Golden Sun's your typical pleasant and heroic JRPG, coupled with a band of go-lucky heroes and an epic quest to save the world from destruction. Some of the usual JRPG complaints factor in here, from the somewhat slow prologue and pace of the narrative (it really does feel like the original is one large set-up for Lost Age, for better or for worse), to the overwhelming number of random wild monster encounters in the overworld/dungeons (which can be fortunately lessened with shop items), to the potential need to grind a little bit near the end if you choose not to go to the optional late-game dungeon that's not made too apparent, and of course some powerups (in the forms of Djinns) can be "missible" if they run away so make sure to save accordingly. Fortunately, the game diversifies combat enough thanks to the wide customization options of being able to swap out Djinns (think of them as your magic genie buddies) that represent elements & abilities and allow you to swap classes on the fly to try out new abilities to abuse in combat. The overworld puzzles aren't mindblowing, but they get the job done and it's nice being able to utilize your Psynergy powers to traverse different elements. Overall, I wouldn't say Golden Sun is anything groundbreaking, but it's great comfort food and has vibrant pixel art and a pretty solid soundtrack to boot. Don't forget to mind read everyone you see, everyone's inner thoughts are quite amusing!

this is a cute little rpg with a very impressionable opening, but as the game progresses it kind of loses its plot and starts turning into wandering around the map looking for an objective. i got to the point in the game where you have to beat the monsters flooding the town and it really isnt holding my interest very well. i had cheats on to disable random enemies, so maybe one day ill just make everyone level 100 to see the rest of the story but i'd rather play other things right now.... its still a good game though !

Decent Garrett representation, although it’s ugh, spelled wrong! Guys, it’s with two R’s and two T’s. “Garet,” for crying out loud. “Hello, my name is Garet, and these are my friends ‘Mikel’ and ‘Bilee.’” You see, it sucks when I do it to your name, doesn’t it? Garet, sheesh. It doesn’t even compute for my phone, even my keyboard is trying to autocorrect it to “Harry.” I know, Tim Apple, how do you think I feel about it? Oh god, what if they pronounce it in some weird way, some stupid high-fantasy inflection? Oh no, oh dear me, oh my word, oh fuck ass and shit, even. I hope there’s no voice acting in the DS sequel, if I hear one of them call out to Gah-rotte or some shit I just don’t think I could bear it. All that aside, I do like that the Garet here is a major himbo.

What’s that, the game? Oh, it’s pretty good! I love the little react faces they give to the characters whenever they are angry, sad, happy, etc. It’s maybe not as good as Mario pantomiming dialogue while transforming into other characters in Super Mario RPG, but it’s close! At the very least it shows that someone understood the limitations of a cute SD top-down JRPG and then did something about it. How do we convey the party’s disappointment at this series of unfortunate events? Give them dialogue bubbles with cute frowny faces.

Also the fighting system is uh, something. I’d call it neat if I were in a good mood, and goddam deranged if I wasn’t. You get a handful of pokemon who give you super spells, except when you use them your stats and available normal spells go down temporarily, which sucks except the pokemon spells and super summons are strong enough to knock out the bosses in one or two turns, except when maybe it might be better to use your normal stats and spells? It’s also totally playable if you assign the Pokémons to the matching character by element, but if you mix and match elements they create thousands of permutations of different character classes which take years of scholarship to master. I don’t get it, and I just got done playing it. I’m the Argentinian calculating weird math lady meme right now.

It also has one of the silliest bad endings I’ve seen since “attack lavos at level one” in chrono trigger. You can literally refuse the Joseph Campbell call to adventure, which will earn you a screen that says “and then the world ended. Try again, dummy!” People complain about the Dragon Quest series asking the player questions that force you to answer yes, and I respond, what’s the alternative, shit like this?

Aside from that, it has a story that I’d call “a smidge better than Secret of Mana,” which, as a known JRPG liker, is really all I’m asking for when I boot up one of these things. Not to mention I’d also call it “only half done.” Coincidentally the second one just came out for switch online, I just might give it a spin on there

Update: I’m being told that there is indeed no voice acting in the DS golden sun, and that the Garet in that one also has an excellent dad mustache

Golden Sun is an amazing game. I already love GBA games and Golden Sun uses the platform to its' absolute best potential. Combat animations and the dynamic camera work in combat especially. Great sprite work and OST. Lovely maps and environments. Definitely among my top of GBA games, which matters as it's my favorite system.

