Developer: Universe Studio
Publisher: 2P Games, Universe Studio
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Other Side Of Mist And Mountain – Review
Have you ever heard of Kisaragi Station? This famous Japanese urban legend was first posted to the internet in 2004 and concerns a woman who is commuting home from work. Suddenly, the train she’s on stops at a mysterious station that can’t be found on any map and nobody has ever heard about it. There is no staff and she can’t find a conductor on the train either. The woman decides to get off, but then disappears into thin air and she’s never heard from again. It’s just a scary fiction story, yet it’s credited as the birth of Japanese urban legends and has served as the inspiration for many games and movies. With their debut game, Other Side Of Mist And Mountain, indie publisher Universe Studio is one of many that brings this creepy tale to life.
Story
In Other Side Of Mist And Mountain, our main character is a young man named Shizuno Yokoyama. Five years ago, Shizuno’s then-girlfriend Mau was riding a train after being prompted to do so because she’s obsessed with the supernatural and folklore. She read on some creepy forums that the train might be haunted. Sure enough, it drops her off at Kisaragi station and Mau disappears like those who got off the train there before her. Shizuno is heartbroken and devotes his life to finding her, going so far as to become a private detective and learning about the occult himself. When the game begins, he just bought Mau’s phone, which somebody else found and sold as a supernatural trinket. He hopes the phone will lead him to vital information on where Mau has gone. On top of that, his cases all seem to have some clue leading to Mau in them too. Convinced it can’t just be a coincidence, he devotes himself to following the threads that could bring Mau back.
The game has multiple branching narratives depending on your choices, which do cause real consequences in the story. It’s engaging enough, though the faulty translation to English does mean some stuff gets lost along the way and we were asking ourselves what exactly the characters were saying from time to time. The overall plot is easy enough to figure out, but maybe this is why the ending left us somewhat unsatisfied.
Graphics
The art style might be the best thing about this game. It’s beautiful, with great character designs and there are really gripping still shots sprinkled in at tense moments. The colors especially are an interesting mix of blues and reds that make the contrast pop. We just loved looking at this game. The UI also is pretty unique, designed to look like the main character’s cellphone. One little note is that the character portraits always have the same neutral facial expression, no matter what’s going on around them. This is unlike what we’re used to in most graphic novel-type games.
Sound
Where a lot of attention was put into the visual design, the sound design might have been slightly neglected. There is no voice acting in the game at all, and there are not really any other sound effects that bring the characters to life. Other sound effects are present and are appropriately scary. On top of this, the soundtrack is rather repetitive. One particular song that was probably only about two minutes long kept looping on and on in the background in a way that quickly got annoying. Despite this, we appreciate the music itself for being rather creepy and atmospheric. We just wished there was more variety.
Gameplay
Other Side Of Mist And Mountain is a horror adventure game that plays out like a mystery you need to solve. The game is overall pretty linear and always tells you where to go or what to do next. You have a map of locations to explore and get to walk around in those locations freely, but they’re not very big. So the experience leans more into being a graphic novel with puzzle elements. The puzzles are easy and fun. At the start, they usually only require you to pick up items or interact with them. But later on, you’ll need to use your gathered information to work out codes or sequences. Due to the faulty translation, it can be hard to know what exactly the game wants from you sometimes. But eventually, we figured it out. There are also a few stealth segments in the game and other small interactive elements like an in-universe forum you can browse.
The engagement of getting to talk to people, collecting clues, and uncovering more of the story as you solve each case is pretty good, making the minimal gameplay worth it. Your dialogue options do feel like they have some influence on the narrative and how other characters perceive you. It’s also interesting that you have a sort of day-night cycle where running around town visiting places will drain Shizuno’s stamina and you’ll have to go home to sleep if you want to refill it. However, there doesn’t seem to be a penalty for how many days you take to finish objectives.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, Other Side Of Mist And Mountain is a decent adventure title that blends horror and puzzles but is dragged down by bad translations. We can deal with some of the other flaws like the repeating soundtrack when it’s the story that keeps us motivated to press onwards. Sadly, the broken English made us lose track of the narrative too often to not get on our nerves, even if we eventually still somewhat enjoyed the game.
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