2003 Nintendo
The original Golden Sun was, in many people's eyes, one of the biggest reasons to purchase a Game Boy Advance shortly after the system first debuted. Released in November, the game garnered much critical praise for its incredible graphics and sound, but was docked points by some for its often-silly and arguably trite, uninspired story and lack of difficulty in battles. Nonetheless, Golden Sun quickly became a GBA best-seller, so it comes as no surprise that Camelot almost immediately began work on a sequel. But is sequel really the most appropriate word? We'll save that for the comments section of the review...
Golden Sun: The Lost Age begins, in all manners of speaking, right where the original left off. After Isaac defeated Saturos and Menardi atop the lighthouse, he discovered, to his horror, that the beacon had been lit regardless of his victory, causing a giant splitting of the continent of Weyard. Taking control of Felix, who is now freed from the clutches of Saturos and Menardi, you must navigate around the pieces of Weyard in search of the remaining two lighthouses, attempting to reach them before they can be lit by the wrong hands, unleashing a wave of Alchemy-fueled power on the land and reducing the inhabitants to the mercy of the perpetrator.
While we're on the topic of story, it's important to note that those who grow impatient with the setting up of the plotline in their video games may want to avoid The Lost Age entirely, as the game takes an exceedingly long time to get going; expect to play at least an hour or so before you can finally truly strike out on your own path without having to worry about triggering another lengthy story-building segment. If you haven't played the original Golden Sun and are concerned about being in the dark story-wise, don't fret; a simple perusing of the back of the included map with the game should get you up to speed in a minute or so.
The heart of The Lost Age, ultimately, is dungeon navigation as you trek across the land in search of the last two lighthouses. Throughout your searching, you will have to contend with the standard random-battling found in most RPGs, puzzle-solving, and the occasional boss. Helping you through all of these tasks are two primary elements that Golden Sun relies on to make it stand out from other RPGs: Psynergy and Djinn.
Psynergy would be called magic in most other RPGs; it's simply a collective term for the various mental powers your characters can acquire throughout the game. What makes them interesting, though, is that they can be used outside of battle to solve environmental puzzles. For example, a bush may be blocking the entrance to a cave that you need to go in, and the only way you'll be able to clear it is by learning the Psynergy power of Whirlwind. It's a feature that adds some dimension to what could've easily been a mere cookie-cutter RPG.
Djinn, by contrast, serve to flesh out the game's battle system. They each possess a certain power that can be unleashed in battle, and just having them attached to a character in your party can change that character's attributes; whether it's for the better or worse is contingent upon the character and Djinn in question. In addition, Djinn can be used to summon various magical attacks and powers of different gods in battle, and the more Djinn you have, the more kinds of summoning you'll be able to do.
Finally, it is of note to those who played and completed the original Golden Sun that you have the option to transfer your levelled-up characters to The Lost Age with a password (one that is irritatingly long and tedious to enter) or a Game Boy link cable. Wanting to start from scratch, I opted not to go this route even though I own the original game, but the option is there.
Golden Sun: The Lost Age certainly sounds good enough on paper, but how does it play? And what is the meaning of that cryptic comment concerning the world "sequel" that was made at the review's beginning? Read on for our verdict.
Features
- Continue the adventures of Isaac, Jenna, Kraden, and other old favourites and new faces in an all-new Golden Sun adventure that picks up right where the last one left off
- Transfer your levelled-up characters from the original Golden Sun to the sequel via password or Game Boy link cable
- Capture and control Djinn, mythical creatures that enhance your abilities and grant the ability to call forth powers based on the four elements of earth, fire, water, and wind
- Use your psychic Psynergy to perform devastating battle attacks and solve puzzles throughout your quest
- Engaging graphical effects continue the original Golden Sun's tradition of being one of the GBA's finest-looking games
- Beautifully-orchestrated soundtrack provides an incredible aural experience
Josh Righter: We need to get something out of the way right off the bat: Golden Sun: The Lost Age is not a sequel by any stretch of the imagination. In gaming terms, a sequel generally implies improvements from the original game, whether it be bolstered graphics, sound, gameplay, or all three. These upgrades are what we as gamers have come to expect when playing the second or third or sixth game in a series, and this is precisely why The Lost Age can most accurately be called "Golden Sun v.2". Barring a (slightly) different storyline and a few added abilities, this is the same game.
