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ghost403's Golden Sun Game Review

Golden Sun

Golden Sun game Review

Story & Playability

Golden Sun's story is one of the finest stories that I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. The storyline of this game can easily give most of the Final Fantasy storylines a run for their money. The storyline of Golden Sun begins in the first game as your standard, "You there! Normal boy! Save the world!", but quickly changes into a deep character driven story as Isaac, the main character, meets different people who need his help in various ways. But the best part of the story comes in the second game. You begin the second game as the main antagonist of the first game, and slowly come to understand the motivations behind his actions in the first. Eventually, the team of characters from the first game join up with that of the second, and unite to save the world, etc. While the endings might not be terribly original, the depth in the middle provides a profoundly enjoyable experience. All of the characters seem real, and you actually sense some motivation in their characters. For example, Ivan, the wind mage, begins as a feeble character that just wants to recover his owner's missing staff. However, as the game progresses, Ivan slowly grows into a brave character to stand up to the antagonists in the game. Golden Sun has become one of my favored games in my library for this reason.

Rating: 9

Graphics

The graphics in Golden Sun were not one of the main selling points. The graphics feel like some of the old PS1 RPG games. Now, where there actually is art, it is a real treat. The dungeons and town all have a sort of hand-drawn feel to them, and really show off the color palate of the GBA's hardware. You would swear that you were just looking at a painted background. It was the perfect way for this pseudo-launch game to show off just how powerful the hardware was. One step down from that was the battle screen, which was certainly fine. The screen gave a pseudo-3D feel, with the camera rotating around the players, and attacks (specifically the summons) looked really great. Pretty much every single sprite was hand drawn, which really makes you feel like your watching something, as opposed to playing your GBA on a plane. In the second game, you get some of the best looking summons that just made your draw drop. Thinking of things that dropped, they dropped the ball on the world screen. The world map was flat and uninteresting, and not terribly enjoyable. But, all in all, this problem was made up in the screens for the town and dungeons.

Rating: 8

Sound

I can't really say much about sound, but I will say one thing. Golden Sun has one of my favorite theme songs. The opening music was comparable to something that Nobuo Uematsu would have put in a Final Fantasy game. Past that... not too much special. The ambient music wasn't that rememberable, and sound effects weren't too impressive. Now remember, this is a GBA game, so don't expect too much. All I can remember about the sound was that I wasn't too impressed.

Rating: 6

Fun

Presentationwise, this game was great. It was thoroughly enjoyable to play, and was very deep. I don't remember how long it took to play through, but I remember that it was over 20 hours playing it after I had beaten it twice. And that was just the first one. The second one took me much longer than that, and I missed most of the little things and easter eggs. As far as the style, I felt like I was playing an anime. All of the characters give out little emoticon-like speech bubbles, which was very funny at times. I felt like I was playing Rurouni Kenshin. The game was funny, deep, and beautiful, and is still one of my favorite GameBoy games of all time.

Rating: 9

Final Verdict

8.3333 (good)

Reviewed by ghost403, Jul 28, 2006

Comments

  1. bombninjanaruto Jul 28, 2006

    the story and plot were definiteley great especially the characters and the monsters the only tough thing about it was leveling up your characters latr on in the game

  2. MarlinWahoo Aug 05, 2006

    The music was composed by Motoi Sakuraba. He's the same person who did the music for Tales of Symphonia. If you enjoyed the soundtrack of either game, I'd recommend picking up the other. Personally, I think his music is just as good and original as that of Nobuo Uematsu or Koji Kondo. Almost every area of the game has it's own theme. Even some situational battles have their own themes. Story and graphic power made this game a great for the GBA. I'd do a review myself, but I'm too lazy. This review pretty much says everything that I would have said about the game (aside from the music, which I would have rated higher).

  3. kariudokage Aug 06, 2006

    i agree with your review completely...golden sun i believe, is one of the best games for the gba but even though the battle scenes were great as were the towns, the world map could've used a bit more detail

  4. Hyas Aug 08, 2006

    The review's good :3 And the game is just great, but I just think the "ending" was far too vague, I ended up expecting a third game.

    The key factor in a RPG game, to me, is a compelling story. This series mops the floor of lots of games, including some of the recent Final Fantasies. (Yeah, let's face it, the games are all shiny but the writer's have been slacking off, there's not a great story in the last 5 games of the series)

  5. pappo1 Jun 09, 2009

    I agree with you, its a very good game

  6. SchRita Feb 05, 2010

    Thanks for the review!

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