Anyway, I've never played it. But it seems to have a large fanbase, large enough to get a sequel. I was hoping someone could tell me more about it, since when I search for the original all I find is the DS one.
I was hoping someone could tell me more about it, since when I search for the original all I find is the DS one.
Oh boy, where do I begin?
The game manages to do absolutely everything wrong. I dare you to suggest a worse RPG than this. It's THAT bad. *The plot is barely there in the first place, and the game more or less ignores it. Essentially, you're chasing some guys around the world, but end up being distracted by a ton of unrelated crap that leads to dunegons and bosses and tons of cutscenes, but no plot. The plot is touched upon roughly five times during the game, and this is a game that goes over TWO carts. *The characters are wooden and have no personality at all. *The cutscenes go on and on and on and on and on are and nothing but uninteresting and unimportant babble. *The difficulty is more or less non-existant. The monsters can be beaten by just hammering attack a lot, and the bosses are beaten by summon-spamming. *The djinni system pretends it offers a lot of customization, but the best results are gotten by just throwing all djinni of one element on the guy with the corresponding element. Always. The game is so easy it doesn't matter much anyway, and attack magic doesn't do much more damage than normal weapons, so any special magic you gain from certain combinations are useless. *Using magic on the field to solve puzzles is interesting in theory, but in practice only means you have to watch 5-second magic animations every time you move a block when solving block puzzles. Compare to the areas in Pokemon where you need to use HM moves a lot, just more annoying and much more frequent. *The monsters are all boring and unmemorable. As is most everything else, really.
I never understood how these games managed to get such a following. They're essentially a checklist of things to avoid in RPG design. Insultingly bad games.
I'd be absolutely happy to tell you more about it, if you'd like, MetalMario, I'd just need to know what you'd like me to tell you about it. I could bore you to death with an absolute wall of text, so I figure if you give me some questions you have, I can answer them more concisely.
Lieutenant Commander of the Lesbian Love Brigade
There can only be one, like in that foreign movie where there could only be one, and in the end there is only one dude left, because that was the point.
I'll let PhoenixSage handle this, but let me just say, if you've not played the Golden Sun GBA titles, please do yourself a favor and track at least one of the two down.
I was hoping someone could tell me more about it, since when I search for the original all I find is the DS one.
Oh boy, where do I begin?
The game manages to do absolutely everything wrong. I dare you to suggest a worse RPG than this. It's THAT bad. *The plot is barely there in the first place, and the game more or less ignores it. Essentially, you're chasing some guys around the world, but end up being distracted by a ton of unrelated crap that leads to dunegons and bosses and tons of cutscenes, but no plot. The plot is touched upon roughly five times during the game, and this is a game that goes over TWO carts. *The characters are wooden and have no personality at all. *The cutscenes go on and on and on and on and on are and nothing but uninteresting and unimportant babble. *The difficulty is more or less non-existant. The monsters can be beaten by just hammering attack a lot, and the bosses are beaten by summon-spamming. *The djinni system pretends it offers a lot of customization, but the best results are gotten by just throwing all djinni of one element on the guy with the corresponding element. Always. The game is so easy it doesn't matter much anyway, and attack magic doesn't do much more damage than normal weapons, so any special magic you gain from certain combinations are useless. *Using magic on the field to solve puzzles is interesting in theory, but in practice only means you have to watch 5-second magic animations every time you move a block when solving block puzzles. Compare to the areas in Pokemon where you need to use HM moves a lot, just more annoying and much more frequent. *The monsters are all boring and unmemorable. As is most everything else, really.
I never understood how these games managed to get such a following. They're essentially a checklist of things to avoid in RPG design. Insultingly bad games.
O.O Wow. Ok, thanks, at least now I know more about it. I just watched a YouTube video on it, (it was the only one I could find without annoying commentary) and they were yelling about how some boulder was going to crash all over the village from a mountain. He flipped through the cutscenes pretty fast, so I couldn't really read most of it. He did three battles, one against Verman, one against Bat, and one between two Wild Mushrooms. He couldn't use any specials since he didn't have any, so he did just hammer the attack button. I didn't really see much else, partly because the video was 6 minutes long and for the first 2 he was walking around aimlessly because he couldn't figure out where to go on the obvious path.
