Tech News on G4

back to -|- Tech News index -|- Donna Whitney column archive -|- Send Us Your Feedback

'Golden Sun: Dark Dawn' is a sequel to the 2003 Gameboy title, Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Thirty years have passed since the world was reborn and the forces that once saved civilization are now impelling its imminent annihilation. The young heroes from the land of Weyard are the only ones that can stop it. Yeah, it is that old story again. How I long for a hero who rises from mediocrity to live out a relatively meagre existence. Wouldn't that be original? But, I digress. The developers must have spent hours and hours writing in-depth storylines to support all of the detail that's provided about locations, settings, character backgrounds, and histories. They clearly slashed the budget for graphics, music, and two-screen integration in favour of decent lore writing. I tried to spend the necessary hours reading all the little snippets of poorly-translated (into English) dialogue and content but none of this information was needed, helpful or even compelling. I suppose if you were a fan of the original then all that backstory might bridge the history of the two games. However, I clicked my way through the extensive scripting carelessly and a bit impatiently, I might add. 'Golden Sun' offered a decent variety of weapons, armour, accessories, and tools for purchase and for discovery. Each town will purchase any goods you wish to sell but only offer a static set of items to purchase. Unfortunately, the only items you ever get to see in action are equipped weaponry. Regardless of what armour you equip your party members with, they appear to be wearing the same clothes when they joined your party. Maybe I'm expecting too much from the DS gaming experience, but I really wanted to see what it looked like to move from spiked armour to ninja attire. No satisfaction there. Not much needs to be said about the lacklustre battle scenes. During the classic turn-based fighting sequences, characters can utilize their weapon, special talents, or even "Djinns" - fuzzy creatures that have magical powers of the element which augments a hero's powers - to unleash devastating powers. Speaking of power, special talents will drain your party members' "psynergy" levels - Think mana - and Djinns need time to recover. Fortunately, you can flee from enemies so you don't need to endure the pain of playing through that part of the game for very long. But you will need to have patience with it long enough to gain your experience points, coins and other treasures that are awarded when you defeat an opponent or "felled the enemy", as per the game's translation. Don't worry about allocating skill points or specializing talents, because levelling-up happens automatically in this game. Based on all of my comments, you would think I hated 'Golden Sun', wouldn't you? I must admit though, I did play it quite a bit. The hook for me was the puzzles. Those clever little mind-teasers that need to be solved in order to access treasure chests, pass impassable chasms, or capture Djinns. One of the characters' special talents is giving hints about what needs to be done to solve a puzzle - which is a nice feature as it stops one from running to an online walk-though. For all my harshness, I did enjoy the puzzles in 'Golden Sun'. Fortunately, puzzles formed the mainstay of game play and so all of the fighting, conversing and poor musical choices, were all made a bit more tolerable. The puzzles saved this RPG from itself.   'Golden Sun: Dark Dawn' Format: Nintendo DS Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Camelot Software Publishing ESRB Rating: E10+ Official Site: http://goldensun.nintendo.com/ Rating: 5 / 10

 

Related Articles

· Get G4
· G4 Press Release Index
· Interact
· Advertising Information

About G4 in Canada
G4 Canada (formerly TechTV Canada) launched in September 2001. G4 is the one and only television station that is plugged into every dimension of games, gear, gadgets and gigabytes. Owned Rogers Media Inc., the channel airs more than 24 original series. G4 is available on digital cable and satellite. For more information, see www.g4tv.ca.