Golden Sun returns to the DS with Dark Dawn.

User Rating: 7.5 | Golden Sun: Dark Dawn DS
If you never owned a Game Boy Advance, chances are you never played Golden Sun and its successor Golden Sun: The Lost Age. These two fine role-playing games served as some of the best RPGs ever published by Nintendo, a company not known for publishing many RPGs. Utilizing a number of elemental based powers for puzzle solving in dungeons and using spirits named djinn in combat, the Golden Sun games were revered for their wonderful gameplay. It has been roughly seven years since The Lost Age, and now the DS is graced with another Golden Sun game, Dark Dawn.

Taking place 30 years after the events of The Lost Age, Dark Dawn begins with an overconfident Tyrell, son of the legendary Warrior of Vale Garret, who tries to fly using his father's Soarwing. Inexperienced, Tyrell loses control and crash lands on the other side of a dangerous forest. His friends Matthew and Karis immediately set out to rescue him, along with Garret and Matthew's father Isaac, another Warrior of Vale. After making it to Tyrell safely, they find the Soarwing broken beyond repair, and the only way to fix it is to obtain a mountain roc's feather. The three set out across the land to obtain this feather, and like all great RPGs, their story starts out small, but becomes much bigger as they learn of a catastrophic event that could deplete the world of its energy.

There really isn't much to write home about regarding Dark Dawn's story. It's rather cliche in its conception, a group of children being born of the legendary Warriors of Vale trek across the globe fulfilling a similar destiny to their predecessors. They see new towns and meet new people of course, but the story really isn't that engaging. It's also not as localized as well as the games before it, so Dark Dawn's story line is something you'll take very seriously. One feature of its storytelling worth noting is the encyclopedia. Key characters, objects, events and locations will be underlined, and if you tap on the word, an entry will pull up on the top screen for you to learn more about it. There are also five Sun Saga books, which chronicle the more important events of the previous games. Although Dark Dawn's story isn't the best ever told, it does a great job bring newcomers up to speed and refreshing the memories of those returning after years of absence.

The game in general moves at a blistering pace, too fast for an RPG, which is an odd thing to state. The majority of the game is rather linear, and it only opens up in the last quarter when you get your ship and begin to sail the seas. You'll progress very quickly from one town to another, thanks to the very low encounter rate of random battles. Although it might seem nice to walk such a distance without being sucked into a fight, the negative side of fighting less is of course not leveling up much and not earning enough coin. You traverse from one town to the next so quickly, you've barely earned the funds to outfit your party with the newest gear.

The upside to the low encounter rate is that dungeon crawling is rather laid back. There are puzzles everywhere, and you'll be doing a lot of maneuvering and backtracking to manipulate objects with your Psynergy powers. The puzzles, however, are all rather straightforward so it never takes you much time to fly through one dungeon and move on to the next. Even then, one major reason for dungeon crawling is to gather up experience points to level your crew, which is hard to do when the dungeons are over in the blink of an eye.

Thankfully, you don't need to level grind much, as the combat is rather easy. If you're familiar with the Golden Sun games, then you know of the djinn; elemental-based spirits that attach themselves to your characters and bestow benefits to your party and aid in attacks. Every time you use a djinn, it enters standby mode, and if you have enough djinn of a certain type available, you can use them to summon even stronger spirits. These summons are so well done in both their design and execution, they belong in a Final Fantasy game. Proper use of these djinn ensures survival in even some of the toughest fights. The final boss, however, may prove to be a different story, as he can quickly decimate your entire party in just a few turns. Sadly, a good bit of level grinding needs to be done at the very end if you don't want to throw your DS into a wall out of frustration.

Speaking of djinn, there are a lot of them; 72 in total, which makes this installment the most populated Golden Sun in terms of djinn. Seeking them out is just as fun as ever, but you're highly encouraged to use a walkthrough because some of them, along with the more advanced summons, are permanently missable. You'll need to really understand and experiment with the djinn to find out what gives you the optimal performance, because your class and spells set changes depending on what djinn each character is using. Powerful spells and impressive summons aside, each character can learn weapon skills by continuously attacking with that weapon. Some of the later weapon skills can be even more powerful than your strongest djinn.

There are some minor issues with the game, though. Although the style is clearly reminiscent of old-school RPGs, that doesn't necessarily mean it needs to play like one. For instance, there's no auto-attack, meaning you have to select each and every decision every single time, even if it's nothing but attacking. This causes a lot of tap-tap-tapping on your screen. There is also no communal inventory, meaning every character carries their own equipment and items, and this causes trouble sometimes in battle when you need a specific item, but the character who had it has been knocked out.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn can be played entirely on the touch screen. Just hold the stylus down on the touch screen in the direction you want Matthew to go, and he moves there. Tap on an object to examine or a person to talk to, and he does it. Tap on commands in battle, and tap on the enemies you want to combat, and it's quickly executed. Simple. You can even assign Psynergy powers to a couple of shortcuts that you can tap on, but considering there are scores of different powers, only having two shortcuts available seems like a crime.

In battle, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn flexes the most out of the DS's muscles. Characters and enemies are built well and animated smoothly, but it's the summon sequences that steal the show. From their dramatic entrances to their devastating attacks, they are a sight to behold. The environments are also beautiful from afar, but the game loses a great deal of luster when the camera zooms in close. Characters are very blocky, with hands being made up of nothing but triangles and textures becoming heavily pixelated. Still, the game's full of color so it's always very palatable for the eyes.

Golden Sun is also pleasing to the ears, with a wonderful soundtrack. Every piece fits its own environment to the tee, with cheery jazz music during festivals and adventurous themes when romping through the overworld. Some of the best tracks come from the dungeons, making you really get into the spirit of dungeon crawling. The sound effects are pretty decent, but considering the aging hardware running the game, it's hard to really impress in this facet. There's also no voice acting to be had, further sealing the game's old-school RPG feel.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is another excellent chapter in the Golden Sun franchise, although it is rough around the edges. It needed a stronger story and better pacing to keep the player engaged outside of gameplay. Because the gameplay - namely the combat - is still so much fun, Dark Dawn remains highly addictive from level one to whatever level you decide to stop grinding to. Plus, Crossbone Island has returned after you finish the game, which gives you an incredibly difficult boss fight for those looking for a real challenge. If you're a fan of the Golden Sun series, or just looking for a solid RPG on the DS, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is a safe purchase.