A very warm welcome to you all to day two of the Retro Gaming Challenge Blogging fun organised by @marcoquin. You can find the link to the fun below this post. Also, don't forget to use the tags #retrogamingchallenge and #challenge.
Question 2 is - Your First Video Game?
The first computer game (except the game I described in the previous post) I ever played was "The Great Giana Sisters" on a neighbour's Amiga 500 or 600. I don't remember exactly what year it could have been, but I think it could have been 1991/1992. Anyway, it was before my first holy communion, which took place in May 1992, and for which I received a Commodore 64 computer as a gift.
I also have to admit that Poland at that time was technologically backward, but was trying to catch up with the west countries. Unfortunately we can say that Poland at that time was two generations behind the west. In 1992, the twilight of Amiga was slowly approaching and in Poland we were just starting to play with Commodore 64, Atari 65 XE and other 8-bit computers. At that time, the "Pegasus" console was introduced in Poland, which was a clone of the NES (or rather Famicom). Computer equipment at that time was becoming cheaper and more and more people could afford it. Unfortunately, Amiga 500 or 600 (I don't mention 1200) were luxury goods and only the rich could afford them. I don't mention the 286 PCs that were introduced at that time.
Coming back to the topic of "The Great Giana Sisters". It must have been 1991/1992 when my late grandmother took me and my younger brother to visit a neighbour. I might have been 8/9 at the time and my younger brother might have been 5/6. It turned out that the neighbour's son had an Amiga. I don't know which model it was, i think 500 or 600. The first game he turned on was the cult "The Great Giana Sisters". He inserted a floppy disk into the disk drive and the game loaded quickly. For me it was a big wow. I was almost picking my jaw up off the floor. As for those times the game looked great, to this still was playing that characteristic music composed by Chris Hülsbeck. At that time I held a joystick for the first time in my life. I won't say that I had any spectacular success in "Giana Sisters", but I managed to get to the 3rd Stage and finish the game on that red jumping ball. My brother also played it, but I don't remember where he got to. I also think he got to Stage 3 too. I asked my neighbour which Stage he reached. He said that his record was 27. That day we played a few more games, but one more game with a helicopter stuck in my memory. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it was "SVIW". Unfortunately we had to go home and that was my first time with computer games. I had to wait a few months until my parents bought me a Commodore 64. The first game I remember turning on the Commodore 64 was some Pinball game, and "The Last Ninja 2".
The next meeting with "The Great Giana Sisters" I had already a year later, in summer holidays at 1993. We went with my mother and younger brother to my aunt's place in the countryside. There it turned out that our cousins also had Commodore 64, and also "The Great Giana Sisters" on Commodore 64. But we played it in the evenings all the time. When we had to go home, we asked our cousin to borrow a cassette tape. We just re-record the game, and a week later we gave back the cassette with Giana Sisters to our cousin. In those days there was still piracy in Poland, but those were the last days. In 1994 the Copyright Act was introduced and that was it. At that time most of the games for Commodore 64, which were in circulation in Poland, were pirated. Not only that, pirated cassette tapes were legally sold in shops. When we came back from my cousin's house, we played "The Great Giana Sisters" for some time. Although the game was very difficult, it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to finish it in the 90s. Only "The Great Giana Sisters" I managed to finish few years ago on Commodore 64 emulator without cheating and on the last life. Somewhere I had recorded a let's play of this game and uploaded it on YouTube, but I think I deleted it. I managed to complete this game on The C64 Mini console also without cheating. But playing this Competition Pro joystick on The C64 Mini was a massacre. Also I answered one of the next questions, what game did you manage to complete. One of them is "The Great Giana Sisters".
Very simply, it's a NES Super Mario Bros clone created for the Commodore 64 computer.
Originally, the game was to be titled The Great Gianna (with 2 N's), but one N was "cut off" at the printer when printing the cover, and so it became Giana (with one N). Although the game's main menu shows Gianna (with a double N), in the game itself we see Giana with a single N (screen before each board - Giana get ready, stage XX, or in the top left corner of the screen).
It is an arcade-platform game, written in a 2D environment with a sliding screen from right to left (we walk the heroine to the right). This game was written by german Time Warp Studios, and was published by Rainbow Arts in 1987. Initially it was written for Commodore 64 computer, but it was also converted for Atari ST (the minus of this version is lack of "scrollable" screen and each part of the board is a separate screen) and Amiga, among others. The game was created by the late Armin Gessert (passed away in 2009), the graphic designer was Manfred Trenz and the music composer was Chris Hülsbeck. Manfred Trenz and Chris Hülsbeck were also involved in the Turrican trilogy on the Commodore 64.
