[Review] Two Falls – Nishu Takuatshina on PlayStation 5

Two Falls – Nishu Takuatshina, huh? Okay, picture this: You’ve got this game, and it throws you into the thick Canadian wilderness, 17th century style, right? Yeah, I know—sounds like a history lesson, but hang in there. This game, from Affordance Studio and some folks called Unreliable Narrators (which I find kind of funny, don’t you?), isn’t just about wandering around aimlessly. Nope, it’s a first-person deal that paints a couple of pretty wild pictures.

We’re talking a split-perspective gig here: two folks, different worlds. Meet Maikan, our young Innu hunter who’s probably seen more forest than I’ve seen Netflix shows. Then there’s Jeanne. Imagine being a Daughter of the King — it sounds fancy, but trust me, it’s not all crowns and courtyards. She’s marooned out of France, in this colonial chaos called Nouvelle-France. And guess what? She has a dog named Capitaine, which totally makes her the protagonist in my book.

So Jeanne’s ship — the L’Intrépide or something French like that — doesn’t make the journey easy. Surprise! Shipwreck ahead. So now it’s just her and the dog, figuring out how to make it to Quebec. Meanwhile, Maikan, who didn’t pick this timeline, is dealing with a different mess. The land’s going downhill, and not in the fun sledding kind of way. He’s trying to get to the bottom of it all, to save his people from what seems like an impending disaster.

Now, get this. You’re playing from a first-person view, meaning you ARE Jeanne and Maikan. Left stick makes you walk, right stick makes you look. Crazy, right? Sprint with L2 or R2 — as if I’m sprinting anywhere these days. You use X to talk to folks or grab stuff. Sometimes you gotta decide what to do next, which sounds like too much adulting for a video game, but hey, here we are.

Oh, and there’s a Platinum trophy dangling over the whole thing. You know, for those completionist types who can’t sleep unless all digital awards are neatly tucked in. You’ll get trophies for things like petting the dog (Capitaine says hi), picking up a playing card, listening to a frog — standard 17th-century stuff. By the way, the developers teamed up with some real-life Indigenous folks to shape this tale, which, if you ask me, adds a layer of authenticity you don’t get every day. Kind of cool, right?

Two Falls – Nishu Takuatshina is available on PS5. So, grab your controller, but maybe not if you’re into linear plots or expect everything to wrap up nicely. And yeah, this whole write-up? Brought to you thanks to a PlayStation 5 review copy from Affordance Studio. Or maybe not — who can really say?