@wasneeplus There were ancient civilizations that invented the wheel. The wheel wasn't invented 300 years ago or whatever the mainstream archeologists believe. There's a temple in India that's estimated to be about 5,000 years old and there's a depiction of a wheel there as well as a lion hybrid that was thought to have gone extinct like 130,000 years ago. So yeah "someone" or some "group" doesn't want us to know our past or origin point.
@@kennymichaelalanya7134 if there's indeed a depiction of a wheel dating to 5000 years ago, then that's perfectly in line with current estimates of mainstream archaeology. It seems you are just completely unaware of what archeologists actually say, and that's not anyone's fault but yours. As for the rest, I have no idea what you're on about. Lion hybrids haven't gone extinct; they've never existed outside of human breeding programs.
So many years later and I still just absolutely love these games. I don’t care what console it would happen on, if a fourth ever gets made I will be there day 1 playing that game.
I'll be joining you there! I'm really hoping with the revival of games like the Bravely Default series on Switch that we'll get more classic JRPG series as well.
I feel that dark dawn gets flak because they did the same thing as the first golden sun ending but without as much reason to most people. But I do see the reason. Golden sun was one game broken into two when they had to move development from the N64 to the GBA. I always view the series as an incomplete trilogy. The gba games are the first one. DD is the second. I want the third so bad so I can see myself and all my old friends finishing Alex’s ambitions off or seeing them realized.
Little tip: if you have Jenna in the main party, with felix and isaac in the backrow, her theme will replace the normal battle theme. Likewise if you have isaac but not felix in the active party, you'll get GS 1 battle theme
@@Zerbraxi Totally, otherwise the only way is in the battle mode sound test (Press one of the shoulder buttons while talking to a girl on the left side for those who never tried :p)
1 year later, but: The thing with Yallam is that its actually the closest main town to Lemuria, which the devs assumed you would beeline to. And once you get kicked out of the currents outside Lemuria... you end up almost outside Yallam. Likewise, once you get past the currents and fail at defeating Poseidon, the currents throw you out in the direction of Briggs' town, Champa. Which you would visit anyways if you want to find him after his last appearance.
Damn, that makes so much sense but oh boy did I miss that lol. Sometimes the curse of giving players freedom is that they'll just completely miss all the hints...whoops!
I am still eagerly waiting for a Golden Sun 4 (Or a remake of Golden Sun 1 and 2 merged into 1 full story). Might not happen, but only time will tell. 😅
When I did air's rock for the first time as a teen I thought I was in a fever dream. It's what the fuck levels of long and complex for being one of the first dungeons. Probably the longest in the entire series.
It's such a cool dungeon that opens a lot of potential to puzzle solving methodology in Golden Sun, but I totally think it was put in the wrong spot of the game. It should've been after the halfway mark. I've heard of so many people just getting completely stuck there and being turned off. I'm REALLY glad that Lost Age went way deeper into the dungeon design, but Air's Rock is just in the wrong spot.
@@ZerbraxiI've read goldensun 1 and goldensun the lost age are meant to be 1 game for nintendo 64 , but it was split to two just for it to fit in GBA that explains why air rock is that hard because it was really mid party of the game
If i recall correctly, the original and Lost Age were supposed to be one game but due to system limitations and not being used to the hardware it was split into two games. God, i want this rereleased as a collection. XD Great video, i'm subscribing.
Happy to be aboard! While I don't share the same nostalgia, I'm now developing new memories for these titles. So far those memories have been overwhelmingly wonderful.
One (Atlantis) was in the Atlantic Ocean, and the other (Lemuria) was in the Pacific. Lemuria is actually a sunken sister continent to Atlantis. Atlantis sunk into the Atlantic Ocean while Lemuria into the Pacific. Some scientist thought Lemurs came from there.
I will forever regret the day I so confidently made a running Atlantis joke in this video lol. Though I have learned so much more about Lemuria than I ever thought possible from all of it so that's good at least. Joking aside, I do appreciate the info. It's rather cool :)
@@Zerbraxi Haha! While I typed that I did have two thoughts on the back of my head...That maybe people have told you about this or "He might have meant to hold the SARCASTIC sign on his head". But yeah, one was made by a philosopher and another by a zoologist trying to explain the origin of Lemurs. Weird how mythology and zoology mixed like that. Keep up the good work.
