Before I begin, let me ask if you have played Golden Sun for the GameBoy Advance or Golden Sun: The Lost Age. If you have and you are a fan of the small series, then your decision has already been made to buy this game and you want to hear my thoughts. If you have never played either game, then prepare for a bit of Star Wars Syndrome as I talk about this game.
First of all,ahem ***************PARTIAL SPOILER ALERT!********************
According to the developers, this game is meant to stand on it’s own and people new to the series are supposed to be able to pick up the game and appreciate it. Well, the game does introduce an in-game encyclopedia so you can follow along, but at the end of the day it’s still a fan-based game.
Lemme give a quick rundown of the first game so you can see where I am coming from, you play as some kids trying to prevent the seals of Alchemy from being released. You spend most of the game trying to stop the lighting of 2 of 4 Alchemy Lighthouses. Apparently, you are bad at your job since 2 of the 4 Alchemy lighthouses get light right before your eyes and queue ending leading to sequel. The second game is about you playing as the enemy, trying to release the remaining seals on Alchemy. It’s way more interesting than the first game and eventually you get to join forces with the cast from the first game, thus making the story complete.
Eventually, you decide it’s better to light the remaining lighthouse because the world of Weyard will die without Alchemy. After this is done, it causes the Golden Sun event, which releases Alchemy into the world and stops falling apart at the seams. Happy endings!
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn takes place 30 years after the events of GS:TLA and you play as the kids of the originals heroes. It’s not long before you embark on some quest to get a feather, and before you know it the feather quest becomes something much bigger. Without giving anything away, one thing I can say is, it’s a Golden Sun story, meaning you will be going to multiple places to complete multiple different puzzles using your “pysnergy” powers. This is basically the best part of the whole game and makes it worth playing. The use of pysnergy to solve puzzles isn’t a bad thing, as it leads to relative Zelda-like puzzles, but the bad thing that does stem from this is…it’s been done before. Everything about this game isn’t new except for the graphics. The combat is the same as the last game, the summons that can be found throughout the game are the same, that tactic of summon-rushing a difficult boss is the same (Dullahan, the toughest boss in the game, can be beaten in five minutes by summon rushing him), and the part at the end of the game which leads into an inevitable sequel is the same as the first game.
To say I am a fan is a severe understatement. You see, I have played the first game and completed it three times, and I have completed the second game twice. I actually hadn’t expected a third game because the second wrapped a nice bowtie around the series. Apparently, the developers said the first two games were prequels. So…why did the game take seven years to make? It’s not THAT technically impressive. I mean, I’m not saying it doesn’t look good, cause it does, but it should not have taken SEVEN years to make this game. I think, like most fns do, that the series was originally abandoned and so much pent up demand for a third game caused the developers to try and come up with an add-on to the series. I know this probably isn’t true, but it FEELS so true since after a while I just stopped caring about the story of this game.
As a matter of fact, 20 hours in I just stopped caring about this game. It basically became a task for me to complete. The story became just stale, the battles were WAY too easy, I beat the game at level 40-45 without having to grind at all (this was actually refreshing, IMHO), and the cutscenes..OH MY GOSH…just like in the last two games they are unskippable and they DON'T WANT TO END!
Seriously, at the beginning of the game a quest is discussed about getting this feather to fix some sort of glider one of the main characters breaks for no real reason, and it takes 20 minutes to explain! It’s ridiculous! The cutscene length needed to be fixed back at the second game and I can’t believe it’s a problem in the third game.
At the end of the day, there are much worse JRPGS you can buy and play, but there are also way better. The fans (like myself) looking for something new from Golden Sun: Dark Dawn will be disappointed, since it’s basically the same game as the second one with a new coat of paint. Even the boss structure is the same: there are two bad guys that you will eventually have to fight…probably twice...and then they will become some sort of end game monster.
Bottom line, if you are a fan, complete and maybe hold on to it to transfer your file to the next game, as was the case before. If you are new and are looking for a new RPG story, you could do worse.
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