Gameplay wise I found Golden Sun pretty unique, I'm still not super into this style of JRPG yet, but I felt it was easy to get the hang of it here. The combat was surprisingly varied. Main weapons having different abilities from buffs to unique attacks, Psynergy (your spells) are fun, especially how they're influenced by my favorite feature of Golden Sun, the Djinns.
Djinns are collectible creatures that you set to your party members to gain their abilities and effect your class, stats and available Psynergy.  They're found through main story dungeons and optional puzzles and side quests in the overworld. I think I only missed one, due to also missing a couple Psynergy which was a little annoying. But missing a djinn here or there won't hamper you too much. Djinns provide unique attacks and abilities separate from your Psynergies, as you use these abilities you gain a point in the Djinn's respective element, and you can spend these points to use on summons. The points you amass stay with you outside of combat, so you can enter a fight with all your summons available. I just found the variety of combat options in Golden Sun enjoyable especially with all the different methods to obtain weapons, Psynergy and Djinns.

An especially cool part of Golden Sun's gameplay pertaining to the Djinns and the Psynergy they provide is that they're not exclusively combat related. The Psynergy you have available and equipped as different classes and Djinns are used in overworld puzzles as well, I found that especially interesting. The puzzles themselves were great, never felt too long or too difficult, and the use of Psynergy led to some creative gameplay. Trading around Djinns and equippable items that grant Psynergies to solve puzzles was fun. The visual style of Golden Sun made the puzzles satisfying visually as well.

Story wise, it's great too, not amazing or anything but I definitely liked it. The world building is amazing and helps show the weight of the story. It begins with a big natural disaster, whose effects are seen in different ways as you progress throughout the world. While following in the wake of disaster and the villains. There are some pretty fun side quests with good depth and rewards. Golden Sun's world building was amazing, traveling the continent and seeing different cultires and biomes was awesome. Especially the Colosso Festival at Tulpi, that was probably my favorite section of the game. World building peaks there, the story has been building to that point for a while, and gameplay wise it was great tournament arc, the other members of the party using Psynergy to help Isaac through the obstacle course was really cool.

Character wise I liked the main cast a lot.
Isaac is a good silent protagonist, Garet is pretty funny, Ivan has some interesting stuff and Mia was fun, but I think she could have had a little more to do like Ivan does. The side characters are good too, villains were fun, though a lot of things pertaining to their story I think will be more shown in the sequel.

Only negatives were a couple Psynergy being missbale is kinda annoying. They're never needed to progress, nor do you miss anything huge because of them, but the fact that you can miss utility stuff is kinda whack. I kinda felt I had to grind a little bit towards the end, my weaker party members were getting bopped by random enemies, but I didn't have to grind much at all. Think I got lost once, but that's a huge improvement for me so not too bad.

Overall I loved Golden Sun, definitely a favorite of mine in all of its' respective categories. Very excited to play The Lost Age soon and look into the rest of the Golden Sun series eventually.

First part of the duology, Golden Sun takes everything Camelot did in previous years and takes it to the extreme, before they had been relegated to mario sports games.

Golden Sun is a wonderfully presented game; visuals are phenomenal, with charming and colorful sprites filling the rich world of Weyard. The music by Sakuraba is at time soothing, at times imposing, at times inspiring, always perfect for the occasion. The Lost Age will come up next, taking everything the first Golden Sun did and cranking it up to eleven.

Just use a guide for the djinn, I honestly had no idea where half of them were. Puzzles are fun and so is character building, but I will not leave one of those critters behind.

Heading into Golden Sun I was hoping for a solid RPG and while I did get just that, I'm still left a little underwhelmed.

A part of the reason why is due to the story. Overall, it's just Bad. None of the characters develop aside from maybe Ivan in the beginning, the ending is extremely anticlimactic with how many loose threads there are and the main characters do nothing in the story other than react to the villains' actions and try to stop them. The reason why I find it so underwhelming though, is because the prologue is so fantastic. The stakes in it are high, it establishes the villains as a huge threat and is surprisingly tragic and it just set my expectations for the story so high but everything that came after the first 2 hours was so forgettable and generic. I wish the game explored Felix's relationship with Saturos and Menardi, or spend more time exploring Garet and Isaac's guilt over feeling like they're responsible for what happened in the prologue but that sadly doesn't happen. Also, I really dislike the fact that you get dialogue options. It's a minor thing but they don't affect the events of the story in any way so it just feels like a cheap way of trying to make the player feel like they're involved in the plot.

