Golden Sun: Dark Dawn reviews

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4.5 out of 5 stars Based on 41 Customer Ratings

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"The best ^^" Purchased on Mighty Ape

I've played the golden sun games on the Gameboy advance. And then tried this out. The graphics are amazing, the gameplay is awesome and I would definantly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a good RPG!

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
"Alsome RPG"
5 stars"
Purchased on Mighty Ape

I have Played and loved the first two games so its cool to see the charters when they are older .

The game play graphics for this game is legendary as usual the story, the weapons, the Psyenergy make so good. I can never stop liking the golden sun series.

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
"So much potential."
3 stars"
Purchased on Mighty Ape

To those who played the excellent Golden Sun GBA games, ‘Dark Dawn’ might seem like a bit of a step backwards, rather than a logical progression forwards for the series.

Taking place 30 years after the previous titles, we follow the children of the ‘Warriors of Vale’ on a quest to save the world of Weyard. There's psynergy, djinn and plenty of text.

If most of the above sounded foreign to you, don't worry. While a LOT happened in the GBA games, Kamelot has put serious of effort into the new encyclopaedia feature which updates you on everything you missed. So it's easy for new people to get into Dark Dawn's universe, even if you haven't played the first two games like I have.

The Golden Sun series has always featured a good balance in game play. Half the fun is had solving the puzzles of the areas you enter and intelligently utilizing your psynergy (effectively magic). While the other half is the standard turn-based RPG battling affair. Both halves do work well, but are slightly broken by the new additions of a ‘tell me the answer’ psynergy and the inclusion of such a large amount of battle characters. So it comes across as well-designed, but particularly un-challenging.

Unfortunately, something the Golden Sun series has always struggled to find a good balance for is its text. There is a TON of dialogue on this game. Characters will tend to drone on about plot points and devices which have already been discussed or don't even need to be discussed. There's a small warning on the back of the game box saying “Basic reading ability is needed for full enjoyment of this game”, and it's very true. The somewhat underwhelming story is often what drives the action, so you'll need to pay good attention to all that text as well.

If you were reading carefully you might have picked up on the words “un-challenging” and “underwhelming” written above. Sadly, this sums up my opinion of the game.

There was a huge amount of potential here for an epic return to a previously well-handled franchise, but I was left wanting more. The storyline is largely filler text and shamelessly sets up for a sequel, not all the characters have enough game time to become fully realised and developed, and the gameplay was fun and generally interesting but unchallenging.

As much as I hate shameless sequel set-ups, I really hope that when they do make it, it will be the modern day ‘Lost Age’. In other words, a vast improvement.

7/10 – Raydon Marshall.

3 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
"Must have for Nintendo" Purchased on Mighty Ape

Beautiful game with awesome character development