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Anyone else here played it, and what did you think of it?

I'm almost at the end of the first game, but it seems rather...ununique in some ways. It reuses lots of various little things from Earthbound and the Pokémon series, but that's not why it lacks uniqueness--the things that it borrows aren't bad things at all (I especially appreciated some of them too). However, I think it has a lackluster plot and soundtrack, and a few other things also bugged me.

The plot is okay, nothing terrible about it, but it was very, very stereotypical and somehow it didn't spur up excitement the same way that the stereotypical plot of FFV did. I mean, it was interesting, no doubt about it, but somehow it didn't work as effectively. May be partly related to the lackluster soundtrack, but may also be partly related (I'll admit it) to my having seen a few too many "RPG cliché" lists around the internets.

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The one thing about the plot that isn't quite stereotypical, based on what I've read from a walkthrough, is that the good guys actually win the "race" this time, unlike how Golbez or Exdeath always stays one step ahead and successfully steals/destroys all the crystals. IIRC, they don't actually light all the lighthouses, do they?

As for the soundtrack: I like a few tracks, such as the Vale/Vault theme and the Lunpa Fortress theme, but most of them are pretty meh. Not sure how to justify my opinion, but that's how I feel.

Features:
+ gameplay feature: using psynergy outside battle. First featured in Pokémon (Flash, Fly, Strength, Surf, Cut...), but much expanded here. Pretty seamlessly featured in the game (as in, I haven't had any "why didn't they do such-and-such" moments), and of special note are things that can be used both in battle and outside of battle.

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+ Heehee, nice difficult Kraken battle. I prefer Earthbound's version though. Crashing Boom Bang FTW.

- Yes? No? Does it really matter? No, actually, it does not, except for that one scene at the beginning where you can get a game over by refusing the Great Healer's request that you go save the world. But even then you actually have to walk OUT of the shrine in order to get a game over. Seriously, though, answer either yes or no to most of the times the game asks you for such an answer somewhere in a conversation, and you'll get a slight difference in the next thing that the next person says. But there doesn't seem to be much in the way of non-linearity at all--at least answering no to someone doesn't change the outcome at all.
- And related to the uselessness of the yes/no questions, this game did really feel at times like all I was doing was fighting battles, playing semi-minigames (such as Colosso), and walking the characters along in order to further the plot.
- Sorry, Isaac, being a silent protagonist has gone out of style.
- Not only are all the prophecies correct, I know they will be because they all seem to follow a stereotypical RPG plot.
+ I like gambling minigames where I can win really easily.
- When you make references to Chinese culture, you really don't need to include the semi-mangled English usage. That's just kinda offensive.

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I haven't quite finished the game yet, but I've read from that walkthrough that the ending doesn't really "end" the game...like, you never rescue Jenna or Kraden, IIRC, and that's relegated to the plot of the next game. If that's really the case, then that's very disappointing...

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And damnit, I wanted to have Jenna instead of Garet. Would have been interesting if Garet had had Isaac and Jenna run around collecting the Elemental Stars instead, although then again, that's not what his personality would tend to do...

I'm gonna give it an overall grade once I'm done with it, but I foresee something like a B- or C+. What do y'all think?

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the lackluster soundtrack

When you play The Lost Age, I'm sure that your opinion of the series will change. TLA is much more challenging, much less linear (almost to the point of confusion at some points), with many more options in terms of sidequests and party customization. From what I've heard, the two games were originally supposed to be one, but couldn't fit onto one cartridge, which is why they were released as two games. It at least explains the 'cheat' ending of the first game. If you think of the two as one game, it will help to see over the first game's faults. You may even like the second game's soundtrack better, it has many more upbeat tracks.

Since I'm not a person that really cares if a game is cliched or not, I really really enjoyed both Golden Suns. The music by Sakuraba never disappointed me (I really enjoyed the soundtrack even before I started to delve into games' composers), and I found the storyline and characters to be quite charming. But, this is coming from a person who rarely complains about such things.