Thank you for the compliment! I remember liking the original game, but never expected to like The Lost Age so dang much. Ive been "warned" a lot about Dark Dawn, but I'm still excited to check it out.
Dark Dawn is actually very solid. It's just that it sold terribly so the plans for the sequel never went through, leaving DD on a mega cliffhanger that now leaves everyone with narrative blue balls :c
I don't want to say too much on my thoughts before the video releases, but now having 100% completed Dark Dawn....I've definitely been blue balls'd and I only just finished it lol.
They might be working on a fourth golden sun game.The leaker who said a mario sports game was launching in the first half of 2021 and he was right about it, he also said a golden sun game is/was in development so who knows...
What I don't like about this game is that we never discover what happened to Isaac and Co's Boat that they took to reach Jupiter Lighthouse as well as the fact that Isaac and Co. never got any stronger between Venus Lighthouse and Jupiter Lighthouse. It also doesn't help that their own Black Orb takes up an Inventory Slot.
Ohh!! Those are both incredibly interesting points to bring up. The party not getting stronger is a tough one because there's an equally awesome experience by having the party be at the exact same strength as when you, the player, last interacted with them.
I can confirm that Dark Dawn isn't that bad, it's actually a great game with a few flaws that have been blown out of proportions. Legitimate flaws, but some that are only exacerbated by the lack of a sequel of its own. Kind of as if Golden Sun never had Golden Sun: The Lost Age to complete it.
Glad to hear your thoughts on the matter. I'm trying to go in with as open of a mind as possible. I attempt that for every video, but I'm especially going to try and be fair to a contentious title. In any case, I'm still really excited to eventually play through it.
@@Zerbraxi Going in with a strategy guide is likely the right call to avoid the one thing most people complain about, but even if that happens reach out to the speedrunning community, earlier in the year they found relatively easy workarounds so you could use those if need be :)
my biggest problem with Dark Dawn is that the difficulty of the game is subpar. Like, seriously, the only time I struggled a bit while playing was when I fought the final boss... and I still beat it first try.
@@thetwelfthdoctor9892 Yes, the main reason is that they give you too many ressources early on. When putting some challenges/restrictions on it's much more fun. (no artifact weapon, or no summon rushing etc)
Not many people talk about this, but I think it's really worth mentioning that the creators of the game had to write at least 2 dialogs for each NPC because of the mind reading psinergy. BTW, Ninja class (which in my opinion is the best for Jenna) has a psinergy called Gale, which works the same as Whirlwind outside of battle.
Ya the 2 dialogs is an interesting one for sure and a really awesome attention to detail that really expands the world itself and sometimes gives a significantly deeper insight into some of the characters or events. Another game that does something similar is Legend of Dragoon, where almost every NPC has 2 things to say. Sometimes the second dialog is just expanding the world, the character themselves, or to provide more context that players just "clicking through" would miss.
Actually 90% of the time, they just took the dialog they wrote and split it into two parts. It's rare for it to actually be dialogue that fits within the concept of "Mind Reading"
With the iron boots comparison, when in a dungeon you can set 2 shortcuts to the shoulder buttons. So you can freely have 2 psynergies always availble without menu navigation. This is specifically for those long dungeons. This was also a feature in GS1 btw
Very true and I definitely should've mentioned that. It does help mitigate that complaint I had a bit. There are still some dungeons though where you rotate through like 4-5 psynergies constantly and it's a bit rough. Though, honestly, really not a big complaint in the grand scheme of things.
As someone who played the game a long time ago, I don't recall having as much trouble identifying the use of the trident. In fact, I seem to recall that I had all 3 pieces, knew what I needed them for, knew where I had to go to get it, but got stuck (temporarily) trying to figure out how to get Briggs out of jail. Took me way too long to try burst. What might have made a difference though is that my copy of the game came with a small map of the world, which showed most of the eastern sea locations. The western locations were also present, but not labeled. This likely helped a lot because I could see the 3 towers holding the trident pieces. One final note is that there is a fortune teller in Naribwe (I think I spelled it right) who can give you hints.
