Review of Giana Sisters S.E. for Amiga

Giana Sisters is for Amiga as Mario is for Nintendo or Sonic is for SEGA. It is an iconic game with so much history in it. Giana is the most hated and Loved platformer ever made. The original Giana Sisters was made for Commodore 64 and AtariST too.

Here is my review of the enhanced AGA version of Giana Sisters from PixelGlass

Giana Sisters S.E is the name of the enhanced port. It is made improvements to the game so that it demands higher specced Amigas by Reimagine Games and PixelGlass to run. This new Giana Sisters game comes with better graphics and the same great iconic music and sounds that the original version got.

Graphics from the Giana Sisters DS for Game Boy

Giana Sisters S.E’s last letters after the name stand for Special Edition. This version of the game is an unofficial hack of the original Amiga version that replaces the entire visual aspect of the game! The new graphics in Giana Sisters S.E. are either completely new designs or remastered originals, while Giana and some enemies are directly inspired by the 2009 Giana Sisters DS version.

This new version of the game features over 200 new tiles and frames of animation, new palettes for each level, cosmetic level edits, a revised scrolling title screen, new logo, splash screen and icon, replacements for many of the original sound effects. Also as a bonus for AGA owners. They can watch the new intro that is ported from the DS version to the Amiga. Fantastic!

This release of Giana Sisters S.E. is the first release of our new label Reimagine Games, which is focused on non-commercial ports, hacks, and remakes. A remarkable task I must say.

The graphics are well done and now this game looks so good that if it was released like this back in 1987 by Time Warp Productions. The game makers would have even harder fire from Nintendo I think. The newly made animations of the character, enemies, powerups, and brick explosions are alone worthy reasons to download this game.

Some will comment that the new graphics might look a bit too Nintendo-ish alike but I love this new style too. It is a nice touch for this enhanced version of Giana! The enemies that you kill still stay on the screen after you have killed them. You can kill the enemies in Giana like in Mario by jumping on them or shooting at them. Giana was always a more “violent” version of Mario, but with the cuteness addition that is even more striking, I think. It shows the differences more in a way I think.

No Change in the Music and Sound Effects

What I like about this version of Giana Sisters, is that the original music and sound effects have been kept. The original soundtrack is made by the legendary Chris Hülsbeck musician which is still remarkable today.

The fact that they managed to keep the original sounds of the game, gives me personally huge respect for Reimagine Games. The sounds and music of this game never seem to age. You know it is Giana Sisters when you hear the sounds of the game music and sound effects, and that’s how iconic games should be remastered. Don’t overdo it and S.E. nails this part.

Playability is Great as Always

The gameplay of platformers is very important. Giana Sisters S.E. got the same gameplay as the original with some minor tweaks. It feels a bit better with more fluid jumps. The joystick moves feel more accurate.

I have tested the original and S.E. version side by side on our Amiga 1200 at Amitopia office and the gameplay. It feels more like Super Mario World for SNES. However, with so many people using gamepads these days, I think it would be a nice touch to add Amiga CD32 gamepad support. Many of the kids today aren’t used to one button. I want them all to learn to use Joysticks but parents seem to ignore teaching their children this and that’s a huge mistake in my view.

The option for a jumping button should be added though. Because, if there was a possibility to map the jumping in the game to the buttons instead, then Giana Sisters S.E. would have been given a full score. For Amiga users, however, that are used to using a Joystick the gameplay is great anyway. I love my transparent little green Joystick, which is very responsive. But I need to think 2016 in this review too.

Another thing to mention about the playability in this version as with the original version of Giana Sisters is that all of the features with how the powerups in the game work. I love how the upgrades you take can make you destroy bricks that you jump into, bullets that can go thru walls and later also be upgraded so much the bullets become hitting missiles. But this is all fun until you die in the game. It is a bit dull in both Giana Sisters games that when you die you lose all of the power-ups that you have taken. There is no degrade level at all as in Super Mario. In Giana Sisters, you have to upgrade and upgrade again once you die.

In Giana 2 (Hard ‘N Heavy) you just keep all the upgrades when you die. At least this could be the feature here too. The difficulty level was harder in the original game because of its playability, but still. I love this game a lot. I Never give up, never surrender!?…

Giana Sisters S.E. shows that Amiga as a platformer platform is important to have. The love that Pixelglass has put in this enhanced version is great. It shows their dedication to the platform and that warms any heart that loves Giana. The game is released for free here. Pixelglass is making sure that Giana stays iconic on our platform with this release. Love this!

Giana Sisters S.E. score by Amitopia Amiga Play

Graphics are nice, but for AGA users the colors could be even more striking. Also, the background could get some awesome parallax scrolling. Gameplay is now better than ever I think. Although a button for jumping should be added as an option in 2016. Sound is still as great as before. But when running on more demanding hardware. It would be awesome to give this part the extra touch by having some sort of a Giana Sisters remix playing. Lastability is set at it is because it is perfect, yet the difficulty level when you die is still the same now as it was when Giana Sisters was released.

Giana Sisters S.E. is a great free-to-download that was released for Amiga in 2016. Maybe with Erik’s new Scorpion engine. We might get a Giana Sisters XL version? Now, that would be amazing. Amigo The Fox shows how great this engine is running and how other game titles for Amiga can benefit from it.