Where the game fares much better is in the gameplay. Golden Sun uses the Djinn system, they're these creatures you can collect and equip them to your party members to boost their stats and give your characters different abilities. You can also cast Djinns and use them as spells, and if you use enough of them you can use a summon for massive damage. Using Djinns as spells does decrease your stats so it adds a layer of decision-making by having the player decide whether you want to cast a spell at the cost of temporarily lowering your stats. I really like this system and trying out different Djinn combinations to see what kind of spells I'd get was very fun. I really like the game's difficulty too. Golden Sun has party members recover mana simply by walking and to circumvent this making the game too easy, the random encounters in this game are decently challenging and you can very easily have a party member die if you're careless. This may not sound like much, however it is very punishing as reviving items are extremely scarce, it takes a long time to acquire a reviving spell and the only reliable method of reviving party members is to go to a town and pay a ton of money for it. This means you always have to be on your toes which makes random encounters very engaging. It's also helped by the encounter rate being very fair in this game, you can often go entire rooms without running into a single enemy so I never felt frustrated when trying to progress. The game also has really great dungeons thanks to Psynergy. Psynergy acts as spells that you get throughout the game that help with puzzles. They range from being able to move blocks, to turning invisible, to freezing puddles of water into a platform. The puzzles this creates are really fun and it makes for some of the best dungeons I've played in any RPG. The only blemish on the gameplay is the inventory system. Characters can only hold 15 items at most. There also isn't any storage mechanic and if an item is necessary for plot progression, it's taking up a slot in your inventory for the rest of the game. Therefore, the farther you go into the game, the more clogged your inventory becomes and it leads to a lot of tedious and completely unnecessary inventory management. I just don't understand why they put a limit on how many items you can have.

The music is decent, but is very held back by being on the GBA and it results in none of the tunes sticking in my head aside from a few great town themes and Saturos' boss theme.

Despite my issues with the story, I wouldn't say the game does anything offensively poorly to the point where I was disappointed but it also doesn't do anything exceptionally well. I like the Djinn system, the puzzles, the dungeons, how it looks (especially in battle) but nothing really resonated with me to the point where I was desperate to keep playing. The game is certainly a step above being a jack of all trades, but it's still a master of none.

Golden Sun is the spiritual successor to SEGA's Shining Force series, this time, Camelot was commissioned by Nintendo themselves to make them a "Shining" of their own. In this role-playing game, you play as a young "Psynergy" adept (a neologism for Chi meditation) preventing the return of Alchemy, a powerful, but consuming power, from returning to the world of Weyard, during a conflict between Sol Sanctum and the adepts of Mars, the Proxians.

The game features some of the most impressive graphics and soundtracks on the system, one of the main elements of the game was collecting the 28 Djinns, creatures with abilities similar to Final Fantasy VI's espers, shifting your magical abilities and attributes. Environments in Golden Sun are lively and dynamics, beautifully crafted dungeons feature many puzzles which can be solved with the many psynergic spells at your disposal, adding depth to the world which itself already has a charm of its own.

Golden Sun doesn't tell its story from its shallow storyline but its journey throughout many towns and their side-quests, with the main quest being a driving force for its exploration.

similarly to mario rpg's remake i went into this with rather low expectations, figured it was just another cool novelty that boomer-y games sorta fawn over. game is in fact great.

the class/djinn system is fantastic, extremely addictive and intuitive and fun, where so many games attempt this sort of system and stumble, if not fail outright, this game make looks effortless. where final fantasy has attempted and failed at plenty of times before, this game succeeds and sets a bar on its initial outing. the djinn/class sytem alone is worth playing this game for just to see an example of how to implement a job system in a deep and meaningful way while still being approachable and fun.

the story is cool but in my opinion far too reliant on context clues and random npc dialogue and hidden flavor text. could've done with a little bit more party member dialogue, half the time i honestly felt like i was playing a dark souls clone or some shit with how cryptically this game delivers information about what is going on. which is interesting given the good-vs-evil all ages presentation of things here. hoping that all picks up a bit for the sequel.

