Golden Sun Review (no fat)

Game Description

Golden Sun portrays the adventures of Isaac, a boy from the town of Vale, who gets dragged into an extraordinary quest with his friends Garet and Jenna. While exploring a shrine, the three comrades, accompanied by an old geezer, find themselves confronted to a bunch of villains that want to harness the fearsome powers of the Elemental Stars. These are actually artifacts that will grant their owner the ability to master the fabled art of alchemy, the ominous group, however, fail to grab them. The vile creatures subsequently decide to kidnap Jenna and the elder before challenging the two buddies to bring them the stars.

Golden Sun Gameplay

Golden Sun is a role-playing game with a turn-based battle system featuring Isaac as the main protagonist. Although it revolves around alchemy, the plot is generic at best, and takes a lot of time to develop. The game makes heavy use of questions that require you to choose between a Yes and a No options. Your answers have absolutely no effect on the events and story, which beats the purpose of even including such questions. To make matters worse, the abundance of such questions can be a big turn-off, specially when this forces you to read the walls of uninteresting text present in the game.

New characters also join your party as you advance further into the game, and each of those has his own motives that are revealed later on. GS uses several typical role-playing elements such as the need to visit every town you find and to talk to everybody. This allows you to gather clues that will guide you in knowing where to go next. You can buy better weapons and armor as you earn money from battles. All the battles are turn-based, and their frequency is ridiculously high. This can be irritating at times, particularly when you’re busy figuring out how to overcome an obstacle.

Your characters all have telekinesis powers, referred to as Psynergy Moves, which you will need to use to solve the game’s various puzzles. The latter include accessing secluded areas and using all your abilities to trigger a specific event. These puzzles tie in well with the game’s plot and atmosphere, as solving them often unveils more about the menace. Moreover, you actually have to use all your mysterious powers throughout the game, and you’ll soon find out that each skill has its own importance.

Magic plays a preponderant role and each character is skilled in a certain alchemy element such as fire or wind. The game also implements its own summoning system, which involves finding and assigning Djinn to your party members. You can attach three of those to a character. You may then call upon them during battles and rely on their fierce attacks. These work great in boss battles when your enemies normally take a lot of time before going down.

The Djinn’s role isn’t strictly limited to attacking though, as equipping one will even grant your character new abilities and cause them to change class. By appropriately combining the Djinn on a character, new magic spells can be unlocked. It’s a very strategic, albeit exhaustive, aspect of the game, and one that you will need to master since you also need these spells to solve the puzzles scattered throughout Golden Sun.

The title boasts a couple of additional modes that superbly increase the game’s replay value. The Arena Mode will, as its name implies, enable you to fight against all the monsters you’ve already met and beaten in the game. Moreover, two gamers can have their parties battle each other by connecting their games via a link cable. These are not particularly innovative features, but they have the merit of enhancing the title’s otherwise lacking replay value.

Golden Sun Visuals

Golden Sun ranks among the best designed titles on the Game Boy Advance. The game uses an incredibly diverse color palette that enhances the beautiful locales spread throughout it. Each location is meticulously detailed to convey a unique atmosphere to the game. In addition, the battles are displayed with huge, but well-drawn, characters and splendid lighting effects that highlight the Djinn and the magical spells. Add to these a roaming 3D camera that constantly gives you different viewing angles, and you’ll understand how visually polished the game is.

Golden Sun Sound

It’s not just about the graphics though, because GS is similarly excellent audio-wise. In addition to an enticing collection of tracks that seamlessly blend into the game, a couple of themes actually have a vocal-like aspect, which gives them an orchestrated feel. The sound effects are of equally high quality with each action perfectly punctuated with a particular cue.

Golden Sun Overall

With its excellent Djinn and telekinesis-intensive puzzle-solving features, Golden Sun is one of the better Game Boy Advance role-playing titles. Moreover, its impressive visuals, as well as its fabulous soundtrack, give it a unique atmosphere that remains unmatched on the system. The game’s exhaustive use of yes/no questions are annoying, but that shouldn’t deter you from enjoying an engrossing RPG.

Golden Sun Cost

The title currently retails for $19.50US.