I was gonna mention the fortune teller but it becomes incredibly time consuming to revisit her after you start hitting the 10 hour mark, but I love the idea of her. Maybe one in each major town could've been a good solution. I swear I must've missed something about the trident. Everything else was directed decently well but I legit had no clue what that trident was for quite a while. That map must've been really cool and helpful. Thanks for sharing that.
@@Zerbraxi To be fair, he (I think characters in game refer to him as male despite his appearance) doesn't have much of anything new to say after visiting Lemuria. He'll hint to Djinn locations, but for most else he'll just say that you should go west.
This duo is one of my most beloved games of all time, and it was a joy to watch you come to the same conclusion! Glad to have you as a fellow fan. We may never get more games but at least we can share I the awe of this pair. I always loved the psynergy puzzle-based exploration and how much there is to discover all over the world. My experience with the trident pieces was definitely similar to yours in that I didn’t know what I was collecting them for when I got the first 1-2, but I don’t recall feeling particularly lost about it because I was just going all over the place wherever I hadn’t explored yet. However that may be a factor of having been 13 or 14 at the time instead of playing as an adult. That’s it, I’m replaying these!
I knew I would end up liking The Lost Age, but I didn't expect it love it as much as I did. The puzzle solving and use of Psynergy is top notch. I don't get upset or frustrated when getting lost usually. It takes quite a bit of time before I'm genuinely ready to just look up the solution. As I mentioned in the video, it was several nights of playing before I finally just used the guide to figure out the last piece. However, it's also the fact that I'm playing these games to make a video from them that definitely adds a certain pressure to finish a game "on time". It's a weird thing, but I also try to make sure I don't let that bias twist my thoughts, which is why I try to be sure to mention the good part of the exploration too. Here's to seeing how Dark Dawn came out. I'm not jumping into it immediately, but should hopefully be within the next couple months or so.
@@Zerbraxi dark dawn in my opinion commits the grave sin of feeling like it doesn’t take place in the same world as the first two but keeps saying it is. Part of the problem is that TLA pretty much showed you the whole world, so there isn’t much room for suddenly adding hitherto unheard of cities and ancient societies unless they’re meant to have been hidden somehow. I tried replaying it a few years ago and couldn’t stay interested
Good to know. My biggest fear whenever I play a game for a video is that I won't have much to say because the product is just bland and forgettable. We'll see how it goes when we get there :)
I still play the Golden Sun Duology once a year from A to Z. It's one of the most obvious signs of it being such a brilliant game series. But to me, it isn't really a Duology, but more a single, grand game into two cartridges. It would have been too big to combine both masterpieces into one GBA cassette. My first time playing it was back in 2001. I was in sixth grade. I am now 33 and still play the games on my phone. No JRPG ever came close to Golden Sun for me.
I have a friend who feels the exact same way. He actually doesn't even like JRPGs , EXCEPT for Golden Sun which he adores. It's so funny how this series hits some people in such a special way.
A lot of people like GS1 more than 2, which is understandable, but I like the "endgame" of GS2 more. Being able to much more easily revisit old areas (via boat hovering) was great, and searching for the multi elemental summons was super satisfying. Oh god that invalid password moment unlocked a core memory for me. I spent so so long trying to make it work. Then on later playthroughs I used the password to get a completely overlevelled save with absurd Tolbi luck items and that was fun too. But it took so long.
I do think GS1 has better pacing overall. There are a couple of points in Lost Age where I forgot why I was doing what I was doing, but that just never happened in the first game. I think that is probably the biggest aspect that the original has over its sequel and probably why some still replay it more often. Trust me...I forgot about how bad the invalid password feeling was until it happened...lol
I played Lost Age and completed it many times (same as the Book 1 Golden Sun) In The Lost Age, the most useless outworld Psynergies were Cloak and Halt Psynergy. Cloak Psynergy is useful in Book 1, but in Book 2, it is useless, you can't even use them. You can't use Cloak in any places in The Lost Age. Second, it's Halt Psynergy, although I find the use of Halt Psynergy in stopping NPCs and Djinni from talking, etc. But that's just for my personal entertainment. But in terms of the progress of the story, Halt is also useless. These are the two useless Psynergies in The Lost Age. Also, I don't forget the Ragnarok/Heat Wave Case. In Book 1, even when you have 7 djinn, Isaac still has Ragnarok as Psynergy, and Garet has Heat Wave. But in Book 2, When you have at least 6 djinni, Ragnarok evolves into Odyssey, and Heat Wave also evolves into Liquifier.