I didn't notice anything about any personalities, but if they really don't have any like you say that's something I wouldn't like. That's part of the reason I buy Fire Emblem over Advance Wars. There is more character development.
This game actually looks and sounds alot like Pokemon, actually. You don't see the actual enemy in the overworld.
Thanks again though for the info. I'm going to have to wait for some reviews for the new one for DS.
@PhoenixSage: I would like to know all that I can, I like to know ALOT about games before I consider them, let alone buy them. Adamant already told me alot, but I usually like to hear from both sides. You know, people who like and dislike the game.
(Yes, I do this for every game I'm on the fence about, by the way.)
@Corbie: I just might. Besides, they are bound to be cheap now.
I have it, but I haven't played it, and I don't intend on playing it any time soon. As far as I can tel, it's just a generic RPG, but more Lunar generic, instead of FF1/DQ1 generic(which actually would've been favorable). The plot will be linear, predictable, and impersonal, outside of a set of predictible choices that'll change the plot in a predictable manner, and the gameplay will follow the same format as well. For me, there's just no point in playing it.
All in all, if you want a simple, plot-heavy RPG with simple, easy gameplay, go for it. Just don't expect any surprises.
EDIT: Whoops, I didn't see Adaments post! He even said what I was trying to say far better than I did, too. Anywho, yeah, They're dull, generic games, and I honestly don't recommend them, unless you can find them dirt cheap (they currently go for $10 minimum...I suggest you wait).
games like pac-man and its clones. I can never beat the levels, and it just gets boring. Uh-oh, clicked on the wrong forum XP I was wondering where my post went...
Goddammit, I wrote an entire review of the freaking game. It took me the last hour to write it, but when I posted the thing, it said Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage, and the entire thing dissapeared. Sorry, MetalMario, I won't be able to do that again tonight. I poured my heart and soul into that thing, and to see it dissapear like that was really sad. I'll write something again tommorow and make sure I save it in Word.
Lieutenant Commander of the Lesbian Love Brigade
There can only be one, like in that foreign movie where there could only be one, and in the end there is only one dude left, because that was the point.
I still don't know, it looks like a pretty fun RPG, but at the same time what Adamant said above doesn't make it sound good at all.
Ugh, I hate when I have to decide what to do with my money.
Well then my suggestion is to wait until it gets a little cheaper, or shop around on eBay or at flea markets. If you find it for a low enough price, you can't regret it.
But the truth is, you should just go with your gut. It knows your tastes better than anyone else. You have all the information, now all you have to do is make a decision based on what you know about yourself.
Goddammit, I wrote an entire review of the freaking game. It took me the last hour to write it, but when I posted the thing, it said Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage, and the entire thing dissapeared. Sorry, MetalMario, I won't be able to do that again tonight. I poured my heart and soul into that thing, and to see it dissapear like that was really sad. I'll write something again tommorow and make sure I save it in Word.
That's why I make sure to copy and paste every post I make before I actually post it. You won't believe how many times that has happened to me in the past!>_< Oh well, just learn from this and you'll be a-okay from now on.:thumbs-up:
Goddammit, I wrote an entire review of the freaking game. It took me the last hour to write it, but when I posted the thing, it said Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage, and the entire thing dissapeared. Sorry, MetalMario, I won't be able to do that again tonight. I poured my heart and soul into that thing, and to see it dissapear like that was really sad. I'll write something again tommorow and make sure I save it in Word.
Aw, I feel really bad now. Really I do. I don't even know what to say. That's just so thoughtful. After hearing this I can't wait to hear what you have to say about it.
Here's the entire thing, MetalMario. I know it's a huge wall of text, so if you don't want to slog through that, then read the conclusion (I marked it). Hopefully this really helps you out.
All right, before I get started, I think it’s prudent for me to define a few terms that are unique to the Golden Sun world, as they’ll crop up many times in my post.
-Psynergy: Golden Sun’s “magic”, Psynegy is a contraction of Psychic Energy. Psynergy is the physical manifestation of the mind’s power, and takes great concentration to use. -Adept: Someone who is able to use Psynergy. -Venus: The earth element. -Mars: The fire element. -Jupiter: The wind element. -Mercury: The water element. -Djinni (plural: Djinn): Tiny elemental creatures that are found in the overworld. Djinn grant stat bonuses and can change magic. They can also be used in battle (more on this later).
