Giana Sisters DS Review

While some might say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, there is another side to it as well. When you imitate something, it’s hard to NOT draw comparisons to the source material. On that note, some people may remember the Great Giana Sisters, a shameless Commodore 64 rip off of everyone’s favourite Italian plumber brothers. In fact, Nintendo saw so much similarity that they effectively barred the distribution of the original title. Now, more than twenty years later, The Great Giana Sisters are making a return to, ironically, a Nintendo console. And while the original is revered by some (and we really don’t know why), this game does little to differentiate itself from any platformer, let alone Mario himself.

There is apparently a story within Giana Sisters DS, but it’s rather simple. A young girl (presumable a Giana sister, it’s hard to tell, because there’s no dialogue at all) is hoarding lots of gems in a treasure chest, until she succumbs to biological requirements and falls asleep. Upon falling asleep, the Giana Sisters fall into a vortex which rips open their treasure chest and scatters their gems throughout a mysterious new world (something like a creatively devoid Mushroom Kingdom). And yeah, that’s pretty much it. You’re given hardly anything to work with and it seems that the whole point of the game’s story was to give an excuse for the Giana Sisters to be in a world other than their own.

Probably one of the only things that impressed me with Giana Sisters DS was that the animation and art direction was actually quite bearable. The sisters themselves animate quite well with hair blowing in the wind and the sisters looking in the direction the camera is pointed. They also appear to be quite likeable characters (though we can only tell through facial expressions) and the enemies, while lacking the charm of the Goombas and Koopa Troopas we’re all used to, do the job of imitating typical platforming archetype rather well. It’s just a shame that the levels all take place in typical platforming game environments that lack the necessary atmosphere to make them feel “alive”, despite being rather colourful and inviting.

At its core, Giana Sisters DS is your run of the mill platformer. Players take the role of one of the Giana Sisters in an attempt to make their way through the games environments collecting as many gems as possible. Controls are extremely simple, with movement being mapped to the D-Pad and jumping mapped to the face buttons. At the end of each level is a flag which is either blue or red, with the colour being determined by how many gems you collect before reaching it. By collecting red flags in each world (which consists of about eightish levels) , you’ll unlock a secret level where the Giana Sisters can collect even more gems! While it does sound pretty tedious and uneventful, there are a few interesting gameplay elements thrown in to spice things up. First of all, the Giana Sisters can collect a beach ball to turn themselves into “Punk Giana”, who has a more risqué haircut and can shoot fireballs. Being a punk also gives the Giana Sisters an extra chance/life, so that if they get hit they’ll just be returned to their original form.

Does this sound familiar? In addition to these rather derivative features, the Giana Sisters can also utilise either Soda or Gum to traverse their environments; with soda allowing the sisters to blast away a wall with a high pressure stream, and gum letting the Giana sisters float upwards for some airborne platforming (with a nice [optional] feature allowing players to blow into their DS’s mic to keep the Giana sisters afloat.). While the gameplay does essentially copy the formula that we’ve all come to know and love from other two dimensional platformers, there’s something missing from the game – fun. The only aim of the game is to collect as many gems as possible, there’s no one to save from a major antagonist and there’s not a huge amount of variety in the levels and enemies. Sure, the sisters will eventually jump from platform to platform to avoid piranhas and squash giant eyeballs, but a serious lack of interesting boss battles, a challenging difficulty and interesting enemies really lets Giana Sisters DS down. On my first playthrough I was playing for hours, but not because I was having for fun, but because I was absolutely craving something more from the experience. Unfortunately I was ultimately let down after slugging it through about 40 levels.

There is a rather nifty soundtrack in the game though, with most of the tracks actually being remastered from the original game (a nice touch for those who were fans of the original). The soundtrack is competent and is pretty easy to bop your head along to. The noises that enemies make, however, is the only form of voice acting you’ll be getting in this package, and even then, they’re rather sub-par.

It’s actually pretty hard to comment on the longevity of Giana Sisters DS. On one hand, you’ve got a lot of levels to get through until you’ve finished the game, with approximately 80 levels to finish. Surely, though, for most gamers, alarm bells will be going off that this is indeed a quantity-over-quality affair, with most of the levels being rather samey. We also managed to find an “Extras” menu, but we were only able to watch the brief intro and play with the game’s audio settings. I wouldn’t really call these things Extras. Finally, a nice and surprising touch, a rendition of the original controversial platformer can be unlocked by collecting all the red gems in the game, which probably will provide more of a challenge than this – and that’s just embarrassing.

Giana Sisters DS is a platformer that really has potential to being a “sister” series to the Mario Brothers but falls flat on its face, terribly. A lack of a serious narrative along with less efforts being made to differentiate itself from other platformers available really sells itself short. It’s hard to recommend this game to anyone who likes platformers, because it really is light on depth and narrative. This is one of those titles for the diehard Giana Sisters fans only – and apparently, there’s not a lot of you.

Graphics 6.0

A very colourful world, some cheeky looking and well animated characters make the Giana Sisters something that you cant help but adore. Its just a shame that all that colour is wasted on some rather drab worlds that do nothing to differentiate themselves from other platformers.

Gameplay 4.0

While the formula for a perfect platformer is mostly intact here, Giana Sisters lacks the depth to make it as enjoyable as its fatter Italian cousin.

Sound 5.0

The soundtrack consists of remastered tracks from the original, marking a rather nice homage to fans, but outside of this the soundtrack really is nothing special. A lack of voice acting and decent enemy noises really sells the game short.

Tilt 4.5

While its an awesome feat to include about eighty levels in the game, there will probably be a severe lack of motivation to pull you through the whole game. Fans who want to go that extra mile can unlock the original game, which will probably provide much more entertainment.

Value 3.5

I wanted to have fun, but to put it simple, I really couldnt. Those of you who are pretty well acquainted with the sisters after their previous outing could probably add about two more points to this score purely for nostalgia, others probably shouldnt.