Golden Sun: a Flawed but Great RPG! - The Game Collection
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- Опубликовано: 4 авг 2022
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Golden Sun is a great RPG on the GameBoy Advance though it does have some flaws, and in this episode of The Game Collection we're taking a look at what makes the game come so highly recommended!
#goldensun #jrpg #review 
Игры
So TIL "Djinni" is the singular form of Djinn. I assumed that "Djinni" was a Golden Sun spin on an existing word. (Golden Sun introduced the first elemental as a Djinni.) While I pronounced "Djinni" correctly according to Google, I used it as a plural form, rather than the the _correct_ plural form "Djinn". So anyway, now I know.
Fun fact: “Genie” is a corruption of “Djinni”
Golden Sun blew my mind as a kid. I've played Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age multiple times throughout my life, including recently. They have a few flaws, but overall they are fantastic games, and I'd recommend them to everybody who loves RPG's.
Golden Sun is a franchise that would benefit from a remake. Perhaps a remake could combine the first 2 games into 1, and then have the third entry as its only standalone release.
A remaster in which they recovered the original CGI models and remade the sprites with a higher, less pixelated resolution, and put the two games together, with the option of returning to GS1's location, would be the way to go in my opinion. Not even 2.5D, just a higher res remaster.
The artists who made Sea of Stars should do Golden Sun. Absolutely beautiful work. I don't think a direct sequel to dark dawn would do well because of its lack of success. It would pull in mostly GS veterans and new audience that wouldn't know what's going on. A remake would certainly pull in the old and introduce a whole new generation to the wonderful game.
9:04 There is a fix for this if you are playing on emulator. The jutter effect is known when playing Golden Sun on something else than a GBA (or NDS), this is because the game uses the GBA lcd ghosting to create some sort of 3d movement illusion on the world map. Developers used the ghosting of the lcd screen to create various FXs on the GBA such as transparency for example. Games like F-Zero, Boktai or Wave Race uses this technique. So whenever you try to play these games on something else than a gba screen (screen without or with very minimal ghosting like HDTV, phone screen etc), the effects won't render properly. To fix that, many emulators now have a built in "interframe blending" mode you can enable in the video settings to simulate LCD ghosting. That is if you're playing on emulator. The jutter thing will still occur for example if you try playing Golden Sun on the GameCube's GB Player on an HDTV screen and there is no way around this. Kinda simplified explanation but that's basically why this jutter thing is happening ;) thank you for your content Derek !
The GBA Golden Sun games are among my most favorite games of all time!
Never heard of the term 'foot gun' before. But that reminds me of the first time my brother played police quest. He was in some kind of part where you encounter an armed robber somewhere. So my bro tells the game to 'fire gun', and the game promptly tells him he indeed fired his gun, as it was still holstered to his leg, so he shot his own leg point blank.
So glad you decided to cover these! The Golden Sun games really have a special sort of charm that feels like early Saturn and PSone RPGs in the best way possible.
Golden Sun is a great game. I'm currently playing it. I think I'm about 8 hours in. The GBA has great graphics for a handheld that's over 20 years old. Great review dude! 👍
This was the game that changed my life. I got this shortly after it came out and was addicted to the gameplay and the world map is probably one of my favourite. Weyard is based on our real map so there's a huge litany of geographical references across the world that are fun to uncover. The characters are not super dynamic but the story is immersive.
Glad to see you cover it.
So this game was likely a whole generation GBA kids' first traditional JRPG, myself included. It definitely has a lot of flaws, but there's also a lot of things great about it. I think this game is a excellent gateway RPG, and I personally quite enjoy the pacing of how you are taken from one place to another. A lot of RPG's are very story-centric, and for good reason, but this game is very about the gameplay. I understand the menu issue, but as a GBA RPG with limited buttons it's inevitable to a degree.
Golden Sun 2 is my personal favorite of the two, but it has a lot of the same issues, while also pulling more from the Takahashi Brothers' Dragon Quest roots. I'll admit I have a lot of nostalgic bias for these games, but I actually adore the Zelda-esque dungeons in these games. Really sad that largely no RPG's have done what these two games did. I find most dungeons in other RPG's really disappointing in comparison since they usually have no concern for designing them in interesting ways.
