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Forums > Submission Feedback > True's Golden Sun: Dark Dawn review

This thread is in response to a review for Golden Sun: Dark Dawn on the DS. You are encouraged to view the review in a new window before reading this thread.

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Author: jerec
Posted: March 28, 2011 (03:06 AM)
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I thought the game was quite playable, probably leaning towards a 7 myself. But yeah, I can't disagree with anything you said here. The story absolutely lacks direction. The fact that the villains only appear once within the first 15 hours of story does not help.


I can avoid death by not having a life.

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Author: CoarseDragon
Posted: March 28, 2011 (12:34 PM)
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I did have fun playing the game and did not feel the same way as you - entirely. However I will say that some of what you said is true. The puzzles were simple and dungeons were pretty short, while dialog was pretty "windy" at times. The problem is that this is a trend we are seeing in many games. I'll call it the "casual player syndrome". Seems to me most companies are trying to appeal to many more gamers so games are getting more simple in design and play. I recall in the original games there were some puzzles that were kind of head-scratchers but none of those to be seen in this game.

There were enough good parts to the game I don't think I'd give the game a three but it surely is not much over six. I'm not so sure I'd blame Camelot Software Planning so much as I would blame Nintendo.

A good review but I just do not agree with your score.


Age is a condition not a state of mind.

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Author: True
Posted: March 28, 2011 (04:10 PM)
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Thanks for the comments Jerec and Coarse. I appreciate them.

I don't normally say this, but I would be interested to see someone else review this one and get their opinions. I hated it. Everything I was looking for in a Golden Sun game was either missing or I had seen it before. I was just very disappointed all around. If it was a stand alone game, it would have garnered a higher score, but given that it was a sequel to a very strong franchise it was just...tragic.


If I Offended You, You Needed It.

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Author: jerec
Posted: March 28, 2011 (04:48 PM)
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I started a review a couple of months ago. I'd planned to finish writing it when I finished the game, but I've been drifting aimlessly on the seas (with random encounters every few seconds) after some big mid-way event, without the slightest idea of where I need to go next.


I can avoid death by not having a life.

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Author: honestgamer
Posted: March 29, 2011 (12:48 AM)
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So Princess of Landover is worth skipping, huh?


"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world2

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Author: CoarseDragon
Posted: March 29, 2011 (11:25 AM)
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I understand what you mean True. Although I did play both Golden Sun games, even transferred characters with all those crazy codes, I vaguely remember the games, bits and pieces really. As I played Dark Dawn and started to remember the other games I started looking for new things but as you say there were none, I don't think there were even any new Summons added. I think they did a disservice to the series because that sense of adventure from the original games was missing. Early on there was to much backtracking and sailing around in the ship later in the game was a bit boring. There were good parts though; the beast girl was interesting (except maybe for Slap).


Age is a condition not a state of mind.

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Author: True
Posted: March 29, 2011 (12:20 PM)
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Coarse: Track was also kind of cool. I kind of forgot about that.

Jason: It's not horrible. Even on a bad day, Brooks is one of the greatest Fantasy writers of all time in my opinion. If you've followed the Landover series as religiously as I and a lot of others have you know he really tied everything up with Witches' Brew.

I would be interested to see if he writes another one later on, but Princess was not what I've waited over a decade for. Part of it seems like he's passing the torch from Ben to Misty in order to continue the series. It centers mostly around her and introduces a lot of new ideas and places without making any real reference to the past story or even the characters we know and love. I thought at first he was trying to create a brand new series, one that would eventually lead to Shannara, but he doesn't really spark anything that could be expanded on, if that makes sense. Any questions he poses or any enemies he introduces are taken care of by the end.

That's why I still get the impression that it was a story he didn't necessarily want or need to tell, but because he felt pressure to write and he didn't have any real ideas for.

It's a really long, somewhat dull epilogue to Witches' Brew.

Better put, it's no Defiant Light.


If I Offended You, You Needed It.

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Author: overdrive (Mod)
Posted: March 30, 2011 (11:30 AM)
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True
This is the game you were requesting I review (although my lack of a DS kinda hurts as far as that goes), wasn't it?

I was reading your review and the funny thing is that I got the idea you must have had a lot warmer and fuzzier memory of the first two GS games. I haven't played the second GBA one yet, but I did play the first and a lot of what you said about this one (particularly the dialogue) was how I felt about it. It just seemed that every time you did anything, you'd have a lot of circular conversation between your one-dimensional characters to set everything up. It was a decent game that could have been good if not for all that. I have a bit of trauma still from the boat ride from one continent to the next. Two nobody NPCs that disappeared from the game after you got across the ocean got a TON of dialogue and the trip took forever because you'd have little monster attacks on a regular basis. Guh...


I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle

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Author: CoarseDragon
Posted: March 30, 2011 (11:46 AM)
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The Golden Sun series was not an awesome series to be sure but it did at the time have something no one else had and that was the Djinn and being able to change classes on the fly by switching those Djinn around. Then the next big draw for the series was being able to transfer your characters or different parts of the game to the next game. Those are the things I found good about the game. Although I thought crafting in Dark Sun was lacking the other games as I recall, and I could be wrong, seemed much better.


Age is a condition not a state of mind.

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Author: True
Posted: March 30, 2011 (07:13 PM)
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O.D.: It was yeah and I think you still should. You're one of the great RPG reviewers and I'm curious about your opinion on it since you weren't the biggest fan of the first two. I think a lot of my hatred stemmed from the fact I was disappointed in what the series had become, so it would be interesting to see another review from a somewhat neutral standpoint.


If I Offended You, You Needed It.

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Author: asherdeus
Posted: April 05, 2011 (01:27 AM)
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I almost stopped reading this after the Rosie O'Donnell comment.

I liked this review. I thought in the first two paragraphs that you spent a little too much time saying the same thing. But then you ramp up, and your last paragraphs perfectly captured my own frustration with the game. I am amazed you played it for so long; I gave up about 5 hours in and haven't looked back. They just kept saying the same thing over and over again, unnecessarily explaining things and then reexplaining and then clarifying and ... Oh my fucking God, just shut up and let me play! And I don't think the original Golden Sun or The Lost Age were that bad at it, either. If they were, you were right in that their game worlds and plots were so much more interesting that we were able to ignore the ugliness.

Oh, and Facebook gets a capital F. Good work, True.


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Author: jerec
Posted: April 05, 2011 (02:22 AM)
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There's one thing a lot of RPGs are guilty of in dialogue that I wish we could just move past already. It's when a character says something, and then another character basically repeats it word for word, except as a question. Twice as much dialogue to say the one thing.


I can avoid death by not having a life.

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Author: joseph_valencia
Posted: April 05, 2011 (08:01 AM)
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Japanese people apparently do that. It's something localizers should weed out when porting games to Western markets, but they seem to get lazy.


JOSEPH VALENCIA was able to build this sig IN A CAVE…… WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!!

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Author: True
Posted: April 05, 2011 (04:45 PM)
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Thanks for the feedback, Ash. I fixed that capital F debacle but I will have to look at the first two paragraphs and see how I can clean them up when I have more time. I appreciate you pointing that out though.


If I Offended You, You Needed It.

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