Thread 723916604

How is Golden Sun? People praise it online as an RPG but I want to understand why from my peers here on /v/

>>723916604 (OP)
It's ok as an rpg. Benefits from being the only thing really like it in its closed ecosystem in the same way Okami or Bloodbourne are massively overhyped.

it sucks

>>723916893
ok, I heard the story is cool because it's not typically good vs evil and it's quite grey. Is it true?

>>723916604 (OP)
The combat system has neat ideas you never have to use because spam best move always works, the story is insanely wordy, possibly one of the most verbose and drawn out games of all time, despite this the characters have almost no personality at best and often behave and state contradictions to everything they've done in the game to that point. The music is okay but a compressed version of your typical motoi sakuraba ost.

>>723916604 (OP)
Still one of my favorite games ever.

>>723917072
only if you play the sequel

I remember having a good time playing it when it came out.

>>723916604 (OP)
Greatest JRPG, pure kino.

>>723917072
No it follows its cliches and used genre tropes pretty aggressively.

>>723916604 (OP)
Golden SOUL
Its essentially the core mechanincs of an jrpg PERFECTED, with a literal overdose of Soul
100/10 Soul
The first and the second game are God tier must plays.

>>723916604 (OP)
It never ends... jesus christ please end. Just end. Playing 1 and 2 back to back was such a mistake.

>>723916604 (OP)
I loved it as a kid. Haven't played it since though

>>723917518
why would you do that?

>>723917072
Sure buddy, please play the game.

>>723917072
The Sequel is a subversion that gets into grey morality, the first game is very cut and dry.

the non-spoiler answer is that the villains you chase in the first game are the protagonists of the second game and the plot goes from there, exploring why they did what they did and making the plot much more interesting.

>>723916604 (OP)
It's alright. Had some really impressive music despite being on the GBA. Summon animations looked cool too.

I hate to say it, but it's one of those games where you had to be there to appreciate it.

>>723916604 (OP)
Whats a better 2d jrpg than Golden Sun 1/2?

>>723916604 (OP)
Battle system is cool but it's not amazing. It has its moments. Expiration is really what makes the game special. It's good. But it's also not as good as it could be. Also way too much talking.

The sequel is better in these regards. Both are worth playing.

>>723916604 (OP)
I think it's like one of those games that was more impressive at the time. Like it's a good game, but it's not like pokemon gen 1 good. It's very technically impressive for 2001 or whenever it came out and was good at the time but you might be disappointed if you are used to more modern RPGs. Like a big reason why it was popular is that it looks amazing for a GB game and the overland puzzles were cool for a GB game
>>723917072
more so in the sequel than the first game

>>723916604 (OP)
One of the rare RPGs with actual fun dungeons, I say that but the only other one I can think of is Lufia 2.

>>723916604 (OP)
Babby's first JRPG. Neither combat nor puzzles are especially difficult, you'll very easily get into a loop of blowing up bad guys with summons.

>>723918346
kek I don't care about "difficulty". I finished every game I played in my existence. Difficulty was never an issue, it's all about trying hard enough until it works.

>>723918621
You won't need to try particularly hard for this game, then.

>>723916604 (OP)
GS 1 is a bit of a slog
GS 2 is one of the better old school RPGs with tons of puzzles side content. It's actually so much better than the first that if you really don't care about story or understanding what's going on definitely play it

It's overly verbose but has nice graphics and sound. The way Djinns are used in puzzles is interesting.

okay cool thx for your answers my niggas. I'll try this out tonight

>>723916604 (OP)
Babby's first RPG.

>>723917072
The story is literally unfinished.

>>723917716
Any of the first 3 generations of Pokemon

>>723918734
I played Lost Age first and I found fairly forgiving to new players. Actually felt that I probably had a better experience doing it that way as I didn't find the first game anywhere near as good when I went back for it

>>723916604 (OP)
I've only played The Lost Age
I enjoyed it

>>723918956
>Any of the first 3 generations of Pokemon
Golden Sun

>>723918956
>>723919475
Pokemon Emerald

>>723919475
>>723919541
Incredible how much clearer and coherent emerald is when you lay it out next to golden sun live this: you can tell gamefreak put real effort into communicating clearly what's happening with the player while camelot just spewed colors onto the screen and hoped you could rorschach it into something meaningful. Great point, astutely made anon.

>>723919475
Ah the poorly scaled golden sun sprites...always awful looking

>>723916604 (OP)
Honestly the dungeons are the best part about it, Golden Sun was one of the first JRPG series I played and I got disappointed going to other JRPG series and just seeing basic featureless enemy gauntlet dungeons compared to Golden Sun's elaborate gimmick mazes

it overperformed on a weak handheld. big budget jrpg vibes

>>723916604 (OP)
It's a good game IF you treat it like a Zelda game with JRPG combat and NOT the other way around.

>>723916604 (OP)
Very generic. Not bad at all, just very childish and uninspired.
It has great presentation though, and it's quite charming, but a lot of people played it when they were kids so it has a lot of people claiming it's "soulful" which just means they're nostalgic about it.
>>723917096
>verbose and drawn out
Yeah true, it doesn't help that every time a character says something, you have to wait for a little emoji to pop up showing you what emotion they're feeling.... it's fucking slow.