Now that that’s out of the way, I can begin. I think I’ll break the game down into its central categories and spend time talking about each one separately.
Gameplay: Camelot’s RPG is familiar in many ways. Like most RPG’s, Golden Sun features a large overworld to explore, which is filled with smaller areas like towns, caves, forests, and the like. While the zoomed-out overworld features nothing new, it’s in the smaller areas where one of Camelot’s unique twists sees a lot of use. Basically, Golden Sun allows you the use of select Psynergy outside of battle to solve environmental puzzles. You can do very interesting and very cool things with your Psynergy, like freeze puddles into columns of ice or read other people’s minds to find clues to the location of a secret treasure. I found that even boring block puzzles had some unique twists, when you can use Psynergy to move them when they’re too far away. This made questing a lot more interesting than most RPG’s, because you have to make use of many types of Psynergy in sometimes-odd ways to progress.
For the battle system, it features many of your tried-and-true battle commands: Attack, Psynergy (use Psynergy in battle) and Items. Nothing much to say about those; you can use them to fight battles in your typical RPG fashion. However, the battle system features one very unique and very cool aspect: the Djinn system. Explaining this will take a bit, but it’s easily the most unique and awesome part of Golden Sun.
While traveling the overworld, many times you’ll run into Djinn. After getting the little dudes to come with you, they will attach themselves to one of your party members and set themselves. Once set, the Djinni melds with the Adept and boost their stats significantly. They also can change an Adept’s usable Psynergy, depending on the element of the Adept and the Djinni. For example, setting Flint (a Venus Djinni) to Isaac will increase Isaac’s natural earth power, and he will retain his basic Psynergies like Quake, Spire, and Cure. However, if you were to set Forge (a Mars Djinni) to Isaac, you’ll change Isaac’s base class to Brute and gain the use of that class’ Psynergy, namely the Growth series. Mixing and matching Djinn to your Adepts produces a myriad number of classes and different Psynergies. It’s a very deep, complex, and customizable system if you’re willing to give it a shot.
But what does that mean for battle? Well, while in battle, you can make use of the Djinn command. In battle, every Djinni has a unique unleash effect. The aforementioned Flint’s unleash deals heavy Venus-elemental damage to one person, while Forge will boost attack strength. Once a Djinni is unleashed, it moves into the Standby phase. While on Standby, a Djinni no longer boosts your stats, but it allows you one last battle command: Summon. A Djinni on standby can be used to summon a giant elemental being to do massive damage to all enemies. Djinni on standby can stack; one Venus Djinni grants you the Venus summon, while four grants you the ability to summon Judgment, a giant angelic warrior with the head of a lion for a hand, who fires a burst of light that destroys the world. Summons are the coolest ways to dispatch enemies in Golden Sun, and are absolutely gorgeous to behold. However, using this method of combat is always a gamble, as standby Djinn no longer grant you stat bonuses, weakening you significantly. It’s a high-risk, high-reward kind of fighting that makes for some intense battles should you choose to make use of it.
Story: Camelot’s game will not win any most original story awards, but what’s there is really good and hearkens back to an earlier age of RPG. You take control of Isaac, a resident of the hidden town of Vale. While exploring Vale’s most sacred of temples (without permission, of course), you discover the hidden chamber of the Elemental Stars. The Stars are pure concentrated energy in material form. While exploring the cave, however, two mysterious warriors, Saturos and Menardi, corner you and steal the Stars, all except one. With them they take the kidnapped Jenna and Kraden on a journey to use the Elemental Stars to re-awaken the power of Alchemy and unleash it on the world, which spells certain doom. The Wise One tasks you with defeating Saturos and Menardi and recoving the Stars before the destruction of the world. Like I said, nothing too original, but it gets really interesting in the sequel/continuation. Golden Sun is only the first act, so it ends right at the part you’d expect for a nice plot twist, and the sequel delievers that.
