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As far as game genres go, RPGs have never been
particularly high on my list, for quite a long time. That said, when an RPG can
captivate me long enough to get drawn in, that game is extremely impressive.
Imagine my surprise when, on a whim, I picked up Golden Sun at Target (mainly
because it was on sale at the time and I'd heard good things about it), and I
ended up playing it so much that my hands would literally fall asleep. When not
even physical discomfort can keep you from playing a game, you know that's a
special game indeed.
It's tough to describe the game without mentioning the story, but, in this case,
it's one of those cases where it's best to simply say that the story is quite
engaging and leave it at that. It is a fairly typical fantasy-quest type
storyline, but there are significant surprises very early on (as in less than an
hour in) that would be a disservice to spoil. Granted, the story does take a bit
to get into, and it does seem to meander at times (especially toward the end,
when it seems that the designers all of a sudden remembered the whole point of
the quest in the first place), but overall, it's a quite engaging story.
One big problem that I do have with the story, however, is that the designers
seem intent on extending the play time with seemingly endless dialogue. There
were a number of times that all I wanted to do is save (since you can save
anywhere except in the middle of a conversation, which is a very nice touch
given the tendency for car rides to end suddenly) and the characters just kept
rambling on and on. This long-windedness can occasionally cause the player to
forget key details, but that doesn't happen all that often. They do try to
engage the player in long conversations by asking yes/no kinds of questions,
but, generally, either the answer just doesn't matter, or the game will just
keep badgering you until you give the answer it wants you to give. All in all,
though, these are minor gripes; the story, on the whole, is quite entertaining
and keeps the player involved.
The actual gameplay makes up for any deficiencies in the story, though. What
looks like a standard magic system proves to be much more complex than any
standard RPG at first glance. One thing that differentiates Golden Sun is its
Psynergy system. Psynergy is essentially magic, except that, unlike spells in
many games, Psynergy can (and, occasionally, must) be used to interact with the
environment from time to time. For example, if you see vines on a wall, you can
usually use Whirlwind Psynergy to reveal a door behind them. It adds an
interesting dimension to the game, in that some of the puzzles often take a
combination of multiples Psynergies in order to solve. One really nice feature
that the game provides is the ability to set shortcuts to Psynergies to the L
and R buttons, so if you find yourself having to use the same Psynergy over and
over again, you won't have to go through multiple menus in order to do so.
The other thing that really differentiates Golden Sun is the use of Djinni. At
first, the Djinni seem sort of like Pokemon, in that you're encouraged to catch
'em all, but they play an incredible part in battles. Each Djinn gets attached
to a particular character, and adds to his/her statistics. They are also allowed
to be "unleashed" in battle, where they either perform an attack or they provide
some benefit to the party. Once they've been unleashed, Djinni can summon
elemental powers for crushing attacks; the Djinni can combine together to summon
even more powerful elementals to assault the enemy. Finally, different
combinations Djinni can completely change the class of the characters, resulting
in a completely different array of Psynergies available to that character. It's
particularly interesting to be able to fine-tune your characters on the fly in
order to get different Psynergies that might be more helpful at a particular
point. It's an interesting system that can essentially be ignored if you don't
want to bother with it, but makes the overall experience just that much more
rich when taken advantage of.
Graphically, Golden Sun takes advantage of all of the GBA's power to put out a
really slick-looking game. The characters, while on the small side, actually
manage to show emotion while having conversations. Furthermore, Golden Sun takes
advantage of Mode 7 graphics in order to employ all sorts of cool effects. For
example, casting certain Psynergies in battle will cause the entire battlefield
to pause and rotate to give you a better view of the action, and pressing L on
the world map will zoom out to give you more of a birds-eye view of the area.
Spell effects are quite impressive as well; while those who are used to console
games likely won't be blown away, seeing these kinds of graphics on a handheld
system is simply breathtaking. Graphics are also as bright and colorful as
possible on the GBA, so you'll have to strain your eyes less than usual in order
to be able to see them.
Sound is equally impressive. The music, in particular, is very pleasing and
varied enough to keep you entertained throughout. Even the "game saved" tones
are just done so well that I like to hear them over and over again. Sound
effects are also simple but effective. About the only complaint I have about the
sound is that the designers tried to add some character to the conversations by
making sounds that are supposed to sound like talking. Remember when the teacher
talked in the old Charlie Brown cartoons? It sounds kind of like that, and it
does get a bit grating. That's easily turned off in the options, though.
All in all, Golden Sun is an excellent example of what can be done with the Game
Boy Advance to make an incredible game. All told, you'll probably get at least
20 hours of gameplay out of Golden Sun, and if you like RPGs at all, even just a
little, then you'll likely love every moment of those 20+ hours. Even if you
think you don't like RPGs (like I used to up until this past summer), give
Golden Sun a couple of hours and see if it still can't impress you. If this is
the kind of product Nintendo can produce for the GBA instead of rehashing old
SNES games, then this system has quite a bright future ahead of it indeed.
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