Flashback 05.02.07: Golden Sun (GBA)

Posted by Steve McHugh on 05.02.2007

You need this game.

Back in 2001 the GBA was still relatively new and wasn't exactly blessed with an abundance of RPG's. In fact if I remember correctly, there was only Breath of Fire out at the time, so naturally everyone was eagerly looking forward to anything coming out.

Step forward Camelot, with Golden Sun. Camelot were not exactly strangers to RPG's as they made the fantastic Shining Force games for the Megadrive. Upon release Golden Sun was praised by pretty much everyone with half a brain and went on to sell a good few copies.

The story is deep and weaving and basically starts with Isaac, who lives in the small town of Vale, which is about to be hit by the worst storm in years. To make matters worse, a huge boulder is about to crush the town which, after Isaac gets together with his friends, it does, and kills many. It's a great start to the games story and really helps set the scene for the rest of the epic quest. In fact, the story is so deep and involving that it actually takes a few hours to really get going. This might sound like a bad thing but in those two hours the characters are really introduced well and their personalities really start to come through as you keep playing.

It helps that the game is utterly stunning. Six years after its original release and it's still one of the best looking games on the system. Both the main heroes and NPCs all look individual and animate beautifully. The different places to visit are all interesting and varied and everything certainly looks like it was a labour of love.



One of the stranger Djinn

The battles are also great to look at, with all of the characters and enemies looking and moving well. The summons and magic that are performed have great effects and put a lot of games released after this one to serious shame. Camelot have managed to use transparency effects, sprite scaling and even some fantastic particle explosion effects that appear when using magic and everything contains an amount of detail that really does show just how talented these developers are.

Gameplay wise it's a typical Japanese RPG with random battles that are turn based in nature. These battles occur regularly but never so much that you'd get annoyed with them. In fact, the battles are all pretty well-developed with the ability to find Djinn's and equip them to help you fight. Djinn are basically a cross between Pokemon and Final Fantasy's summons. You find Djinn throughout the World, normally after having fought and defeated it, and once it joins you, you're able to equip it to any of your characters. This does two very important things. Firstly it increases (or decreases) your stats and gives you magic abilities and secondly they are then able to be summoned in battle to either attack the enemy or help out your party with healing or stat boosts. However once you've summoned them you must wait for a few turns before being able to do it again.

To add a touch of tactics to the proceedings, after summoning your Djinn in battle you will have to wait for a while before using it again, meaning your stats will fall and any spells that you'd learn from having it equipped will be lost. It's an excellent idea and really does cause you to think whether using your magic or summoning your Djinn is more important.

Not only is deciding whether or not to use your helpers in battle important but it's also vitally important to get it right as to who should be equipped with what. Each character represents one of 4 elements (fire, water, air and earth) so equipping their corresponding element will grant them new magic powers (called psynergy) for their element but mixing up the types of element can give your characters all sorts of cool psynergy to use and experimenting is part of the fun.



It's a good idea to keep your friends alive. Just a thought.

All of this makes the use of Djinn much more interesting then the summon creatures of many of the Final Fantasy games and adds a much needed level of tactical thought to battles that normally just require you to press the A button in many other games.

Sound wise the game also manages to excel with a great sound track and some appropriate and meaningful sound effects. They really help to immerse the player in the world.

Apart from the lengthy main quest there are also plenty of side quests, some of which are necessary to complete if you want to find all of the Djinn throughout the expansive game world. But once you've completed, it you're unlikely to go back through for the story as you'll more then likely have seen everything available to see. Still whilst it lasts (and that's still about 25 -30 hours) you'll have a great time with a lot to see and do and a genuinely engaging story that actually gets better the longer it goes on.

So is this worth buying?

Yes, if you own a DS or GBA go buy this game now without delay. It may cost a little these days but it's one of the best GBA games ever made and I think it goes even further than that and is one of the best JRPGs in recent memory. Yes, this really is that good and if you have any interest in RGP's or just a good story then this is the game for you.

9.7/10


Other stuff


- The Saints are now in with a chance for the playoffs and may I just say about bloody time too. Now let's just win that last game of the season and get on with getting promoted.

- Leeds are down in division 1. Oh dear. The once mighty team are just sinking further and further down into nothing. A bit like Nottingham Forrest did, although they've turned it round in recent years a bit, lets hope such a big team like Leeds somehow manage to sort it out before the end up in the Vauxhall Conference.

- Chelsea beat Liverpool 1-0. I don't want to talk about it.

- Spider-man 3 is out this week and it looks fantastic and from reports I've heard is a great film. I can not wait to see this.

- To all of you who didn't like the Cena v Michaels match at Raw last week. How can any wrestling fan not have enjoyed a 50 odd minute free match that was excellent? If you really didn't like it there must be something wrong with your ability to see good wrestling. See I know people (me included) like to bitch about WWE but Michaels can always bring the greatness. I just hope he manages to get the belt soon as that would be great. Maybe when TNA get a second hour they can get Samoa Joe v Cage hour matches. That or something on a pole matches for the whole second hour. I guess it depends on how Russo feels.

- There's been very little gaming news recently, or at least very little that I feel I need to say anything about. I'm just waiting for FF13 to be announced for the 360 so I can watch the Sony fanboys have a collective aneurism. Should be a good laugh.


And we're done for another week so come back in a fortnight for more.