Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age are two JRPGs, released in 2001-03 for the Gameboy advance. I'm going to review both in one post, as they tell one big story in two parts. They are truly a duology. There was also a sequel, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, for the Nintendo DS but we are not going to review that game right now.
The plot seems very cliched at first. It takes place on the fantasy world of Weyard, which is based around the classical four elements of earth, fire, water and wind. There are magic users called "adepts", which have a special affinity for a certain element and have powers based around that element (for example, wind adepts have wind based powers). In the ancient past there existed a power which could be used to manipulate the four elements, called alchemy. The people of Weyard however misused that great power for war and it was sealed away. In the present, a group of villains try to recover the power of alchemy and our heroes try to stop them.
This basic plot is of course more or less the same as that of "Secret of Mana" or "Final Fantasy VI". "Bad guys are after magical powers and want to use them for evil, the heroes must stop them" But the cliches are actually subverted and by the second part of the story, we get a new perspective on this plot that changes everything. The villains turn out to have a good reason to recover the power of alchemy, though their methods in doing so are ruthless. You even get to play as one of the antagonists of the first part. This twist is fun and gives some welcome complexity to the story. It is still essentially children's fiction, but one that respects its audience.
The world you get to explore across the two games is fairly large, but doesn't feel repetitive. There is a large amount of variety in environments, towns, people, equipment, weapons, enemies and other creatures to give it life.
The world-building is well-done and works for this kind of story, feeling developed enough to give variety and some complexity to the world. An interesting aspect of the worldbuilding is that every culture has it's own cuisine, and when exploring towns, you can look into people's kitchens and see what they are cooking. The text descriptions of the food are well-written and funny.
It is a large world and a lengthy, epic story. The length of the story and size
of the world is probably the main reason for the game being released in
two parts, essentially splitting the large world across two cartridges. It makes the two games, taken together, capable of giving an experience equal in scope to RPGs released for home consoles.
The basic gameplay is traditional to the core for JRPGs, with turn-based battles and random enemy encounters. It would not have felt out of place on the Super Nintendo ten years earlier. What's new with Golden Sun is that it mixes traditional RPG elements with elements inspired by both the Zelda and Pokemon series.
A central part of the games are the djinn, pokemonesque creatures which you find in the overworld, the towns and the dungeons. The djinn can be set to a character, which changes their stats and often their class. The djinn also determines what kind of magic the character can use. The djinn all have their own individual move, which then can be used in battle by the character. It is usually some kind of powerful, element-based attack. When used, the djinn go into standby, and a character has to use up a turn to set them again. But standby djinn can be used to summon powerful spirits, who unleash powerful attacks, which are an immense help in battle. All summons require a certain number of standby djinn: the more djinn, the more powerful the summon. When used in a summon, the djinn goes into standby mode; and can't be used for anything for a certain number of turns, before they automatically, and without wasting a turn, set themselves to the character again.
The world is based on the four elements; and both the djinn and the characters all have their own element. Enemies are weak to attacks of the opposing element to their own and strong against their own element. It is easiest to simply match up djinn of one element with a character of the same element. But one can mix djinn of different elements to give your character a different class; something that is in fact necessary to get certain kinds of magic (called psynergy in this game).
I think this is simply a well-made combat system; which combines influences from Final Fantasy and Pokemon to create something new. It is a system that is as simple and as complex as you want it to be; and one that is simply fun to use in battle. The complexity of the system rarely comes into play outside of boss
fights, but these however require some strategy to beat and it is most
rewarding. The basic gameplay with its turn-based battles is otherwise generic, but
this synthesis of varied influences makes it into something original.
One of the few problems with this game is that finding the overworld djinn is almost impossible without a walkthrough. You have to find the specific area of the map, where you will encounter them randomly.
There are also Zelda-like elements in the game's dungeons. They are filled with puzzles. These puzzles are quite clever and one of the best parts of the games. They make the dungeons more engaging, than the traditional RPG dungeons, which focus solely on defeating enemies. Here you get to use your brain more. Often they involve using your psynergy powers outside of battle, which is a nice touch. There are also puzzles outside the dungeons, most often with a Djinn as a reward.
The only problem i have with the basic gameplay is that in battle, when a character is set to attack an enemy and that enemy dies from the actions of the other characters before the character can attack, he or she defends instead of attacking another enemy. Turns are often wasted that way.This was fixed for Dark Dawn.
The presentation is very well-made, especially for the handheld system it was on. Graphics are good, it has a pleasant cartoony look again reminiscient of SNES era RPGs. The music was created by the composer for the Tales series, Motoi Sakuraba. The Gameboy Advance soundchip was often criticized as inadquate, but the music in this game takes full advantage of its capabilities and is very good.
And that is the general strength of the two GBA Golden Sun games. It was released for a handheld system, but are both such well-made RPGs that taken together truly feel epic in scope and variety and the overall experience is fully on the same plane as many of the RPGs I played for home consoles.So many RPGs barely have any creativity to create a fulfilling experience for one game, the Golden Sun games had so much that they had to make two of them.
