The Great Giana Sisters Longplay (C64) [50 FPS]
239Developed by Time Warp Productions and published by Rainbow Arts in 1987.
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They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I don't think that Nintendo felt particularly flattered when The Great Giana Sisters launched on the C64 back in 1987. Bearing a remarkable similarity to Super Mario Bros., Nintendo exerted pressure on retailers to stop the sale of the game to the public; the game quickly vanished from store shelves.
The game itself tells the story of Giana, a girl who becomes trapped in her own nightmares and who must find a giant diamond to awaken.
Each level requires the player to navigate a series of floating platforms whilst avoiding or killing monsters and collecting diamonds for bonus points. As with Super Mario Bros, floating blocks must be hit to release gems and various power-ups, one of which will make Giana look as though she's been electrocuted with several thousand volts of electricity! This power-up is meant to be analogous to the SMB mushroom power-up, yet it doesn't protect Giana from colliding with enemies.
Certain blocks will release lightning bolts that will grant Giana with the ability to launch projectile attacks at enemies. This makes things considerably easier, especially when combined with the power-up that causes the shots to home in on enemies. Blocks also contain clocks that can freeze enemies in place, whilst lollipops grant extra lives. As with SMB, certain gem blocks are disguise as plain old piles of bricks until discovered. When found, these bricks can be hit repeatedly for a number of bonus diamonds.
Typically, every third level requires Giana to fight an end-of-level guardian in order to progress. These bosses take the form of a giant spider or flying dragon-like creature. While these cannot be jumped on like regular enemies, repeated shots with lightning bolts will destroy them. If Giana doesn't have the lightning bolt, the boss can be avoided by swiftly leaping over it.
Special warp blocks have been hidden throughout certain levels of the game, which will allow the player to skip several levels, just as the warp zones worked in SMB. Whilst I found most of the blocks during my play-through, I decided to not use them so as to show as many of the levels as possible.
Although one might consider The Great Giana Sisters to be a cynical cash-in, the game is actually an extremely accomplished platformer. The game undoubtedly copies many of the elements that made Mario a successful game, but it's a testament to the developers that the game is so playable.
So many platform games are ruined due to control schemes that are either too sensitive, or not sensitive enough, but Giana Sisters has excellent controls. The main character moves at speeds that are always controllable, whilst there is just the right amount of inertia to feel natural without adding to the overall difficulty.
Chris Huelsbeck created some great music and effects for the game. The loader and title music are particularly good, although the in-game music can get somewhat repetitive after a while.
If Giana Sisters has one drawback, it's that it's not Super Mario Bros. There's no avoiding the fact that you're still playing a facsimile, no matter how good it actually is. If this had been a fully licensed version of Nintendo's classic for the C64 with all of the recognisable features, we might have had the equivalent of gaming nirvana for Commodore's venerable 8-bit system.
#retrogaming