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.
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.