This game is way better than Pokemon though imo, which was the more successful "RPG" on the platform.
what are the flaws?
I just remember the conversations going on and on forever. Great game, but that still sticks out to me.
I feel the main reasons dialogs drags on and on is every time someone says a line of dialogue, 98% of the time an emoticon displays above someone's head, or a small sprite animation plays, before you can go through the next bit of dialogue, which will also be accompanied by another sprite animation/emoticon, and so on and so on.
try xenogears
@@user-ky9qn4pg3w Xenogears conversations go places, GS just goes in circles at times.
Dude, I just beat this game 3 minutes ago as of this comment, and you uploaded this just 5 hours ago! Best thing when opening RUclips lol. Great game!
Golden Sun 1, while a fine game in its own right, is basically just a glorified tutorial for The Lost Age. It's rare to see a sequel that expands and improves upon its predecessor to such an extent as TLA, especially considering both games were developed back-to-back. The non-linear progression, the massively increased scale of the dungeons, the more hands-off approach to guiding the player, the immense amount of secrets and hidden treasures, the even better soundtrack and sense of atmosphere - TLA brings the goods on a level that few other JRPGs can come close to.
I’m really surprised to hear your complaints about equipping djinn, as I thought it was handled the best way. It offers a better trade-off for putting certain djinn on certain party members, like if you wanted to balance out your team to get some healers, you can put one of the Mercury djinn on Isaac and get some extra healing even when it’s not Mia’s turn. If you just “unlocked” these abilities, I think it would cheapen the feel of collecting and managing djinn, wouldn’t feel too much different from “I collected the fire orb so now I have fireball” and because of the combinations for each class, I think it would have suffered from a lack of variety. The combat is best when you have to shift through different spells because you used some Venus djinn last round and you may have lost access to Ragnarok (a strong single target spell) and you have to adapt to using Growth, or maybe you just attack physically this round while you want for other djinn to be readied for summoning. Plus, the summons feel really good, and I’m not sure how they would feel if the djinn were implemented in a different way.
The exposition, I will grant you, as even coming back to it as a fan, there’s a looooot of dialogue. But I think I disagree that the characters don’t have much characterization/development, as we don’t need too much. They have pretty simple arcs that work fine: Isaac is a mute protagonist, classic for the genre. Garet is the voice of the party, the childhood friend who sometimes has misplaced priorities (as seen by him trying to save his trunk of stuff in the beginning until you tell him it’s not worth it). Ivan is an outcast for being able to read minds, not too many Jupiter adepts in this area. He just wants a place to fit in, he’s not a bad person. So once he learns of your journey, it feels natural he’d join. Not like he has anywhere else to go! Mia is already a fairly mature character in the classic priestess trope. She’s pretty calm and caring, fitting for a Mercury adept. Her joining the party is perfectly justified as her entire life revolved around helping people near Mercury lighthouse, and thinking that you should never activate it. So when the villains do, she of course wants to make sure they can’t activate any others. Beyond those little arcs, they do have minor interactions throughout the story, but I’m not sure I’d want anything else for fear of it being melodramatic. Could it be done? Probably. But given how poorly handled Dark Dawn was handled, I think the GBA games are great as-is, and really don’t suffer as strongly as some say.
Great video and I hope you cover the sequel The Lost Age because that’s where Golden Sun truly shines and realizes its potential.
That theme song for the Vale town is so epic.
Golden sun has always held a special place in my heart! I played the heck out of 1 & 2 growing up, and easily in my top 10 RPGs of all time. It’s really great to see you cover it, and hopefully direct more people to check it out. I do need to play the third game in the series, but likely won’t love it as much as the original two games. Great video dude!! Getting better every time you upload a new entry into the game collection!
The music and the visuals, great games.
Golden sun is my favorite rpg franchise of all time, I hope they give us a conclusion to gs3
I hope Derek ends up playing the sequel. It's a direct continuation of the story and does something story-wise that I've never seen in a JRPG sequel. No spoilers. I also think it's a better game overall, and captures the feeling of adventure better than the first Golden Sun.
