In a surprising turn of events for a series that started out as a shameless Super Mario Bros. clone, Giana Sister: Twisted Dreams is one of the most unique sidescrollers I've played in a long time.
You'll play as two separate versions of the title character: Punk Giana can transform into a fireball to destroy enemies and reach high places, whereas Cute Giana has a spinning helicopterIn a surprising turn of events for a series that started out as a shameless Super Mario Bros. clone, Giana Sister: Twisted Dreams is one of the most unique sidescrollers I've played in a long time.
You'll play as two separate versions of the title character: Punk Giana can transform into a fireball to destroy enemies and reach high places, whereas Cute Giana has a spinning helicopter jump not unlike Dixie Kong's ability in the Donkey Kong Country series. You switch between the two at the simple press of a button in order to solve puzzles and overcome insanely challenging platforming levels; as you do so, the world around you also changes from a lush utopia to a nightmarish wasteland. It's all very easy on the eyes, with superb graphics that transform seamlessly. The music is another highlight, with memorable tunes that switch from poppy versions (on Cute Giana segments) to throbbing heavy metal arrangements (for Punk Giana). An important complaint is the lack of richer tone diversity bewteeen the game's worlds; as beautiful as the graphics are, they end up blending together, which dampens the sense of progression a bit.
As I hinted above, Twisted Dreams is a very, very unforgiving platformer, and as such it's definitely not a game for the weak-willed. The level design is extremely tight, challenging both your puzzle-solving skills and your fast-action reflexes in breathtaking fashion. Segments often require you to time your character switch at precisely the right moment in order to succeed.
To get 100% on a stage, you need to achieve three goals: collect a majority of the small gems located throughout the level, locate and collect all of the big crystals (which also unlock art in the game's gallery), and die as few times as possible. The dying limitation is a fine way to offer some balance to the fact that you have unlimited lives, but it can become annoying pretty fast thanks to the sheer lenght of the stages, especially given the enourmous challenges most of them offer. A shorter median stage lenght would not only make the game more accessible to beginners in the genre, but also make replaying the levels (something you will absolutely HAVE to do in order to fully complete each of them) feel less of a chore.
While the flaws do hinder the enjoyment from time to time, the game is still gonna be quite entertaining for platform masochists such as myself. Fully completing one of Twisted Dreams's hellishly difficult stages is a great feeling. There are plenty of good ideas on display here, and it definitely feels like more can be done with the world-switching mechanic. Hopefully, if we ever get a sequel, the designers can go the distance to transform a pretty good game into an amazing one.
Rating: 7.5 (rounded up)… Expand
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