How Nintendo NEARLY KILLED The Giana Sisters

[@Boojakascha]

The video turned out great! Thanks for having me =)

[@RetroGameCouch]

Thank you for lending me your voice 😁

[@Valery0p5]

There was this C64 at an exposition with a tape emulator, saw the name of this title, "huh, this sounds like a famous game...", loaded it and heard the music... Instantly hooked 😍 Thanks for your documentary! Now I imagine a film of this German-Italian punk girl in the 80s having adventures 😁

[@pixel325]

What a nice little gem of a documentary about a great game! Loved Giana on both C64 and Amiga and played it to pieces back in the days!!

[@RetroGameCouch]

Thank you!

[@ClemensWennersMusic]

Great work mate. Interesting story and your videos are getting better and better!

[@RetroGameCouch]

Thank you friend! ☺️

[@zigaudrey]

The Great Giana Sisters has been through a lot. I discover it through a Flash Game and have no idea this is based on a real game! The story behind it is crazy. I wonder if they wanted top make a clone out of commercial success, why the musics are so good? 11:22-11:55 That's one reason Giana Sisters become a cult classic. 5:08 Hard to believe this is official artwork. This is the main inspiration for the design on DS. Like the cover has "The Brother are Histories"! 12:48 6:30 I love this design better than the DS one. You control a young adult adventuring levels and find the yellow diamond to get out. It has charm. Notice how Mario Bros and Giana Sisters have Alice in Wonderland-element? 14:57 Hard 'n' Heavy! 15:15 Wished this sprite come back. 16:50 The last game by Armin.

[@evanmak7837]

Love Gianna Sisters. I remember playing it for the first time on a bootleg mobile phone port posing as a Super Mario game, to the point they actually replaced every graphic with the ones from Super Mario Bros! It was back when mobile phones had actual buttons and now I feel old haha. I was surprised that it was more challenging than Mario and the time limit of 100 sec made me play it over and over to see what I missed on each level. It was a new adventure every time and I loved it.

[@HowlinAndyDE]

Giana Sisters... ah yes.. my first love on the Amiga 500, after Indiana Jones and Monkey Island. It still holds a big place in my heart!

[@MariaIsabellaZNN]

I remember liking Giana Sisters a LOT more because the music was so much better to me than Mario "Bross". Was kinda sad it didn't get a sequel (until MUCH later (and I did not like those).

[@FireFlux73]

Wow this is just great. So much info on a good game. Great work and keep it up. Just love the video's you make. :)

[@RetroGameCouch]

Thank you!

[@bitoxic]

Great overview of Giana Sisters. It would also be interesting to do a review of Turrican, another success by Rainbow Arts.

[@lactobacillusprime]

Thoroughly enjoyed watching this video! Absolutely great documentary on such an iconic game. I still have my original tape, actually sold off a double about two years ago. But not at the crazy inflated prices it goes for these days.

[@RetroGameCouch]

Thank you! And so cool you still have your original cassette.

[@werre2]

A friend who had never seen super mario said - upon seeing it - "a shitty giana clone" :)

[@RetroGameCouch]

Ha! That's how I saw it as well!! 😄

[@jmp01a24]

[@RobvanNieuwpoort]

Thanks for the great flashback! Brings back memories!

[@RetroGameCouch]

You're welcome!

[@rawbasic]

Didn't know there was so much history about Giana, great work and investigation ;)

[@RetroGameCouch]

Thank you! 👍

[@RaptureMusicOfficial]

18:10 Not completely correct; I made many tunes for Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams, in collab with Chris, and MaSu; I also did the full soundtrack for Giana Sisters DS and for all subsequent Giana Sisters games that were released since the NDS version. =) Greetings from the composer! Cheers, Rapture

[@agpxnet]

You cannot protect an idea by copyright, but the expression of that idea (like the graphic and the sound, for example).

[@wackyt.bobcat7576]

cool video is always lovely to see giana sisters stuff i love the series

[@markwrightrf]

You can blame US Gold for their provocative advertising of Gian(n)a across several platforms ("Move over brothers!"). See also Katakis for its R-Type "inspired" gameplay and Garrison for its spooky resemblance to a popular 4-player arcade game. The controversy over these games only came when they were licenced to US Gold (under the Rainbow Arts brand) for much wider releaee.

[@RetroGameCouch]

That's fair. Katakis/R-Type is discussed in my video btw

[@jmp01a24]

US Gold did not have the license to R-Type, Activision did.

