When you finally take Advance Wars out of your Game Boy Advance, you might wonder what else you can put in instead. According to the 1001 list, old school RPG Golden Sun is worth a look. Well, more than a look, it's a must-play video game. I wonder why that is.
I've never heard of the series before, so I've no idea what I'm in for. There's no better way to find out than by diving right in.
Fun Times
Golden Sun gets straight to the point, waking us up in the middle of an imminent natural disaster. Should we run around the room looking in all the drawers for potions or just get out of here?
That's right. Play it like the story wants us to. Do you want to be flattened by a boulder? No, you don't. Isaac doesn't need possessions, he needs to go to the plaza, where it is safer.
It's a lesson that the whole town needs reminding of, apparently. Garet here is trying to haul a chest through the village, but with the tiniest amount of convincing (selecting 'Yes'), he'll join our party and get out of harm's way.
You can think of the world of Golden Sun as something like Star Wars. Most, if not all people, have force powers, allowing them to lift and move objects with the power of their minds, not using magic, but Psynergy. I'll admit, that's a pretty cool word for an RPG to use to explain it's magic.
The strongest villagers are up in the mountains, desperately trying to stop the boulder from falling down and devastating the village. Why they're using magic and not engineering is anyone's guess, because their Psynergy reverse will dwindle the more they use their powers. Time is running out.
As we meander our way through the village, routes being blocked off by smaller boulders here and there, we're introduced to random encounters, and in turn, how Golden Sun's combat system works.
A simple, pseudo-3D arena presents the two parties to us, and easy to navigate visual menus help us decide what to do on our turn. Outright attack seems to be the order of the day - we are barely teenagers, after all, and no nothing of Psynergy - and our swords slash the vermin until the fights are over.
Like many RPGs, a heavily scripted introduction sets up the story, but what it is we don't know yet. It's just one problem after another, the latest being to find someone with enough Psynergy to save Felix here because these guys don't have any rope. Hang in there, Felix.
Felix is going to die, isn't he?
We do eventually find someone with enough juice for the job. Apparently sitting on rocks can recharge your reserves. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I wasn't following too closely with the details.
Standing around and chatting isn't my idea of helping to save someone from drowning, though, but before we can arrive, nature throws us another curveball.
Well, that's an entire family wiped out by a comically large shadow. What perils will we face next?
Heading back to the plaza to find yet more people capable of helping (and we were scraping the barrel the first time we came here), we're distracted by some clearly evil folk chatting about something that I assume to be some of the plot. Could this natural disaster have been caused by these two? Who are they?
74 damage in a single attack. I don't think I'm ready to face these guys just yet... And that concludes the fateful day when the boulder fell through whatever this place is called. Three years pass.
Frustrations
It was some twenty minutes into Golden Sun when I started to know that it wasn't for me. The introduction served its purpose, introducing us to the village, some simple combats, dropping in some plot hints and so on, but then we're subjected to this kind of drivel.
I understand it's getting the story across, but it's so bloody JRPG it hurts. Characters respond with emoticon-like bubbles, their sprites all stretch and squish to give the impression of subtle movements, and then... then it tries to switch from serious adult talk of not being able to change the events of the past and life going on, to some attempts at comedy that absolutely did not sit well with me.
Presented here, for your pleasure, is more or less the full sequence of events that effectively broke me. After this, I knew Golden Sun was going to have to work wonders to convince me to play it further.
I finally had control of Isaac once more and could leg it to the mountain to see what the plot had in store. Could Golden Sun turn into something I wanted to play?
Moments like this weren't bad. Getting caught and having to lie. That's what teenagers do, that's fine. It even introduces a tiny little mechanic of getting past this guy when he's not looking. Great. Something to do that isn't running through the village corridors.
Why the bloody hell is he not waiting at the mountain, which is the first place players would go when they're lead to believe that they're going mountain climbing?! Damn, Golden Sun. I can't be going through town, chatting to useless locals, and busting into every house until I find the right one.
Final Word
My time with Golden Sun ended there and then, and I'm not really interested in finding out what happens afterwards. It's far too traditional and Japanese for me. I read that you can use your Psynergy powers outside of combat to move rocks and stuff, as we've been seeing various people do here and there, but that's not enough to sway me to return.
What am I missing out on, then? I've no idea. A bunch of teenagers becoming the saviours of the world, I imagine. How very dull. "But it's relatable! The target audience are young'uns!" Rubbish. Golden Sun may tweak the gameplay formula up a little, but the plot sure looks like it'll be a case of been there, done that. I've no time to interest to know for sure.
I could be entirely in the wrong. That's not outside the realms of possibility. But if I am wrong, I still think I'm unlikely to return to playing it. It just put me off. It's not my cup of tea, simple as that.
Is it yours?
Fun Facts
Having been initially designed for the Nintendo 64, the release of the GameCube would cause a shift to the Game Boy Advance, but the smaller cartridges meant splitting one game into two, the first focused on the heroes, the second on the villains. Maybe I'll be more interested in the villains' story...
Golden Sun, developed by Camelot Software Planning, first released in 2001.
Version played: Game Boy Advance, 2001, via emulation.