This game caused a lot of controversy due to its similarity to Super Mario Bros (1985) on Nintendo Entertainment System. Let's not kid ourselves, it was plagiarism, but a very good one. Even the creators didn't hide it, putting the information on the box with the original game: "The Brothers are history". Nintendo made copyright claims and threatened legal action if Rainbow Arts didn't withdraw all copies of the game from shops and destroy them. The small German studio had to bow to the Japanese giant and so they did. Fortunately, a lot of people managed to buy this game and... it was one of the most "pirated" Commodore 64 games in history. And the value of the original game nowadays is a treat for collectors and reaches sky-high prices.
The plot of the game is as original as my note (I probably won't write anything new here) 😄. Giana and her sister Maria dreamt a nightmare at night. Everything that happens in the game is a dream, and at the end of the game we are greeted with the information that it was a nightmare and that the sisters were greeted by the sun's rays breaking through the window.
The game works in port 2 of the joystick. Control of the heroine is limited to three directions: right and left, and up (or diagonally) - jump. Unfortunately, moving the joystick downwards didn't work, sisters couldn't bend like plumber brothers. The fire button on the joystick was used to shoot.
The game can be played by two people, but unfortunately co-op play is not possible. When the title screen is displayed, we can choose the number of players we want to play with using the buttons on the keyboard - 1 or 2. The first player controls Gianna, the second controls her sister - Maria. The sisters differ in hair colour, Gianna is blonde, while Maria has green hair. Unfortunately, co-op play is not possible and the second player has to wait for the first player's mistake.
The premise of the game is almost the same as in Super Mario Bros. We jump on walls, collect power-ups, smash walls with our head by jumping from the bottom, smash blocks with surprises, jump on opponents' heads and we have to reach the end of the board before time runs out. As well as power-ups, we also collect diamonds here, which have replaced the gold coins from Super Mario Bros. If we take 100 diamonds we get another life, just like in the game about Mario. They haven't forgotten about the hidden bonus boards, where we collect diamonds.
The premise of the game is almost the same as in Super Mario Bros. We jump on walls, collect power-ups, smash walls with our head by jumping from the bottom, smash blocks with surprises, jump on opponents' heads and we have to reach the end of the board before time runs out. As well as power-ups, we also collect diamonds here, which have replaced the gold coins from Super Mario Bros. If we take 100 diamonds we get another life, just like in the game about Mario. They haven't forgotten about the hidden bonus boards, where we collect diamonds. In Super Mario Bros, to enter the bonus chamber, you had to enter the right pipe. In Gianna Sisters we have to jump into the right abyss. Fortunately, the bonus chasms are marked with horizontal dark blue lines, so they are easy to distinguish.
The game consists of 33 boards (32 + 1 with a boss). The structure of the stages is the same as in Mario. Three boards taking place outside or underground, unfortunately the underwater floating stage was abandoned. Every fourth stage takes place in a castle, and at the end we have to fight the boss (big Ant or Dragon). The Ant appears in stages: 4, 8, 24 and the Dragon appears in stages: 12, 16, 20, 28 and 33.
Sounds easy, right? Not really...
The game is verry difficult, much more difficult than Mario. Here, one contact with the opponent and you immediately lose your life. It's not like in Super Mario Bros, where the protagonist lost all the power-ups and we could continue playing as "little" Mario. In Giana Sisters it's not that easy, this game doesn't forgive mistakes, oh no. One mistake and you start again. The animation of Giana's death is similar to the one from Mario, our protagonist turns to face us and jumps up, just like Mario, and falls down to the bottom of the screen. Even Giana does this jump as she falls into an abyss. The "punishment" for losing a life is losing all the diamonds you've collected. In Mario, if you lost your life, the money you collected didn't get deleted. If you lose a life in Giana Sisters with 99 diamonds... then sorry... you have to collect all over again. Life is brutal.
Here, just like in Super Mario Bros, there is a system of so-called "checkpoints", i.e. checkpoints more or less in the middle of the Stage. If our protagonist loses a life at the end of a stage, she will start at the checkpoint. The exception is when we run out of time. Then we have to finish the whole Stage from the beginning. Life is brutal.
The very beginning of the game and the first Stage resembles Mario. We're standing on a horizontal ground, blue sky at the top, clouds on the sky and some bushes on the ground. We move on and come across walls and blocks with finds hanging in the air. Mario's question marks have been replaced by animated six-pointed stars. Further on, there is a pipe vertically driven into the ground, and from it walks the first opponent, which looks like a Mario's Goomba . This monster reminded me of a Cat or an Owl, I always called it "cat-owl". You can kill him by jumping on his head, but you have to do it pretty much in the middle of his head. If you end up on one of his ears you can sometimes die. You can also kill him with a light jump at the wall, but this method is for hardcore players. You have to jump it "perfect".