Oh man...I forgot Halt and Cloak were even a thing. Thanks for reminding me, but considering how useless they are I'll probably forget about both of them by tomorrow lol.
I find it funny that you had the same issue with the whole whirlwind thing. But this games are still awesome and have so much replay value I keep coming back to theme every once in a while
I've been itching to replay The Lost Age soon honestly. I can't believe how much I fell in love with it after doing this episode. I liked all 3 of the games but the first 2 especially are something truly special.
In Dark Dawn, the Mars Lighthouse still is right at the edge of the Gaia Waterfalls, Apojii Island was consumed by them, Lemuria either turned invisible or is now a submerged city, and the worst of all, the Mercury Lighthouse was affected by the Grave Eclipse and neither Rief or Kraden cared for a little trip to Imil to check if Mia is fine and/or Weyard is inbalanced again.
I really appreciate you having the correct and true opinion that The Lost Age is the better game of the series. Which is NOT TO SAY that the original is bad, exactly the opposite; the original is a great, classic game for the GBA. But TLA is just a better game. I recently played GS and TLA back to back, as is tradition every few years, and there's just some small things I appreciate. It controls a little sharper, it looks a little better, it pushes the hardware a little more. You can tell that Camelot learned and improved while making Golden Sun, then turned right around and implemented those improvements in The Lost Age. I don't really get how people can say TLA is "lost potential" or it was "overly ambitious". It's a longer game, you're always doing SOMETHING, on the quest to SOMEWHERE, and you are always pushed to keep going. You have your goal and there's always an eye on the prize. I like that it changes things up just enough when you start - you have 3 Adepts from the get-go, and you are without your 4th for a decent time, so you need to manage how that works with Djinni and the like. I like that it makes this world seem like a world, with different geography and cultures and spread-out places. I like that the next lighthouse isn't just in your backyard (which, Mercury and Venus are kind of close to each other, if you think about it). And we got Piers! One thing I like about JRPGs is they really give you bang for your buck, and TLA is no exception. I think I have it down to about 30-40 hours, depending on how I'm going, which is insane for a handheld. It's just more to love. Golden Sun is my favorite game series, but The Lost Age is my favorite game, period.
I'm always nervous, but also kind of honored when I read a comment noting how I talked about their favorite game. The Lost Age is a relatively new experience to me, at least from finishing it that is. With that, damn...I still think about it pretty often. It's incredible. It's beautiful. It's fantastic, and fun, and pure, and complex, and the perfect expansion to everything the original game is. On it's own it's already a phenomenal experience, but as a sequel, it's truly one of the best and deserves to be studied and celebrated for that. I hope I did your favorite game justice. Quite honestly, I figured I'd like Lost Age, but I never imagined just how much I came to love it. It's truly one of my favorites now.
@@Zerbraxi I was joking with my friend that nobody talks about The Lost Age on UA-cam, so I was just happy for that. But I was SUPER glad you enjoyed it so much, especially since it was new to you.
Very cool analysis. You’re making me want to boot up GS:TLA again as I’m sure I’d understand the themes of the game that much better now. You can listen to Jennas theme in random encounters with only her in the party, leaving Isaac and Felix out.
It's always cool to revisit something as an adult since typically all the nuances and deeper themes tend to be more noticeable. The Lost Age is littered with such things. I definitely think you'd enjoy a revisit. Thank you for this tip. Her battle theme was way too much fun to have as little as I originally thought.
Honestly, this actually sounds like a fun challenge. I'm gonna have to boot up Lost Age and do it. Though clearly you and I are very different in how we view strategies. Winning is winning.
In DD the wind adept you get early on has Whirlwind permanently, which solves the djinn issue you were talking about. Hopefully, if/when the first 2 games get remade, they give this to Ivan and Sheba.
No negatives? Okay, I'll give one: while the puzzles are still an overall improvement over the first game, a lot of the new map-exclusive Psynergy in _Lost Age_ falls into the same trap as lesser _Zelda_ titles, being glorified "keys" for specific "locks," like Burst, Grind, and I'd even say Teleport. An exception to this is the one cave where the rocks you Grind down double as stepping stones, so you do have to be more strategic in applying it, but that still could hypothetically be done with other spells/items. Also, most of the native Psynergy that you have to Djinn-off for have equip-items that let you use them permanently, though when/where you get each one, I don't recall.