Characters: If you’re looking for Fire Emblem-levels of character development, you’re not going to get it here, but imo it adds to the experience. Camelot develops the characters to the point where you know who they are and what their motivation is, but they leave a whole lot of room for you to develop your own thoughts. Characters stick in your mind because they are unique to you; Isaac means something different to me than he does to anyone else.
Graphics: Absolutely stunning, Golden Sun features some of the best-looking visuals on the entire system. Seriously, I dare you to find a better-looking game on the GBA. Camelot’s faux-3D is gorgeous, especially in battle, where the screen will fill with some of the most visually impressive spell effects of any RPG of ever played.
Music: Motoi Sakuraba hit this nail right on the head. It blends his trademark-intense battle themes (nobody’s better imo) with some haunting themes and epic location themes. It’s an absolute treat, worthy of a whole lot of praise.
Conclusion (if you read nothing else, read this): The purchase of Golden Sun hinges on what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for a ground-breaking RPG, this is not your game. Outside of some unique twists, Camelot sticks to the tried-and-true RPG formula. If, however, you’re looking for a game that succeeds in emulating the SNES-era of RPGs, then this is a perfect choice. It’s Camelot’s beautifully-written love letter to fans of the SNES-era of RPG’s. Camelot took everything they ever learned from making RPG’s in the 16-bit era and poured it all into the tiny cart. How they filled it with so much old-school love is beyond me and, quite frankly, a miracle. It’s absolutely fantastic in that regard, and imo rivals the SNES’s best.
Lieutenant Commander of the Lesbian Love Brigade
There can only be one, like in that foreign movie where there could only be one, and in the end there is only one dude left, because that was the point.
Here's the entire thing, MetalMario. I know it's a huge wall of text, so if you don't want to slog through that, then read the conclusion (I marked it). Hopefully this really helps you out.
All right, before I get started, I think it’s prudent for me to define a few terms that are unique to the Golden Sun world, as they’ll crop up many times in my post.
-Psynergy: Golden Sun’s “magic”, Psynegy is a contraction of Psychic Energy. Psynergy is the physical manifestation of the mind’s power, and takes great concentration to use. -Adept: Someone who is able to use Psynergy. -Venus: The earth element. -Mars: The fire element. -Jupiter: The wind element. -Mercury: The water element. -Djinni (plural: Djinn): Tiny elemental creatures that are found in the overworld. Djinn grant stat bonuses and can change magic. They can also be used in battle (more on this later).
Now that that’s out of the way, I can begin. I think I’ll break the game down into its central categories and spend time talking about each one separately.
Gameplay: Camelot’s RPG is familiar in many ways. Like most RPG’s, Golden Sun features a large overworld to explore, which is filled with smaller areas like towns, caves, forests, and the like. While the zoomed-out overworld features nothing new, it’s in the smaller areas where one of Camelot’s unique twists sees a lot of use. Basically, Golden Sun allows you the use of select Psynergy outside of battle to solve environmental puzzles. You can do very interesting and very cool things with your Psynergy, like freeze puddles into columns of ice or read other people’s minds to find clues to the location of a secret treasure. I found that even boring block puzzles had some unique twists, when you can use Psynergy to move them when they’re too far away. This made questing a lot more interesting than most RPG’s, because you have to make use of many types of Psynergy in sometimes-odd ways to progress.
For the battle system, it features many of your tried-and-true battle commands: Attack, Psynergy (use Psynergy in battle) and Items. Nothing much to say about those; you can use them to fight battles in your typical RPG fashion. However, the battle system features one very unique and very cool aspect: the Djinn system. Explaining this will take a bit, but it’s easily the most unique and awesome part of Golden Sun.
While traveling the overworld, many times you’ll run into Djinn. After getting the little dudes to come with you, they will attach themselves to one of your party members and set themselves. Once set, the Djinni melds with the Adept and boost their stats significantly. They also can change an Adept’s usable Psynergy, depending on the element of the Adept and the Djinni. For example, setting Flint (a Venus Djinni) to Isaac will increase Isaac’s natural earth power, and he will retain his basic Psynergies like Quake, Spire, and Cure. However, if you were to set Forge (a Mars Djinni) to Isaac, you’ll change Isaac’s base class to Brute and gain the use of that class’ Psynergy, namely the Growth series. Mixing and matching Djinn to your Adepts produces a myriad number of classes and different Psynergies. It’s a very deep, complex, and customizable system if you’re willing to give it a shot.