Ball - the equivalent of a Mario's orange mushroom. When our protagonist collects it, she changes from a good girl with a bow on her head, into a "punk" with a "perm" hairstyle, which were fashionable in the 80s. With this hairstyle we can break down walls.
Single lightning - it gives the ability to shoot white balls, with which we can kill (not all) creatures. Unfortunately, the projectile is impermanent and shatters on contact with a wall.
Double lightning - after collecting it, projectiles can bounce off walls.
Strawberry - gives self-guided projectiles.
Alarm clock - Activated with SPACE bar, "stops" time for a moment. The whole enemies "freezes". Unfortunately, after the alarm clock stops working, the game takes this time away, like penalty points. Just look at the time counter.
Bomb - (earlier I thought it was a pear) - after pressing SPACE it kills all enemies ( those that can be shot). There is a short white flash and enemies dies.
Drop of water - after pressing SPACE gives us a few seconds immunity to fire. It is useful especially in the 11th Stage just before checkpoint.
Rattle (or lollipop) - collecting it gives extra life. It's like the equivalent of a Mario's green (brown) mushroom.
After collecting the rattle, the power-ups loop and return to the alarm clock again. SPACE triggered power-ups (alarm clock, bomb, water drop) can be used at any time, even in 2 or 3 stages, but.... For example, when we have collected the alarm clock and at that time we collect the bomb, the previous power-up is lost.
The biggest advantage of this game is undoubtedly the soundtrack, composed by Chris Hülsbeck, which I personally consider to be one of the best soundtracks from the games for 8-bit machines. The music from this game is very memorable, even after 20 years, somewhere in your mind you have these melodies encoded and you can easily sing them. At least that was the case for me 😄.
Even the loading screen of the game from the original cassette had its track, which could also be heard in the main menu, in this newer version of Gianna Sisters, which came out in 2009 for the Nintendo DS, which later came out for Android (you can buy it on Google Play, or on Steam, which came out in 2016).
Unfortunately, the game is not without flaws. Sometimes, somewhere in the stages, metal blocks load up in the least expected places and this... not quite. Most probably, these are some kind of graphic glitches.
Sometimes enemies don't "load". For example, you know that a piranha is about to jump out of the water, but... it's not there.
It is often the case that closed enemies go out of the screen and... disappear. For example, in the second Stage, just after collecting two lightning bolts, there is a walking eye surrounded by a wall. If it goes outside the screen, it disappears, even though there is a wall right next to it. I often used this glitch to collect the diamonds that were inside.
Sometimes it also happened that after collecting the ball our protagonist's hair had a different colour: one time it was white, one time black, one time the colour of the sky and it looked as if she had bald head 😄.
There was also a frequent bug towards the end of the board where we went down in the lift. You had to climb a staircase made of metal blocks and jump onto the lift, similar to the end of most stages in Super Mario Bros, where you jumped from the stairs to the flagpole. Sometimes it happened that Giana would bounce off an invisible block and fall into the abyss, or when jumping she would suddenly penetrate the stairs and ride down together with the lift. This lift can also be shot down. But I don't advise it, because you won't complete the stage.
Graphically the game does not impress. In the 90's, when we had "square" (4:3) CRT TV's and nobody not yet heard about HD format, this game looked good. Comparing the graphics with Super Mario Bros, in my opinion Super Mario Bros looks better than Giana Sisters, even though Super Mario Brothers was made two years earlier.
A lot of hacks have been created for this game, including several unofficial sequels. I personally played through to part five, I think. There was new board scenery there, such as a grey or navy blue background. There was also a new musical theme with a disturbing sound to match the stages in the castle.
The official sequel to The Great Gianna Sisters was a game entitled "Hard n' Heavy" from 1989. Graphically it was very different from the original, as Hard n' Heavy was set in a space climate and we controlled a robot there. I'll tell you that I also played Hn'H but I never suspected that it could be a sequel. There were some similarities to the original, but somehow I didn't associate this title with Giana Sisters.
Another interesting hack was called... "Super Mario Bros", created by Abyss group, which I also had a chance to play on Commodore 64. It was characterized by the fact that it was Giana Sisters but... with changed sprites. The sisters were swapped for mustachioed plumbers. The first peon-up was changed to a mushroom, diamonds were "rounded" and made into coins anyway, stars in blocks were replaced with question marks like in the original. The stage structure and music remained the same as in Giana Sisters, some of the monsters remained the same. Some of the monster sprites have been swapped, for example the bees have been replaced with those clouds that in Super Mario Bros threw out those red armadillos.
I love this game and hate it at the same time, because of the difficulty. It's the kind of game that sometimes you swear under your breath, play for an hour and then turn it off. But you always come back to it.