Golden Sun Dark Dawn

[Fatecrashers]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VwT8qhVFLQ

I got such a big sense of nostalgia from watching that video, the upgraded animations do not disappoint.

 

[Golden Sun]

oh good lord catastrophe looks awesome. If only I knew where to go in this Jap game

 

[alex211]

i wonder if sol blade is still available .and i without a doubt say that it is the most powerful weapon exist in that game .

 

[Emperor]

i wonder if sol blade is still available .and i without a doubt say that it is the most powerful weapon exist in that game .

It is. I saw somebody use it in a video against a certain boss character...that is unless they decided to hack it into the game >.>

 

[MrIndigo]

I don't really understand. I just played through GS1 in anticipation of this and as far as I can tell it's just kind of... bad....

The combat is like, whatever I guess? I haven't played a ton of RPGs or anything, but it's sort of just "mow down everything that stands before you." When I reached strong bosses, I didn't even have to grind; I just un-set all of my djinn or whatever and brute forced them with uh, a little "relish"? Then like, eventually, by the final boss or so, I learned how good the barrier djinn were, so I abused them and easily won that too. >_> It wasn't terribly interesting or strategic or anything, I just learned this new, obviously abusive tactic and let it do the rest of the work for me. So I can't say any of the combat was terribly interesting to me, and I didn't even remotely power-level.

And I hear a lot of talk about how the dungeons/puzzles are good or whatever. I thought the puzzles were about as riveting as they are in like, the first dungeon in your everyday Zelda game I guess? Also, slower and more tedious, but in terms of thought process sure, they were okay on that very basic level. The dungeons themselves were just dungeons, except they were dungeons with random encounters which makes backtracking and exploration that much more irritating (much of that backtracking being entirely pointless, because frankly a lot of the puzzles are vague as hell).

And the dialogue offers just, nothing. It is horrible with no redeeming features of any kind. Thank God I could fastforward through it with my "magical time powers," there is seriously no fucking way that I'd have been able to sit through that bullshit otherwise. I... like, all of the other things make me wonder why the game is considered so wonderful, much less a defining GBA title. The dialogue, though, seriously has me at a loss as to how anybody could stand playing through the whole thing on a GBA. It is so bad, and all of the characters are so bad, and the entire story is so bad. >_> And it consistently takes minutes to escape that, only to play a remainder of the game that boasts being... "pretty okay if you like that sort of thing?"

I'll shut up and be quiet now though, since technically none of this has to do with Golden Sun DS. I am pretty disappointed though, what with the hype surrounding it. It's not supposed to be significantly different in any way, is it (I'm sure I've heard that the second one is basically just a straight continuation of the first)?

The issue you have with this game will be an issue with all JRPGs. The story isn't actually that bad, especially when you get to the sequel.

The barrier Djinn Flash is the broken one. The others aren't too bad, and there's enough effects that hit through them that they don't auto-win, certainly in the second one.

 

[Emperor]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WveU9_07vz0&feature=related

Weapon Unleashes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz1XOJiqXog&feature=related

Psynergy (usually strongest form)

Watch at own risk as always .-.

 

[Emperor]

Game comes out a week from tomorrow

aaaaaaaaaaaaaah

 

[Jackal]

game got a terrible score on ign with a completely half assed review.

i have been waiting for this game for so long and I can't even believe it ... help?

is it actually that bad? I haven't looked into any prerelease info cause I wanted to be totally surprised when I got it.

 

[MrIndigo]

IGN are crap at reviewing anyway.

 

[Firestorm]

IGN's a pile of shit. Wait for a review site with competent writers to put up a review and read about what they didn't / did like it and act accordingly. If what bothered them isn't a problem for you, pick it up.

Honestly, Golden Sun is a pretty average, standard, jRPG so I wouldn't expect raving reviews from the enthusiast press. It will get slammed for being a jRPG by one half of the reviewers while likely boring the jRPG reviewers for not doing anything interesting enough.

I'm looking forward to a relaxing, cliche, jRPG so I think I'll be satisfied. I don't really pay attention to reviews from the websites though. I just go with "I liked the last game, this looks good" and "Damn this game I didn't know about is getting a ton of positive impressions from people I recognize on forums" to make my decisions.

 

[Emperor]

From what I've gathered from videos this is essencially the exact same type of game as before...still the same golden sun most people remember just with different graphics and touch screen stuff here and there. There shouldn't be anything to worry about :P

 

[Ancien Régime]

I feel Blame Game's point is highly valid, and was one of my biggest concerns coming into the game (as well as hoping they don't put another Air's Rock, though with a halved encounter rate I wouldn't mind it now)

I am a big GS fan, but I am highly, highly disappointed that, from what I can tell, they won't at least update the battle system. I don't give a shit about the exposition, I play JRPGs for the story, and GS has a great story. But I really felt that the Blame Game's criticism is very valid, at least in regards to the battles - the Golden Sun battle system is mediocre even by the standard of the time, let alone 2011 (especially considering the level of customization involved in equips, stats, and such).