@@AlastorShadow0 Very true. Golden Sun 1, and 2 are essentially one adventure cut in half. I think the length of each game is enough to qualify as it's own game, but where GS1 leaves off story wise makes it so you have to play GS2 to see how the adventure ends. I agree that it would be wonderful if they had a release that included both of them, but Camelot is busy cashing in on Mario sports games and will never put more effort into reviving Golden Sun unfortunately.
I just found a sealed copy of Golden Sun Dark Dawn for $10. The only game of the 3 I never played. I think I'm going to replay the first 2 before playing it since it has been like 20 years
The Venus Lighthouse theme is my favorite piece of music in Golden Sun.
Camelot had this certain touch with JRPG'S, not only with design but the over the shoulder battle mechanics with all these little details and touches that bring it all together. They don't over complicate their games but simplify them to where it's not such a long unnecessary grind. They make battle's and movement count no unnecessary wasted mechanics and battle systems.
This was the first Gameboy advance game I ever owned. I played a ton of it as a young lad. I’ve many fond memories with this cast.
Watching you play it during streams and revisiting the review, I want to get around to finishing The Lost Age.
Great review Derek
I don't game anymore but I'll buy another Golden Sun asap if it ever releases.
yay super Derek Review :) Golden Sun was one of my first jrpgs, and it has a awesome style I would love to see get the HD2D effect!
Wow this just popped up on my feed. I played this way back in the day!
Picked the first one up on Wii U during lockdown in 2020. Ended up becoming one of my favourite rpgs. The sequel is great too.
i'm glad that you make video about this!
i also really like golden sun, and recently i play the modified version called Golden Sun Reloaded (using emulator), the mods really fix and balancing lots of stuff and totally giving me a new experience with the game.
Haven't seen this game since I was a kid! Thanks for such a thorough review as always Derek!
I first played this on my first PC on an emulator. I got 16 hours in and then a power cut during my PC booting up resulted in my PC permanently blue screening. I lost everything on the PC and learned the lesson of backing up the hard way.
I didn't go back to this game until 2 weeks ago. About 15-10 years later. I finally finished it yesterday. I used an emulator on my phone. I can now finally play Golden Sun 2. Although, writing out and typing in the full password to carry over stuff between games was a pain.
The battle presentation is directly from Beyond the Beyond.
GOLDEN SUN IS THE BEST! HOPE THEY MAKE A REMAKE😭
You touched on it briefly but i liked how you can get involved with NPCs with some skills like mind reading in the game. I'm thinking the folks at Octopath Traveler took inspiration from this expanding it further.
It's been awhile, happy to be back in the game room
I remember this game fondly. I Enjoy your game collection vids
I replayed this game SO much
I tried and failed to play this game ever since it came out. I'd get through the intro town, but the inane dialogue would cause me to bounce off. I finally gave this a real chance recently and this game is *legit*. The mix of zelda-like puzzles in dungeons with an expanding list of magic that works in the field is fantastic and I wish someone would take that idea and just run with it. I also love the way djinn usage has clear trade-offs that become more nuanced as the game goes. This game looks like "Generic Late 90s RPG: Portable Edition" but it's got a lot going on and is well worth everyone's time.
I remember playing this one in high school, I liked it and even got my hands on the sequel, but for whatever reason I never bothered to finish the sequel aswell. I guess I had a fulfilling enough experience with the first one and didn't feel the need to keep it going? Anyways, good video! I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on the second game to see if I should go back and play through it aswell.
This game had me so pumped for the GBA. It had such a great look that I wasn’t used to playing. I didn’t think it was a game that lived to the hype but it was a solid game.
Finally found a copy of this! Mine was stolen from me as a kid and I never got to finish it. Committed to completing this and Lost Age in the next couple weeks.
Did you make it?
@@solaris_cc4353 finished the first one! Got distracted by a couple other games but I'm excited to play through Lost Age during winter break!
