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Re: gba plays gba games (currently playing ~ Golden Sun)
and boom, golden sun is done.
Glad I knew that the game would end on the worst ever cliffhanger before going in, otherwise I think I'd be super pissed at that ending. I still kinda am tbh, but at least I know that The Lost Age is available on the eshop whenever I want to finish the story
Time for thoughts. Golden Sun is an excellent game, but it possesses a few major flaws which kinda take from that. For starters, the dialogue is dreadful in places, and choppy as hell because of the small text boxes which can barely hold a full sentence, and the characters' overworld sprites that simply must react to every statement that's made. If the dialogue was better, then this wouldn't be an issue, but sadly most of the time your characters have to have things explained to them like they're idiots, and even then they still offer redundant responses (my generalisation of a typical GS convo above gives you an idea of what i'm talking about). The story itself is actually pretty interesting, but it's hard to enjoy with these nonsense interactions.
Secondly, the lack of detail in item/power descriptions makes using any of them pretty much guesswork, and hence the puzzles in the game become needlessly difficult towards the end because there are still new obstacles being thrown at you with no rhyme or reason, and without a good understanding of the powers, you're gonna have a bad time. I eventually found a 'details' tab for items, but even then it's just an oversized box which only gives details on the psynergies (special attacks that occasionally have field effects, essentially) it powers up, if any. Some weapons had powers infused into them that activated in battle, and I wanted to know what these things actually do and how often they activate, but they only ever give you the name. another thing, you don't even get to look at the 'detailed' item descriptions before buying the item (or if you can, I was never taught), so while Vorpal Slash sounded cool, I was sorta reluctant to part with x amount of dollars if the effect actually did shit all (the Assassin's Blade summoned a reaper which didn't really do any killing, so wtf was it for? The game supposedly never tells). I had to guess what powers/items worked well based on what consistently worked in battle, and what looked the coolest with the GBA-level particle effects. Ragnarok and Meteor were my favourite attacks by far for no real reason other than they just looked cool. Attacks which looked like shit were typically shit.
The battle system, aside from its ugly enemies and shit random encounters, was cool. Djini were these monster things you recruited throughout the game, and they gave you stat boosts/powers depending on who you equipped them on. When they were equipped, you could use them for a unique power, which would de-equip them and hence remove their buffs/psynergies. To re-equip them, you could either do that after battle or summon them as colossal monsters which increased in stength the more Djini you summoned. Obviously, summoning has a cooldown, so you don't re-equip the Djini right after summoning them. As more Djini joined my team, the power difference between a character with all djini equipped and one without djini became more apparent, so while you'd get the ability to literally bring about the apocalypse, you're suddenly much weaker for a few turns until all of your djini recover. It was a cool system, and led to some interesting tactics being formed. It made the final boss battle actually bearable, which was great.
From what I recall of my first attempt at playing this, Golden Sun starts very strong, but from jumping back into the game, I'd say it kinda faulters towards the end. It's still an excellent game, but all I can say is I wish it and its sequel were remastered so that the clunky animations/dialogue box could be fixed, but sadly I don't think that'll ever happen.
The Lost Age is pretty much required playing after finishing Golden Sun, so I'll likely purchase that a little later down the track.
Up next is Metroid Fusion, which'll be my first Metroid game ever so excite
and boom, golden sun is done.
Glad I knew that the game would end on the worst ever cliffhanger before going in, otherwise I think I'd be super pissed at that ending. I still kinda am tbh, but at least I know that The Lost Age is available on the eshop whenever I want to finish the story
Time for thoughts. Golden Sun is an excellent game, but it possesses a few major flaws which kinda take from that. For starters, the dialogue is dreadful in places, and choppy as hell because of the small text boxes which can barely hold a full sentence, and the characters' overworld sprites that simply must react to every statement that's made. If the dialogue was better, then this wouldn't be an issue, but sadly most of the time your characters have to have things explained to them like they're idiots, and even then they still offer redundant responses (my generalisation of a typical GS convo above gives you an idea of what i'm talking about). The story itself is actually pretty interesting, but it's hard to enjoy with these nonsense interactions.
Secondly, the lack of detail in item/power descriptions makes using any of them pretty much guesswork, and hence the puzzles in the game become needlessly difficult towards the end because there are still new obstacles being thrown at you with no rhyme or reason, and without a good understanding of the powers, you're gonna have a bad time. I eventually found a 'details' tab for items, but even then it's just an oversized box which only gives details on the psynergies (special attacks that occasionally have field effects, essentially) it powers up, if any. Some weapons had powers infused into them that activated in battle, and I wanted to know what these things actually do and how often they activate, but they only ever give you the name. another thing, you don't even get to look at the 'detailed' item descriptions before buying the item (or if you can, I was never taught), so while Vorpal Slash sounded cool, I was sorta reluctant to part with x amount of dollars if the effect actually did shit all (the Assassin's Blade summoned a reaper which didn't really do any killing, so wtf was it for? The game supposedly never tells). I had to guess what powers/items worked well based on what consistently worked in battle, and what looked the coolest with the GBA-level particle effects. Ragnarok and Meteor were my favourite attacks by far for no real reason other than they just looked cool. Attacks which looked like shit were typically shit.
The battle system, aside from its ugly enemies and shit random encounters, was cool. Djini were these monster things you recruited throughout the game, and they gave you stat boosts/powers depending on who you equipped them on. When they were equipped, you could use them for a unique power, which would de-equip them and hence remove their buffs/psynergies. To re-equip them, you could either do that after battle or summon them as colossal monsters which increased in stength the more Djini you summoned. Obviously, summoning has a cooldown, so you don't re-equip the Djini right after summoning them. As more Djini joined my team, the power difference between a character with all djini equipped and one without djini became more apparent, so while you'd get the ability to literally bring about the apocalypse, you're suddenly much weaker for a few turns until all of your djini recover. It was a cool system, and led to some interesting tactics being formed. It made the final boss battle actually bearable, which was great.
From what I recall of my first attempt at playing this, Golden Sun starts very strong, but from jumping back into the game, I'd say it kinda faulters towards the end. It's still an excellent game, but all I can say is I wish it and its sequel were remastered so that the clunky animations/dialogue box could be fixed, but sadly I don't think that'll ever happen.
The Lost Age is pretty much required playing after finishing Golden Sun, so I'll likely purchase that a little later down the track.
Up next is Metroid Fusion, which'll be my first Metroid game ever so excite
