Spanning 36 levels of beautiful pixels, Sia is a nice platformer whose minor flaws are worth overlooking.
Sia's tools in battle are her sword which enables a couple combination attacks, magic that can be later charged and other elemental spells that can be used through certain button combinations, and the ability to turn into a beast. Through the levels, she will collect green gems and rescue prisoners. Sia has 4 lives to start and unlimited number of continues. The game saves your progress.
The game consists of 36 levels spanning across four kingdoms. These platform levels are quite large, well designed, and contain simple puzzles that must be solved before progressing through. These puzzles consist mainly of pulling levers and destroying things. These levels wouldn't be complete without an array of beasties to slaughter through and other hazardous obstacles. For the most part, they are simple to beat, however, some obstacles and baddies are impossible to avoid which can be frustrating while trying to conserve life.
Lady Sia is beautifully designed with a bright, vivid palette. The animations for all the characters are very fluid and detailed. Other effects in the game such as snowfall, moving water, and the mounted flight with the bird, add to the cartoonish adventure feel to the game. The backgrounds are very nice and add that extra splash of detail to the games that make the beauty stick out in the mind.
The music is one of the drawbacks to the game's presentation. It is awful. While it has a somewhat cartoon sound, it just doesn't fit anything at all. Listening to the music, doesn't add to the feel of the world or levels Sia is traveling through. The sound-effects are fine.
The other major downfall of this, otherwise great title, occurs with some of the game-play. Looking up and pulling levers are done by pressing the same buttons. It can be frustrating trying to pull levers when all Sia does is look up. Eventually, she'll get them and sometimes it works on the first try. Another problem also deals with looking around. Since the buttons to do such are up and down on the directional pad, while progressing through the levels, players will find Sia automatically looking about which can get annoying after a time, at least until gotten used to. The last major problem is life. Once Sia dies, she respawns at a checkpoint with the amount of life that she had when she first got there. If it wasn't full at that time, it won't be when she re-spawns. This can be irritating in difficult areas, particularly boss fights, when Sia's health is so low, she can't take a single bit of damage.
Despite the flaws, Sia is a very entertaining platform adventure that's worth investing some time into. Once the game's finished, it's time to get perfects in every stage to unlock an extra ending scene and extra levels.