia of media, namely Twin Peaks, and traces of it can now be seen in cult favorites like Deadly Premonition." Los Pakos, writing in Gametype in 2003, said that the game would undoubtedly had been considered a classic due to its more realistic storytelling in a horror game, and the most faithful simulation of an investigation on the PlayStation.