[@vanessaashford9203]

tbh, I still feel like Nintendo's lawsuit, had Rainbow Arts actually played ball, wouldn't have held up in court, as "clones" were widely accepted in gaming in the '80s (as this video of course mentions), Nintendo wasn't even above making them themselves back then (Devil World, which never saw a North American release due to Nintendo of America being really weird about religious iconography in games at the time, was straight up a Nintendo Pac-Man clone), and simply being similar to an existing IP usually isn't enough to justify a lawsuit over, especially if no actual copyrighted elements show up in the imitator (pretty sure Nintendo didn't have a copyright on powerups that let characters break blocks with their heads, Italian siblings where one has a name starting with "M", enemies you can stomp on the heads of, etc.). I don't think even US Gold's marketing with "The Brothers Are History" would be enough to count as infringement, like it was pretty commonplace in the '80s and '90s for companies to razz their competitors like that, often much more aggressively and directly, in fact, with Sega getting away with doing so *far* more directly to Nintendo themselves just a few years later (but admittedly it was probably still not the smartest decision for a small developer and budget publisher to be that antagonistic about it, maybe). Again, a lot of this is discussed in the video, I'm just saying. Granted, all of this is based in my understanding of intellectual property laws here in the US, so I don't know, maybe laws about this stuff are different in Germany and Nintendo would've had more of a case? Who knows, but I still think Nintendo would've likely had much more of an uphill battle making the case than Rainbow Arts probably assumed, and possibly even knew that themselves, making the whole thing an empty threat (which apparently nonetheless worked).

[@vanessaashford9203]

Katakis and Thunder Boy were probably pushing things *a lot* closer, and there very well may have been a more legitimate argument for infringement there, but it kind of seems like Great Giana Sisters was more fair, about the typical level of closeness to the original you'd expect from an '80s clone, but with still enough differences that I think they'd have had a good argument in court, considering the player character and enemy sprites, powerups, the appearance of the blocks and other level elements, etc. are all clearly different from those in Super Mario Bros.

[@markwrightrf]

@@jmp01a24 What I meant was that Activision took on board Rainbow Arts' external contractors Factor 5 to code the 16 bit versions of R-Type. Thank goodness Turrican put everything right for everyone, not looking or feeling like any game before ;-) 🤣😂

[@GamingDad63]

I guess quite a lot of work went into this documentary, but it was well worth it. Thumbs up!

[@RetroGameCouch]

Thank you!

[@Gothmog4]

Wonderful Video! Thank you a lot! 🙂

[@daanhamstra]

Amazing documentary! Thank you for unlocking parts of my memory that I had forgotten over the years! Hearing that intro music, seeying the gameplay made me remember instantly. It must have been the late 80s early 90s and this was one of my actual first games I played growing up. My first gaming console was the Commodore 64. Unlike other friends, I never owned a Nintendo nes but I did play mario bros. I remember me and my friends saying that this was almost a straight copy (port) of that game. After seeying this documentary I have to agree. They were copying mario bros bigtime. Not that it mattered to me tbh, because I loved this game. I didnt know sequals were made of this game and was suprised to see New games for the ds, playstation, xbox and switch. How cool is that! I started collecting videogames back in 2010 to relive some of the old memories that I had as a kid. The nes being my most favorite console now, because I always was jealous of friends who did own one. Today I have over 350 different nes games and still collecting. Keep up the good work, it was an absolute pleasure watching this video. Bedankt en groetjes Daan

[@RetroGameCouch]

Thank you for sharing your story. It's similar to mine actually. Except for the NES.

[@Pestilence181]

Great video! Thanks for that.

[@RetroGameCouch]

You're welcome!

[@madmartigan1498]

Thanks a lot for this very well done video. - By the way: When will there be another challenge video...? :-)

[@RetroGameCouch]

Thank you. And suggestions for a new versus are welcome!

[@madmartigan1498]

@@RetroGameCouche.g. Who can write the best 10-Liner-Game in Basic for the Commodore 64?

[@RetroGameCouch]

@@madmartigan1498 Clemens isn't a great coder, but I'll ask him anyway :)

[@607]

Mario did have a name in Donkey Kong, actually: Jumpman. I love how you say 'Super Mario Bros.'. :P I also call it that in Dutch. I don't think Sir Sinclair would've been too disappointed by Giana Sisters not being released on the Spectrum, to be honest, with his poor opinion of video games in general. :P Solid video! I didn't know about Giana 2 or Dream Runners. One could argue about whether Nintendo killed The Great Giana Sisters or not. Sure, the game was passed around illegally, of course, but it seems that most stores did take it off the shelves, and Rainbow Arts did not rerelease it, as you mentioned.