the combat is fantastic, but in my opinion often doesn't really require the player to make use of all the systems in place. for all the cool classes and spells and weapons, you can just as easily use mono-element jobs and spam your strongest spells for 20 hours and clear the superboss with little resistance. stuff is fun but i am hoping that stuff like buffs and debuffs become a little more important at some point in the next game. felt like there wasn't much room to spread the large wings the game gives you.

the puzzle system is fantastic, at its best this feels like a zelda game except with real rpg combat instead of the cinematic simulations of challenge that zelda often prefers (at least up until more recent zelda entries). the way the game delivers context clues about the story and constantly requires the player to interact with the world outside of battle makes weyard feel very involved and compelling to explore.

all in all, pleasantly surprised and had a great time, the game's original ideas are phenomenal and work fantastic, but i am hoping the core storytelling and boss fights get ramped up a little for the next go around.

This is a pretty good entry level handheld RPG with some good systems design and enjoyable dungeons, clearly riffing on Zelda, but it's doing more than your typical RPG dungeons. The real flaw with the game is how bland the main cast are and how simple the story is, despite the games abundance of text to tell it. It can just get absurd how long some scenes are when what's actually communicated to the player could be boiled down in a fraction of the words used. Overall its a decent RPG, but kind of the epitome of a comfort food game that doesn't ask terribly much from the player nor challenge them in its mechanics or writing.

Haven't been playing games lately (reading books.. and to some extent still recovering from the sprint of IGF judging) but I didn't have anything written down for Golden Sun. I was looking over the guidebook to Golden Sun at my parents' place last year and I was reminded of what an approachable JRPG series this was for kids! But that aside, what I want to draw attention to is more how much I like (and still like) the field psynergy mechanics. The puzzles are only lightly challenging, but they lend a richness to the world: dungeons aren't just defined by treasure boxes and monsters, but they're physical places with rules and ways to manipulate the environment. Sure, the ways this is expressed is through simple puzzles, but it's still a neat idea that I thought was tied together really well and exciting to discover. The small plant? You can grow it! A secret passage might be there if you cast reveal! Move things around to hop over passages. I would love to see more of this kind of inventiveness on the field in narrative-focused RPGs.

As amazing as I remember it being, a classic jrpg strengthened immensely with rich worldbuilding, amazing music, great pixel art, an addictive battlesystem and some really neat dungeon designs. Golden sun follows the traditional battlesystem formula and expands upon it with powering up your characters by collecting djinns hidden throughout the game. Djinns affects your classes, changing both abilities and stats, leaving for a lot of cool diversity. Not to mention all the fun psynergy abilities you collect to solve puzzles. And this is just a small prelude of what's in store before reaching the second game. Both this and The Lost Age together make for one of the finest jrpgs to this day.

Shining's co-developer Camelot Software Planning launched a new project of their own (and their first RPG in 4 years) with Golden Sun, one half of an ambitious story that indirectly felt like a tribute to the 16-bit era. Its colorful, lively sprites and animations update the classics for the 00s, while its characters & storytelling cover the genre's usual repertory (elements, town substories, meaningless choices, etc.). That being said, its real value lies elsewhere. First and foremost in the Psynergy mechanic, which falls halfway between Zelda tools and field skills: A handful of non-battle abilities that run the gamut from pushing objects around to raising platforms, from reading the minds of NPCs to clearing blockades, perhaps one of the best examples of puzzle-solving and secret hunting in JRPGs. They also deliver what is basically FF's Espers on steroids with the Djinn system, that spices up their basic but snappy combat with all sorts of possible options and combos.

Camelot tends to indulge in lengthy, wordy filler scenes at times, but their flair for creative scenarios peak when they graft it to Psynergy-led puzzle sections, leading to fun, brainy and inventive moments that add variety between the typical litany of travels and battling (including an especially innovative take on tournament arcs). Ultimately, it's the subtly complex gameplay that towers over everything else, a powerful blend of Breath of Fire, Lufia II and Final Fantasy VI.

I know that it's a rpg series that doesn't do that much that SNES predecessors haven't already done, but i played this before those. The art is charming, some of the music insanely good, the characters are likeable, main villains intriguing, and you visit all kind of interesting places. The overarching story is a typical save the world affair, but it's done well (and like 90% of all rpgs come down to that in one way or another).That's enough for me to really like a jrpg.
If you have enough Djinn the combat can be played in a djinn set and summon only fashion, but i didn't mind that much. The summon effects were awesome even after spamming them for ages, i still remember all the rank 4 ones. I had to use a guide for my 100% playthrough, because a few of the djinn were in the open world on secret spots (not a fan of that). But most of them you discover naturally without to much chance to completely miss them.
I don't care that much for puzzles in a rpg, but that's a strong aspect in this game as well.