What really is in question, then, is whether or not that fact is necessarily a detriment to the game. Elements such as the graphics really did not need changing; though The Lost Age obviously runs on the same engine as the original game with only very minor tweaks, it still looks fantastic. Effects in battle are generally fairly impressive, the "Mode-7" scrolling map is a good-looking and functional way to do an overworld (though the zoom-out feature could've been a little more pronounced, as the level of zoom is really insufficient to make any kind of difference), and the game as a complete visual package comes together very well, with the kind of evident attention to detail that would typically be seen in a Nintendo-developed game, not a usual third-party effort. Little features such as the full moon reflecting in a pond as you walk through the eerily calm Garoh, for example, really bolster feelings of immersion, an impressive feat for any game, let alone one on a heldheld.
The music and sound effects are in the same situation; little has changed, but much of it was good enough the first time around to leave it the way it is. The Lost Age features many of the same sound effects and compositions as its predecessor in addition to a few new tunes that mesh quite well with the existing material. The music doesn't get off the hook quite so easily as the graphics, however; something that's easy on the eyes has to be looked at quite a bit to wear out its welcome, but music is a different story, as even the best compositions can fall victim to repetition. I thoroughly enjoyed the music of Golden Sun, but I couldn't help but feel somewhat gyped when I realized that over half of the songs in the sequel were exactly the same, without even a simple remix or additional instrument layer added.
The problem here, though, is not with the graphics or sound; the overwhelming consensus with the original Golden Sun was that the gamed shined brilliantly in these two areas, and with the sequel arriving less than a year and a half later, not much time has passed to date either aspect, causing them to retain their luster even while remaining relatively constant.
What was not so universally agreed on when the first Golden Sun arrived was the gameplay; some hailed it as a modern classic RPG, ranking with the likes of Secret of Mana and other high-profile series'. But for others, the game wore out its welcome amongst a sea of irritatingly frequent random battles and lenient battles, forcing the game to fall back on cheap lengthening techniques to extend the replay value. Yet even with the complaints, the gameplay in Golden Sun: The Lost Age remains identical, and for this reviewer, that is the game's downfall.
It's true: I fall into the latter camp who, while not completely disgusted with the original Golden Sun, eventually grew tired and even annoyed with it, and, like the gameplay itself, my feelings carry over to this continuation of the series. Puzzles that are only moderately challenging become exercises in frustration as your party encounters random battles roughly every 5-7 seconds of walking. This is compounded by the fact that many of the puzzles are environmental and encourage the player to walk back and forth amongst various locations, meeting wave after wave of enemies with each step. Couldn't the programmers have toned down -- or even turned off -- random battles in areas where puzzle-solving must be done?
Maybe the reason so many battles exist is to encourage users to level up. But wait -- there's no need for that, as every battle is almost laughably easy. There's never any sense of urgency that you're fighting a battle you may lose, or that you may not make it to the next town to refuel your health, or that you should've saved before the fight. Even worse, the Psynergy and Djinn systems are severely unbalanced; with the right upgraded weapons equipped -- which are easily purchased because money is so plentiful -- a simple sword attack can be more devastating than an impressive-looking summoning of a god that required three different Djinn to get.
This simplicity encouraged the developers to implement what I like to call "artificial difficulty" in order to extend the game's length -- situations that are hard to rectify not because they demand a lot of skill or clever thinking, but because they are vague and give little indication as to what the player needs to do. There have been countless times that I've made numerous laps around the game's world, looking frantically for anything that would clue me in as to what to do next. The characters, who were perfectly happy to spout all kinds of dialouge during the story sequences, were utterly unhelpful, making redudant comments about the game's storyline.
