Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (DS) Review
After a painstaking 7 years, the Golden Sun franchise is back. With two humble games on the Game Boy Advance, it’s been a long wait for fans of the series, myself included. You see, I don’t really like or play that many RPG games, but the Golden Sun series I love – I’m not sure what makes it different but it’s something. Dark Dawn is set a whopping 30 years after the two original games and takes place again in the land of Weyard.
However, things are different this time around as the world has never been the same since the “Golden Sun” event of the last two games. The whole world is in tatters thanks to Isaac and his friends. You see, Alchemy makes the world go ’round in Weyard; in the original games it was re-unleashed into the world, it saved the land but not before changing the topography, and now there are Psynergy portals (the “mana” of Golden Sun) sucking the world dry of Alchemy again.
For new players to the series, all of this may sound daunting, and it is. The game throws tons of information at you; names, places, events and more right from the get-go. It can be hard to keep up, but luckily there is a way to help new gamers to the Golden Sun world ease into the shoes of our new protagonists. More on the help system later on.
First though, let’s talk about the new main characters of the game. You play Matthew, the son of the legendary Isaac (from the original games). Joining the party along with Matthew for the majority of the adventure is Tyrell, son of Garet from the original games, and Karis, the daughter of the Wind Adept Ivan from the original games. The characters themselves are very much like their parents, but don’t worry if you don’t know them – there is plenty to explore in these characters through the course of the game. Other characters will join your party later on in the game, and you can mix and match your party with these other characters to form any type of team you like.
The story of the Golden Sun game has always been deep, and with Dark Dawn you’re immediately thrown in the deep end too. Players of the original games will have a better shot at making sense of the madness but since it has been about 6 years since I’ve played a Golden Sun game, lots of it was lost even on me, a “fan” of the game. That being said, there is help available throughout the entire game in the form of Wikipedia-type links in every conversation in the game. Places, names, items and even events will be underlined for you to tap on and get more information on. There is a lot to read too, perhaps too much as you’ll get tons of these links to check out from the very moment the game starts. Sometimes the game will give you information on things you don’t need to know until much later in the game.
The flow of information doesn’t stop with the links to click on; you’ll need to pay attention to all of the conversations in the game, and there are a lot of them. Really, it goes on and on and on sometimes. The game’s characters also repeat what they have said multiple times in some instances. I get that it’s an RPG – yes it’s a Golden Sun game and that’s what happens – but sometimes these chats just go on for way too long. On the actual quality of the game’s story, I don’t want to give too much away, but fans will enjoy it.
The Djinn are the biggest parts of the game that set Golden Sun apart from other RPGs. The Djinn are strange, cute little elemental beings that you can assign to any character. There are four elemental types but don’t worry about having to match up types as you can mix and match the Djinn to suit your play style. The Djinn can be used in one of two ways; firstly by putting them on stand-by in order to unleash their true forms as huge goddesses or beasts that take up both screens of the DS, while secondly they can be set to characters that the player assigns them too, boosting character statistics. There are also Djinn that heal you and your team mates when not on stand-by. You will probably need to play through the game multiple times to recover all the Djinn in the game as some of them are well hidden. However at no point do you actually need them all to finish the game. The top screen will show which Djinn are currently available for use but you can also flick it over to show the map for the world or the local region.
The game’s controls thankfully have remained mostly unchanged. Some Psynergy powers will require you to use the touch screen but the majority of the game can be played the “old-fashioned way” with traditional controls. Prepare to hammer the A Button a lot.
When Dark Dawn was first revealed at the E3 nearly two years ago now, I thought it looked like rubbish, to be blunt. We did only see about 2 minutes of the game though and it was a really early build. Luckily for us the graphics did get a kick in the pants before release. The game ditches the old-timey sprite look for full 3D graphics in the overworld and in battles. It’s on the Nintendo DS, so it’s not pretty all the time, but where it can look blocky and boring in some places, in other places the game really shines. Let’s talk about what sucks first – that’s the overworld. To be fair though, the original games looked crap there too. So what does look good? Well, the towns you visit for one. Each one is unique, colourful and full of life, and it’s great to explore and see it all. But the one thing, the best thing, that looks great has to be the battles. These battles take on the classic Golden Sun look, except thanks to the boost in power over the Game Boy and the dual screens, the battles (and mostly the Djinn) take place over two screens. Powering up a Djinn, and belting the crap out of your enemy, has never looked more awesome. That being said, you don’t need to get a whole lot of Djinns to get the fance eye candy, your characters Psynergy effects are just as visually pleasing.
The ever-impressive soundtrack that the Golden Sun series is known for is back. In fact it’s very, very similar to the original soundtrack. There are plenty of new tracks on offer, but it is very similar and you might have a hard time noticing the difference.
The biggest problem with Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is the difficulty of the game, or lack thereof. It feels to me that Camelot has dialled back the game in places and made things a lot easier. Djinn powers are often not even needed, as with any decent amount of grinding your warriors are total beasts. There are also tons of items in chests to pick up, but if you ever use even half of them I’d be surprised.
Graphics 8.0
Great looking battles and Djinn powers, the over-world still looks pretty rubbish. Good use of colour throughout,
Gameplay 8.0
Classic Golden Sun gameplay and not much more, its good but it hasnt changed at all.
Sound 9.0
Good old classic Golden Sun tunes mixed with new style music. Sensing a trend yet?
Tilt 8.0
An easier adventure this time around but one that can change on multiple times through. 7
Value 7.0
I loved the original Golden Sun games, this one was good but it hasnt stuck with me like the originals.