Honestly had too much nostalgia for this game and was a little bit disappointed when I finally completed it. The pacing of the story is terrible and barely any of it advances at all by the endgame point.
Dialogue is tremendously slow and barely anything of importance is said for how fucking much anyone talks, also the dialogue box disappears and reappears for almost every line that is said, with characters animations and emotes in between. It really makes it a slog.
The combat is also weirdly designed and too easy. If you can prepare 4 max level summons before a boss and nearly one-shot it in one turn maybe you should reconsider the game's mechanics.

What makes this game special is its presentation and puzzles. Music is gorgeous and it looks great, I particulary like the character's portraits. Puzzles are also pretty good. But even then it just can't carry a JRPG with such lackluster story progression and combat.

A lightning strike. A scared town. A friend in peril. A mysterious duo. A tragedy.

Golden Sun quite literally opens up with a bang in the prolouge I've just summarized. It's also an interesting way to give you a bit of time to see what the basic gameplay is like such as inventory management, moving around, combat and the like.

GAMEPLAY

GS is an RPG meaning it follows a lot of gameplay tropes such as; a large overworld map, dungeouns and settlements being explorable and generally being a road trip kind of story. However, what it does do to stand out from the rest is relying on puzzles as a major component of the gameplay. During even the most simple of caves, you'll find a puzzle you can solve and these usually have 3 types. One is just progression, getting from point A to a new room. Second is creating a shortcut for easier traversal later on (these 2 are usually linked or the latter being optional). Third is accessing hidden treasures and other goodies. This is also where the majority of the replay value and general sense of completion comes from. I highly encourage new players to complete as many dungeouns as they can find, not just for completion purposes but also because that's where the best gear in the game is, and also finding hidden Djinn to aid you. You must be wondering what Djinn are I assume.

DJINN AND CLASS SYSTEM

Once you leave your hometown of Vale to set out on an epic journey, the first thing you'll encounter is an odd looking creature. This cute little fella is named Flint and is a Venus Djinni. Djinn are essentially the embodiment of the four main elemental energies in the world; Venus (earth), Mercury (water and ice), Mars (fire), and Jupiter (wind and electricity).
Once you acquire a certain number of Djinn you'll gain access to new or more powerful versions of your current abilities. For example you can have Diamond Dust turn into Diamond Berg or Ragnarok turn into Odyssey. Setting them and putting them on standby also affects your stats with their own trade offs. Once you acquire all 4 party members, you're most likely gonna put corresponding Djinn type to their user; Jupiter adepts are gonna have Jupiter Djinn i.e. Now while that is a solid strategy that still lets you experiment with Psynergy, the true depth lies with mixing and matching them. For example Isaac has the Slayer class when he has all Venus Djinn set, but you can also make him Swordsman if you put 1 Venus and the rest Mercury Djinn or a Ninja with 4 Mars and 5 Jupiter Djinn. The point is you're free to experiment however you like, you can have the party all be half-healers half-attackers or make every member specialized, a healer, an enfeebler, a tank etc. And one extra thing to note is that, every Djinn comes with an inherent ability of their own; Flint is a good attack Djinni, Flash reduces damage you take etc. Once you use them you can either set them to regain your stats or you can use for summoning.

SUMMONING

Once you use a Djinni, you'll see a new tab in the battle UI. This is called summoning which gives you a secondary use for Djinn once you've used them. And just like classes, they get more powerful the more Djinn you have. Ranging from just 1 Djinni which is just pure elemental attack all the way to 4 Djinn which allows you to call upon the might of gods like Boreas (god of the north wind) and Judgment (the might of the apocalypse). These are not only the most powerful moves in the game, but they also give you a buff for that
corresponding element you used; wind based summons will make your wind psynergy stronger i.e. Your Djinn will be in recovery mode after this however, rendering them unusable and unable to give you any stat buffs, so be wary of when exactly you want to use them.

