Golden Sun, after 20 years it would take a comeback

Golden Sun

Have you ever wondered how Golden Sun, one of the most popular JRPG ever and flagship for Nintendo at the time of the Game Boy Advance, was ignored by the Japanese publisher and forgotten by the vast majority of the public?

It was 1990 when a new development team called Consumer Development Studio 4 (CD4) took its first steps under the wing of SEGA. Aided by Climax Entertainment, CD4 gives birth to the first JRPG for Mega Drive, Shining in the Darkness, which also paves the way for a successful series of role-playing video games that have enjoyed some success in Japan. About five years later, the software house changes its name to Camelot Software Planning and continues on its way, on the one hand by continuing to create new chapters of its flagship series (again for SEGA consoles), on the other by crossing its path with Nintendo. and starting to work on some of the most important Mario-themed sports video games. In fact, all those Mario Golf and Mario Tennis titles that have appeared on the most varied Nintendo platforms, including the latest and most recent releases on Switch, are signed by Camelot.

Golden Sun: Isaac and his "quiet" village Precisely for this reason we tend to associate the development team almost exclusively with Mario's sports career, partly because the Shining series did not have the same success outside the Japanese territory (so much so that not all the chapters saw the light out in the West), and partly because, in fact, over the years it has been precisely the sports publications of the mustachioed plumber that have created noise around their name. Yet Camelot has also boasted the development of one of the most popular and fascinating Japanese role-playing games: twenty years later we are talking about Golden Sun, what it represented and still represents and why, at the dawn of the twentieth anniversary of the series, Nintendo should make up its mind to resurrect the franchise in some way.

The origins of Golden Sun

Aesthetically, Golden Sun still defends itself very well Published for Game Boy Advance on 1 August 2001 in Japan, November 12 of the same year in America and February 22, 2002 in Europe, Golden Sun had a rather particular genesis: initially conceived for Nintendo 64, it was catapulted onto Nintendo's new laptop when the Japanese house announced its GameCube, thus sanctioning the end of the life cycle of the 64-bit console. Precisely this change of course in the course of work represents one of the first peculiarities of the title, with the development lasting a year and a half, a time longer than that usually required at the time by a game for portable consoles. Given the low memory capacity of the cartridges, Camelot found itself having to carry out a rather clear division of the game contents, packaging the first two chapters of the series at a short distance from each other: Golden Sun and Golden Sun - The it was Lost, which was born only two years later.

The idea of ​​dividing the adventure into two parts stems from an idea already developed by Camelot with the Shining Force series: the possibility of experiencing the same story both from the point of view of the good and the bad. Here, then, that Golden Sun 2, the son of an idea that the developers considered extremely valid, puts us in the shoes of the "bad guys" (or almost) of the story of the first chapter, managing to intelligently enrich the narrative context and at the same time to expand and refine a game system that had already made players fall in love with Golden Sun. The final result does not seem absolutely "neutered" compared to the original idea of ​​publication on Nintendo 64 and, on the contrary, manages to benefit from it and improvements that, probably, would not have been otherwise.

Golden Sun: those little icons in battle are so cute! Golden Sun had a charm all its own, and at launch it was accompanied by an extremely intriguing and original TV commercial. There is an orchestra playing "In the Hall of the Mountain King" when everything in the theater begins to crumble and come to life attacking the musicians who continue to play that pressing melody. The chandelier also comes alive becoming an imposing and wonderful dragon that has become so much part of the collective imagination of fans that the developers decided to insert it as an enemy in the third chapter. The commercial ends with a simple Game Boy Advance featuring Golden Sun. What does this commercial have to do with the game? Absolutely nothing, but it is so beautiful, refined and powerful that simply by looking at it one is intrigued to delve into the game that is presented. Point in favor for Golden Sun, don't you think?

Two sides of the coin

Golden Sun: a few purchases before continuing As for the spot, Golden Sun boasts exceptional insights and well orchestrated: from the fights, with a 3D-like shot that is placed at three-quarters between the protagonists and the enemies, making the battles more dynamic and engaging. This idea is also not new to Camelot, which had already experienced something similar with Beyond the Beyond, one of the first JRPGs released on PlayStation.

The summons of Golden Sun are also beautiful But the beauty of the clashes was not simply in their presentation, but in a combat system embellished with some of the most original and characterizing ideas of the game: the Djinn. These are essentially creatures that can be "captured" in battle or obtained through secondary missions and environmental puzzles, and which represent the four elements. Water, Air, Earth and Fire. Each of these creatures can be associated with the characters of their party in such a way as to modify the statistics, the hit points, the type of Psienergy (the energy that permeates everything in the world of Golden Sun) and even the class, thus offering a huge variety of customization for each of the player characters. Not only that, as well as in battle, an "equipped" Djinn can be used in the game world to solve some puzzles thanks to the abilities it gives to the character to which it is assigned. If you think, then, that for each element there are seven different Djinn, you can imagine how many combinations of characters, moves, skills and classes are available within the title and why this type of mechanics is still one of the most successful growth mechanics today. views in the genre.

Golden Sun, the "capture" of a Djinn If up to Golden Sun, basically, the use of magic was a strictly battle-related component, with Djinns and abilities out of combat, spells acquire a whole new dimension in the exploration of the game world. We are talking about a mechanic not entirely unlike what we saw with HM and Pokémon about four years earlier, with the difference that Golden Sun makes environmental puzzles and the use of such spells the cornerstone of the construction of its game world, with a surprising variety of puzzles and situations.

Finally, but not least, it is worth mentioning the system of "transfer" of game data between the first and second chapter, which allows the party to suffer some of the effects due to the events of the other game . The transfer takes place by entering a string of 256 alphanumeric characters or through the Game Link Cable, a tool already quite widespread at the time thanks to the spread of the Pokémon phenomenon. The idea is a bit the same that makes special the two chapters of The Legend of Zelda developed by Capcom for Game Boy Color in 2001 (Oracle of Age and Oracle of Seasons) even if, although the changes to some dialogues and at the levels of some characters, what has been done with the two adventures of Link is much better from every point of view. However, a feature of this type was appreciated which, once again, we rarely see within the genre and which instead gives a strong narrative continuity and a more interesting dimension to the game story.

Time for a relaunch

Isaac on Smash has been a hope for all Golden Sun fans.We have deliberately not made any mention of the plot because the world of Golden Sun is very special and deserves, without any doubt, to be lived fast of any anticipation. The two original Golden Suns were followed in 2010 by Golden Sun: Dark Dawn for Nintendo DS: beyond the various additions related to the double screen of the console, the third chapter is nothing more than a pleasant continuation of the story. The author, Hiroyuki Takahashi, told in an interview that the idea for a third episode was born from a joke made in a moment of drunkenness, but it was probably the desire to use the double screen and the features at all costs. of the Nintendo DS to have excessively influenced the design and solving of the puzzles.

What fans would not do for a new Golden Sun Golden Sun is an exceptional series to date, and from time to time speculations and false leaks emerge about an unreleased chapter. Those who played it still remember it today as one of the best RPGs for portable consoles, while Nintendo honored the protagonists of the series with trophies and spirits in the Super Smash Bros series. Unfortunately, at the time of writing Nintendo does not seem to have any initiative related to a return of Golden Sun in the pipeline, nor with a port of the originals, nor with a remake or a new episode. Still, this year will see the return of some big names from Game Boy Advance: from Metroid Dread - which will conclude the story of Metroid Fusion - to the remake of Advance Wars, passing through a whole new episode of WarioWare. With Mario Golf: Super Rush now sidelined, who knows if Camelot's next game isn't quite Golden Sun.

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