For example, the second difficulty level, “Hard,” forces you to earn a ranking of at least 2.5 stars per stage before unlocking the boss fight in a given world. Four difficulty modes, and score and time attack modes add replay value, but the two hardest difficulty modes are locked until you fulfill certain requirements, some of which are obtuse and annoying. Worst of all, when you replay a stage in hopes of going back for crystals you may have missed, you have to collect all of the crystals over again.īoss fights come at the end of each world, and they add challenge and variety to the game, but there are only four of them. Switching forms to collect so many crystals in each stage becomes less of an incentive and more of a chore, and given the length and layout of some stages, backtracking is nearly impossible. For instance, Stage 1-6 has a total of 751 crystals to collect, and they come in three colors: blue crystals can be collected in either of Giana’s forms yellow crystals require the cute persona and red crystals require the punk persona. Another issue compounding the length of each stage is the inflated number of crystals you can collect. The levels can have a lot of variety, with underwater segments, verticality, and locked doors requiring keys, but because the levels in each of the four worlds are similar, the beautiful, detailed environments end up running together.
The stages themselves can be quite long, and compared to the length of traditional Mario platformers, I think the levels in Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams often overstay their welcome. The nearly instantaneous swapping of the backgrounds and foregrounds in each stage is mesmerizing, and because certain obstacles and platforms appear only in one dream world or the other, you are forced to move between them frequently. The music becomes a metal version of the “cute” track and the stages become bright, vibrant, and lush. Switching to the punk persona, redheaded Giana’s spin jump is replaced with a rolling attack that transforms her into a pseudo-fireball. Instead, enemies transform into demons and the stages themselves become dark and reddish hellscapes. The cute dream world brings slower and more traditional music to the fantasy environments, but the enemies, backgrounds, and obstacles are anything but cute. In the cute persona, blond Giana can do a spin jump that allows her to float down slowly to avoid obstacles and activate certain devices. On a mission to rescue her sister Maria, Giana alternates between cute and punk personas to navigate each of the 40+ stages.
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