I mentioned back in my Donkey Kong Country: Returns review that two series have come back to the world of gaming after a long hibernation. DKC:R turned out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing, merely a derivative of what the series once was. However, the second game I mentioned is a more faithful in recapturing the series, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.
Dark Dawn is the third game in the series, kinda hard to tell since there's no number in the title, and is the first Golden Sun in seven years. For those who don't know, Golden Sun were two quiet, little RPGs on the Gameboy Advanced of all places. A handheld that was ruled by Nintendo mascots and Pokemon. So finding a unique RPG was like finding a good Adam Sandler movie, had to wade through a lot of crap before finding the good stuff. It's been seldom talked about, but is beloved by many; truly one of the few RPGs that hasn't been overblown by rabid fanboys, yet. But returning to an RPG series is a tricky one. DKC:R had no story obligations to fulfill since it relied entirely on platforming (and managed to fail pretty badly), Golden Sun had a story, and it ended; so what could possibly left to tell?
Apparently a lot since now we're following the adventures of the Warrior of Vale's children. Our previous heroes are all grown up and have kids, and now it's time for them to save the world from destruction. But before I get too deep into the plot, let's talk about why Golden Sun is a good series.
Golden Sun takes a page from the western RPGs by actually combining magic that can be cast in battles to practical use in the game world. Boulder in your way? Just smash it with your rock smashing magic (psy-energy = magic btw). Need that puddle of water frozen? Freeze it with an ice spell. Unlike Final Fantasy where you could summon the devil himself and rain comets down from the sky, but you still can't open a locked door or jump over a fence; letting the player use magic outside of battle makes the world seem more practical. Of course, these action-oriented magical moves are a small percentage of the magic available, but at least it shows the series is trying. This all is apart of Dark Dawn's stronger points: puzzle solving.
Instead of just throwing a cut-scene between enemy encounters, Golden Sun will actually test your mind and psy-energy with dungeons full of puzzles that are solved by using the right magic on the right thing. Thankfully, Dark Dawn keeps the concept going and expands on it a little. The dungeons are challenging and fun. However, the challenge takes a nose-dive when you get a magical spell that actually just tells you the answer to the puzzle. I'm guessing this is to stop people from wasting time by using every spell on an object when they're stumped, but it also works as a cheat sheet; stopping just short of making a psy-spell that just beats the game for you.
But if you're tired of doing the chores of a dungeon, you can run around for a while and get into a random encounter. Battles feel like the younger days of console RPGs by having everyone line up in a row like some very-polite colonial battle, and take turns beating the crap out of each other. You select a series of moves for each character and then let them go. Normal attacks have an extra spice by sometimes perform special moves instead once you use your weapon in enough battles. But I'm ignoring a big part of the game.
The tiny creatures that are seen in that horrible commercial that always comes on while I'm watching Futurama: Djinns. They're everywhere. Over 150 individual Djinns are found throughout the world, and most are just minor variations on the same action: heal the entire party, boost defense, elemental attack. So there's not a lot of micro-managing, just equip them all willy-nilly and go. Which Djinns you have control you character class, psy-energy available and slight stat modifiers. But most combinations are only a fractional difference between the next, so again, don't sweat the small stuff.
Most reviews I've read state the combat is too easy, which I agree with, for about the first 5 hours. The combat isn't overly easy; yes, you'll be spamming the attack button most of the time, but what jRPG doesn't come to that? You still have to heal often (you're PP, basically the game's MP, recharges as you walk), and there are a few challenging boss battles.
With all that out of the way, let's get back to what I started a few paragraphs ago, the plot. It's stretched over about 25-30 hours but should've only been about 10 or 15. It's padded out a lot with tiny little sub-plots and takes a long time to develop. The dialog is also stretched to a breaking point. Several points in the story have the characters in a hurry, but they keep talking anyways. If it was compelling dialog, that's one thing, but this is like Star Ocean bad. Characters announce the obvious constantly, and will reiterate each other's thoughts to no end. It's like textual equivalent to an echo, and each time it's repeated, it just gets more stupid.
The worst part is the game ends on a ga'darn cliff hanger, almost guaranteeing a sequel. Why is it today that no game can just end. There always has to be some small thing that pushes the series long for a least one more game. Golden Sun manages to ignore a plot element that emerged about 3 hours into the game and then proceed to ignore it for the rest of the game. It's like the creators gone done making the game and realized they forgot to develop an entire story line in favor of some stupid side quest involving pirates. Can games just have some freaking closure? I think it should be required by law to have on the box art, 'warning: this game offers no closure at the end and will likely make you buy one more just to see what happens'. At least then it'll save me from putting my DS through a wall.
I won't talk about the graphics or sound much because it's mostly a faithful recreation of the GBA incarnations, but there is a choice system in place. And by choice system, I mean a system where you choose how your silent protagonist reacts to a situation that has no bearing on anything. So the choice is really to give a crap or not. I didn't.
Overall, this game feels like a Golden Sun game, looks like a Golden Sun game and sounds like a Golden Sun game. It may not be the best Golden Sun, but it's still a fun ride and remains faithful to the series without stagnating. There's really nothing more you can ask from a game like this.
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