Yeah I had another conversation about the equip items for certain native Psynergy but it's not all. Whirlwind for example which was my key example doesn't seem to have one. You're totally right about the Zelda "problem" though. It's an interesting debate to have because while I totally agree with on one side, the way it's used is perfect for anyone new coming in to a series or genre. It's this constant back and forth that veterans will get annoyed by because we've "seen this pattern before" but a first timer will feel incredibly clever when that same pattern clicks. Then they become a veteran and the cycle continues. So I see the problem and there are clear ways out it, but too many tools that could be used anywhere can also lead to analysis paralysis and then players get stuck because they genuinely don't remember what tools they even have access to. This in itself could be a really interesting video topic exploring solutions to this problem, though I worry that the "best" solution might just simply be more involved UX design which can also dimish immersion. Anyway, before I keep just rambling lol, I totally get your point but I'm still not entirely sure where I land on the solution
@@Zerbraxi don't worry about it. Not every golden sun lost age player knows this. heck, I recently learned how to get multiple Sol Blade's by exploit glitch. XD
7:45 fun fact, you can play Jenna's theme later in the game after getting Isaac's party if you put Jenna in your front 4 and Felix & Isaac in your back 4 party members.
I remember making that note and forgot to mention it in the video. I also thought it was SOO cool that you can have Isaac's theme play if you have the original cast as the front 4 party members.
@@Zerbraxi It's actually just Isaac in the front and Felix in the back (e.g. you can have Isaac, Sheba, Piers, Jenna and have the original theme play).
@@Zerbraxi Yeah, a lot of it is hidden. e.g. did you know that if an enemy uses a multi-targeting attack psynergy, the big arrow (more damage) will always be on one of the two characters in the middle? They will never focus it on the edges of the party. What this means is players want the squishier party members (Ivan and Mia) at the edges.
@@GoldenSunAlex I had a huge hunch with this but couldn't confirm it so I just imagined I was giving TLA too much credit. That is so helpful, and definitely would've helped me a bit against the last couple super bosses as well lol. Do you know if this carries over into Dark Dawn as well? Now that you've helped confirm my suspicions I'd love to put it to the test if the next game follows the same rules.
Key point to remember for people playing through GS/TLA via emulation..using the gold cheat code automatically gives you all the djinn and best in slot equips
Thank you so much! I really try to give each game the effort it deserves, but some titles definitely deserve more effort than others. The Lost Age is one of those games.
I played Lost Age first as a kid, not knowing it was a sequel. I think the general fan base likes the first game most, but I gotta say Lost Age is my favorite. It was basically my first jrpg.
There definitely seems to be a much larger appreciation for the first game across the wider reaching fans of Golden Sun. However, judging from comments and conversation on my channel now that I've made these two videos, the more devout definitely seem to side more into The Lost Age it seems. I'd personally count myself in that camp as well. I LOVED the first game, but The Lost Age is one of my favorite JRPG's in general now after having played it.
@@JamesJones-oz9tq Do you happen to have a Wii U by chance? It's easy to jailbreak and the emulation for the first two Golden Sun's was done by M2 whom is famous for as accurate emulation as possible.
Critics: "Golden Sun beginning is childish because in the first 5 minutes the main characters father and the parents of his friends get crushed by a boulder"
Lol! Yeah...As I'm sure you noticed I made sure to have that be the footage showing when addressing that. Ya know, cuz nothing says child like wonder and innocence like trauma and survivors guilt.
You can run mono element classes effectively, you just need to standby djinn. It helps a lot with the areas that require specific Psynergy like Whirlwind. The best part about Iris, is that the only likely remaining enemy it's worth using on, actually resists it. The best use case I've found is having it ready for the back row and if the front row goes down, you immediately summon Iris, which revives everyone, including the back row. You should look into some of the glitch exploits that have been found. My favourite is using the Retreat glitch in Air's Rock to get infinite Sol Blades. I have a file where the weapon shop has like 15 Sol Blades in the artifact section, including the actual Sol Blade from Mar's Lighthouse. The Password system has been deciphered as well. There are passwords that can spawn unused items and Lost Age items into the first game's party. I can be fun to mess around with.
