Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams

Whilst I had a CBM64, I didn`t pla games. I`d heard this was a great one, so when came to GOG, snapped it up on pre-order. Wasn`t let down, the games gfx & sfx (Machinae Suprimacy) are great & entertaining & the gameplay is too. A platformer all on its own level & worth every penny :D

I will skip all information about the story (or what little of it exists) and gameplay, assuming you're familiar with it already. If not, other reviews have covered that ground. In general, I found the game breathtakingly beautiful visually, with great attention to background details, nice music (in both versions, though the heavy metal style doesn't exactly fit the game, IMHO), fluid gameplay, the camera that usually behaves well and responsive controls. I played the game on normal difficulty level and while the first two or three levels are easy enough, things quickly get more challenging. Fortunately, you have infinite lives, so practice doesn't cost anything. And you'll definitely need those lives because some parts require quite a bit of training to get through them. Those parts require very nimble fingers and quite a lot of quick world-changing, so you'll be very pleased with yourself when you pass them and reach the next checkpoint. Now for the other side of the coin. My version of the game has a bizarre bug which messes up the camera when you play with a gamepad. Switching to keyboard brought problems on its own. If you use the default settings, there is no separate button for changing the world (it's tied to dashing and twirling). This makes most of the challenges much more difficult, and some simply impossible (when you have to change the world under water, where you can't dash or twirl). So, if you use keyboard, before playing, go to options and assign a separate key for world changing. I'm surprised the authors left this glaring mistake in the game. There are also some smaller bugs (I got stuck in a rock one or two times), but those are no big deal. Another problem is the final boss fight, which is insanely difficult and completely out of place in this game, the rest of which was challenging but never unfair. I tried for hours before I finally gave up and switched to easy difficulty just for this fight.

I've been in a bit of a gaming slump lately and have had trouble enjoying anything. Giana Sisters has me excited about gaming again! I've never been really into this type of game before but I'm really loving it. I adore the beautiful environments. The animations feel great--especially crashing through blocks as the punk sister. The game also has just the right difficulty. I've died probably a thousand times and haven't won the game yet. But, the feeling you get when you finally get past an obstacle and eventually win the level is just amazing. When you die it isn't a big deal either. You spawn at the last checkpoint, which is usually pretty close by. Anyway, I love the game! Hope to play more from this studio later!

Wonderful, classic platforming. Switch between two characters (split personas) on the fly, and watch the entire world morph with them. An eye-popping graphical trick and more, because it also alters the playable terrain. There are only three boss battles, but they are spectacular and VERY difficult, the Gurglewocky in particular. Gorgeous and fun as hell. Please buy so that Black Forest will make more like this!

What a great platformer! I also got it to run with Linux (Ubuntu 12.04 64 Bit) and Wine (1.6) and winetricks. It's awesome!