WORLBUILDING AND LORE

The continent of Angara is filled to the brim with towns, villages and other structures you can explore and discover interesting tidbits about. Every town has a small backstory to it and a current event taking place in it. Mount Aleph has been the home of Elemental Stars, Imil has a healing water spring, Lamakan Desert is an infamously hot desert that has mirages you have to brave through etc.
My favorite part about the world as a whole is how connected and alive it feels, no two places are alike and yet they none of them feel alien. This feeling is further emphasized by how the story is essentialy a road trip with some anime vibes sprinkled on it.

SOUNDTRACK

The soundtrack, composed by Motoi Sakuraba, is pure goodness, with variety in theming and instruments. Some of my favorite tracks being Elemental Stars, Isaac/Saturos' Battle, Hopelesness, The Angarian Journey, The First Book, and the best one of them all, Venus Lighthouse. It has tracks for every kind of mood you can imagine; happy tunes, adventurous, imposing and mysterious. Highly recommend trying out these tracks, great and catchy melodies.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I've been trying to get into the RPG genre for the longest time, but to little success which led me to having this as my least favorite genre. After playing Golden Sun however, I can confidently say it changed my view completely. This game is, as quite a few people said including myself, the perfect introductory game. It covers the familiar tropes while also having original takes on it's own. Whether you've been wanting to get into the genre or are a seasoned RPG veteran, this will be a great journey to experience. And with that, I give this game an 8.5 out of 10.

Chances are, if you grew up with this game it's like comfort food. Pretty good and you always enjoy it, but yeah there are better things out there. If you haven't played it but like basic jrpg's, you'll enjoy this.

This was my 2nd playthrough since 2003. Multi-classed this time and it was much more fun.

Moving on to my 1st playthrough of The Lost Age.

This has been a game I've started so many times but because I didn't pick it up until the early DS era, I've always ended up dropping it around the first lighthouse due to new releases distracting me. Finally though, to celebrate its 20th anniversary, I dedicated time to see this classic through to the post credits

First, I have to say the games music and atmosphere do a brilliant job at sucking you into its world. The opening scene is intense and dramatic with so much going on it's easy to be intrigued by the plot it's setting up.

While the characters aren't the deepest around, the little emotes and animations they do give just enough for you to get attached to them throughout the journey.

I absolutely adore the Psyenergy mechanics. They kind of remind me of Pokemon's HMs but done right. Each character has their Psyenergy abilities which are used to solve overworld puzzles, like moving rocks, lifting boulders, growing plants, etc. These are always available and the odd time you might not have one, all it takes is moving Djinni (I'll get to them soon) here or there. This is a fantastic system because it allows the overworld and dungeons to have some really good puzzles without ever becoming tedious because you didn't have the right Psyenergy to move forward.

Now Djinn are another excellent part of the Golden Sun experience. These little creatures can be set to each character to offer buffs, debuffs, and attacks they wouldn't normally have access to. Each Djinn is a specific element type and you can give them to the character that matches that element or..... you can experiment with different combinations. And when you use a Djinn in battle you can summon an elemental move of incredible depending on the amount of Djinn used (the max summon is 4). These summons are spectacular and I love watching them.

My only nitpick with the game is that the ending is kinda unsatisfactory for me personally. Now I know the game makes it clear that the story is to be continued in The Lost Age but it clearly stops at the halfway point with so many questions left unanswered that it leaves me a little unfulfilled in a way. It's clear that the two GBA titles are essentially meant to be played back to back and I don't mind having a story split into two parts, but I do need a little bit more than just hooks for the second part (though those hooks are good and I am very excited to finally play The Lost Age)

All in all, this has become one of my favourite GBA games and I now understand why it has such a passionate following. It's a charming and excellent JRPG adventure that I would highly recommend.

For every cool aspect of this game, there's something that takes it away. The djinn and the combinations of spells can be cool in theory, but it seems it's optimal to just have one element tied to a corresponding character.

The set up for the narrative and the world is cool in theory, but then there's a lot of events that don't seem to tie in to the overall story and are just there to pad out the game.

Even with the virtual console rewind feature, random encounters are such a pain to work around. I hit walls multiple times and I was just losing my enjoyment of it as I tried to press on. I knew recently I wouldn't do the sequel because I feel that aside from the story, the gameplay experience seems to be relatively the same. I wanted to like this, and I think if I had played this when I was younger, I would have loved it and I totally get why this is a beloved and underrated game in the GBA's library for some, but ultimately it shows its age.