>>723916604 (OP)
The mechanics systems are fun and a lot more in depth than many RPGs. You get a lot of abilities to interact with the environment, which allows for more creative puzzles and just more engaging with the setting in general. One ability is telepathy, with allows you to read NPC's thoughts - basically doubling the amount of dialog and giving them much more depth since they might say one thing but think another.

Also the Djinn system allows for a lot of creative character customization. You can find elemental Djinns through exploration (the standard Fire, Water, Earth, Air), and they give you different abilities. You can mix and match them on characters to give different classes and different skills in battle, or use them for summons. It's a dynamic system with trade-offs, but the game is easy enough that you can be creative or do what you want without screwing yourself over.

The biggest weakness of the game is the story, it's basically half a game since you need the sequel to finish the story and even then things feel rushed.

I played bothon release at the time, still have my copies. It was insanely good. As a matter of fact I bought a modded GBA just to play it again in the same form factor.

>>723916604 (OP)
One of the best openings to any JRPG, before it goes into more standard "Get the 4 Elemental McGuffins" that's been done since the original Final Fantasy crystals (though Golden Sun does elemental lighthouses instead, which is unique).

>>723916604 (OP)
I heard its impossible to emulate, is that true?

>>723928935
yes

>>723928935
I've emulated it and didn't see any issues.

>>723929000
>>723929174
I don't know who to believe...

If anything Golden Sun is even better nowadays since RPGs have mostly gotten rid of puzzles and just have you fight enemies while you wander around straightforward dungeons, if they have dungeons at all. The only negative things are random encounters being there and the characters talking too much sometimes.

>>723928935
no. you shouldn't emulate golden sun not because of incompatibility, but because the games are bad

>>723916604 (OP)
It's only praised because it was one of the few RPGs available in the early days of the GBA. It's not bad at all, but it's not particularly special or noteworthy either. The soundtrack is nice and the graphics were pretty fucking good for an early GBA game.

It doesn't really hold up though. Feels really barebones compared to most other RPGs that came out after it, including its own sequels.

723920253
>complex graphics LE BAD, everything needs to be simplistic!
I remember when bait was subtle.

exceptional music, pretty generic rpg but remembered fondly because for many gba was their first console / gaming platform and it was one of the better games on the system. Worst part is trying to paste in your code from 1 to 2 when the link cable doesn't work half the time. older millennials and x'ers weren't as impressed because they were spoiled for choice on SNES

>>723916604 (OP)
Golden Sun is a unique JRPG experience. You won't find anything else that has the kind of environmental interactivity or the class/ability system that it has. Whether that's a good thing or not is up to you to decide.

>>723918734
Other way around. GS1 is great, but GS2 is a huge slog. God help you if you put GS2 down for a week or something and forget what you were supposed to be doing because you will never figure it out naturally and have to restart and do all that shit all over again.

>>723916604 (OP)
It's pretty straightforward in its general scope, but it has a lot of charming details to it, like NPCs having different dialogue for being spoken to or reading their mind, and every oven having something different cooking in it. Psynergy being a thing you can use outside of battles can also keep things a little interesting and make the world feel a little bit more interactive, which also lends to dungeon puzzles rather well. The first game is like a proof of concept while the second game puts all of this to more effective use, but it's worth playing both for the feature to carry save data over between games, which is another novel thing in itself.

Also the visuals and music are just really fucking good for GBA standards. It's almost hard to believe the first game came out so early in the GBA's life.

More about the atmosphere/world/visuals/music. It's a comfy fantasy adventure that is inoffensive, which is more than you can say for most FF/DQ titles, so it gets high marks. Other than that, not much to it. It's the Crazy, Stupid, Love of vidya.
Also, Saturos did nothing wrong.

>>723930782
This is a very accurate post.

Nice .gif too, I really like the vibe of old games like these.

>>723916604 (OP)
I remember playing this and thinking it was the greatest game ever, then playing final fantasies like iv-vii and realizing all they did was cram as many ideas and plot points as they possibly could from those games into one ok experience

>>723931426
There's a few great scenic places in the second game especially.

What would you want to see in a Golden Sun 3?

It's just a generic JRPG. Random encounters, basic turn-based combat, puzzles, etc. Not much to say about it.

>>723932756
they should add like light and shadow psnergy that'd be epic

>>723933090
djinn combos giving you different classes with different spells was pretty interesting

>>723916893
I heard the same shit towards Tales of Symphonia but the GBA's library was filled with JRPGs

>>723929043
Never did beat this guy and he was allegedly the weakest of the super bosses. If I couldn't win against him then I didn't see a reason to pursue the others.

>>723916604 (OP)
Solid 7/10 game

Pros:
Great SFX and animations for a GBA title
Simple story that doesn't distract from gameplay
While the puzzles are juvenile they don't require a guide.

Cons:
Mucho texto
"Mute" hero who only communicates thru emojis
Too Easy.

>>723932756
Mia's tits

>>723933448
You were misinformed, he is one of the strongest.

