Finished off the second game again and the feeling of melancholy have appeared for finishing it up. Played it very slow compared to the last time. Last time I only put in 28 hours, 41 levels and missed 2 djinn and didn't get the last summons. Don't know why, but fixed it this time. Played it on Hard as well, mostly larger HP on the enemies I gathered. No problem until the end when I fought Dullahahn, which beat me every time so I had probably to grind for another 10 levels to be able to survive his attacks while dealing with the 200 regeneration he has. A bit easier on the old cart where I see that I had level 87 and played for 136 hours. Have I said this is my favourite game series? It has to be when a 30 hours game is played for 136 hours. Not as long as Tears of the Kingdom, but I only played that once.
Played the game using the class items you get and while the first game actually gave me an enhanced experience since it made it easier with growth and such, here changing away from the basic classes actually was a hindrance where I constantly had to turn of the items and djinn to get Frost or Whirlwind, not until the second team showed up did it improve (and that was often due to their psynergy items that permanently gave you douse and Frost), but the final classes was awesome. At that point grinding for items worked really fine when I had all attack djinn put on the main party and diversified over all four meaning I could constantly hit them. And with Petra and Ground you could crowd control most encounters. And most late end bosses was really easy with a combo of those two and summon rush. Dullahan the only one that could handle it. Also went out of my way (which may explain some of the extra hours) to go to Air's Rock before Yampi Desert. Maybe would try to get the angry Kraden scene if I play again where you said no to everything and wanting to skip Lemuria gets Kraden so mad.
So, in a hypothetical remake, what would I want to see? Get rid of the RNG-blacksmith mechanic or let more enemies drop materials for Sunshine. I also realised again it was strange that people from the first game didn't have portraits there, but gained them here, so sync that up. A mini-map would be nice since the guide wasn't all that helpful at times since they didn't have a room in Ankhol ruins which put me on a loop which I couldn't get past. More funny is that I noticed they had missed a vial in Air's Rock as well.
Still love the game. It has the emotional pay-off for a 60 hour game (both games combined) and cliffhanger in the end that really interesting. Sadly they didn't explain it in the 3rd game. Also, there was a lot of things they could have explored in a future game, the fighting between Hisperia and Atteka, Alhafra's greedy mayor and what happened to Prox after the Golden Sun event? Still, nice seeing it on the big screen, can't say the same for the next game, Dark Dawn since they never released it on the Virtual Console. A travesty I say!