I put way too much time to this game. If you let the credits roll on the first game, you actually get the intro sequence where they're casted off from the second game. That's why the title screen happens when it did, that whole segment before was in the end of first game's credits. You also get Jenna's battle theme again once you have the full party, and you bench Felix and Isaac with Jenna in the front party. The music in this game still second to none for me. Garoh... Was so inspirational to me as a kid, I've written stories, and even gotten into wolves. Always a treat with the lore. Plus it was an open world game that's fully fleshed out, on the GBA. Just impressive.
My goto method for dealing with Dullahan: Summon Daedlus x4. First Party Wipe while doing as much damage as possible. Summon Eclipse x4. He dies rather quickly that way. Needs a few resets and your party needs to be at a decent level.
Eventually this was mostly the way I also got him down. He ended up interrupting me quite a bit actually a few summons in but had done enough damage to limp my way to the end.
@@Zerbraxi It's not at all -optimal-... but teenage me was pretty proud to figure that out at the time. The original Golden Sun was the first game that introduced me into understanding RNG manipulation. Making my own "cheat" to replicate a Kikuichimonji drop made me feel like a madman at the time.
Just a small detail: Dullahan's move "element swap" doesnt actually change his elemental alignment, it doesn't do anything. It's part of a group of moves that don't have any actual effect, like how some random enemies will "glare at you" or "growl". It's designed to be a small reprieve for the player.
Ya know...this isn't just cool to find out so thank you so much for sharing. But it's also such an interesting game design element to basically paint a free turn as a move so the player never feels like they were given a freebie. I would've never known that if you didn't tell me. Golden Sun is awesome man...
Originally it was planned to release the entire adventure of GS and GSTLA as one single game. They encountered memory-storage/limits on the GBA cardridge and had no other choice then to split it. Ofcourse the cliffhanger is absurd but watch a modern Netflix series with super cliffhanger at the end of any season and sometimes the series is even canceled after that cliffhanger (Final space, super snift :(... However the extra development time and experience from the first-title did soo well to the result. I think the extra money from sales of GS1, led to more experts being able to hire, more time to focus in a separate project made the world be so much bigger more defailful. I think that buy-off with the cliffhanger split between GS 1 and 2 has been absolutely a positive trade-off. And it only affected people who played GS1 before GS2 was released anyway.
I had imagined that technical limitations were an element of the split into two games. I mean, it's so hard to look at the Golden Sun titles and compare them to other GBA titles because in sheer size and scale they are just so unmatched to so much of the GBA library. It also did appear to just be budget constraints and feature creep based on what I had read so compounding technical limitations with an out of control scope, I think it was inevitable to have Golden Sun be split. The cliffhanger didn't really bother me all that much if I'm being honest. The piece that felt so odd was more how abrupt it was. The end of the first Golden Sun just kind of happens. There doesn't seem to be an indication of any sort outside the narrative resolution against Menardi and Saturos, but mechanically and in terms of pacing, the credits just kind of roll. I can't really say it "bothered" me, but it is something I remember is that feeling of just "oh, I guess this game is over now." What impressed me so much though is that in spite of limitations, budget constraints, feature bloat, etc, the transition and setup into The Lost Age was so brilliantly done. There are SOOO few games out there that have a direct sequel that is truly a "direct" sequel. Again, that abrupt ending doesn't really work on its own and comes off a bit odd, but for sure, in context to both titles existing side by side, it's almost the perfect solution. In these retrospectives I try to view the titles from 2 different lens. First is the view of "then" when the product was released and developed. Second is the view of "now" where we have years, and sometimes decades of hindsight. Sometimes these views are at odds with one another and other times they are still perfectly in sync. With Golden Sun, I don't recall people disliking the game and I even remember hearing then, despite not having played The Lost Age myself until recently, that the moment The Lost Age released so many people were expressing just "how it all makes sense now". It's a cool story to tell for sure and I think the reason we all want to give Golden Sun so much credit is because of just how good they pulled it off when so many in the industry have fallen flat on their face attempting to replicate something even remotely similar. Aka...Golden Sun is pretty damn awesome.
