Golden Sun 1 Ranking: A
A game for the Game Boy Advance that harkened to the old-school days of RPGs, the first Golden Sun was an amazing game. The second game is more of the same and, in fact, follows directly from the first game story-wise. I never actually finished Golden Sun 2, so I’ll focus on the first game.
You start by controlling Isaac and his friend Garet, who both live in a small town called Vale. Denizens of the world can use a power called Psynergy, which allows the player to manipulate the environment. For instance, you can push pillars out of the way or create pillars by freezing water. Psynergy adds a puzzle-solving element to the dungeon-crawls, and it’s quite enjoyable.
Anyway, Vale gets attacked by a duo calling themselves Saturos and Menardi, who are searching for stones that can light the beacons at four lighthouses around the world. Once lit, the lighthouses will release Alchemy into the world, and apparently that’s bad news, so you try to stop them. Saturos and Menardi hand you both your asses, flood Vale, and eventually jack the stones. The Wise One, a sentient…rock…thing, requests that you set out to stop Saturos and Menardi.
You can refuse, and the game will end.
Or, you can set out as requested, and eventually meet up with Ivan and Mia to form a full party of four. You also find Djinn, little creatures that can be linked to a character to increase stats and impart powers. Djinn can also be un-set (standby mode), which allows them to give their power to summons. The more Djinn are on standby, the more powerful the summon. These summon animations are amazing and a real treat, especially when they absolutely annihilate an enemy.
The game, however, knows that summons are available, so bosses are pretty tough. You can’t just walk into battle, unleash 4 fully-powered summons, and win. Most bosses will survive that, and since your characters are weakened due to not having any set Djinn, the boss will eat you for lunch. The difficulty is still fair, though, and is another throw-back to the old-school days when RPGs were pretty unforgiving.
I loved this game with only 3 gripes. First, there are some pretty drawn-out cutscenes, and they do take quite a long time when they’re completely unnecessary (e.g. your characters explaining their story to an NPC – a story that you’ve just spent the past few hours playing through).
The second gripe is somewhat bigger – at the end of Golden Sun 1, you can use a password system to import it into the sequel. Said sequel stars a new party, so the 4 characters you spent so long with in Golden Sun 1 aren’t even the main focus in Golden Sun 2. I totally prefer Isaac’s party over Felix’s, with the exception of 1 character in the sequel.
Thirdly, the sequel isn’t so much a sequel as it’s the second half of the first game. Yes, the plot unceremoniously truncates at the end of the first game and picks up in Golden Sun 2. These two really should’ve been one game or 2 versions of one game, one starring Isaac and the other starring Felix.
Otherwise, this was one of the classics of the Game Boy Advance era. You should go play it.
A game for the Game Boy Advance that harkened to the old-school days of RPGs, the first Golden Sun was an amazing game. The second game is more of the same and, in fact, follows directly from the first game story-wise. I never actually finished Golden Sun 2, so I’ll focus on the first game.
You start by controlling Isaac and his friend Garet, who both live in a small town called Vale. Denizens of the world can use a power called Psynergy, which allows the player to manipulate the environment. For instance, you can push pillars out of the way or create pillars by freezing water. Psynergy adds a puzzle-solving element to the dungeon-crawls, and it’s quite enjoyable.
Anyway, Vale gets attacked by a duo calling themselves Saturos and Menardi, who are searching for stones that can light the beacons at four lighthouses around the world. Once lit, the lighthouses will release Alchemy into the world, and apparently that’s bad news, so you try to stop them. Saturos and Menardi hand you both your asses, flood Vale, and eventually jack the stones. The Wise One, a sentient…rock…thing, requests that you set out to stop Saturos and Menardi.
You can refuse, and the game will end.
Or, you can set out as requested, and eventually meet up with Ivan and Mia to form a full party of four. You also find Djinn, little creatures that can be linked to a character to increase stats and impart powers. Djinn can also be un-set (standby mode), which allows them to give their power to summons. The more Djinn are on standby, the more powerful the summon. These summon animations are amazing and a real treat, especially when they absolutely annihilate an enemy.
The game, however, knows that summons are available, so bosses are pretty tough. You can’t just walk into battle, unleash 4 fully-powered summons, and win. Most bosses will survive that, and since your characters are weakened due to not having any set Djinn, the boss will eat you for lunch. The difficulty is still fair, though, and is another throw-back to the old-school days when RPGs were pretty unforgiving.
I loved this game with only 3 gripes. First, there are some pretty drawn-out cutscenes, and they do take quite a long time when they’re completely unnecessary (e.g. your characters explaining their story to an NPC – a story that you’ve just spent the past few hours playing through).
The second gripe is somewhat bigger – at the end of Golden Sun 1, you can use a password system to import it into the sequel. Said sequel stars a new party, so the 4 characters you spent so long with in Golden Sun 1 aren’t even the main focus in Golden Sun 2. I totally prefer Isaac’s party over Felix’s, with the exception of 1 character in the sequel.
Thirdly, the sequel isn’t so much a sequel as it’s the second half of the first game. Yes, the plot unceremoniously truncates at the end of the first game and picks up in Golden Sun 2. These two really should’ve been one game or 2 versions of one game, one starring Isaac and the other starring Felix.
Otherwise, this was one of the classics of the Game Boy Advance era. You should go play it.