Approachable platformer game with an easy-going and cheerful atmosphere.

Story

The young girl Giana is the proud owner of a chest full of shiny diamonds. One night, a mysterious force emits from the diamonds and a black hole appears out of nowhere, sucking the diamonds in. Giana immediately jumps head first into the black hole to recover her precious gems. Before she knows it, she finds herself in magical world. What dangers await there? Will she be able to find recover all of her diamonds?

The Game

Giana Sisters DS is a cute side-scrolling platform jumping game based on the original Giana Sisters game for the Commodore 64 which was released back in 1987. Previously, the franchise has seen trouble with a lawsuit claiming that the game ripped off Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros., but now, more than 20 years later, it’s back and looking better than ever.
In Giana Sisters DS you play as the little girl named Giana, exactly like in the predecessor. The basic gameplay sure reminds of Super Mario Bros. – you can break blocks by knocking them with your head, stomp enemies and collect gems that will reward you extra lives. Each stage has an exit somewhere – typically (but not always!) to the far right. Avoiding or stomping enemies and making precision jumps on platforms are commonplace activities in the game. As such it nails the basic platforming gameplay concept well.

Content

Giana Sisters DS has over 80 different levels spread across nine worlds, which may sound like a lot, but each level is actually pretty short. Running through the game will probably only take you around four hours, but if you want to explore every nook and cranny and claim all the hidden red gems, it will probably take you double that, if not more.
The various environments that you’ll be exploring include caves, wells, castles, temples, snowy mountains and flourishing outdoor areas. The same environments will repeat many times through the game, but there’s quite a lot to see, and the variation is good enough to make every level feel unique. The enemies you’ll fight are slime blobs, owls, beetles, eyeballs, bees with bazookas and there’s also a few enemies that can’t be killed such as the steel piranhas, crabs and ghosts.
At the end of each world awaits a boss – a big stupid looking dragon. His attack patterns are easy to figure out, and he’s just being annoying. Every boss is the same, with only minor adjustments to his attack speed, which is a bit of a disappointment.

The game starts you off with five lives. Losing all lives means that you’re taken back to the overview map, allowing you to retry any given stage infinitely. This also means that you can replay any previous stage as you see fit – which is ideal for hunting red gems. In her original form Giana is very vulnerable – one single hit will knock her out. Every now and then you can find a power-up that will turn Giana into her cooler twin sister. Then, she can shoot fireballs from her hands, making short work of most of the enemies. It should be said that the story in the game isn’t given much attention, which in this case is a good thing. The goal of the game is simply to reach the end of each level, defeat each of the bosses and reclaim a big red gem.

The first few levels will help you quite a bit by presenting text tutorials teaching you the various aspects of the game – even if you’re totally new to the franchise you’re taken care of.
Giana Sisters DS introduces a few new features over the original game. Namely, the game supports scrolling in every direction, allowing for alternative routes, exploration and hidden bonus caves. There’s also two items that can be used whenever you find them; the Soda can and Bubble gum. Soda is used to break blocks that are otherwise unreachable, and Bubble gum can be used to float in mid-air. Each stage has a few special flower pots which act as check-points that, once activated, will act as your spawning point when you die.
The difficulty level of the game is fairly easy until the very last few stages, which makes the whole game feel a little unbalanced. It should also be said that there are some parts where the level designer shows a sadistic side, but since retrying is so easy and fast, it’s hard to put the game down.

This game has two kinds of gems; the regular blue ones, and the rare red ones. Collecting red gems will count towards your level completion status – if you find all the red gems within a stage you’re considered to have mastered that level, and this can be reviewed from the overview map. Collecting all red gems will unlock the final world.

The game supports auto-saving your progress, so you can turn the game off at any time and return later without losing too much progress. The game does not allow you to adjust the difficulty setting, nor are there any other settings that you can play with, which comes off as a little lackluster. There is a high score table, but your score never resets – not even when lose all your lives – so the score table is pretty redundant as it only shows your accumulated score. The game card supports up to three profiles to be saved on it, so you can share the game with family and friends without having to give up your progress.
There is very little to gain from playing the game once you’ve beaten it. If you care to collect the red gems, you’ll have some serious hunting to do and as mentioned above, this will unlock the final few stages, but you’d have to be mighty bored to embark on that journey seeing that the red gems are pretty well hidden sometimes.

Controls

The controls are simple enough. There’s one button for jumping and one button for shooting, and they can be reassigned from the Extras screen. Giana tends to skid somewhat when she stops from running, which has to be taken into consideration, but this seldom gives you trouble. Pushing longer on the jump button makes Giana jump higher, and it all feels pretty natural. The thing that may lead to some frustration is how the game detects collision between Giana and platforms. You can literally stand in the air close to edges, and there are numerous long jumps in the game where this has to be exploited to the maximum. As it defies logic, it may be hard to get used to.

The Bubble gum floating can be controlled by blowing on the DS, but this is far too unreliable considering that there are many Bubble gum floating sequences where you need very accurate controls. Luckily it can be controlled with button presses, rendering the entire blowing mechanic unnecessary.
You can press and hold up or down to view your immediate surroundings. Another trick that the game allows for is pressing and holding the jump button while you’re in the air. This makes Giana instantly jump again when she hits the floor, or even better, stomping an enemy with this technique will allow Giana to make an extra high jump. It’s pretty useful, and I don’t think that the tutorials mention it.

Graphics

The graphics are colorful, playful and bright. The visual presentation has a cartoon style look to it, and it suits the theme well. More importantly, it’s easy to read the on-screen action at any given time, so the visual presentation is crystal clear. It maintains a cute and lighthearted tone throughout the entire game and sparks the imagination in a positive way. The animation is fluid and quite enjoyable overall.

Sound

Giana Sisters DS has a brilliant soundtrack which is mostly based on the original Giana Sisters music which has captured many gamers’ hearts over the years. The music flirts with its 8-bit roots frequently and the new compositions blend seamlessly into the mix.
The sound effects are mostly good too – there are some annoying sounds in there, but it’s not enough to ruin the cheery atmosphere.

Summary

Giana Sisters DS is a nice little platformer game. It is fun to play, but it isn’t necessarily better than the original one. The difficulty level could be more challenging and collecting the red gems in order to unlock the final world is a little off-putting. Still, if you have a soft spot for block breaking, enemy stomping and figuring out platform jumps, then you should definitely give this a go. It will keep you amused and entertained for a very long time.

Developed By: Spellbound
Published By: DTP Entertainment
Version Reviewed: Nintendo DS
Genre: Platform
Players: 1
Released: 2010-06-18