Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams – Owltimate Edition

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: Included in Best Multiplayer and Co-op 6-in-1 Bundle, along with Aces of the Luftwaffe – Squadron, Pile Up! Box by Box, Skydrift Infinity, Spitlings, and Stunt Kite Party)

Giana Sisters is a franchise that has had its fair share of ups and downs over the years. The first game in the series, 1987’s The Great Giana Sisters, was clearly a shameless imitation of Super Mario Bros., a fact so obvious that the game was removed from stores after Nintendo threatened to sue for copyright infringement. Yet despite this setback, the franchise continued on, being reborn with sequels on the Nintendo DS, and then eventually revitalized on Kickstarter, with the family-friendly Platformer Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams coming out on PC in 2012, with the game being ported to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U in 2013, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2014, and Nintendo Switch in 2018 in this “Owltimate Edition” that adds five additional levels and brings the game up to a full 1080p resolution.

Despite this game being nearly a decade old, it still looks fantastic today. This game’s imaginative, colorful, detailed world still looks absolutely stunning, particularly when players make use of the game’s signature “twist” mechanic to swap between characters, which transforms the world back and forth from a traditional fantasy-themed land into a dark and more nightmarish one, with everything warping from one to the other with some really impressive animation that makes everything come alive, and with even the music changing from a more cutesy synthesized soundtrack to a more metal-inspired version with electric guitars. The amount of detail on display here is really fantastic, and the new 1080p resolution really brings out all of this detail. Really, the only issue I had with this game’s visuals is that, while there’s plenty of variation in the appearance of the two different versions of each world, there’s not so much from one level to the next, which can lead to a feeling of sameyness throughout the game.

Thankfully, this isn’t an issue in the gameplay, which despite its Mario-clone origins, actually feels much closer to Platformers like Donkey Kong Country and Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. However, while the basic feel of this game may be similar to those titles, the mechanics of this game are distinctly its own, with the game’s central gameplay element being the “twist” mechanic. Players can swap back and forth between two versions of the world with the press of a button, with each often having its own obstacles requiring players to swap back and forth on the fly. However, to make things more interesting, your character has a different special ability in each world, and players can automatically swap to that world using that ability. It makes for a unique and fun mechanical challenge bouncing off of multiple enemies in turn and using different abilities as needed, and this game does a great job making actually moving, jumping, and using these abilities fun in and of itself, with the “dash” ability being particularly noteworthy for its fun rebound potential making for some high-speed ricocheting in some sections.

This game does have a few weaknesses. As mentioned, the visual style of the game doesn’t change much throughout, making for a lot of a “samey” feeling throughout. What’s more, this game’s 40 levels feels somewhat short compared to other similar games (although this is offset by the reasonable $30 price tag). Also, speed runners may be frustrated with how difficult it can be to do a completionist run of each level, as they often don’t allow for much backtracking despite the need for a fair amount of exploration to get all their hidden extras.

Still, overall, this is a fantastic Platformer that’s well deserving of a mention next to the likes of the aforementioned Donkey Kong Country and Yooka-Laylee games, even if it isn’t quite the equal of those games. If you enjoy Platformers and have not yet tried this game on another console, you should definitely give it a try now.

tl;dr – Giana Sisters is a family-friendly Platformer that has players swapping between two different versions of the world to use different abilities and get past obstacles. This game feels similar to Donkey Kong Country, but its mechanics are all its own. This is a beautiful game with fun mechanics that’s absolutely a must-play for fans of the genre, even if it suffers a bit of sameyness throughout.

Grade: B+

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