Review Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

dib

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
May 1, 2004
Messages
1,583
Trophies
1
Website
Visit site
XP
503
Country
United States
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn will long be argued--mostly by fourteen year olds on the internet among a bedroom of anime posters and nacho cheese stained clothes--as the single greatest accomplishment of humankind. Which if nothing else should serve as testament to the a posteriori fact that some people have really stupid opinions about video games.

But we can all forgive them for it. Dark Dawn is very nice looking and we were all fourteen at one point and thought things were good when they were not. (It's the only explanation that accounts for Nickelback being a top selling band and two sequels from The Matrix)

So putting Camelot's best foot forward, let's talk graphics and presentation--two areas in which the Golden Sun series indisputably excels. Dark Dawn doesn't have the same impact as its GBA predecessors. This is to be expected on a system where the limits were already pioneered by RPGs like Tales of Innocence. So despite being constrained by hardware that was obsolete even by 2004 standards, Camelot makes it up in _style_.

Their use of color and design is masterful and brings it to the forefront of a library brimming with so many cookie-cutter variations on the anime theme. Which isn't to say that Dark Dawn doesn't conform in its own way (particularly in character design), but they go about it in a very aesthetically pleasing way. From the starting area in its hazy golden hue to the world being cast in shadow, environments manage to paint the necessary atmosphere in order to relate the mood of the story. Towns have their own styles, and there are several moments that deliver a reaction bordering awe.

The effects are another staple set by the prequels, and they produce some impressive eye candy. Golden Sun may be mired in traditional RPG mechanics to a fault, but they do it better than most and that may turn around to being one if its strongest points. Their adherence to battle summons--for example--are every bit as balance-wrecking here as their heyday among the Final Fantasy series, but on a handheld like this they look fantastic while doing it. Camelot upped the ante by adding brief effects to critical strikes, and there is enough diversity across the numerous weapons to keep one's attention even through countless random encounters.

Level design is the area where Camelot have best proven themselves. Caves and towers are well conceived and executed, with paths that wind back into themselves, always presenting terrain that can be manipulated to provide easier access the next time around. The puzzles rarely tax the frontal lobe, but they're very fun all the same. It's been far too long since we've seen this sort of effort employed by the Zelda franchise, and this is why Golden Sun is the spiritual successor to it and other earlier games like Lufia. Dark Dawn is easily at its best when you're left to explore a level and utilize your abilities free from the nuisances of its burdernsome script.

Lamentably, Camelot learned nothing after two games and it is the story that suffers most. I know people who were unable to get past the intro of GS1 specifically because of its long winded dialogue and uninteresting introduction. Golden Sun's plot can often be so transparent, so cliche, and so insipidly banal that it becomes intellectually offensive to read. And Dark Dawn only expounds upon this by conceiving an entire game based around these principles.

The characters seem to foremost enjoy reveling in complete irrelevance. Most of them are downright unlikeable, such as the nagging female capable of displaying the full range of emotions from scorn to scolding. She acts as sort of a henpecking matriarch to the group in a role for which nobody ever asked. Your motley crew wouldn't be complete without a furry; a nerdy character (you can tell he's smart because he's the one wearing glasses) who despite his own premise doesn't ever do or say anything betraying an iota or semblance of intellect; and a couple others they threw in simply to fill the quota of two members per elemental but are lacking in personality and script lines. In fact you recruit them so close to the end that there is no other explanation than to write "eight playable characters" on the box.

Considering the company they keep, it's no wonder Isaac and Matthew choose to remain conspicuously silent. But it doesn't even end at the playable cast: your party will never pass up a chance to exchange formalities with anybody they meet--from the most briefly relevant character to their own worst enemies. And they will continue conversing long after ones patience has expired, and far beyond anything useful or pertinent can be discerned from the conversation. At one point, they stand around talking while a child hangs from a bridge. In others, they find the time to chat while everything around them goes to hell. They will stand around talking every time one of them has an emotion or reacts to something, and then the others will share their thoughts about it. Nobody in their world can resist saying in twenty pages of superfluous speech what could have been said in a single sentence (or better yet not at all).