The Lost Age is brilliant but MAN I got lost SO often… my play through was so much running around trying to work out where I was supposed to be. It kind of made the whole thing feel even more immersive, but I also get why people get frustrated with it.
im from iran. in my kid ages I didn't know English so i play this game recently. and i play this game after years of pkaying world of warcraft that makes me not interested in any other game, but i fall for golden sun from the beginning. i deeply love golden sun. and i say this as a wow player. everyone knows wow players rarely love other games.
Thank you so much for your opinion on this. As a really long time GS Fan its amazing to hear your perspective as a new player. Tbh i dont remember the Djinn-Out of combst psynergie problem since the Djinn distribution is still rather balanced if you know where to get all Djinn and get them asap. Not as evenly as the first game, but you can easily have at least one character always pure elemental. But growth xD i hate where they hid growth
Great video. Oh man, I'm really dying to replay Golden Sun 1+2 now...I remember the Star Magician being such a satisfying secret boss to fight. I don't think I ever got to Dulahan though
@@Zerbraxi Well I’m glad my memory holds up so I can do ‘em without checking the guides. Much. They were kinda the only JRPGs I ever got invested in but they basically scratched every itch I wanted from story to gameplay to amount of exploration. Going from Lost Age to the first game definitely felt like “Oh, this was where the difficulty curve was supposed to start,” even if you were just to compare the respective first hour of gameplay. I’m very glad Nintendo is keeping them accessible because the more I see videos like yours, the more I realize that a game I loved is lowkey a staple of its genre.
Doom dragon was brutal first time I fought him, but being beat then leaving and grinding out close to another 5 levels I came back and destroyed it easy. It would be nice if they made a 4th game though. We shall see what the future holds, but it's nice that they are even still around to this day.
If the rumored GBA releasing on NSO is true, I'm hoping we can all drive enough interest to get people to play Golden Sun on it. Hopefully, if there's enough stats for Nintendo, we can get another one.
Awesome Video! I remember when i was like 10 years old, I wanted to jump out the window from the amount of frustration that typing in the 6 page password gave me. Now i know this might sound like an overkill reaction, BUT!, Back then, i didnt know that if u make a mistake while typing the password, u can delete the characters and type again, so whenever i made a msitake on like page 5, i had to start over AGAIN. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH :D
My main issue with GS 2 is just how aimless it feels at certain points, someone already pointed out how they basically throw you in the general area of the next story towns but when your given a Ship within like not even halfway through the game its VERY easy to get lost(I did the Poseidon Trident tower before I even found out about him) and dur to how big the gae is its much easier to forget what your supposed to do since areas are so widespread
Ya there's a tough balance between player discovery and feelings of aimlessness. It's actually why I wanted to bring this up myself in the video because it's one of the very few things I think 2 missteps on. I appreciate the more open approach but don't think it entirely landed. That said, I'm glad they tried something very different from the first game yo mix it up ya know?
Still a god tier JRPG adventure Beating Lost Age stand with the other games that blew my mind and stuck with me years later. Like when I picked up a copy of the original Persona 3 on PS2 with zero knowledge about the series or anything it's connected to 😅 Or finally beating Xenogears the first time.
@@Zerbraxi Both completely worth the time. Xenogears gets put on a pedestal to much. It's best to go in not expecting anything and let it happen to you. Expecting a masterpiece will make it easy to be disappointed.
Worth noting that in mythology, Lemuria and Atlantis are actually two separate things. So Lemuria really ISN'T Atlantis. ^^ Edit: Got to the point about the Djinii and Class systems. I think this is more of a holdover from manuals at the time. The original Golden Sun came with a full manual, but also an insert with the world map on one side, and a guide to alternative classes on the other. You don't really see that these days as stuff like that is put in the game, but in the original, all we got was a quick guide from Flint showing Garet with a Venus Djinni and Growth, as back then games expected you to read manuals and the like. Edit 2: There are other ways to use Whirlwind - but they require Isaac, Garet, or Felix being in the Ninja class to get 'Gale' (a 3pp version), so the point stands. Edit 3: Element Swap doesn't actually change Dullahans elemental Alignment. It's just an indicator to show that he will use Charon two moves later and does nothing. Edit 4: Something you didn't cover relating to the soundtrack, if you go into the battle room, and talk to the lady on the bottom-left in TLA while holding the L button, you can listen to the soundtrack of the game. If you load a 'clear data' file, you also get the soundtrack of GS1 in there as well.
