Together Retro: Eighties' Ladies' Night

[nullPointer]

I too have successfully made time with the ladies this month! Tonight I beat:

The Great Giana Sisters [Amiga]


Wow, just get a load of of that cover art. It's almost as if the box art for Mega Man had a sister ... and she didn't care too much for wearing bras. This game is a bit notorious as being a straight rip-off of Super Mario Bros., but that's plainly ridiculous. You see these sisters aren't super; they're great. They're not brothers with vaguely Italian sounding names, they're sisters ... with vaguely Italian sounding names. No but in all actuality, this game really does steal most of it's mechanics from Super Mario Bros. So much so in fact that Nintendo pressured the publisher into pulling it from European store shelves in 1987. This of course has added to the game's mystique as a sought after collectible in subsequent years.

Although The Great Giana Sisters copies a lot of SMB mechanics in terms of power-ups, smashable bricks, and hop & bop elements; in terms of game feel it seems weirdly reminiscent of early Alex Kidd. Drifty jumps and rather sluggish movement rule the day here. I do need to make mention of the music which is fantastic. There are only two songs, but they're both great. Full disclaimer: I'm a bit of a sucker for the weird jingly-jangly space-disco synthesizer found in a lot of Amiga games. Your mileage may vary I suppose.



I'll have a full Games Beaten review forthcoming, but so as not to keep y'all in suspense, this game is ... okay. It's good, plain, unremarkable fun. Other than one particular late game spike in difficulty, this is entry level platformer material. Literally if you've beaten almost any other side-scroller from this era, The Great Giana Sisters should give you no trouble.

[Xeogred]

Did you emulate that?

[PartridgeSenpai]

Those problems aside, I ended up having a blast with Gain Ground. So much so, I beat it. I'm gonna write up my thoughts soon.

I used to play Gain Ground SO much but I could never beat it. That final boss is just SUCH a bastard QwQ

[Ack]

Those problems aside, I ended up having a blast with Gain Ground. So much so, I beat it. I'm gonna write up my thoughts soon.

I used to play Gain Ground SO much but I could never beat it. That final boss is just SUCH a bastard QwQ

Yeah, he is a pain in the ass with those homing missiles. My strategy is to let him fire missiles before spawning, then dig out the leftmost side as quickly as possible using the spear guy or someone relatively fast. Once the hole was made, I then had access to his side, though I still lost characters in the process.

I then used the dwarf because I believe he is the fastest character, and I waited again until the boss fired a missile to spawn again. I then rushed up the left side and unloaded on his side. The homing missile takes a moment to bank to the side, and with the dwarf's speed, you can run in a circle and throw the missile off track while still avoiding other projectiles. I just unloaded arrows on him while doing this, and pretty soon he died.

The ending isn't anything to write home about, but it was a satisfying win.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Next up is a HAL game. It's kicking my ass.
I must go sit upon the retro mountain and retrotate until the retro path becomes clear to me.

So, Gall Force? I plan on getting that one eventually... I will be giving Layla a run before the end of the month, if all goes well. Sounds too tough for me to complete though.

[nullPointer]

Did you emulate that?

Yessir I surely did. Current eBay prices put the Amiga release for The Great Giana Sisters anywhere between $850 and $2000 USD ... for 2.25 floppy disks. It's a decent game, but that's fully outrageous. Also I don't currently own an Amiga ... so there is that.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Yeah there's no affordable way to play the original without resorting to emulation. I played it via WinVICE several years ago.

I recommend the DS reboot. It's pretty fun.

[Sarge]

Ran through Golden Axe and Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder. The latter doesn't count, but whatevs. The arcade version of Golden Axe is really short, and GAII is a real quarter-muncher.

[Exhuminator]

The Great Giana Sisters

Cool beat man. I remember reading at the time Nintendo filed for a stop of the sales for this title and won, so Giana Sisters became expensive and rare quickly.

So, Gall Force?

Yep. It gets pretty hard. I've gotten a good ways into it, but eventually died. I've done that a few times over the past couple days. I don't like using save states as a matter of principle (i.e. for a legit event like Together Retro), but I'm getting awful tempted to do so with Gall Force. It sucks to lose so much progress over and over. I read a strategy guide about using the pilots more effectively, so I'm gonna try a different tactic tonight. Maybe it'll work and I can have this one beat finally.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Yeah there's no affordable way to play the original without resorting to emulation. I played it via WinVICE several years ago.

I recommend the DS reboot. It's pretty fun.

Same. The DS reboot is really solid, and it contains the original game, in its entirety, as a hidden level. The “twisted dream” reimagining, however, is not very good. I wanted too like it so much too...