The most surprising thing about Dark Dawn is that within these voluminous pages of verbose dialogue, Camelot somehow found no room for anything of consequence to transpire. In fact, approximately 75% consists of a simple _fetching quest_ and the many obstacles that conveniently present themselves along the way, such as a gate that you can't pass or a person who demands you to run other errands. By the time you get to the crux of the game, it feels like little is accomplished but a great amount of time has been expended.

The final punchline at the end of this twenty four hour joke (on the first play--your times may vary) is that you never receive any sort of closure. You literally spend all your time working toward something that has no end result. Perhaps it was Camelot's intent to end with a cliffhanger, but what they delivered was an abrupt finale: imagine if The Return of the King ended immediately after the Minas Tirith battle, and never bothered to say what happened to the ring, or Sauron, or any of the characters.

Ultimately, Dark Dawn is a very good RPG engine. It utilizes time tested mechanics that have proven to make good games even decades after their conception. But these are enjoyable despite the name attached. Dark Dawn also has very good production value. But being an RPG, one has to relate to the protagonist enough to want to experience events through them and be presented with a coherent story and sequence of events that doesn't feel like a chore to slowly plod through or mash the A button to circumvent as quickly as possible. Dark Dawn doesn't welcome you into it so much as plant you into the role and then force your character down a very linear path that culminates in absolutely nothing but a group of furries waving at you. So that is how I will remember Dark Dawn.
 
D

Deleted User

Guest
Golden Sun Dark Dawn is about a 75 or 80 at best.

MASSIVE SPOILER(s) BELOW (to ENDING/Storyline).

The ending, I agree, was laughable, one moment your about to fight Arcanus, Blados, and Chalos, then the world spirals out of control as Alex (Arcanus) infers to the existence of Dark Adepts. (Dark anything is so ridiculously cliche at this point that it's almost a bit of a mind-fuck to those of who thought good things of the first two games). Then, Blados/Challis go off to fight Alex, (who's shown to beIncredibly powerful, come back like they got out of a heated childish fight, (not that they tell the player of anything that transpired). You fight Blados, Challos & the Beast-Wolf (Volecheck). You defeat them, then they merge together to form another boss. Bleh. Once the fight is over you get to fire a fucking retro steam-punk ancient civilization-esque laser gun at the Belinsk Lunar Tower... I would be able to live with this game is they didn't give such a shitty ending, I mean, "The end..?" is literally what they give you after the credits roll.

Let me just say that this isn't a game you should try to play in a single sitting, as Dibb put it best, Golden Sun really does it well with it's puzzles and dungeons, but it's clear to me now that you're really not meant to do them at once. This is a game that you should be able to get a solid 50 Hours of if you take your time with it and go through the dungeons. Still, after you finish, you sort of roll over and think, "What the fuck just happened". I totally agree about the "great deal of time being expended".

What did you think of the Combat Dibb? I found it a total fucking joke compared to Golden Sun or The Lost Age.

Spoiler Below = Semi-Capable / Damaging Bosses.

Trolls Guarding Dadalus (1-5) (Especially the 5th) Extremely physically damaging 75% so.
Star Magician Guarding Azul (Somewhat annoying, Just kill the Death/Heal/Reflect balls)...
Catastrophoe Challenging! Can possess one of your party members and make it work for him
(CAN MAKE USE OF YOUR SUMMONS) this guy was a bitch. Plain and Simple.
Dullahahm is about as powerful as he was in the previous games as well. (Iris) (don't need 72 Djinn).
Charon = Free.
 

void03

Well-Known Member
Newcomer
Joined
May 17, 2009
Messages
91
Trophies
0
XP
91
Country
gordillo said:
anyone tried putting golden sun 1 or 2 cartridge, using phat, or lite of course

Nothing happens as there are no special benefits for doing this.
 

dib

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
May 1, 2004
Messages
1,583
Trophies
1
Website
Visit site
XP
503
Country
United States
It's interesting how quickly that feature of the DS went the way of the dinosaurs. I haven't seen a game detect a GBA cart since the first couple years.

