I was happy to see Golden Sun: Dark Dawn at E3. It was announced last year with a short playable demo (which basically consisted of walking from left to right) and then just kind of disappeared until this year’s E3.
Anyway, first, let’s talk about the changes made to bring the Golden Sun series into this current generation. Perhaps the biggest change is the ability to use Psynergy with the touch screen. Fireballs, for example, can be aimed by tapping in the direction you want to throw them. Honestly, I couldn’t really tell if I was supposed to tap the target to aim and then tap Matthew (the new main character) or slide the stylus across him to fire. Each way seemed kind of unresponsive. Maybe I should have paid more attention to the tutorial.
The other two Golden Sun games were for the GBA, so naturally this new game has gotten a graphical update. Characters and environments are now in purdy 3D. Summons look especially beautiful. Visually, the Djinn have more variety than they did in the first two games, too. Flint looks like the classic Venus Djinni, for example, but the second Venus Djinni availble in the demo has different “hair.”
There’s probably only one question on the lips of hardcore fans of the series, though. Have they finally changed the targeting system in battle? Well, they have. Characters actually automatically target the next enemy if the enemy they’re currently targeting dies before they have the chance to attack. In past games, if you were aiming at an enemy and they died, your character wouldn’t know what the hell to do so they’d just defend. No more of that nonsense!
As for what’s the same, well, that’s pretty much everything else. The battle system is nearly identical, except now commands are issued by touching icons on the touch screen. The music and art style are very familiar. You can still hold the B button to run and jump over small gaps. Puzzles in the demo dungeon still revolved around using Psynergy to manipulate objects, mostly using the “Move” Psynergy to move blocks and pillars.
If you care about the story (silly JRPG fans), Dark Dawn takes place 30 years after the events of The Lost Age. At the end of the last game, the Golden Sun was released, and was supposed to breathe new life into the world and stop it from deteriorating, and it may have done that, but not before destroying your home town of Vale, exposing the Sol Sanctum and the town’s adepts to the world. The new main character is Matthew, who is Isaac’s son. (NPC conversations lead me to believe that Isaac is still alive, but he doesn’t appear in the demo.) The all-new party means your The Lost Age clear data is pretty useless. You won’t be transferring your characters and items 30 years through time. In fact, there will be no connectivity between Dark Dawn and the other games at all. So sorry!
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is set to launch this holiday season. If you’re a fan of the first two games (and you should be), commence hyping.
