Golden Sun: The Lost Age

To say that I was surprised by The Lost Age's gameplay, its graphics and its music would be an understatement.  The intro is quite surprising: it's long, text-heavy and packed with confusing plot points.  Although long, the plot was only confusing to me because I have never played the original Golden Sun.  I've always wanted to, but with all of the great GBA games out there, it's kind of hard to find the time to play them all.  So I decided to start the series off with the sequel.  In doing that, I missed out on a few really cool things - players who finished the first Golden Sun can carry over their saved data onto the new game!  They can also access a few bonus side quests.  Now I have an excuse to play through The Lost Age a second time (after finishing the first game).

It's not long before the game gets going, and by that time the story begins to make a little more sense.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age is the first RPG on the GBA to use different camera angles in battle.  It's nothing on the scale of Final Fantasy VII (this game is made up of sprites, not polygons), but it look very cool.  While executing various attacks and magic spells, the camera will quickly swivel around the enemy, giving you the optimal view of the battle.  The camera does the same thing when an enemy attacks.  During these sequences, you'll notice that the animation is very smooth.  These characters may be sprites, but they never pixelate, and the game never slows down or jerks in any way.

Virtually every magic spell is a joy to watch.  The fire effect of the first summon spell is excellent, covering the whole screen with a unique-looking explosion.  Whirlwind casts a large, powerful tornado on your enemies that'll quickly deplete their life early on in the game.  Fume sends a fiery dragon out from the character's hands and onto the enemy.  Beam is like the blast attacks on Dragon Ball Z.  Sleep cleverly uses sheep to induce hibernation.  The list goes on and on.  Aside from being effective in battle and a lot of fun to cast, these spells have one thing in common: they're all graphically superior to the spells of every 16-bit RPG released for the SNES.  GBA may be a 32-bit system, but the 2D technology is only moderately above that of the SNES.  Still, Golden Sun: The Lost Age looks amazing, with more gorgeous spells than anyone could have ever expected.  Breath of Fire II and Lunar: The Silver Star Story are fabulous ports.  But play those two before playing The Lost Age and you'll see a big visual difference.

Judging by the look of the Djinn monsters, it would appear as if the developers are a big fan of Pokemon.  Djinns are Golden Sun's version of summon spells.  Their menu screen appearance is rather generic: they're short, chubby and almost cute (like a Pokemon).  But in battle, they unleash incredible magic attacks, including ice, fire and lightning.  These summon monsters are some of the most powerful, not to mention some of the most beautiful spells that this game has to offer.  Only one Djinn can be equipped to each character, but every character shares the summoning abilities.  Equipping specific Djinns to certain characters is important though, since each one has an additional power: Echo allows you to attack with double the power; Iron casts a protective shield that boosts your party's defense, etc.  These powers will temporarily enhance and/or degrade your characters' stats.  Regardless of how severe the effects are, it's usually worth it.

In using the Djinn's standard move, points will be received and accumulated at the top of the screen.  Those Djinn points are needed to unleash their true power as a summon monster.  Some Djinn only need one point to be summoned, others need several.  A small amount of strategy is involved in using the Djinn, since they can only be summoned when there are enough points, and once they've been summoned, you can't use any of their powers until after they've recovered.  They recover pretty quickly (and will be immediately healed after the battle is over), but timing their usage is still important at times.

Relating to Pokemon once more, the Djinn are "collected," not earned.  The Djinn are not overly easy to find, either; the whole game consists of six huge continents, and every area must be thoroughly explored in order to obtain every Djinn.  In terms of actual game length, The Lost Age is no longer than the 16-bit Final Fantasy's.  But the scope and size of the world is far beyond Square's earlier masterpieces.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age is a game of Square ("epic") proportions.  It may tell the story of a lost age, but that doesn't mean it should be lost in the barrel of unnoticed video game classics.  Golden Sun: The Lost Age is a must-own game for every RPG fan out there.  Pokemon isn't exactly an RPG, but if you love any of the games in that series, then surely will you be engaged by The Lost Age's involving quest.  There's tons of quests to complete, some of which aren't required to beat it, but add to the experience and extend the game's life.  I know Camelot is cooking up some hot GameCube titles, but sadly, they have not announced another Golden Sun game.  If they took this series to the 'Cube, it'd be huge!  Golden Sun is just the RPG GameCube needs.  Until that day comes (it will come someday...right Camelot?), I'll be enjoying The Lost Age, and will be picking up the first game very soon.  I suggest you do the same.

Gameplay: 8.9
Golden Sun: The Lost Age is one of the finest role-playing games developed for the GBA.  Its gameplay is fast, exciting and never boring.  Boredom is usually hard to avoid with slower-paced genres like this, but Camelot managed to keep things entertaining by including the same ingredients that Square has been using: lots of magic attacks, a good number of summon spells and beautiful battle animation, as well as some unique features not found in other RPGs.

Graphics: 8.9 
The spells in this game are unbelievable!  If consoles had not jumped from 2D to 3D in 1995, and instead continued to evolve as two-dimensional games, then this would have been what Final Fantasy VII would have looked like.  No joke -- this game is incredible looking, and it doesn't use polygons, cel-shading or any other next-gen trick!

Sound: 8.7
An RPG just isn't an RPG without a great soundtrack.  Camelot fulfilled gamers' wants with a collection of orchestral music that'll make you want to keep the volume up at all times.  The battle sound effects are good, but there is one small problem: there are no voice-overs, but every character has a cheesy sound effect that is repeatedly made when they speak (sort of like The Sims...only worse).  It's not annoying to the point of exasperation, but was it really necessary?

Difficulty: Medium
The battles aren't too difficult, but some of the puzzles will kill you!  Not literally, of course, but they are very, very difficult.  More often than not, the solution is right under your nose.

Concept: 8.5 
Golden Sun: The Lost Age is another EIE (everything is excellent) game for the GBA.  The Djinn system is great.  The only thing more fun than collecting Djinns is collecting Pokemon.  The battles are endlessly fun, and the clever camera angle changes make them even more exciting.

Multiplayer: 6.5
This is mainly a single-player game, but if you wish to take a few friends, you can via the game’s two-player battle mode.

Overall: 8.9
It's hard for me to believe that the first Golden Sun wasn't a multi-platinum hit.  Perhaps it's due to the lack of promotion (if I wasn't a hardcore gamer, I probably wouldn't even know this series existed), or maybe it's due to the name, which still hasn't received the recognition that other great RPGs have.  Regardless, Golden Sun: The Lost Age is spectacular game, one that every RPG fan should get.  It's very lengthy, very deep, and has some obvious (yet confusing) puzzles that'll drive you nuts!  The story is good, too, and the music is extremely enjoyable.