I’ve had it up to here with your theoretical shenanigans!
Get the hell out of my theoretical house!
…anyway, Golden Sun was a game released in 2001 by
developer Camelot Software, known otherwise for the Shining series of Sega
tactical RPGs I’ve never played, and a large number of Mario Golf and Tennis
games that I haven’t played either. It was critically acclaimed and a direct
sequel, Golden Sun: The Lost Age was
released on the GBA two years later in 2003. Afterwards, the series was more or
less thought to be done with until 2010’s Golden
Sun: Dark Dawn came out for Nintendo DS, focusing the story on ancestors of
the original protagonists.
As I briefly mentioned way back in my article on Supposed-to-Lose Fights, I like me some Golden Sun. The games
weren’t perfect and aren’t candidates for my favorite games ever or anything,
but they were good RPGs that were solid all-around and did some things I really
liked. Now even though everyone tries to be objective when reviewing things,
I’m aware that you can’t review games in a vacuum. Mainly because there’s no
oxygen. So I’m not going to completely ignore the games sequel when talking
about it, but I’m going to try and keep the focus of this review on just the original
Golden Sun. Don’t worry, I have a
desire to see the story resolved after this so I’ll no doubt review The Lost
Age in a month or two from now.
Depending on how long
I’m obsessed with this thing, of course.
Golden Sun is a fantasy RPG that takes place in the land
of Weyard. Mechanically, it trod the well-worn path of wandering about towns
talking to people, wandering about dungeons solving puzzles, wandering about
the overworld going to new places, and wandering into random battles in the
latter two. The battle system is turn based and would be pretty standard fare
but for a few unique twists. Before I get into those, however, I’ll have to
explain Psyenergy.
Psyenergy is Golden Sun’s word for magic, essentially.
It’s based on the four standard elements of Fire, Water, Earth and Air, which
in this game are also referred to by way of the planets Mars, Mercury, Venus
and Jupiter. People who have skill with Psyenergy are referred to as Adepts,
and are usually attuned to a certain element. You begin the game with Isaac (a
Venus Adept) and his friends Garet and Jenna (two unrelated Mars Adepts) in a
village full of Adepts (which we later learn is uncommon) named Vale. Over the
course of the game’s opening you learn that Vale was protecting something of
utmost importance. Everything there was going fine until the fire nation
Mars Adepts attacked.
It should be
established that this didn’t come out until 4 years after
Golden Sun (though the four elements aren’t exactly new material to begin
with).
More specifically, two Mars Adepts named Saturos and
Menardi visit Vale in an attempt to steal the elemental stars, which can be
used on the four elemental lighthouses to unleash the dangerous and volatile
power of Alchemy (basically free magic) upon the world. They fail miserably at
doing this, and the resulting disaster kills Jenna’s entire family. Cut to 3
years later, and Saturos and Menardi are seen sneaking around again and your
party of three along with a scholar named Kraden decide to follow them into the
sanctum to prove them as thieves.
Instead
you end up opening the way for them and they steal 3 of the 4
elemental stars (you keep one) before having to flee due to the sanctum falling
apart without the stars. They reveal that they saved Jenna’s sister Felix 3
years ago, and he’s now working with them for reasons unknown. And as they’re
leaving they kidnap Jenna and Kraden, to ensure you’ll follow them and give
them the last elemental star. So the rest of the game (more or less) is spent
chasing the villains trying to stop them from activating all the mcguffins with
the mcguffin crystals.
Keep in
mind that this was only discussing
the game’s opening, before you even hit the world map. I also skipped a lot of smaller
details, some of which become important later on. This game has an interesting
world/mythology and some nice twists and turns before it’s done, but I have to
say some parts, particularly the introduction, are slower than they need to be.
This is particularly frustrating because of the fact that a lot of plot points
are left on a cliffhanger at the end, but I’ll come back to that later.
This is the last image
you see in the game, which can lead to some frustration.
So
practically speaking Psyenergy is just categorizing magic into the four
elements, but the way it’s used in the games is where it really shines. In
combat, Psyenergy can be used to hit multiple enemies at once, heal allies,
raise stats, inflict status ailments, and all the stuff magic usually can. But
what Psyenergy your character has, as well as their stats, depend on what class
they are. And a characters class is determined by Djinn.
