REVIEW – It’s been a while since the birth of the Giana Sisters franchise. It might be one of the most chaotic games in the history because of its early years. There was a big company: Nintendo, which tried to stop the franchise once and for all. They didn’t succeed, so the sisters returned… although they needed a year since the debut of the PS4 to port the 2012 Twisted Dreams to Sony’s console…

The original Giana Sisters was released in 1987. Developed by Time Warp, it was released on the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST and the Amstrad CPC. While collecting diamonds, Giana’s target was to find her sister called Maria, going through 32 levels of nightmare, eventually being forced to wake up by her sis.

Mario clone?!

Already the amount of levels could trigger your “gamer-man” sense, but if I say the first level’s layout was an almost complete replica of the famous Super Mario Brothers 1-1 level, then it’s no wonder that Nintendo’s attention was instantly caught.

They tried to force the developers to stop selling their game, but Time Warp kept going on, eventually ending up with a sequel. In order to avoid the hammer of the big N, it was reworked into a futuristic setting, so Hard’n’Heavy was born – and released – on the C64 back in 1989.

Twenty years have passed until a new Giana Sisters game, which was released on the Nintendo DS, followed by Black Forest Games’ Twisted Dreams in 2012 going the extra mile in terms of getting the original game’s composer Chris Hülsbeck to write new songs. But how does this game actually hold up?

Back and forth

Twisted Dreams is way different than the Nintendo’s classic. Sure, the diamond collecting aspect is still present, but other than that, there is not much else which is reminiscent to the original game. But that’s a good thing. What is a bad thing however – is that this Kickstarted game (originally called Project Giana) is damn too SHORT!

Yeah, I’m stating it out front: the game is short, and it isn’t helped by the other game modes either (time attack, hardcore and uber hardcore – the last one gives you one life and if you lose it, you go back to the beginning of the game), the 23 levels are simply not enough! The devs should have made at least 30 stages, because it is possible to complete the game in one session even for the first time, and let’s face it, it’s not a good omen.

This doesn’t mean that the gameplay is bad though. In fact, it’s the complete opposite; GS:TD has a simple-yet-effective style.

Dimensions of 2D levels

So there are the two sisters, who already hit puberty – they get tossed into a dream again, and yeah, Giana’s goal is to find Maria again, but there’s an interesting addition: you can switch between Giana’s dreams at any time. One dimension is her sugary-sweety happy go lucky dream, and the other one is a darker, gothic, nightmarish.

The two dimensions not only have different graphical elements, but different music pieces as well! One melody, two compositions, I really like this idea.

Is the change optional? No, it’s mandatory, because even the diamonds are located in different places in the two dreams! If you are a maximalist, then you will definitely dig this aspect, because you can find artworks as well scattered throughout the levels.

And there’s another difference: the darker Giana can hop off from walls and/or enemies, while the other one is able to hit the air if needed. You have to make good use of these in the bossfights too – you won’t have problems with these though.

Alright

As I said, besides its shortness, the game is still a fun experience. You can easily fill four hours into completing it, but if you want all the diamonds, you might hit 6-7 hours, or even more, if you don’t want to die throughout the levels, because yes, the game is registering the death counts on each levels too!

The enjoyable gameplay is accompanied by good graphical elements and agreeable music. However, what after a while I found a bit annoying is Giana’s voice, but it’s just a personal opinion, mind you… Sure, I heard worse, but to a lesser time extent…

So I wrap up by saying that despite the PS4 receiving yet another side scrolling platformer, I wouldn’t name it as one of the top picks because of the length. Still, because of the history of the franchise, I recommend giving it a shot or look up what to expect. As we talk about a German product, we can expect precision: the controls are spot-on, so really, the only issue with the game is just its length.

 -V-

Editor: Black Forest Games

Developer: Black Forest Games

Genres: action, platform, 2D

Publication: December 2014