Giana Sisters: Dream Runners Preview

After a very successful and interesting Giana Sisters game that focused a lot on platforming, Black Forest Games is now eyeing up a new genre, more specifically the multiplayer platform racer. It’s a genre that has been approached by SpeedRunners recently with some success.

Thankfully, the magical world of Giana Sisters is great for such a game, and I have to say that, after spending quite some time with Giana Sisters: Dream Runners, the title does a great job of making itself different from SpeedRunners, while also maintaining the core ideas from its predecessor.

At its core, the game is a competitive multiplayer platform racer, and the main idea is simple. You choose one of the four Giana sisters and a map to compete in, then all you have to do is win. Winning here is interesting, because as long as players are in the same screen, there will be no timer going off.

When a player leaves the screen because they are behind, the game starts a countdown of around 30 seconds, and the player that is in the first place at the end of the timer wins. If you don’t have enough players to play this game, you can easily add the AI which is very crafty and hard to defeat, even on the lower settings. Speaking of which, there are three difficulties, with the harder one being very, very difficult and sometimes close to impossible to defeat. This is a great one for those that want a challenge.

When you go through the levels, you will have the opportunity to collect a wide range of gems, and these will allow you to fill your boost meter. There are also a ton of power-ups scattered all over the place, each one of them bringing in a unique power that you can use to defeat the enemies in your path. You will also have the opportunity to dash, slide or even twirl your way to the finish line, which is rather cool.

Graphically, Giana Sisters: Dream Runners looks pretty much the same as the original game, and, for the time being, I was able to test only nine maps. It’s unclear if this is the total number of maps or if there will be more, but you can rest assured that all of them have a unique setting.

Though the game has not launched yet, I can say that the title is a lot of fun to play and it has most of its features already in place. It will definitely be a major contender for SpeedRunners, specifically since both of them are in the same genre, but the graphics style and challenges found in each game does make them rather different.

This is a very promising multiplayer runner, and it will definitely do a great job for those that want a relaxing cooperative experience locally. The online, ranked mode will be fun too, so this is a nice one to look out for when it launches later this summer on PS4, Xbox One and PC.