Djinn
are collectible elementals, of which there are (in this game) seven of each
element. When you equip a character with a Djinn it gives them stat bonuses
and, depending on which Djinn they have equipped, can change their class (and
therefore stats and Psyenergy). When a character has a Djinn equipped, they can
use them to activate special effects. Djinn that have been used are left on
standby, where they can be used to perform summons (big flashy attacks, one of
which was on my list of top explosions). When summons are used the
Djinn have a recovery period before they go back to being equipped.
So not
only can you mix and match Djinn to change characters stats and spells, you can
also use their special effects and/or use them as ammunition for summons. As
complicated as it may seem, you can completely ignore some aspects of the
system if you want. I didn’t even realize until the end of the game, but I went
this entire playthrough without using a single summon. Instead, I just kept
them equipped in good class combinations and defeated my enemies normally. What
these three rather dry paragraphs of explanation amount to is a combat system
filled to the brim with strategy and particle effects. Lots of particle
effects.
So…many…particle
effects…
In case you couldn’t tell on account of being blinded by
particle effects, Golden Sun is a fairly nice looking game for its time. For a
2001 Game Boy Advance game it looks pretty great, but even not taking hardware
limitations into account it’s still just a very nice looking game, particularly
in terms of summons and Psyenergy. Speaking of, in addition to its pyrotechnic
explosions in combat Psyenergy can be used outside of combat as well, and is
the main focus of the games many puzzles. A decent portion of the game has a
kind of Zelda-esque approach to it with this, utilizing new spells earned to unlock
new areas or uncover secrets. Not much more to say about these, but they’re a
significant portion of the game and they’re pretty well done, with some being
quite clever.
Above we see puzzles
that require thought, an endangered gaming species in its natural habitat.
This is the point about 2/3rds of the way through the
review where I wax poetic about the games music, because I am nothing if not a
predictable hack. Well, apart from all those other things I am, like clever,
funny, good at video games, handsome probably, and a lot of other things. So
apart from all those things, I’m a predictable hack. Where was I going with
this? Oh right, music. Golden Sun has some awesome music. As with most of the
game it probably wouldn’t quite reach any best video game music of all-time
list, but it’s still really good.
That being said, I’ll try to restrain myself and just share a few songs.
This is the games
title theme, which also plays during the credits. It may partially be
nostalgia, but that beginning part sends a bit of chill down my spine. Excellent
stuff, which is why I was sad the sequel had a different opening theme.
This theme plays at
the resting place of the elemental stars, as well as some other places. It’s a
mystical theme that I feel portrays serenity and wonder well.
Mid-way through the
game you face antagonist Saturos alone, to the accompaniment of this awesome
music. It’s a shame it only plays for one fight in the game, because it rocks.
Okay, one more. The
final boss of the game has a more tense battle theme than any of the previous.
Combined with the circumstances you fight him in, it makes the fight climactic
even when my characters are overpowered and have no trouble with the fight
itself.
So that pretty much sums it up for Golden Sun, but before
I go there’s one more thing I want to mention. Well okay, two. Earlier I
mentioned that the game ends on a cliffhanger. I looked it up and sure enough,
Golden Sun was originally intended to be one huge game that had to be split up
into two slightly less huge games, and it shows. There are plenty of subplots
and side-stories that are encountered and wrapped up over the course of the
game, but the big plot threads don’t get much resolution at all. It’s true that
some major events happen over the course of the first game, but all the biggest
twists are saved for the sequel. It’s still not a bad story, but essentially
what to take away from this is that Golden Sun is best experienced by playing
both games, as the story doesn’t do as well stand-alone.
There’s one more thing I want to
wedge into this review that I couldn’t fit anywhere else. Golden Sun has a
commercial in the US that was weird enough that I remembered it while writing
about it. In it, an orchestra slays a gargoyle and a giant chandelier dragon while playing hall of the mountain king.
Apart from it being weird, I remembered two things about it. The first is that
the music skips in the middle and that bothered me. The second is that it had
pretty much nothing at all to do with
the game in question. Was still pretty cool though.
So that’s all I have to say about
Golden Sun, a pretty good game when all’s said and done. It’s over a decade old
so you’re not likely to find any in store anymore, but (as of writing) Amazon
has the first game for as low as $13ish and the second for as low as $9ish. If
you’re dismayed by the lack of quality turn-based RPGs these days, it might be
worth picking up.
The whole time I thinking in my head that this was a Fire Emblem review while also knowing this was a Golden Sun review. I knew nothing about either game.
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