Well, I guess I do have one complaint. The transfer system of the games was executed rather poorly, if you don't have a copy of both games, two GBAs and a link cable, you would have to input a six-page password into the second game to transfer your clear data. Even worse, just discovering the password seems impossible without having prior looked it up on a walkthrough or something.

Still, make sure that you complete the bonus dungeon and all of the sidequests in the first game before sending data to the second. Without having done some events and without having some important Psynergy, many things can be missed in the second game (in particular, you must have all 72 djinn from both games to even enter the second game's bonus dungeon).

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OSonic Rave
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I enjoyed both Golden suns very much aswell, after playing the first one i do agree that the ending is quite dissapointed - but the second one more than makes up for that (first one is a great prologue after all, if you ask me)
I like the soundtrack, with the colosso battle music, usual battle music and the Saturos boss fight battle music standing out.

And the bonus dungeon in the second game is just plain awesome, and even though you missed a few djinnis in the first game, you can reacquire them in the second game.

since this post is getting pretty random composed (;p) im going to do a + - list of both of them!

+Great music
-Most boss battles are trivial using summons, restraining your own power can be needed if you want to keep the game challenging
+Great story / plot and character development
-in the first games, many pussles are too easy
+second game makes up for that ;p

To summarize, i liked the games, even though they had their flaws.

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All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Broccoli to die.

For being a portable RPG, which at the time at its release was almost exclusive to the Pokémon series, it does a fairly good job. It is unique from many other old-school style RPGs in that it uses some field magic to solve puzzles and to be honest, I would get stuck at various places because of those puzzles, as much as I hate to admit it . I love the two games, though, and I hope that there will be a DS sequel or even a sequel on the Wii. I also like the inclusion of East Asian mythology(the planets representing the various elements, which in a way, reminded me of Sailor Moon). It's a very light-hearted RPG and its characters, while not characters of a very strong caliber, can sometimes bring humor into the game.

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"You underestimate the strength of a Jedi's mind, Brejik. A mistake you won't live to regret, " -Bastila Shan(Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)

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Sorry, Isaac, being a silent protagonist has gone out of style.

I Agree with that. Why doesnt he talk? I Know that he talks in The Lost Age but, why not in the first one?

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Kupo.

Because of the rule (which is almost completely out of style except for a few series nowadays) that the main character in an RPG never talks. Felix only says a few lines during the Lost Age, yet Isaac becomes a chatterbox.

This post has been edited by Zeromus_X on 14th June 2007 23:36

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

These games were excellent, and I found them to be fairly challenging, although the final boss in GS 2 was MUCH easier than the final boss of GS1. My one complaint is the same as Zeromus's about the password. I had to look up on gamefaqs how to aquire it, and then I had to put in all 6 pages of password, only to find out that I messed up on ONE character. You could always put in the Shorter password option that they have, but you will get less stuff that way.

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

Update: I've thought about the soundtrack for a little bit, and I think it's actually not as bad as I made it sound in my first post. Perhaps there were a few instrumentation issues--like how the SNES Tales of Phantasia's music is better than the GBA version's, especially since (as I've heard) ToP was also done by the same composer. The soundtrack isn't lackluster, that's not the right word. Not the best thing in the world, but it's pretty good. Also, maybe I just got sick of hearing the battle theme (which is what sounds especially reminiscent of ToP) over and over again...

As a sidenote, the forest theme (before you save it) is reminiscent of the Ecoquest 2: Secret of the Rainforest soundtrack. Not sure why, but might just be the instrumentation with the wood-flute playing the melody.

Got a question about psynergy though: Are they trying to do something that's not quite either magic or psychic power but is kinda like both?