@@Kswitchem Good to know :)
Thanks for the review Derek.
Sir every Golden Sun games expect the third is amazing , now if only they would give us the fourth game plus if they do remake it for the switch ill be happy
Im so thrilled that there is a Nintendo character that has my name and it is from this game!
Thanks for this, first RPG I had ever played/seen/was told by a gamestop employee that this was an rpg!
Golden Sun was one of my favorite games on the gba! One of the best blind buys I ever picked up!
Nice been looking forward to this.
Love this game. Praying for remaster
Is no one going to mention the set in the intro? Is that your house Derek? It's like Indiana Jones' office and it's AMAZING! Inquiring minds need to know!
Yep! This set is a corner of my office. I restored an old workbench from my father-in-law which I use for presenting, and I carved some stone pillars out of Styrofoam, and made a wooden wall out of recycled pallet wood. It took a lot of work and thrifting to get the props and everything, but it's a fun hobby to make it a living "item shop" or tavern of sorts. :)
@@SuperDerek i got a question ..when you did the last live stream why did you not announce it on RUclips as well instead of just letting twitter know ? why not let both sites know because not everyone use ether twitter or RUclips all the time
@@alchemydork You mean when we live-stream HitPoint Sunday night at 7pm central? I don't post it to the community page because RUclips should already sends people notifications of when we go live on RUclips, because we live-stream it to RUclips. I hope that helps answer your question! :)
I'd love to see both a new Golden Sun title and a re-release of the existing games.
I remember liking the sequel on the ds when I was younger but the franchise has never been mind-blowing for me
Αm i the only one, who enjoyed the dialogues?
I think the map judder was supposed to be a kind of primitive temporal anti-aliasing, leaning on the GBA’s slow LCD screen to smooth it out, similar to the flashing minimap in the f-zero games.
Thank you very much Derek for this video. I know I am not objective concerning GS because it is The game which introduced me and many people to RPGs. I love these games sooo much!
I understand your complains about the dialogue but I think you are absolutely right about the demographic target. I was 12 when I played it and I needed these long explanations. I kinda disagree about the "foot gun" problem about the djinn/psynergy... But I told you I am far from objective. I hope your video contribute to revive this franchise 🤞
Only thing I agree with is the long dialogue. I love everything about the game. I was 12 as well when it came out. As an adult, yes, I get what's going on, so I don't need more explanation. As a 12 year old, it was targeted more towards my age.
I really enjoyed this game! Just finished it. Didn't expect it to be good and it was great!
The game always felt like it was half done as you only do two of the towers and what feels like the half way point is just the end of the game but the sequal is kinda lame as it is "Surprise you are the and guy all along and not lighting the lighthouses would destroy the world" like nothing is even hinted at that in the first game in fact everyone tells you to not light them otherwise the world dies.
I still have these games, but never played through them
Hey Derek are you planning to review the shining force 3 trilogy? (there are now english patches for the 2 and 3 part)
The dialogue thing has been a probl for me with trails of the sky.
It's like a metal gear game, but you have to read it all.😄
I loved GS and it’s sequel.
Golden sun had its own feel. Amazing game
Thanks for the review and new video, Derek ^^
Oh, these are very beloved games, but after your review, I really don't feel like playing them. The older I get, the more I want the RPGs to respect my time, and I think this isn't one of those titles. Especially because:
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
It ends on a big cliffhanger, so yeah, it really feels like it doesn't respect the player's time
Great video, Derek. Glad I wasn't the only one who struggled to enjoy this game, lol. The graphics are great and some good ideas are there, but it has issues.
If I could just make one wish to you is that you review Mario Golf Advance Tour or Mario Tennis Power Tour this year.
The should make a remake of Golden Sun and The Lost Age for Switch. This time as a single game. Would buy instantly and many more with me. DS game didn't bring the same charm to the table.
Feed that algo!
I see goldensun, i watch
I prefer the sequel over this, but the Golden Sun duology and Mother 3 are the GBA RPG champions.
