Golden Sun: The Lost Age (Game Boy Advance) review "Truly golden"

I remember reading magazine articles (remember those?) and salivating over the details of Golden Sun, a two-game roleplaying experience. One title took you on an adventure that felt like a throwback to SNES epics, and the other would continue the story started by its predecessor. Many of us were stoked, at least until we played through the first one. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't a poor game by any means, but its campaign mostly consisted of filler. It didn't exactly leave some of us pining for a continuation, especially one that required two Game Boy Advances and a link cable to transfer data from the first outing.

...or a lengthy password that was a royal pain in the ass to write down and enter.

The initial installment sent you on a quest with your usual, silent, teenage swordsman in Isaac. He and his friends sought to prevent a group of villains, which partly consisted of folks he knew personally, from activating elemental lighthouses. With all of them restored to power, the magical art of alchemy would be released, which was kind of bad news for humanity. You see, humans have a tendency to kill each other over resources, and when you have spells able to transform them into something more valuable, that only exacerbates political situations and alliances. The world fell into war, and sealing alchemy the planet's only chance at survival. Undoing that could have catastrophic consequences...

At the same time Isaac and his crew set out, so did one of his old friends: Felix. However, Felix stood in opposition to the primary protagonist, leading us to believe that he had turned heel. However, everything you thought you knew about the tale was about to be turned on its head, and rightly so. In fact, Golden Sun: The Lost Age turns everything about its antecedent upside down, and so, so much for the better...

Felix fills the role of silent protagonist this time around, with supporting characters Jenna and Sheba slotting into the party and Kraden offering commentary now and then. Together, they embark on a mission completely opposite of Isaac's. Felix hopes to ignite the lighthouses, believing this objective to be the true altruistic choice. Part of you begins this piece still wanting and hoping for Isaac to be right and for Felix to change his tune. However, the further you delve, the more you begin to question Isaac's mission... and it feels great to do so! This concept leads to more conflict than merely brave, eager teens saving the world from your run-of-the-mill power monger, and it's refreshing.

Here's the thing: Felix's crew isn't exactly evil. They believe what they're doing is right, and events that unfold support that assumption. Suddenly, the main antagonists from the last adventure look less like cartoony villains out to rule the world and more like desperate people caught in a struggle where failure meant their doom. Somehow, knowing things aren't exactly black-and-white or straightforward makes that first cartridge feel worthwhile after all. Many of its more cliched points seem to have beeen established only to be twisted, and I'm here for it.

It sounds like things have changed this time around, but they truly remain the same at their core. You still command a team of four warriors in turn-based battles, with all the same menu options and perks. In other words, you still find djinn, which are collectible creatures that bolster stats and alter characters' classes and magic; locate special psychic abilities called “Psynergy,” which allow you to manipulate environmental stimuli, like moving blocks or freezing puddles of water; build an ensemble based on a combination of specialty equipment and djinn assignment, sometimes disregarding each ally's innate elemental properties for unique effects and customization...

And yet, it's all very different this time around because other elements have been arranged more carefully. Bosses are no longer the pushovers they once were, now requiring more strategy and attention to honing your troops rather than charging in recklessly. Hell, one guy wrecked me good because I went in with that mentality, not expecting a never-ending wave of henchmen combined with a steep shift in strategy as the boss grew weaker.

Yes, even dungeons are improved this time around. The grounds that hold the bosses now stand as large puzzles to solve, a la Zelda. You make use of numerous Pynergies to maneuver items, reveal hidden clues, ignite flammable substances, or even teleport. Each dungeon offers branching pathways with various tasks to complete, be it readjusting a platform or blowing leaves away from a ladder, that in turn affect progress in other pathways. Plus, exploration remains key to uncovering useful and often rare equipment.

Hell, I'll even go so far as to say the whole world is laid out like this. The previous title sent you down a linear route with little deviation on offer. Sure, it provided its share of side quests, but it came across as awfully restricted nonetheless. Lost Age boasts a much bigger world, and it doesn't blatantly push you in any direction. You make a lot of progress through this one via discovery by daring to take routes that hold special dungeons or towns that no NPC ever mentioned. Your party doesn't convene at an inn and spell out for you where you to go next. You just hop in your ship and set sail, or you pad down the road to see what lies on the other side of the mountains, or you ignore signs telling you you're going the wrong way.

What do you gain from such audacity? New Psynergies, legendary weaponry, djinn, and side events that enrich the franchise's story and lore more than its predecessor could ever hope to...

Of course, you also get long hours spent traveling in real time. I know you read “teleport” above and thought Camelot finally got wise and instituted fast traveling, but don't get too excited. You only receive this Psyngery from the final dungeon, just before prepping for the last boss. So you spend your first thirty or so hours painfully walking or sailing from one point to another, and back, and back, and back...

Yet, that's the only complaint I can dredge up. Sure, it's a significant one later in the proceedings, when you finally gain access to the full map and have side quests all over the place. All the same, it's nice to see Camelot stepped up their game this time around and delivered an experience that should've been had in the first place. Sadly, there's only one follow-up to this piece, and from there the devs went whole hog on creating zany sports and party titles. That's a shame, because I'd love to see Camelot get back into the RPG business full swing.

Staff review by Joseph Shaffer (July 06, 2024) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.