I2aven's_Sage said:
What did you think of the Combat Dibb? I found it a total fucking joke compared to Golden Sun or The Lost Age.
I think it's exactly the same as the other games, with the exception that they excised the ineffective attacks. It took them thirteen years after the original Final Fantasy, but Camelot finally did it.
 

PeregrinFig

A miserable little pile of secrets
Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2010
Messages
666
Trophies
0
Age
29
Location
Michigan
Website
Visit site
XP
101
Country
United States
I do agree to an extent. The game is mostly enjoyable, but the cutscenes last forever. I can handle the conversations for a few minutes, but they just drag on endlessly. I don't like to skip through dialog in RPGs, but this game has basically forced me to, as some of the conversations are just so long and uninteresting.
 

DSGamer64

Canadian, Eh?
Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2007
Messages
2,937
Trophies
0
Age
37
Location
A cold cold place
XP
597
Country
Canada
Uncle FEFL said:
Um, you forgot to talk about the annoying ass Djinn system.

Because of that and that alone, 9/10. Just like the other Golden Sun's, in my opinion.

I'm used to long cutscenes and long-winded text, so I don't really mind.
Err, that's what sets it apart from generic turn based RPG's. How many other games have the same kind of character class customization using individual creatures who all have the own unique abilities that either bolster party stats or do some sort of debuffs or damage to enemies, none of which are immune to their effects, something a lot of other RPG's also lack. And that's one thing that has always pissed me off, bosses being immune to status impairing effects and that is something Golden Sun games have never had an issue with, while the bosses aren't completely vulnerable to status changes, they certainly aren't immune.

One thing that was very evident in the first 15 hours of game play that I have put in, is that the Djinni system makes your team insanely overpowered, my team of level 21 characters is killing stuff in 1 round because I have collected so many of them that they are already at high rankings, my main character is already a Lord with Odyssey which for 18 PP hits for over 250 damage.

It's a great game, certainly not without it's faults and the amount of chatter can be a bit annoying, but they crammed a really solid story line and plenty of content into this game which makes it really worth playing. I think it's worth an 8/10 to be honest.
 

KevInChester

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2009
Messages
308
Trophies
0
Age
43
XP
196
Country
They should have hired somebody to write a decent story. I can't fault the graphics engine, nor can I argue against the battle system. The boring narrative, and the overlong conversations very nearly succeed in killing his for me. A little humour wouldn't have gone amiss.
 

Uncle FEFL

OBJECTION!
Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2009
Messages
1,175
Trophies
0
Age
30
Location
PM me for Social Security information
XP
134
Country
United States
DSGamer64 said:
Uncle FEFL said:
Um, you forgot to talk about the annoying ass Djinn system.

Because of that and that alone, 9/10. Just like the other Golden Sun's, in my opinion.

I'm used to long cutscenes and long-winded text, so I don't really mind.
Err, that's what sets it apart from generic turn based RPG's. How many other games have the same kind of character class customization using individual creatures who all have the own unique abilities that either bolster party stats or do some sort of debuffs or damage to enemies, none of which are immune to their effects, something a lot of other RPG's also lack. And that's one thing that has always pissed me off, bosses being immune to status impairing effects and that is something Golden Sun games have never had an issue with, while the bosses aren't completely vulnerable to status changes, they certainly aren't immune.

I wasn't very clear. I LOVE having Djinn in the series, I just hate how to get most of them. Some can be permanently missed, which leaves me paranoid and irritated.
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    LeoTCK @ LeoTCK: yes for nearly a month i was officially a wanted fugitive, until yesterday when it ended