In news that brings a smile to my face, the cult Amiga classic The Great Giana Sisters is now being reborn on the Nintendo DS. Now just called Giana Sisters DS, it looks pretty close to a full re-imagining of the original than a simple remake.
It looks like a competent platformer with nice little touches in the animation and the nicely remixed music. And for those who know the history of the Giana Sisters, their return to a Nintendo platform neatly wraps up the two decades inbetween releases. Originally created in 1987 for the Amiga, the Great Giana Sisters became well-known as one of the better Super Mario Bros. clones. Smooth side-scrolling games were a rarity back in those days, especially outside of the NES and gamers on the Amiga, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum were clamoring for a game that would rival the Nintendo’s Mario in quality and polish.
Enter the Giana Sisters, who not only attempted to match up to Mario, but decided to pretty much copy Mario in just about every facet. You only need to briefly glance at videos from the original to see just how similar the two games were. Sprite graphics, gameplay, animations, even level design were “lovingly” ripped straight from Mario and inserted into the Giana Sisters.
Naturally any videogame company might not find the similarities all that endearing. And Nintendo with their notorious legal team wasted no time getting the Giana Sisters pulled off the shelves with threats and complaints. But the Giana Sisters lived on through fans of the game and copies of the game became sought after collector items. Even today you can still find fans of the girls and their offbeat game. Now, 20 years later, it’s good to see the sisters again in a brand new game.
Leave a Reply