The story itself was one of the final straws that made The Lost Age an ultimate turn-off for me in the end. An RPG should have a strong, at least semi-engaging plotline behind it; even overdone cliches are acceptable as long as it's interesting. The Lost Age, however, is the worst of both worlds: cliched and uninteresting. If a standard "underestimated-but-powerful boy and his band of unlikely friends travel the world to try and stop an evil force from bringing a great destructive power into the world" storyline interests you, stop and consider that this is related through redundant dialouge and meaningless character emoting; there are scenes where long seconds ttick by consisting of nothing but characters nodding their heads at one another with vague symbols over their heads. This is not storytelling, and in a genre that relies so much on plot, it is unacceptable.
Golden Sun: The Lost Age, like its predecessor, drew me in initially. The puzzles were interesting and fresh, if not a bit on the easy side, and the world promised to be large and varied. But while I stuck with the first Golden Sun for quite some time before getting irritated, The Lost Age worked its way under my skin very quickly by invoking strong feelings of deja vu in me; with each step I took, I knew I had played the game before, and I knew nothing had changed. Because of the enjoyment I got out of the game whenever I wasn't slogging my way through another random battle or running around aimlessly, I opted not to give it a thumbs down; this review may sound overtly negative, but for the patient, there is some fun to be had here. Solving the innovative puzzles will give you simple satisfaction, and the story, however contrived, does create mild interest as it unfolds. Unfortunately, these factors are more often than not overshadowed by aspects of the game that just should've been fixed this time around.
Cory Faller: I went into The Lost Age with a slightly different perspective than Josh, having been a very big fan of the original in almost all respects. I wouldnt necessarily put it at the top of my Best RPGs of All Time list, but I definitely thought it was a very entertaining game. And seeing as how The Lost Age really is more of a continuation of the first game than a sequel, it carries with it many of the same traits as its predecessor, be they good or bad.
So lets cover those points first. The graphics and sound in the Lost Age are virtually identical to the original Golden Sun in quality, but have both seen marginal improvements in direction. Summons and special weapon effects benefit from a considerable cinematic upgrade, and many of the cities and dungeons have more personality than those in the original. There are also a lot of excellent new tunes; some of the battle and overworld themes are especially memorable. Unfortunately, a couple of my gripes from the first game have also been carried over. The protagonists just yak and yak and YAK, repeating the same thing over and over again in a flurry of emoticons and ellipsis. And there were several times where I simply had no idea where to go next, and no way of figuring it out except by visiting every single town I could find. Since these things were prevalent in the first game, Ive grown a bit used to them but theyre still things that should have been improved upon. Maybe if the next game in the series is an actual sequel, something like thatll happen.
But thats all piddling. While I was playing The Lost Age, one thing struck me in particular. The game feels much less like a handheld RPG, and much more like a console RPG. In comparison to the first game, the overworld is HUGE. You get to travel it in a vehicle, the puzzles are harder, the dungeons are longer, there are a multitude of sidequests that unlock new and uber-cool summons, etc. The first Golden Sun seemed somewhat stripped down due to the limitations of appearing on the GameBoy, but the Lost Age simply tosses all of those limitations out the window. This is a full-fledged SNES caliber RPG here, and managed to hold my attention for a very long time.
A bit of warning to those expecting a definitive end to the game, though. The Lost Age ends much like the original Golden Sun, saving your clear data in a separate packet and demanding a sequel. Its a bit unclear whether the data is going to be used in the same manner as the first game, though, since you can use the data to start the game over with your clear-state stats. Perhaps thats all the packets for, and the sequel will be in glorious 3D on the GameCube. Either way, though, I cant wait for the next one.