But what does that mean for battle? Well, while in battle, you can make use of the Djinn command. In battle, every Djinni has a unique unleash effect. The aforementioned Flint’s unleash deals heavy Venus-elemental damage to one person, while Forge will boost attack strength. Once a Djinni is unleashed, it moves into the Standby phase. While on Standby, a Djinni no longer boosts your stats, but it allows you one last battle command: Summon. A Djinni on standby can be used to summon a giant elemental being to do massive damage to all enemies. Djinni on standby can stack; one Venus Djinni grants you the Venus summon, while four grants you the ability to summon Judgment, a giant angelic warrior with the head of a lion for a hand, who fires a burst of light that destroys the world. Summons are the coolest ways to dispatch enemies in Golden Sun, and are absolutely gorgeous to behold. However, using this method of combat is always a gamble, as standby Djinn no longer grant you stat bonuses, weakening you significantly. It’s a high-risk, high-reward kind of fighting that makes for some intense battles should you choose to make use of it.
Story: Camelot’s game will not win any most original story awards, but what’s there is really good and hearkens back to an earlier age of RPG. You take control of Isaac, a resident of the hidden town of Vale. While exploring Vale’s most sacred of temples (without permission, of course), you discover the hidden chamber of the Elemental Stars. The Stars are pure concentrated energy in material form. While exploring the cave, however, two mysterious warriors, Saturos and Menardi, corner you and steal the Stars, all except one. With them they take the kidnapped Jenna and Kraden on a journey to use the Elemental Stars to re-awaken the power of Alchemy and unleash it on the world, which spells certain doom. The Wise One tasks you with defeating Saturos and Menardi and recoving the Stars before the destruction of the world. Like I said, nothing too original, but it gets really interesting in the sequel/continuation. Golden Sun is only the first act, so it ends right at the part you’d expect for a nice plot twist, and the sequel delievers that.
Characters: If you’re looking for Fire Emblem-levels of character development, you’re not going to get it here, but imo it adds to the experience. Camelot develops the characters to the point where you know who they are and what their motivation is, but they leave a whole lot of room for you to develop your own thoughts. Characters stick in your mind because they are unique to you; Isaac means something different to me than he does to anyone else.
Graphics: Absolutely stunning, Golden Sun features some of the best-looking visuals on the entire system. Seriously, I dare you to find a better-looking game on the GBA. Camelot’s faux-3D is gorgeous, especially in battle, where the screen will fill with some of the most visually impressive spell effects of any RPG of ever played.
Music: Motoi Sakuraba hit this nail right on the head. It blends his trademark-intense battle themes (nobody’s better imo) with some haunting themes and epic location themes. It’s an absolute treat, worthy of a whole lot of praise.
Conclusion (if you read nothing else, read this): The purchase of Golden Sun hinges on what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for a ground-breaking RPG, this is not your game. Outside of some unique twists, Camelot sticks to the tried-and-true RPG formula. If, however, you’re looking for a game that succeeds in emulating the SNES-era of RPGs, then this is a perfect choice. It’s Camelot’s beautifully-written love letter to fans of the SNES-era of RPG’s. Camelot took everything they ever learned from making RPG’s in the 16-bit era and poured it all into the tiny cart. How they filled it with so much old-school love is beyond me and, quite frankly, a miracle. It’s absolutely fantastic in that regard, and imo rivals the SNES’s best.
Wipes away Tears That was beautiful just beautiful. Im getting the games as soon as possible
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@SUPERZELDAMAN: Glad you enjoyed it. I poured my heart and soul into that one. I'm absolutely drained, but pleased with the result. I'm also incredibly happy that you're going to be purchasing Golden Sun! I love it so much when people will give the games a shot. I think they deserve at least that.
Lieutenant Commander of the Lesbian Love Brigade
There can only be one, like in that foreign movie where there could only be one, and in the end there is only one dude left, because that was the point.
I still don't see what there is to like about this game, but I guess it's the whole "tried-and-true formulat that keeps me away. Oh well, I guess if people loved games like Lunar, Final Fantasy 4/6, and Chrono Trigger, there's bound to be fans for this.
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