Video Games: Camelot Created a Golden Epic

Golden Sun is Nintendo's first official RPG for the Game Boy Advance platform. It was developed by Camelot Software Planning, a small Japanese team developers who once created the popular Shining Force series alongside Sega and the "Beyond the Beyond" RPG game for Sony's PlayStation, they are also the developers for Nintendo's popular Mario Golf and Mario Tennis franchises.

The story of Golden Sun stars two young boys(Isaac and Garet) who lived in the small village of Vale, one stormy night, a boulder accident had occur which put most of the two boys' folks into sadness and one girl(Jenna) lost her brother(Felix) after the accident, than the two boys later met two strangers(Saturos and Menardi) on their way to get help but was knocked out instantly. Three years later, the accident still haunts the people of Vale and it looks like the two strangers who the boys met before wanted to repeat the same process, but this time they had a different plan in mind. Soon the boys join with the girl and their scholar(Kraden) to find the secret of Sol Sanctum until later they found out that they are being used to lured the two strangers and their gang(alongisde Felix and Alex) into the heart of the sanctum and steal the elemental stars from its chamber to relight the four elemental lighthouses in able to bring the power of Alchemy back to mankind. After failing to hand in the last elemental star, the volcano erupted and the bad guys escape, with the girl and the scholar being held hostage until they completed their mission. This event then lead to the exile of the two young heroes in which the main quest of this game actually began.....

Golden Sun is a turn-based RPG which plays very similiar to many of the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games before it unlike both of them the battle and graphics of the game look very different, but to many Shining Force players the battle scenes might look surprisingly familiar to Shining Force's battle layout when fighting against random monsters. Battles in Golden Sun takes place in a battlefield similar to other RPG but in this game the monsters are facing the players and the playable characters are facing the monster with their backs turn on the players, the camera also scroll and rotate when spells or summons were used. Since the game is turn-based, the battle system is very simple to use, player will have the upper hands in making their first move by either choosing to attack, use Psynergy Attack, retreat from battle, defend, use an item or unleash a Djinn.

After player had make all the necessary command for all their party members, the characters will attack according to how fast their agility is, if a monster's agility is faster than any of the player's characters, then they get to attack before that character can make his or her move. Perhaps the most interesting features during a battle is the Djinnis system which lets you unleash Djinni for an attack as well as summon colorful monsters to wreck havoc. Once a Djinn is use, they will appear in Standby Mode letting player had the advantage of summoning their most powerful elemetal creatures and depending on how many Djinnis are on standby, if there are more of the same elemental type, the more powerful creature are available for the player to choose, such examples are the Meteor from deep space which can be summon by putting four Mars elemental Djinnis in standby or Judgment, the might of the Apocalypse which can be summon if putting four Earth elemental Djinnis on standby. Once the Djinni are used after standby, they will automatically be on a short Recovery Mode until ready to be used again.

Another feature in Golden Sun outside of battles is the Psynergy system in which player can use to solve challenging puzzles and to help players find secret areas among other things. The Psynergy system play out with characters using a technique called Psynergy(a.k.a. Psychic Energy) which are available to them to help solve various puzzles in an area for example in the Mercury Lighthouse quest, you had to use the Psynergy called "Ply" which are already learned by the healer Mia to help push the egnite the statue to unleash the glowing platform in able to allowed the heroes to walk on water, another example is the Lunpa Quest where the heroes had to rescue Hammet from the evil thieves Dodonpa, to be able to get into Lunpa, the player had to use Cloak to turn invisible in the shadow so nobody can see them when inside the thieves prison. All in all the both the battles and the puzzles are fun and challenging.

Now if one there's one thing player will like about this game, it had to be the graphics. The graphics featured in this game are more eye candies than they are interesting, in battles, you had special effects filled the screen all the time with fire egniting, thunder bolt jolting down at enemies, claw ripping characters to pieces, colorful summons unleash giant dose of sparks to the enemies, even the backdrop is colorful and details. Outside the battles, you had the whole environment of different towns, areas, and places to interact and explore from the icy Imil region to the deep Forest of Kolima or from the Chinese style region of Xian to the burning desert of the Lamakan not to mention those beautiful landscapes of the two elemental lighthouses a top the aeries. Almost every places and areas in the game are well detail and colorful, inside houses you can see everything from book shelves to dishes to candle lights to barrels, there are even hidden surprises in almost all of them too. Since its graphics look so great in presentation, some gamers even mistake this game as a console game instead of being a handheld RPG especially when screenshots are taken.

Despite the graphics look great, Golden Sun wouldn't have ever turn out to be an epic if not for the amazing soundtracks it played during the entire chapters of the game. At the beginning of the game you heard nothing but the sounds of thunder, but near the end all you will hear great tunes even if you're still making the voyage across the Karagol Sea or fighting Saturos and Menardi a top Venus Lighthouse you'll be treated to the best tunes ever heard out of the Game Boy Advance. It will be even better if you have headphone plug in to hear all the great tunes while playing.

Another thing to say is that the control is quite simple to use in this game as well, you have the shoulder buttons for shortcuts to assigned Psynergy to be use when solving puzzle outside of battle. The A button can be use to interact, talk and search when walking around an environment, in battles, it can be used to select any given command for an attack, and the B button can be used to make the character sprint instead of walk when outside of battle, during battle it can be used to cancel command or such action. The SELECT button can be used to open up the game's inventory menu for viewing character's Psynergy, status, equipments, and items and the START button can be use to Pause the game letting player put the game to sleep for a while or to change the game configuration. The best thing about the pause menu is that it let player save the game anytime anywhere without looking for a save spot, this is a good feature to used since saving anytime can allowed the player to continue at any pont in the game where they last left off which take away the part of being confused or lost. As a handheld RPG, the freedom to able to save anywhere anytime is required unlike the many RPGs that had a different way to save.

With challenging puzzles, simple to use controls, enchanting musical scores, a great psynergy system, a deep story, a great Djinni summon system, a simple turn-based battle layout, colorful and details graphics and special effects and the freedom to be able to save make this an epic masterpice to be experience. If there is one RPG that can truly shine the light out of the Game Boy Advance, it will had to be Golden Sun.

One downside to this game though is the long dialogue conversations in which the characters are discussing what they learned or where to go next, if it include cutscene instead of the conversations then it's a perfect well shine RPG, it might be also good if player can skip these kind of boring conversations, but that's just a minor flaw. Another downside is that during battle, when player select a monster to kill, if that particular monster is being defeated before the character who were currently assigned to attack them make his or her move, instead of randomly target a nearby monsters, that character will automatically shift to defend mode which is a minor flaw for an RPG of this generation though these are only a minor problems, the game still shines through with a second sequel already in store shelves which will continue the story where this game left off.

Golden Sun is Camelot's first official RPG to Nintendo's latest portable handheld. You won't believe what you can experience here, everything introduced in Golden Sun had a unique quality to them that will even made Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest fans drool. If you are a die hard RPG lover, get this game and belive me you won't regret it. This game will blow you away and craving for more.