POSTED 11/6/15


GIANA SISTERS: TWISTED DREAMS – DIRECTOR’S CUT

Black Forest Games

World goes nasty, world goes nice. World goes nasty, world goes nice...

History lesson time! The Great Giana Sisters originally hit the Commodore 64 back in 1987. While it was a superb platformer, it was also essentially a complete rip-off of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. It also soon started disappearing from shelves – and not because people were buying it.

Years later it resurfaced on, ironically, Nintendo’s DS. Graphics had been changed to protect the guil- erm, innocent, and the girls had humbled a tad by losing the 'Great', but it remained a challenging platformer in the mould of, well, Super Mario Bros.

Come 2012 and one successful Kickstarter later, the sisters who thumbed their noses at legalities were back, bringing their Twisted Dreams along with them. This is that, but tweaked a bit to make it slightly more accessible, and with a DLC campaign punfully named Rise of the Owlverlord mixed in.

This return saw beautiful graphics while still shamelessly borrowing a certain pixelated plumber’s side-scrolling 2D platformer shtick. You play as one sister traipsing across quite gorgeous landscapes in hopes of saving the other sister, who was last seen being swallowed by Bowse- uh, a giant lizardy, dragony thing.

At least a twist has been added, and that’s the ability to switch between sweet, flowery nice world and creepy, weedy nasty world at the stab of a button. As you progress you’ll flit between worlds like a mad thing to both collect myriad gems and actually get somewhere other than nowhere.

If you’ve played Super Mario Bros (and who hasn’t? (We type snobbishly)) then you really will know what to expect here. But it’s slick. Everything looks gorgeous and the music is fab – but fuck it can be hard! Even the first boss will keep you busy for a while before that eventual flash of “Lightbulb!”

If imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery then Giana Sisters is an honest charmer.

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