Also, speaking of psychic power, I find that the four characters are generally pretty well balanced (with the possible exception of Ivan who seems to have slightly sucky stats all the time for some reason). This stands in huge contrast to Earthbound, where Ness by endgame was insanely more powerful than the rest of your party. It worked, yes, but it was just sorta strange. Then again, that's not the only RPG in which your charcters end up having well-defined roles in the party (FFIV is another good example).

On the other hand, GS, with its intricate djinni-psynergy system, allows a lot of customization but still keeps the characters dissimilar. There are certain things you let a character can do by attaching djinni, but some spells are unique to certain classes/combinations of djinni. Not the perfect system for someone who wants to be able to get 100% of the gameplay experience in just one playthrough, but a good amount of detail, and lots of good gameplay-related conveniences as well (such as the psynergy gained/lost listing). I also liked how djinni attachments and changes to psynergy weren't permanent and how that system was completely flexible. The only thing I didn't quite like about it was how after summoning djinni, they wait a few turns then auto-reattach to the character, possibly altering your character's psynergy adversely right when you want Mia to be able to Ply Well Garet who's at 3 HP but suddenly find that you don't have Ply Well anymore.

Now, you could just use an item, but that also relates to the item system in this game. It's a much less fluid but more "realistic" system than the "common pool of stuff" style of the FF games, and it's very much like Earthbound's item system--each character has her/his own inventory. They did it somewhat better than Earthbound though since you could stack up to 30 of something in any one item slot, but you still end up using most if not all of the slots by the end of the game.

Also, djinni system: kinda like the Monopoly house building system--no one can have more than one djinni more than anyone else (like you can't have one person carrying 4 djinni and another carrying 2--or at least I couldn't get that to happen). I'd like more flexibility than that, but whatever.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

The item system wasn't an issue to me in Golden Sun, but in The Lost Age, it did start to get in the way about 2/3 of the way through.

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

I think that the most annoying aspect of the game is obtaining the ultimate equipment. Usually, in the strongest dungeon, there are only a select few pieces of armor, which are generally the best in the game, that will drop off a specific armor. Though, there is a way to sort of "cheat" the game system so that if you fight the monster in a pattern, you will always get the item at the end of battle. After trying this pattern many, many times, no luck. It isn't necessary to get the best equipment in the game, but I try anyways.

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"You underestimate the strength of a Jedi's mind, Brejik. A mistake you won't live to regret, " -Bastila Shan(Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)

Well, when using RNG methods to force monsters to drop rare items, you have to follow the directions exactly (right down to party order and removing regen equipment), or else the method won't work.

I just like nabbing the Zodiac Wand because its unleash looks awesome.

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

Usually when I tend to get weapons/armor from monsters, it happens unexpectedly and for some reason, I don't even notice I have even gotten the item from the enemy after battle and then it appears in my inventory and just happen to notice it.

As a side note, Golden Sun(both games) have amazing effects, especially for being GBA games, particularly the Unleash effects. A personal favorite of mine is Excalibur's Legend and a lot of Mercury-based Unleashes. Zodiac Wand does have an awesome unleash; it reminds me of Razzly's LV3 Technique from Chrono Cross.

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"You underestimate the strength of a Jedi's mind, Brejik. A mistake you won't live to regret, " -Bastila Shan(Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)

I played TLA before I played the first one, so I kind of ruined everything for myself. But I played TLA all Summer and probably for the next entire year (yeah, I was a bit obsessed). It still is one of my all-time favourite games, though I actually like the cast from the original GS better. As soon as they joined me, I never went back to Felix and the gang. I think it was pretty cool how

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the bad guys ended up being the good guys in the end, but since they were all dead, they couldn't really go and apologize for trying to stop them. I don't really understand why Saturos and Menardi didn't try to say that what they were doing was good, but anyway.

The music, the battle system, the everything, I loved it all.

When I learned about the RNG, I abused it. I was always on a walkthrough, so I just happened upon it. Very useful.

This post has been edited by King Eddy on 29th June 2007 04:04

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