I’ve
been recently mourning the fact that I had not yet found a Gameboy Advance cult
classic worthy of the name, and lo and behold! Such a game came my way, to my
utter delight.
The cult
classic in question is none other than Golden
Sun, the debut instalment of a relatively young RPG series. Developed by
Camelot Software Planning and released in 2001(jp/na) and 2002, this incipit
met immediate critical success and was praised vigorously. It was initially
planned as a single game, supposedly on the Nintendo 64, but focus shifted
during development and the game was moved to the GBA. Because of the system’s
limitations, what was initially a single game had to be cut in two and ended up
as a pair of games instead, Golden Sun
being the first half of that pair. Golden
Sun: The Lost Age came out a couple of years later, followed by Golden Sun: Dark Dawn on the DS, another
couple of years later. You could nearly say that this trilogy came to life by
accident: planned as a single game, it finally became a series of sort. Worse
things have happened, especially in an industry where countless games are
cancelled during development and never see the light of day.
More classic than you’d wish
Truth be
told, while Golden Sun boasts all the
necessary qualities to be hailed as a cult classic, it still remains a very,
well… classic RPG at heart, in the
slightly disparaging acception of the word. More specifically, Golden Sun dutifully follows templates
laid down by 8-bit and 16-bit era RPGs, graphically as well as in terms of
gameplay. As a matter of fact, the same could be said of most GBA games, so
much so that it’s easy to view the system as a portable SNES of sorts. While
emulating the style of a console six years dead is hardly a way to establish a
system’s own brand of gaming, the limitations of the GBA left little choice in
the matter; on the other hand, such a style must have delighted the then
burgeoning retro scene that was rediscovering bit-era classics through
emulation. But I digress; let’s go back to Golden
Sun and its heavy dose of early ’90s RPG classicism.
Golden Sun’s presentation, for one thing, is pure 16-bit
RPG fare mingled with a touch of 8-bit-ness. The gorgeous and lush pixelated
graphics, all vivid colours and smooth stylized shapes, would not have been out
of place in an SNES game, all the more so as the world map boasts some rotating
effects reminiscent of the SNES’ famous Mode 7. Interestingly enough, said
world map is also heavily reminiscent of 8-bit RPGs: not only can it be roamed
freely, but it only accommodates a single way of travelling, namely your
characters’ own two feet. No boat or airship to make your roaming easier and
faster: if you want to rally a place, you’ll have to do so by trotting around
on the world map. (As you’d expect, this can take an awfully long time, and I
was quite surprised to see such a retrograde take on travelling in what was
supposedly a high-profile GBA game. Oh, well.) Then there is the soundtrack,
which, in pure 16-bit tradition, is a pure gem designed with great care, a
splendid collection of ear-candy. All tracks are gorgeous and convey deep
emotions, and they are used in a perfectly apropos way, subtly enhancing
storytelling as well as the player’s feelings. Some of the tracks ended up
fastened in my memory, playing in my head every now and then: this is certainly
a nice change from some more modern games I’ve played lately, with their
soundtracks so vanilla and/or irritating that I had to turn off the volume
eventually.
Golden Sun’s gameplay, for another, borrows heavily from
16-bit era templates. The strongest influence is definitely the Legend of Zelda series: with its heavy
focus on exploration, regular gain of new abilities allowing you to progress
further, puzzle-solving and backtracking to explore areas that were unreachable
at first, Golden Sun could aptly be
described as a turn-based take on the Zelda
gameplay mechanics. A somewhat looser take, though: puzzles and the acquisition
of new abilities are not nearly as systematic and streamlined as in the Zelda games, leading to a more sprawled
structure in which both puzzles and new abilities pop up at random. The pure
RPG side is not forgotten, though: from classes to elemental invocations to
good old random turn-based battles, without forgetting the obligatory
geographical variations—the remote location buried in snow and ice, the dry and
hot desert, the mysterious and vaguely dangerous forest, the bit of ocean
sailing and so on—everything that defined and made 16-bit RPGs famous can be
found in Golden Sun, whole and
untouched. And yet, inside all this RPG classicism hides an unexpected dose of
originality: invisible at first sight, it reveals itself as soon as one pores
over the game in earnest.
More original than you’d think
Golden Sun’s most prominent twist to the classic 16-bit
RPG formula is to have successfully paired random turn-based combat and a class
system with Zelda-lite puzzles and
ability-based progression, thus bridging the gap between traditional RPG and
Action-Adventure games and creating a hybrid of sorts. That was quite a risky
move, for these elements do not necessarily go well together: being interrupted
every couple of second by a random fight that takes away your overall view of
the action is not exactly conducive to efficient puzzle-solving—as anyone who
played Tales of Hearts R surely knows.
Yet Golden Sun manages to circumvent
that obstacle by a simple and neat trick: puzzles rooms are entirely devoid of
random encounters, allowing you to focus on the puzzle at hand.