My main pet peeve was that normal battles are kind of easy , and boss battles became formulaic for me - use all my djinn to buff myself up, and so forth, then spam the fuck out of my summons, then survive until my djinn come back, then rinse and repeat. The battles were exciting, and fun, and tense, but ultimately could have been much more. A lot of this is because to really make the most of the customization options, you have to forego summons, and because there's not much of a "strengths and weaknesses" element to it (some builds are really good, other builds just suck)

Ultimately, I'll still play the game, because GS has a great story, the world is great, the music is great, the atmosphere is great, the puzzles are fun, and so forth. But the battle system has so much potential that it seems they won't make use of, 7 years later.

 

[MrIndigo]

Actually, when I replayed the earlier games, there was no particular strategy that was good against the boss fights... They're just easy. Even with my non-L56 party, you can get through most boss fights in game 1 just spamming the second Wish spell and attacking with unleashes.

The hardest bosses in either game, I found, were the first Saturos fight atop Mercury Lighthouse (assuming you go there before clearing out Tret) in Game 1, and then the Scorpion King in Game 2 (not hard to beat, but every time I play he manages to KO one of my characters, since you don't have Water of Life by that point).

 

[Bad Ass]

off topic, but what IS a good review site?

anyway, don't think i'll be picking it up. doesnt look that great.

 

[Diodax]

off topic, but what IS a good review site?

anyway, don't think i'll be picking it up. doesnt look that great.

I'm waiting for RPGFan's review.

Also, Joystiq's review, regardless of their opinion about the game (which was positive anyway), describes very well the little new features that Camelot put into the game, like the hyperlinked encyclopedia.

What I hated about IGN's review wasn't the score (I saw that coming since we knew that the random battles would stay), it was the horrible half-assed review that doesn't give you a clue of anything aside of a brief mention of the game's lack of difficulty. Joystiq's review was far more informative at least.

 

[Emperor]

Well, game is out tomorrow and some stores are even selling some a bit early.

I'm still waiting on the call back from the store for when they get my copy (I preordered .-.)

 

[Emperor]

Game's out :D

*continues to wait for copy*

 

[gsninja]

GameStop, Best Buy, Toys R Us, Target, Wal-Mart...no stores around my area are selling the game until at least tomorrow. Looks like I wasted a requested day off from work. -.- Ah well, one more day of agony won't hurt, right?

Also, if any of you guys are interested, there's a trivia contest going on on Golden Sun Syndicate and Golden Sun Realm (Same contest, different sites) where you can win some stuff.

 

[Firestorm]

off topic, but what IS a good review site?

anyway, don't think i'll be picking it up. doesnt look that great.

Jeremy Parish's review is up and offers a pretty good review of the game. It looks like if you were happy with Golden Sun and Golden Sun 2, you should give it a go:

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?pager.offset=0&cId=3182572&p=

 

[Emperor]

Well I've pretty much totally beaten the game as of today, secret bosses and all. Now I'm just going to work on getting my characters up to lvl 99 and the best equips. :3

Side notes with spoilers

Hide

Dullahan is just as bad in this game if not worse than before. I applaud you if you can beat him without summon rushing with lvl 50ish characters :P

 

[Golden Sun]

So it's been a good week since it came out. I've nearly finished my english copy of the game and it's been great so far. If you liked the original two then I bet you're going to like this one as well. To anybody who's played it what are your thoughts so far?

 

[Nexus]

I got my copy last Wednesday, and I've enjoyed it thoroughly. I'm still playing through the story and taking my time. The battles have been pretty easy with one exception in the early parts of the game, and the story itself, I liked the Lost Age one a bit more (so far), but good enough to keep me intrigued and playing further. In all I have to say it has met my expectations and I look forward to playing more.

 

[MrIndigo]

My review in a few points:

Likes: -
- Updates to the battle system are welcomed.
- Graphics and artwork appealing, particularly individual djinn which I originally expected I'd dislike.
- Multiple unleashes and unleashes on non-artifacts so they aren't totally redundant throughout the last 90% of the game.

Dislikes:-
- Unskippable dialogue and instructions about stuff that you are already very familiar with if you've played the prior games.
- Djinni are awarded to you in an unbalanced order, so most of your game is spent with characters holding onto Standby djinn of the wrong element because you have too many of one, not enough of another.
- The game is BRUTAL about missable things, summon tablets and djinn particularly.

One minor gripe: While I like the character Sveta/Stella (despite her obvious unbalanced-ness; Beast Form followed by a couple of Impacts can cause her to 2-hit KO most bosses), I would have loved to see a Jupiter "Knight" character. We've had Venus Knights (Isaac, Syfer, Matthew), Mars Knights (Garet, Tyrell, Eoleo), even a Mercury Knight (Piers). It would have been nice to get a thunderknight or something. I did love that they gave us an Venus "Mage" character, and I love that Growth is a basic Venus spell now, not something you have to mess around your Djinn for.

 

[Firestorm]

Roughly how long is the game? Grabbed it on Thursday but haven't started it yet.

 

[Colonel M]

It's about less than 20 hours, not including the secret bosses.

I finished it. Yeah, I don't like how the game is somewhat cruel to you with Djinn and Summons. At the very least, they should've helped point out where they were in some way. I felt... odd after beating it. Maybe because I thought it would be longer, but nevertheless I won't spoil things.