Our heroine, Cute Giana (left), and her easily-dated Super Mode, Punk Giana (right).
Giana Sisters is a platformer series that starring a little girl from Milan, Italy named Giana. Giana is an innocent child who likes collecting gems as a hobby. One night, a nightmarish dragon from Dream Land steals all of Giana's jewels and sucks her into his nightmare kingdom. Giana (and potentially her twin sister Maria) must go on a quest to fight against the dragon's army of evil owl minions and retrieve the jewels.
The series has an infamous reputation due to the original's plagiarism. The first few levels of the original title, The Great Giana Sisters for the Commodore 64, were blatantly like those of Super Mario Bros.. The game was taken off of shelves after a lawsuit with Nintendo. Despite this, the game became a cult classic amongst PC gamers and is widely circulated.
The Great Giana Sisters received various fan games and game mods but it wouldn't have an official sequel until the Nintendo DS' Giana Sisters DS. This title revamped the series for modern audiences and removed the allusions to Super Mario Bros. Giana Sisters DS was popular enough that it received a sequel, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, which streamlined everything even more.
Games
- The Great Giana Sisters (1987)
- Giana Sisters DS (2009)
- Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams (2012)
- Giana Sisters: Rise of the Owlverlord (2013; standalone expansion)
- Giana Sisters: Dream Runners (2015; spinoff)
This series provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Twisted Dream: Owltimate Edition reveals that Giana and Maria have an emotionally abusive father.
- Age Lift: Giana was a teenager in the original game but was aged down for DS.
- Alice Allusion: Giana is a blonde little girl who wears blue and travels to a Dream Land.
- American Kirby Is Hardcore: The American cover for the first game depicts a more punkish Giana than the original cover.
- Artifact Title: Despite the series' title, Giana's sister Maria isn't playable in most games outside of the original. Giana Sisters DS does not contain Maria, so "Sisters" is no longer accurate. She makes a return in Twisted Dreams, where Giana must save her from the dragon Fucha, who has abducted her to Dreamland.
- Big Bad:
- A slightly disfigured-looking dragon in the original game (referred to as Fucha in the manual).
- In Twisted Dreams, it seems that the Owlverlord takes over this role, providing that you got the Rise of the Owlverlord expansion.
- Big Brother Instinct: Maria acts this way towards Giana, but it's unclear if she's actually the older twin. Maria protects Giana from others, including their father.
- Continuity Reboot: Giana Sisters DS acts as a Soft Reboot after the series' twenty-year hiatus.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Maria was absent in the DS sequel. She is back in Twisted Dreams, however.
- Derivative Differentiation: If you were to judge from just Twisted Dreams, you wouldn't really be able to discern that the series started off as a blatant Super Mario Bros. derivative. The style is completely different. The only similarities between the series are that they're both platformers who feature the Goomba Stomp and whose protagonists are same-gender siblings with a red and green color motif.
- Distaff Counterpart: Giana and Maria to Mario and Luigi, natch.
- Dream Land: Giana is transported to Dream Land in all the games.
- Everything Fades: Averted in most cases in the series. Enemies simply stay where they got stomped.
- Fiery Redhead: Punk Giana in DS and Twisted Dreams is a spunky redhead. In a literal case in DS, as she can also shoot fire.
- Genre Savvy: According to the Giana Comic (the pages of which are posted on the official Facebook page), the Hansel and Gretel boss came about because a mook observed Giana using powerups in the Commodore 64 game, and tried one for itself, becoming the
Nintendo Hard boss it is now. - Goomba Stomp: Giana stomps on most of the enemies to defeat them.
- Grimy Water: In Twisted Dreams, there are two types of water: violet/green water that kills Giana, and blue water that she can swim in indefinitely.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Fucha the dragon is actually Giana's beloved stuffed toy. who ends up abducting and eating Maria in Twisted Dreams.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: In the original, grabbing a Firewheel and turning Punk doesn't add an extra hit point to Giana/Maria. Averted in DS, as Punk Giana actually gives Giana fire powers and acts as a Single-Use Shield as well.
- Palette Swap: Giana's sister, Maria, is just Giana with green hair. As of the Twisted Dreams expansion pack, she now has a paler skin tone, ponytail, and a giant ribbon in her hair in art, but still isn't playable.
- Perky Goth:
- The modern version of Giana's Super Mode is Hot-Blooded and has goth vibes, though she's still called "Punk Giana".
- Giana is implied to be one on default. Official media says she likes spooky things.
- Power-Up:
- Firewheel: Transforms into Punk Giana who is bigger, has an extra hit, and can bash bricks
- Lighting: Allows Punk Giana to shoot "Dream Bubbles"
- Double Lightning: Dream Bubbles rebound off walls and surfaces.
- Strawberry: Dream Bubbles home in on enemies. The bubble reacts differently to walls depending on the platform (Commodore 64 version has the bubbles constantly bounce, while the Amiga has the bubble tunnel through)
- Clock: Freezes all enemies when activated.
- Magic Bomb: Kills all enemies when activated.
- Water Drop: Makes Giana immune to fire-damage.
- Lollipop: Gives Giana an extra-life.
- Bubble Gum: Introduced in the DS version. Allows Giana to float while activated, can be popped.
- Soda Bottle: Shoots a stream of soda that kills enemies and destroys obstacles.
- Diamonds: Collect 100 for an extra life.
- Super Drowning Skills: In the original game, jump in water and Giana dies instantly, even if the water is not deep enough to cover her head!
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: In Twisted Dreams, Giana can swim indefinitely in the blue water. She gasps for breath when she surfaces, but she has no issue holding her breath for minutes on end.
- Tyop on the Cover: The Great Giana Sisters was originally intended to be titled "The Great Gianna sisters" (spelled with two n's), and the title screen of the game spells it that way. But due to a typo on the box art, they adopted the misspelling as the official spelling so they wouldn't have to reprint the boxes.
- Vague Age: Giana in her post-DS redesign is vaguely somewhere between 6 and 12. Her Cute voice in Twisted Dreams is high and girlish, while her Punk Giana voice is lower. It doesn't help that the series contains a Coming of Age Story element behind it, with Dream Land and Punk Giana symbolizing adolescence.
- Writing Around Trademarks: Failed, obviously. This was the first widely-publicized case in which a
Follow the Leader ripoff of a video game was withdrawn from the market as a result of legal threats. They had been extremely common up to this point, with programmers and companies generally assuming near-impunity. - You Don't Look Like You: Giana and Punk Giana were both completely redesigned for Giana Sisters DS.
