Golden Sun Switch Review
Reviewing Golden Sun is a bittersweet task for me. With the way my memory issues work, my brain tells me I really liked this game, yet I remember nothing of it. Playing it brought up a lot of emotions of sadness and frustration because I don’t remember the person who played it all the way back in the early 2000s, but also joy from rediscovering this long-forgotten classic. What’s it like? Don’t worry about asking your parents to grab some AA batteries for your Gameboy Advance, kick back, and reminisce as we review Golden Sun for the GBA App on Nintendo Switch.
For this review, our scoring system will be adjusted to the hardware of the original release.
Golden Sun is a classic JRPG in its purest form from Camelot Software and Nintendo, who brought us the subliminal Mario Golf RPG on the Gameboy Advance. The story follows Issac, an adept who can use Synergy, an almost telepathic-like magic his village has sworn to protect with secrecy. On the 3rd anniversary of a tragedy that almost destroyed the village, peace is once again shattered by the arrival of 2 mysterious strangers. This sets off a turn of events that sees Isaac and close friend Garret leave the shelter of Mt Aleph to restore and recover the power of the elemental stars and bring peace back to the world. Along the way, they forge friendships, solve puzzles, and fight through hordes of enemies to achieve their goals. It may seem like a tried and true RPG trope, but it’s a well-told story that kept me engaged where most RPGs tend to lose me by overdoing expository dialogue and burying you with too many mechanics and tutorials.
There is one exception to my previous statement, and that is the prologue, which does have a tendency to feature a lot of back-and-forth, exposition, and tedium. It’s a shame as some players may be put off and never complete the game, nbut I implore you to battle on until you leave Mt Aleph, which opens up the game and mechanics into the wonderful adventure it is.
The gameplay features some devious puzzles including multi-level dungeons, an excellent turn-based combat battle system, and its rather unique “Djinn” elemental system. Throughout the world are small creatures called “Djinn” who belong to one of 4 elemental types, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn, or Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. Setting these Djinn to your characters increases their stats and performs either a strong elemental attack, or gives your party some defensive or offensive buffs. Using a Djinn then sets them to standby, allowing you to use their elements to summon further attacks before re-setting them to their respective characters. Multiple Djinn elements can also allow powerful summons, akin to the Final Fantasy. This system adds a fair amount of strategy and depth to combat, buffing the party, and then balancing standby elements for summons or attacks.
Your characters also have a range of magic and physical attacks that can be used both in and out of combat. The higher the level, the more proficient at their job they become, starting with casting a simple flare, to channeling the destructive power of a volcano. All the standard gear and equipment systems are also in place to help strengthen your characters, and the game manages to maintain a consistent difficulty curve throughout your adventure.
Graphically, Golden Sun pushed the GBA to its limits, remembering the hardware was based on technology similar to the Super Nintendo architecture. The game features some incredible spell effects, detailed sprites, and a huge world to explore. The game uses stylised animations to accentuate critical or heavy hits, making you feel like you are dishing out some punishment, and the camera pans during some spell effects, giving the game an almost 3D feel. These sorts of features were ahead of their time back in the day, and to me, they still hold up to this day as an immersive experience.
Speaking of immersion, the game’s musical score is very well done considering the limitations of the hardware. It ranges from a relaxing tempo while strolling through the green fields of the world map, to expertly building tension and creating a sense of urgency when the walls crumble around you. Motoi Sakuraba did a stellar job of conveying the chaos and calm of the world of Golden Sun with this epic score.
There are some modern improvements on the GBA app that make Golden Sun an even better experience on the Nintendo Switch. You can create and restore save points like with all the other titles, making saving so much easier, and you can emulate the “old school” visuals by giving the game a dot matrix overlay. While people might ask why you should do this, it actually makes the game look better while docked in my opinion, and both modes look great on the smaller display. The Switch version of Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age will allow you to emulate the link cable to “transfer” your save across, but I will talk about that more when I get to reviewing the sequel.
Golden Sun will take you about 20-30 hours to finish, depending on how fast you travel through the story. There’s plenty to explore, levels to unlock, and Djinn to collect. I spent a lot of my playthrough talking to villagers and NPCs to uncover as much as I could about the world and everyone has something to say… of varying usefulness. It’s clear Camelot and Nintendo carefully crafted this world with love, and a lot of attention to make something amazing that still holds up in my opinion, to today’s tough standards.
Golden Sun is an incredible game that I have been fortunate to experience “for the first time” again. It’s an enthralling story that may have some common tropes, but it’s engaging and rapidly moving. You care about the characters in the world, which are full of charm and personality. Its unique systems are interesting and simple to use, allowing for a fun adventure full of puzzles, magic, and intrigue. Since it’s free to all members of Nintendo Switch online, it’s really not hard at all to encourage everyone to give it a go, and collectively cross our fingers that Nintendo revisits this dormant franchise and brings more people into the world of Golden Sun.
