Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
Aug. 9th, 2011 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThirty years after the “Golden Sun” event that ended the previous game, the children of the Warriors of Vale are sent out on what should be a simple mission to prove themselves. Of course, nothing is ever simple as the world has changed dramatically in the intervening time, and they’re being manipulated by mysterious warriors as they travel.
The Golden Sun series, upon reflection, is everything I look for in an rpg: interesting story with some twists and decent characterization, a relatively low difficulty level (with a straightforward leveling system), a lot of area-contained puzzles, a good amount of herding you where you should go next (including a good minimap system), and some quirks to make it a little different.
Speaking of those quirks and good stuff:
- You have a silent protagonist, but he speaks via the “Emoticon system”. When he’s given the chance to respond to something, you can respond Happy, Determined, Sad or Angry, and the next line or two will react to that.
- You can Save anywhere, at any time that isn’t in battle or mid-cutscene. Every portable game should have this. There’s no excusing it with technical limitations any more. I need to be able to stop when the train pulls into my station, not ten minutes early or ten minutes later.
- Many of your spells (“psynergy”) can be used on both the field map and in battle. Several of them give you hints as to how to solve the puzzles, and the rest are used specifically to solve the puzzles. You can use the stylus or the keypad to control map-screen psynergy effects, and it’s pretty seamless.
- Regenerating MP. There’s a ton of attack magic. This makes it useful. Also, it means you don’t have to worry about loading up on MP-restoring items for when you inevitably screw up a puzzle. Your MP recharges while you wander around trying to figure out what you did wrong.
- No random encounters in puzzle areas. You’re travelling and fighting, or you’re pushing blocks. It makes life so much easier.
- Similarly: Random encounters appear to decrease as you get stronger than the available monsters. I noticed a significant decrease in encounters when I revisited old areas. You don’t need the tiny dribble of XP and gold, and it makes the game faster and more fun.
- Effectively no grinding. I never ran from battle and did every sidequest (though there aren’t many, it’s mostly small side-paths) and I never had to stop to grind once. Characters, including non-active ones, gain levels at a nice clip, and the game really doesn’t give you access to places where you can’t handle the monsters at all. (So, no beef gates.)
- Fast-forwardable summons: Necessary. They’re pretty and fun to watch once or twice, but I had one of the bonus boss battles take half an hour as it was.
- A “What was I doing?” blurb in the save menu. The game is good about herding you in general, but also reminds you where you were being herded. Again, particularly useful in a portable game.
- It’s definitely a sequel, but the game is very good about filling in the backstory details you need if, say, you last played the previous games six years ago and don’t remember them.
I have very few complaints. The inventory system was a little annoying—each character can only carry 20 different types of items, but each type stacks. So you end up having one character carry all the herbs so they take up one slot rather than 8. Which is great until someone else wants to use a herb. (Actually, except for the final boss and a couple of bonus bosses, you don’t really ever need to use items. You have enough options with Psynergy, Djinns, weapon “unleash effects” and summons that consumables are kinda redundant.)
Djinns are macguffins to be found, that form the class system, a second spell system (you can use them in battle for effects), the basis for the summoning system (after you use them, they become available for summoning) and an occasional source of comic relief. However, Djinns are missable, and the one thing I found myself checking a FAQ for, because there are several points of no return and a few of the djinns are either really well-hidden or only appear as random encounters on the world map. And because they have a cumulative effect on your characters’ stats, you really don’t want to miss them. (That said: You can miss a dozen of them and still get top-tier classes for your main team, so it certainly won’t kill your ability to beat the game.)
Oh, and it ends on a sequel hook. I can handle that.
Overall: I had a lot of fun with this. It’s a solid JRPG that learns from what the genre has done right and done wrong over the last few decades, and it does virtually all of it right, in my mind. I totally recommend it.
The Golden Sun series, upon reflection, is everything I look for in an rpg: interesting story with some twists and decent characterization, a relatively low difficulty level (with a straightforward leveling system), a lot of area-contained puzzles, a good amount of herding you where you should go next (including a good minimap system), and some quirks to make it a little different.
Speaking of those quirks and good stuff:
- You have a silent protagonist, but he speaks via the “Emoticon system”. When he’s given the chance to respond to something, you can respond Happy, Determined, Sad or Angry, and the next line or two will react to that.
- You can Save anywhere, at any time that isn’t in battle or mid-cutscene. Every portable game should have this. There’s no excusing it with technical limitations any more. I need to be able to stop when the train pulls into my station, not ten minutes early or ten minutes later.
- Many of your spells (“psynergy”) can be used on both the field map and in battle. Several of them give you hints as to how to solve the puzzles, and the rest are used specifically to solve the puzzles. You can use the stylus or the keypad to control map-screen psynergy effects, and it’s pretty seamless.
- Regenerating MP. There’s a ton of attack magic. This makes it useful. Also, it means you don’t have to worry about loading up on MP-restoring items for when you inevitably screw up a puzzle. Your MP recharges while you wander around trying to figure out what you did wrong.
- No random encounters in puzzle areas. You’re travelling and fighting, or you’re pushing blocks. It makes life so much easier.
- Similarly: Random encounters appear to decrease as you get stronger than the available monsters. I noticed a significant decrease in encounters when I revisited old areas. You don’t need the tiny dribble of XP and gold, and it makes the game faster and more fun.
- Effectively no grinding. I never ran from battle and did every sidequest (though there aren’t many, it’s mostly small side-paths) and I never had to stop to grind once. Characters, including non-active ones, gain levels at a nice clip, and the game really doesn’t give you access to places where you can’t handle the monsters at all. (So, no beef gates.)
- Fast-forwardable summons: Necessary. They’re pretty and fun to watch once or twice, but I had one of the bonus boss battles take half an hour as it was.
- A “What was I doing?” blurb in the save menu. The game is good about herding you in general, but also reminds you where you were being herded. Again, particularly useful in a portable game.
- It’s definitely a sequel, but the game is very good about filling in the backstory details you need if, say, you last played the previous games six years ago and don’t remember them.
I have very few complaints. The inventory system was a little annoying—each character can only carry 20 different types of items, but each type stacks. So you end up having one character carry all the herbs so they take up one slot rather than 8. Which is great until someone else wants to use a herb. (Actually, except for the final boss and a couple of bonus bosses, you don’t really ever need to use items. You have enough options with Psynergy, Djinns, weapon “unleash effects” and summons that consumables are kinda redundant.)
Djinns are macguffins to be found, that form the class system, a second spell system (you can use them in battle for effects), the basis for the summoning system (after you use them, they become available for summoning) and an occasional source of comic relief. However, Djinns are missable, and the one thing I found myself checking a FAQ for, because there are several points of no return and a few of the djinns are either really well-hidden or only appear as random encounters on the world map. And because they have a cumulative effect on your characters’ stats, you really don’t want to miss them. (That said: You can miss a dozen of them and still get top-tier classes for your main team, so it certainly won’t kill your ability to beat the game.)
Oh, and it ends on a sequel hook. I can handle that.
Overall: I had a lot of fun with this. It’s a solid JRPG that learns from what the genre has done right and done wrong over the last few decades, and it does virtually all of it right, in my mind. I totally recommend it.