But
there is more: the fighting system and class system are both intimately tied to
exploration and ability-based progression rather than to good ol' level-grinding. This boils down to the presence
of the “Djinns”: these tiny and rather cute creatures spread all around the
game world—some in plain view and others cleverly hidden—can grant you access
to new classes, the general rule being that the Djinns of one element are tied
to one specific class. The more Djinns you collect, the more classes you can
access, which in turn gives a great incentive to explore the game world and
leave no stone unturned. This creates a virtuous circle in which careful
exploration—including assiduous backtracking, as some of the Djinns can be
reached only later in the game after gaining some specific abilities—allows you
to strengthen your party and thus to progress smoothly, discovering more Djinns
on the way—and so on. Level-grinding takes a huge step back: sure, you still
gain levels and see your stats rising, but those levels will only be useful if
you have the necessary Djinns to don a given class and the specifics attacks
and abilities that go with it. This can actually create some minor issues, as
we will see very soon; but minor issues or not, this system is brilliant and
well-crafted, tying together elements that have been somewhat at odds since the
dawn of the Holy Realm of RPG.
Of
course, such a new and daring formula had to present a couple of flaws: first
tries are hardly ever perfect, after all. Golden
Sun’s Djinn-based class system has a weakness that can have dire
consequences: should you miss some Djinns, you may not access some classes and
thus some spells that could be tremendously important at some point in the
game. As you probably guessed already, I landed in this very situation over the
course of my run. I ended up being stranded in the final boss fight, of all
places; all that because I had missed one Djinn. One single Djinn, and the only
one I missed during my run; but this was a Mercury Djinn tied to Mia, and not
having it entirely prevented Mia from learning any Group Healing spells. Given
that no other character has access to such spells and that there are no group
healing items, I was basically stuck at End Game’s doors, unable to beat the
final boss because I was missing those precious Group Healing spells. (I tried
to make do without, mind you; unfortunately, it became obvious quite quickly
that I stood no chance without a good, solid Group Healing spell.) Of course, I
was not entirely stuck: I could have
backtracked in order to find that precious and elusive missing Mercury
Djinn—even though I had no idea where it hid—and I would have gained the Group
Healing spells as soon as it was added to my pool of Djinns. However, I had
already played a good 25 hours at that point, and the thought of adding a
couple of hours solely devoted to backtracking was more than I could bear, so I
purely and simply gave up. I’ll do better on my next run, I promise.
Another
minor issue is the use of Djinns in battle, which is too complex for its own
good and ends up being counter-productive. Here is an overall view: while
fighting, you have the choice between regular spells tied to your class of the
moment, weak but available at every turn, and Djinn spells and invocations,
more powerful but only available every couple of turns. To put it simply, this
is a case of “you cannot have your cake and eat it too”: somehow, you have to
choose between focusing on your regular spells or on the Djinn-based attacks. Unleashing
both at random may put you in hot water, because using the Djinns in combat can change your class, replacing a set of class-tied spells by another one
entirely. I won't go into the technicalities of how this can happen, if only because I am not quite sure I fully understood them; suffice it to say that it can happen indeed. Just imagine losing your Healing spells all of a sudden in the middle
of a boss fight and you’ll have a good idea of how impractical this can be. In
most RPGs, the unleashing of invocations or any other devastating attack is
tied to a special gauge that fills up gradually as you fight, which is both
more convenient and more rewarding; why the developers of Golden Sun chose rather to go with this unserviceable system of sacrificing
your class to gain access to the most powerful attacks is beyond me. I guess it
was designed as a way to introduce a dose of strategy in the fighting, but it
comes across as messy and unreliable. As a result, I focused mostly on the
regular class-tied spells, using invocations only in case of dire need—i.e.
during boss fights—while grinding my teeth at the unpracticality of the whole
thing. This was hardly conducive to enjoyment, and I can honestly say that Golden Sun’s fighting system was the
most tedious part of the game as far as I was concerned. I put up with that unsatisfactory
fighting system because I adored all the rest—the puzzles, the exploration, the
enticing atmosphere of the whole
game—but I definitely wish it would have been simpler and more fulfilling, and
I can only hope that all things fighting have been bettered and honeyed in the
series’ subsequent entries.
That
being said, neither of these flaws is a deal-breaker: there are more akin to
minor issues, as I mentioned, and they certainly do not significantly tarnish
the brilliance of Golden Sun. This is
a gloriously good game, a true gem that packs some unexpected depth and is
certainly worthy of the title of cult classic. Not only that, but Golden Sun is typically the kind of game
that gets better with every re-run, just like the Zelda games: the first run may be a trifle tedious because it
involves a lot of fumbling about and trial-and-error, but once you know how to
solve puzzles, overcome obstacles and collect Djinns, you can enjoy the game
significantly more and revel in your ever-growing mastery of it. All in all, I
certainly got more than I bargained for by picking Golden Sun, and I’m delighted by this turn of events. I am firmly
planning to do a second run in which I will collect all the Djinns and clear
the game for good—in fact, I would have done so already, had Golden Sun been a shorter game; but I
have to admit that after 25 hours of play, I was really not eager to start
again from scratch. I’ll come back to the game sooner or later, when the mood
is right; for now, thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!