The most anticipated game of 2010... for me
Boy, playing through this game has really torn me between if its good, passable or nostalgia driven. On one hand, it was so fun to play this and see all the nods to the previous games, the same music and graphics that very closely come to a real 3d creation of the 2d sprites of the original. To see familiar characters and places, solving puzzles again and explore more of the lore and settings of Weyard. They improved several gameplay features and introduced some new ones that enhances the game. Take the added unleashes for the weapons which you have to master by using. Feels more organic and a weapon can have several unleashes. Also if during a battle the target dies you just attack another enemy. Then we have the psynergy uses which also was improved in ways like you now light up what items can be affected by the psynergy you want to use and if you want to cancel it doesn't cost you any psynergy points (or PP). The game introduces even more psynergies as well and finally a different venus adept than the warrior and a different jupiter adept than the mage. All of these are good things with the game since it's nostalgic and at the same time gives me more to explore and use. If it would work for a newcomer to the series I wouldn't know since the references comes instantly to me, but they have a lexicon which are activated by words in conversation that you press with the stylus and the games give you an description. More good things is the added mini-map at the DS top screen where you also have stats and set djinni during battle so the battle screen isn't cluttered.
The main characters promotional art
So what is wrong with the game? Most are story related and I will cover that in Fridays (yes, it will be published on Friday) update. So in this segment then, what is the problem? First of, and a damn offender is the Points of No Return. In short there is parts of the game that get locked out after you pass a certain point. The old games had no such thing (if you don't consider the change from The Broken Seal to The Lost Age) and here there is 3. What this mean is that if you missed a djinn or such along before a PoNR you have to replay the whole game to get it (which isn't that long, the latest playthrough was around 25 hours for me). And there really wasn't necessary in my opinion. Yes, story reason was given and some of them I understand they kept as broken bridges so you wouldn't advance to areas outside the game, I get that, but they should have kept the broken bridges and let me go back to the earlier stages of the game. I fear they wanted to minimise NPC interaction in these stages to keep the word count small (which I guess is the reason we don't get this games equivalent of mind read until the last PoNR). Which is sad since the former games had that possibility, even for places were you couldn't access it meaning they took time and effort which showed a huge dedication of care and labor for those games. Then we have that all items, equipment and weapons that are basically copies from the last two games. Certain new forgeable, but the majority is the same. The same goes for the summons when we are only introduced to 1 new one. Also, they took away the gambling portions of the games. No dice game and no tickets (which seriously limits boots and rings to find and there is no shirt category whats so ever). Not even a lucky fountain to get really awesome gear. The new music is alright, although the main theme for this game is a bit subdued. I greatly preferred the Lost Age main theme. But it isn't bad in any means and the Apollo sanctum music is fantastic as well as the outside dungeons with the bells and bass line. The graphics... well, I see what they are and it is a decent 3d rendering, but still... it's not that appealing at times.
Kraden, what did they do to you?
So in all, the game plays better in many aspects compared to its predecessors, the graphics are so and so, the music is decent, but they took out certain features and hardly put in any new content leaving a lot of the overall opinion on the story and boy, do we have something to talk about. To give a perspective also on my own opinions. In 2010 when the game was released I've waited 7 years for this game. When it was shown in 2009 I spent several post on this blog with my speculations, hopes and dreams for this game. I bought the game on launch day and played it. Reading through my posts I seem to at least be satisfied with this game to still my Golden Sun cravings. Sadly, no new game have been hinted at or shown for the last 5 years and the craving is rising for even more of this series, to explore this world once again. So while scouring the net I stumbled upon this playthrough of the first two games and find it intriguing that someone didn't like this marvellous series, but reading though it I finally saw many of the flaws that I never thought of. Mostly the writing, but also that pretty much every non-lighthouse dungeon is a freaking cave and that the battles are just spam normal attacks or djinni. Some complaints put forward I share with him, like that there is no motivation for the player to play the Lost Age to the end until after the midpoint of the game. But just like in How I Met Your Mother, if you really like someone, the flaws are easily over glanced. And I still love those first games.
Although Kraden was pretty much just saying what everyone else already said.
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