Douglas's game of the week: Golden Sun

Golden Sun is known to some as the "First real RPG on the GBA" or to some as "Final Fantasy on the GBA" but that was before Final Fantasy Tactics Advance came out. Golden Sun was released in November of 2001, about 4-5 months after the release of the GBA itself.


Golden Sun has some beautiful graphics, they are not 2D but aren't 3D either-Well that's 32 bit graphics for ya! The backgrounds are very beautiful though most are repeated alot. The battle scenes are very good, the enemies don't just stand there waiting for your attacks still as a statue, Okay, sure, they do stand there going "duuuuuuuuuh" but the enemies move as if they're breathing, and they attack so the enemies here are animated-This means that you'll have to rip more than one sprite of the enemy if you plan on creating a spritesheet of the golden Sun monsters.


The storyline is pretty well done, if not a bit linear at times, because most of the game is spent chasing Saturos and Menardi, the villians of the game, and collecting the Djinni, which I'll devote another paragraph to later. You eventually get involved in a Tournament and then fight them on the Mars Lighthouse. The storyline is pretty well done, and it even leaves unanswered questions at the end of the game, so you'll be itching to find out what happens next.


Isaac is responds to your commands pretty well. Sure, he moves pretty damn slow when he walks but you'll probably want to tape the B button down because you move alot faster. There are Psyenergies (like magic) that you can use outside of battle and you can set them to the L and R buttons for quick use, and you can use Psyenergies like Halt for some mild fun and Mind Read for some information and Reveal to find hidden objects. There are puzzles that require you to use the Psyenergies, and they are pretty well done.

The Djinni can really help you in battle-They raise your stats and you can even change your classes when you mix them. When you change classes, your psyenergies and stats change. Most of the time though, you'll probably keep the elemental Djinn to the character that controls their element (i.e, Isaac is a Venus adept and will do best with Venus Djinni, Mia is a Mercury adept and will do best with Mercury djinni, etc). In battle, you can unleash them for attacks or stat-boosters or healing and when you have a certain number of Djinn on set, you can summon creatures to deal damage. Overall, Djinni are a true asset to your team.

The battles are one of the game's high points. The camera spins around the characters all the time so you can see the characters fire off psyenergies and unleash Djinn and attack at different angles but you can't control the camera control. The battle backgrounds are also beautiful.

Golden Sun has a decent soundtrack, The battle music sounds pretty fun but it can get annoying after awhile, and most of the towns have different themes. The sounds also sound incredibly realistic, and this is a high step from the previous Game Boy techno sounds.

Another thing I almost forgot is that Golden Sun has the random encounter system. Random encounters have always been an RPG tradition but have had a bad record of being incredibly annoying in some RPGs, such as how half your characters are dead and you need to run out and heal them and then boom, you run into a battle and can't run and you're dead. The encounter rate is well balanced, you won't be running into monsters like every two seconds in a cave here. Of course, almost every single dungeon has a puzzle, and running into alot of monsters when you're solving a puzzle can get incredibly annoying.


All in all, Golden Sun is a pretty good RPG. It's not exactly "Final Fantasy on the GBA" but it's damn close-Sure, it's not overrated or anything, but we have Square-Enix to make overrated games. If you have a GBA and are looking for an old-fashioned RPG, Golden Sun is a pretty good choice. 8.50/10

Pros:
-=Great graphics=-
-=Using Halt on the people and then talking to them for about a few minutes of giggles=-
-=Puzzles=-
-=The battles don't really get boring or annoying=-
-=Some pretty good music=-

Cons:
-=A bit on the short side=-
-=A bit on the easy side too.=-
-=Some incredibly annoying talking sounds=-
-=Long cutscenes that can make you wish the characters would shut up=-

[A Genius]

i l0v this game s000000 much thanks f0r giving it a hi scor douglad but ur other revews r crap n i shold be mod of this forum

[JOKE]
Oh yeah, I forgot. A Genius hates Golden Sun so why don't I edit that post to a 2.55 while I'm at it! It'll make HIM happy at least!
[/JOKE]

(FYI, I know you don't hate Golden Sun)

Far too much talking but was fun while it lasted.

In that cutscene after Saturos and Menardi kick your asses, I wanted to kick them in the faces or tape their mouths shut.