>>723932756
Get rid of djinns hidden as random encounters. That was always retarded and a relic of trying to sell walkthroughs. Add a journal for keeping track of objectives.

>>723934312
Agreed

It's babbies first RPG. As a young kid, it was a good way to get me away from Pokemon and onto other things. Otherwise it's a fairly simple game with an underdeveloped job system in the Djinn that mostly rewards just stacking someone's element, story conversations end up needing to have everyone react to dialogue even if they have fucking nothing to say. Finding the Djinn, using Psynergy to interact with the world, using mind read on people for funny thoughts as well as hints, some decent music, all those are good elements, but you can't pretend it's especially deep. Also the second game is kinda fun, but the open world nature is a blessing and a curse, especially since you're kind of expected to play in a specific order anyways with only a couple of side areas that aren't important for the main story.

For some reason I always really liked how meaty the critical and some of the Djin attacks (not invocations) felt when they hit.

Always made the combat very fun to me.

>>723916604 (OP)
I remember really liking the first one but man I remember there being quite a bit of useless dialogue and it was farely slow so it did feel like it dragged. I remember how cool it was you could put in a code and get all your old gear back on sequel too. Overall it was a good game but I thought the ending was wasn't all that great.

>>723917096
>because spam best move always works
Is there an RPG where this doesn't work?

>>723929742
This hit me the hardest during octopath traveler. I just couldn't give much a of a shit about the dungeons because it all kinda just came down to go from a to b with no interesting mechanics or anything.

>>723919475
>>723920253
>>723929043
Golden Sun's pre-rendered sprites would've aged great if it had a slightly higher resolution. Shame it was wasted on the GBA.

>>723916604 (OP)
I played it years and years ago back when I had to commute to work. it was fun for a while, and I got softlocked. apparently I was near the end of the game at the desert with the sand tornados or something

>>723916604 (OP)
Only shat on by fucker who can't fucking read 2 lines of text before going insane, it's great but you gotta play 1 and 2, think of them as Disc 1 and Disc 2 or a PS1 JRPG, has some great shit other turn based RPGs could learn even after all these years.
>Fast battles
>Animation can be fast forwarded
>Magic is usable outside of battle to solve puzzles or just fuck around (Reading minds, moving shit, freezing water, dowsing plants, punching stuff from afar).

>>723917716
Chrono Trigger but that's a HIGH bar created by the top of the elite.

>>723935745
Golden Sun could do with a remake or at least an "HD Edition" with re-rendered sprites.

>>723936323
>Reading minds
It's still funny to think they made different dialogues for every fucking NPC just because of that skill and 99% of people never used

>>723936323
>Reading minds
I always thought that was super neat. Psyenergy overall was just so much fun, and I loved how much use it got outside of battle.

>>723936458
How do you know? I always used that shit.

>>723936441
Nigga, please.
If they do a Golden Sun remake TODAY it will be fully 3D and completely ugly as sin.

>>723936546
youre mistaken, i know why you feel the way you do but 2DHD for old ass RPGs is much more likely than a full 3D entry.

>>723936650
DQ remakes only got sparred the complete 3D remake because it's a legendary tittle in Japan.

>>723936650
2DHD, ugly as fuck fonts, mismatched art with some of it upscaled and some not. I love the future

>>723919541
Golden sun is clearly better here

>>723936546
>>723936650
I think they'd do 2DHD vomit while totally missing that the originals were pre-rendered.

>>723930782
>Psynergy being a thing you can use outside of battles
This is super fucking cool. That + the ability to freely change up jobs is a big reason I love those two games.

Anyone else tried the fourth game yet? I heard it really tied the story together between Lost Age and Dark Dawn.

>>723936458
I used that shit constantly.

>wait between Lost Age and Dark Dawn was 8 years
>next year Dark Dawn will have been 16 years ago
Where did the time go? As a kid I always wanted more, then Dark Dawn just disappointed me.

>>723916604 (OP)
it's shit, retards overrate it because they played it when they were 5 and knew jack shit about games, least of all rpgs
it's the chrono trigger of its era, massively overhyped and massively shit

>>723935635
scarlet grace
emerald beyond

>>723916604 (OP)
To this day, I've yet a play a turn based JRPG with better dungeons, puzzles are great, most DQ and FF games rely on "cave with some chests with separate paths now and then" that it's BOOORING shit, not even SMT does something cool with its dungeons outside the art direction and using magic outside of battle is great, in fact, it's fucking stupid how most JRPGs don't do this more often, you have characters who can freeze shit and create tornadoes but somehow can't make a damn platform with ice to cross a hole?

>>723916604 (OP)
>How is Golden Sun?
have you tried playing it to find out?

>>723916604 (OP)
I thought it was very boring.
It probably blew your fucking mind if you were 10 playing it as your first rpg on the gba, to the point where you keep putting it on your recommended lists despite not having played it in 20 years.

Never trust a rec list from someone who grew up with the console, there's always a bunch of boring shit on there just because they played it when they were 10 and being able to move a character blew their dumbass mind and then they didn't even finish the game.

Pic unrelated.