Golden Sun, a role-playing adventure game for the GBA has received rather a nice acceptance by RPG gamers all about and so far is a pretty hot game to get on the GBA. It has a fantastic plot, amazing battle sequences and excellent graphics. However it falls short in a few areas. Here’s the breakdown.

Pros-

Graphics That Raise the Bar- Your Friends Will Say Wow

This is a true Gameboy Advance title. It is not a remake like the Mario games, or a cheap put together title like Castlevania graphics were. This game was actually designed for the GBA in mind, and therefore makes full use of all the neat effects built into the GBA graphics processor. As a result you have a game with incredibly lush vivid graphics, bright colors, and large maps. The battles especially are a visual treat. The camera will actually swing around in a mock 3d fashion, and zoom in accordingly as well. It’s not real 3d but very well imitates battles in games like FFVII for the Playstation. When you first summon your djinn too, you may be reminded of FFVII’s incredible summons, the summon you call will literally jump into the screen and send down a dazzling array of light and explosions down on the enemy. Simply put, it’s beautiful stuff.

Everyone I’ve shown this game too have been surprised at how good the graphics can be on this system that they’ve considered purchasing one for themselves. It may be the game that drags over other folks into considering getting the system.

An Original Plot

Golden Sun is not a standard RPG, thank goodness. After having played nearly all the RPGs that exist on the SNES and the PSX, I can say that this game really has a good plot that is fairly new, although linear. It would have been nice to play an RPG without too many AàB scenarios, but Golden Sun still operates in that fashion. I rather not delve much into this game’s plot at all, since plot twists form right away from the start, and anything I say would likely take away from the game’s experience. I can however say vaguely that the game does lose a bit of steam as it reaches near the end, and that there are a few of subquests to deal with. Golden Sun should last a nice 30-40 hour sif you do all the subquests and capture all the Djinn.

Battle System

A nice simple turn-based battle system with extremely beautiful graphics. Very easy to pick up and learn, and the battles go fast. Although not really revolutionary in any aspect, it isn’t horrible, and should delight a RPG fan, especially a new one.

Great Music!

I don’t turn up my volume on my GBA often (to conserve batteries), but the times when I have for Golden Sun, I’ve been stunned by the excellent soundtracks. Some really wonderful music is made for Golden Sun, definitely up to caliber with Chrono Trigger and other SNES rpgs if not better. Be sure to turn off the “talking” sounds which are incredibly annoying and add random chirps and tweets over the soundtrack.

Cons –

Battle System Gets a Bit Tedious

For the first hundred battles or so, you may be delighted. The graphics are wondrous, the summons are even cooler, and there’s always a sense of accomplishment when picking up a new Djinn and trying out a new attack. However, after so many battles, the increasing amount of random encounters can be burdensome. The worst of it, is that the excessive battling is required, you will need the money and the experience to tread through the final dungeons where there are some very vicious enemies. This however is only a problem with the end of the game, when battles are far more necessary. Earlier on, the game runs at a pretty fast pace, and no real level building is required.

Incredibly Long Conversations About Nothing

While the storyline is good, the dialogue is occasionally witless and filled with deadweight lines, like “Where are we going?”, “We are going here..” and blah blah blah. The characters say nothing really interesting, and some pretty pathetic dialogue that gets stretched out to the point it makes you feel like the game is patronizing you. The conversations are never really laugh out loud and the character development is very weak compared to some other RPGs. The worst aspect is that occasionally the characters will just talk a lot about stupid things, and you’ll want to skip the dialogue to save but cannot. Not a totally devastating aspect, but it does decrease the game’s replay value, and add to some unnecessary frustration.

Conclusion

Definitely a worthy purchase, as the first true RPG on the Gameboy Advance. It is marred with some gameplay problems, an overly simplistic battle engine, and boring dialogue, but as the FIRST rpg on the GBA, it is still pretty darned good. If you’re new to the RPG field or need some entertainment on a long trip, this should definitely appeal to you.

However if you have FFX or have been playing RPGs for sometime, this may be too cliché for you. As an old-school type RPG, Golden Sun is still slightly above average, but is not as outstanding as classics such as Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana, or new titles on the PSX and PS2.


Recommended: Yes