Developer: Black Forest Games
Publisher: EuroVideo Medien
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Tested on: PC
Giana Sisters: Dream Runners – Review
A couple of months ago, we had the chance to preview the new Giana Sisters game. Giana Sisters: Dream Runners is a very competitive game where you run around the map until everyone behind you is left in your dust. It proved to be a very polished game which was fun to play, so let’s see what progress has been made since we checked it out.
Story
Giana Sisters: Dream Runners is entirely built around a competitiveness, so it seems that the developers didn’t bother to implement any story into their game whatsoever. You simply launch the game and get straight into action! However, a Storybook can now be found on their website which has a little story for you to read but it doesn’t really have anything directly to do with the game, it’s more about the Giana Sisters universe and their history.
Graphics
When it comes to graphics, Giana Sisters: Dream Runners is a very pleasant game to look at. The environment looks really good, it’s almost like the perfect balance between realism, fairy tales and cartoons were found. All of the characters also look great. It’s fun to notice that the girls are just wearing costumes instead of being a whole different character and some skins kind of look cute as well, which is an added bonus.
Performance wise, the game runs quite good. Before you launch the game, you can open a settings window which allows quite a bit of changes (not so much in-game). You can edit resolution, shadows, shaders, anti-aliasing and a few more, so be sure to have a look over there if any lag is present when playing the game.
Sound
Sound wise, Giana Sisters: Dream Runners scores another home run. The music in Dream Runners is amazing to listen to. It’s fun, not repetitive and upbeat, everything you need in a game that’s all about speed. Sound effects are also really sweet and there’s tons of them, they aren’t distracting or annoying in any way either which is always good. The game also features individual volume sliders for music, sound effects or ambient sound if you feel the need to change them.
Gameplay
The goal of Giana Sisters is simply to race and be faster than everyone else. You have to run laps around the map in order to outrun your opponents, once they disappear off the screen, they’re out of the race. Giana Sisters can be played with both controller and keyboard, which also allows for LAN play with a friend if you’re willing to do so. The controls take some getting used to but once you get used to it it’s quite easy to play.
Instead of just running and relying on being faster, you could also try to take out your opponents with brute force… Poor little girls! The game features a total of nine different powerups you can find laying around the map, but not all of them are cruel. You pick up items much like the Mario Kart powerup style: there’s a box, you hit it and then you get a random upgrade. The upgrades you can get are a cannonball, owls that slow enemies when they run into them, an item that switches places with someone in front of you, a dash which propels you through obstacles, a world twist and slow (more on twisting later), an item that makes you invincible and forces the rest to use their items, a seeking and stunning meteor, a daze which steals all opponents’ gems and last but not least a barrage of slowing pellets.
Giana Sisters also features some other mechanics. You can collect gems by running through gem fields which allow you to sprint for a short period of time, furthermore you can press and hold a button which dashes you forward and you can also turn yourself into a helicopter (not really) by spinning around, slowing your fall. Another big mechanic is world twisting, which is a very interesting feature. In some maps you can find gates or buttons which “twist” the world when you activate them. When you do this, owls transform into other dream monsters and some platforms might become solid and others might disappear. It’s up to you to use this mechanic to your advantage and leave everyone in your trail.
In total, Giana Sisters features 9 maps, each totally different from the other. Each map also has a theme to it, which makes it nice to play. Some might be filled with spikes while others have rapids and a lot of wind. You win the map by winning races and acquiring 3 points, once you’ve done that you go back to map selection. Of course, no “racing” game would be good without a multiplayer, and of course Giana Sisters has one. You can play locally with friends or go play a quick match or ranked match online. Ranked matches allow you to place yourself on the leaderboard and race to the top. However, it seems that not a lot of people play the game so it might take a very long time to get an online match, which is quite disappointing.
Conclusion
All in all, Giana Sisters: Dream Runners is a very fun game to play. Most of the kinks since our preview have been worked out (there’s still the occasional AI hickup) and it’s overall more enjoyable to play. If you like competitive games, this is definitely one for your list. However, barely any people seem to play the game online so maybe the publishers can provide a 4-pack for a big discount to get the game going again.
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