[@RetroGameCouch]

I knew about the Jumpman thing, but I found that more to be a description than a real name. But you're 100% correct. And yes, Super Mario Bros. Because that is how I pronounced it as a Dutch kid. I didn't know then it was short for Brothers. Bro's. lol. busted.

[@jmp01a24]

Sir Clive was long gone from Spectrum at that time, so he couldnt care less. Alan Sugar (behind the Amstrad) bought up the specs for the ZX spectrum hardware series in 1986.

[@Kaleeternity]

Im surprised the remaster is on switch considering their backstory lol

[@jmp01a24]

I wonder if it was not US GOLD that brought it to Nintendos attention, since they were starting to get involved in console games as well at the time (in 88 they struck a deal with Capcom, a competitior of Nintendo). US GOLD were responsible for the UK import of Giana Sisters and it was they who made the advertisements you shown about "beating the boys" etc. This lead to they had to retract Giana Sisters it from sales and do a callback of all their tape and disk versions. The game had been sold in Germany for a full year without any letters from Nintendo. So I think it would been fine if Rainbow Arts had it released with a different UK publisher, that did not compete with Nintendo in the same marketplace. At least that is my 2 cents. (PS: I commented on your fb post as well mentioning the Sierra Jawbreaker vs Ataris Pacman law suit or legal trouble).

[@RetroGameCouch]

Interesting theory, and something I have overlooked. It might have indeed been the UK publisher that was way to aggressive in their marketing, which might have peaked Nintendo's interest. In my video I don't mention the publisher, but blame it on Rainbow Arts themselves, which is unfair.

[@jmp01a24]

@@RetroGameCouch US Gold had cooperation with Capcom and SEGA master/megadrive system. I am sure Nintendo watched them close, in case they could do a marketing trick or stick it to US GOLD. Geoff Brown could be a greedy SOB and were prepared to get a game pulled, just to stick it to Nintendo. Plus they got a lot of free press and Nintendo was "the bad guy" in the room so to speak, for doing this to such a classic game. At least when it came to a couple home computer systems. Hardware and games were shifting into 16 bits and console systems - its where the money were as far as they was concerned.

[@monzadriver1]

Gian(n)a. Great game. Recently downloaded on my phone from the playstore. Onfortunatly it has NO unlimited time and life posibility, like in the C=64 version. Now i know why original copys are so hard to find. Cool video, nice information. And nice to hear a Dutchman speaking fluently English (its much beter than mine) and then hear him say Jan van Valburg in perfectly Dutch 🤣🤣 But afteral, its one of the very few yt movies i watched without skipping parts.

[@RetroGameCouch]

Thank you! Fellow Dutchman. 😀

[@efeugurYT]

5:32 die man deugt niet

[@RetroGameCouch]

Je kent hem?

[@jsmith3946]

I know it's a year old but Krazy Kong was ok by Nintendo so it's not really a clone

[@RetroGameCouch]

For a while it was officially licenced by Nintendo, but it's still a clone in my book 😊

[@crescent5311]

They should kill the Giana Sisters. It's a comlete rip-ff of Super Mario Bros.

[@talos86]

One of the best thing, what happened to the C64.

[@RetroGameCouch]

Agreed. Hands down the best game on the c64.

[@crescent5311]

@@talos86 Ofcourse it's good. It stole from an all-time classic. No hate though. I love the Commodore 64. It holds a special place in my ♥

[@talos86]

@@crescent5311 when i played first with the Giana Sister i never heard of Super Mario or Nintendo at all. Nintendo products where not available in the former soviet member states(Hungary) til 1990. I was one of the few lucky kid, how had the chance to get a C64 on his birthday in 1989. C64 was ultra rare too, but sometimes available.

[@crescent5311]

@@talos86 You did better than me. I never really owned a Commodore 64. I used to play it over a friend's house who was well off. Your family must have made pretty good money.

[@robert1056]

💖 "promosm"

[@vanessaashford9203]

I say this even as a lifelong Nintendo fan: Nintendo, as a company, is fucking evil. Like it's hard to imagine a company that behaves with more hostility toward not only their competitors (or any company that they even vaguely believe could pose a threat to them), but even toward their own audience (look at how they deal with fan games and ROMhacks of their games, even though these aren't things that realistically threaten them). It's a shame, because out of all the prominent developers that were around when I was a kid (I was born in 1990), Nintendo has probably remained the most consistent in quality (most others that come to mind now are either out of business, restructured to the point of being unrecognizable, or just vastly inferior to what they used to be, or some combination of the above), like their games are still great (their consoles are a bit more arguable, but the Switch has clearly been doing something right even considering its reduced technical specs), and they've at least become a lot less weird about third party developers and indie game support, but their business practices are still very malicious often.