My first Golden Sun experience, but certainly not my last.
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is beautiful role playing game with loads to offer. Its richly developed fantasy world, multiple head-scratching puzzles, and djinn collecting initiative make Golden Sun a strongly recommendable game for any NDS owner.
Dark Dawn is a sequel to the previous Golden Sun games, featuring the children of the original heroes, as they take up the mantle to save the world as their parents once had.
The highlights of this game rests in its delightful gameplay. When you explore a dungeon, you are forced to look at its environment, working with your set abilities to get through a maze full of puzzles. Although the puzzles usually have a straightforward solution, they are clever and fun to solve.
Dark Dawn employs the typical JRPG battling system, but with a wider room for skill customization using your djinns, elemental spirits that enable certain spells and summons. Assigning different combination of djinns produce a variety of abilities for each character, encouraging constant djinn customization. Collecting these cute critters, which can be found scattered all over the place, is an addicting and rewarding experience.
Random battles aren't as stifling in Dark Dawn as with other JRPGs, and the bosses aren't so hard to beat. Despite what others are saying about it, the menu system seems simple, quick, and accessible; flowing with the gameplay rather than disrupting it.
You can save at any point in the game, which is a huge plus when you are on the go. Everything about Dark Dawn is polished into a fun gaming experience. However, it has its trying moments.
There is no doubt that the world of Golden Sun was carefully thought out; it is steeped with myth, history, lore, and a variety of characters. Unfortunately, this all becomes apparent through Golden Sun's text and heavy dialogue.
The dialogue in this game can become very dense and very long. There are helpful mini-links within said dialogues, which you can click on for additional information but the amount of terms, names, and places can become overwhelming.
For those who enjoy storytelling and character banter might truly appreciate this part of the game, but for others who just wish to proceed with the game can often be frustrated by lengthy speeches and excessive explanations.
However, this does not necessarily mean that the story itself is tedious in any way. There is a charming sense of adventure and epic-ness as your characters journey through mountains, forests, and villages. Meeting new characters, unlocking special weapon abilities, and finding hidden treasures all add to the exploration of Dark Dawn's magical world.
This is my first jab at the Golden Sun games and I am glad that I finally played it. As a wary newcomer, I believe Dark Dawn stands on its own as a memorable game. Though not incredibly innovative, the game is just plain fun.