Golden Sun was best RPG, best game on Gameboy Advance
I love this game, unfortunately I spent too many years without using my GBA carts after starting The Lost Age and my save got wiped, so I've never finished the story 😢
Same thing happened with my Fire Emblem cart that I was in post game in 😞
Power on your GBA/DS lites regularly with your carts slotted in to keep those save chips charged, folks!
Golden sun was super awesome! My favorite rpg of all time!
HI Super Derek! I have an important question about rpg's that maybe if you have the time you will answer: Do you consider Zelda Ocarina of time Action RPG or Action Adventure ? Idk if you have a video explaining what an RPG game need to part of the genre RPG I would love to watch it. Thank you some much for your content. Grettings from Argentina.
Hey there! I think that it's technically an "Action Adventure" and I place that genre on the far end of the "RPG spectrum". I think it has enough RPG elements you _could_ still call it an RPG, but calling it an Action Adventure would be _more_ accurate. :)
another golden sun video!
The gba Mario Golf and Tennis basicaly have the same music style as Golden Sun but they represent the death of Golden Sun cause now they only make sports games and no more Golden Sun.
The game was perfect. My favorite Handheld RPG of all time. Great series
you accidentally put this twice in the beginner playlist
good post
I absolutely love this game!
This is the third rpg I've played and I found the encounter rate frustrating to say the least
The footage in this seems overly bright, but I can tell you, Derek: Most emulators nowadays (like MGBA) have an option to load LCD shaders and also adjust the gamma for a more real-to-life experience.
These games were made for dark dot-by-dot LCD screens, and this kind of emulated footage doesn't really do them justice.
This was c aptured from a Gameboy Player using the GameBoy Interface over component cables, upscaled using a Retrotink 5X. This is pretty much what the game looked like. The LCD effect might help mute the colors down a bit though. :)
@@SuperDerek I see.
Well, I hope you've enjoyed your journey with these games in the meantime.
never got past the start of this game lol
I have tried so many times to get into this game... the dialogue is just SO over the top and way too much. I get an hour in and I can't anymore.
One of the greats
Finally! :)
YOU SAID PSYNERGY CORRECTLY!♡
Hey derek did you try symphony of war ? I think it might be better than fire emblem three houses.
Even Google pronounces djinni as ginny, I thought it's was like genie
I was saying Duh Jinn, even though I knew it was wrong
Hey have you lost weight? You look good man!
Nice video! I enjoyed the game overall as well , it's a solid good but not great title in my book. The second is about the same for me. Still haven't tried the dreaded third game.
The third game is actually a good game. You should try it.
@@djinn_34 good to hear, I definitely mean to try it eventually. I'll get to it at some point.
I was very curious to know what you thought of this game. I personally had trouble understanding why its so hyped. It's far from garbage but has a lot keeping it from the masterpiece status many hold it to (in my opinion). Seems you shared my exact same gripes.
Great video!
Golden Sun is, IMO, the best GBA RPG series in existence. Amazing story, great gameplay, just perfection.
Need GS4 with octopath traveler graphics...
Sounds cool, but from what I remember none of this mattered. You could just A your way through the game. This is a puzzle game trying to be an RPG.
I played golden sun on the gba didn't like it at all I thought it was bad boring game fire emblem is better but I respect your opinion
its not flawed...
Jenny!!!!
haven't watched yet, but I can't imagine a single flaw
This game was way ahead of it's time with Djinni, psy abilities and being able continue your characters in the next part of the story. Using psy skills to complete puzzles, creating classes with djinni, choosing summoning vs your class and spells, one of the most rewarding combat systems, especially during the endgame... this game rewarded clever players, but also hurt some less clever people. The first Bravely Default had a similar learning curve and that's a good thing, also ranking among my most favorite JRPGs. It's not perfect, but this series is probably my favorite in the genre, outranking any Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest game.
I love that Golden Sun is great and has a good story without having sexual innuendos and all the female characters wearing skimpy revealing clothes and without foul language.
I hate how almost every RPG is filled with these things. It's very hard to find a good RPG that is clean. I absolutely love the Mario and Luigi RPG games. They are great.
Golden sun. The perfect game!