Golden Sun and pre gen 7 Pokemon games are great courses in how to do out of combat magic in a videogame. GS executed it better on the whole, though lack of industry standard Exit Dungeon and Fast Travel to Visited Town spells is a glaring and I must presume very conscious omission.
I also would argue that such a thing had to be intentional. Though fast travel as a whole is an interesting topic in and of itself quite honestly. Convenient? Yes. Immersion breaking? Yes. It's more complicated than that but it's a hard balance to strike and means a lot of different consequences for all sorts of different players. Hmmmm....maybe this is a design discussion I could make something on actually.
Actually, in Golden Sun, you CAN fast travel to visited towns with Teleport. Sure, you only get it in the very late game (Mars Lighthouse) and you actually can't fast travel to EVERY towns, only big ones, but that's still better than nothing. About exit dungeons, there's one though? And it was introduced since the first game, it's called Retreat? (It works in a very specific way though so in one or two specific dungeons, it might not work as intended but works perfectely everywhere else)
@@jubeikuragami7349 When it comes to Retreat, my feelings on it are more that dungeon layouts should create some sort of natural exit point. It doesn't just need to be a back door behind the boss, but perhaps an escape sequence that pushes you down a different path back to the entrance, or the landscape changing to display a new exit. Retreat totally works as a bandage for this, and I'm thankful it's there because it also allows for backtracking through older dungeons to be significantly more friendly, but I don't love it as a catch-all solution. Fast Travel...I didn't even realize it was there and I'm glad you mentioned it here.
Never got to play lost age but I just finally got a switch and got the Nintendo online and started playing the original Golden sun and as soon as I beat it I'm transferring my data to the next one if I could
Thankfully it's on NSO at the moment, though it requires expansion pass. It's definitely not a remake or anything but it's at least a modern way to play on Switch. I'd love to see it get more love though
I know that feeling as well. Those become that games that transcend our widest expectations. It's a truly magical moment that can only really happen during a time of turmoil in our lives.
You can actually keep jennas battle theme! Make her the leftmost in the battle order and then use any other adepts other than felix/isaac. This causes the game to use her theme again on encounters
@Zerbraxi appreciate the vids man. I'm out doordashing rn and I just binged all of your golden sun videos lmao now I'm gonna download golden sun to replay on my phone gba emulator. TLA has an optional HARD mode you can access after beating it and it's so much fun. Makes the game even more fun and makes the encounters way more deadly
Yepp. First time I got to the end of golden sun 1... I thought I had gotten a "bad" ending by my choices. Turned out, none of my choices didnt matter and it was ENTIRELY needless for me to grind to level 60 before the second lighthouse. Probably detrimental, in fact.
It definitely can get pretty unclear where to go at a couple points. There are apparently indicators along the way but even for this playthrough I clearly miss them and stumbled around blindly a bunch.
The reason that the 1st game ended the way it did is because originally golden sun and Lost age where 1 game just on the N64 but because at the time of it's development the game cube was about to be released Camelot was forced to redo it for the gba and the game was to big to fit so they split it into two games
Did I not mention that in the 2 videos? I might've actually forgotten to say it but yes, you're absolutely right and it's pretty awesome how well they adjusted it and made it work in the new format and split.
LOL!!! Totally been there before! I already have low expectations for Dark Dawn, which might prove helpful to get a more honest look at it. Still really curious about it since I like the setup for it at least.
Played the game few years ago, it was great, even better than the first one. Why is that you may ask me? And the answer to that is because in my humble opinion if there should have only one thing to learn from this video is that Lemuria is TOTALLY NOT Atlantis
You have no idea how stupid I felt when I learned about "real world" Lemuria a week AFTER I posted this video...That joke will forever be the bane of my existence LOL. What a dumby.
the legend of...dragoon? had to check that out. never heard of it. im also sure i never in my life saw this gamecover before...this game went completely past me, im 31 now D: gotta download rn XD
Omg if you're actually gonna play it please let me know what you think. Even if it's bad news and you end up hating it I'm just happy it's getting any attention at all
@Zerbraxi i mean if you ask me nicely like that... i know this love for certain games from myself xd so im really intrigued now. I'll be back :p It seems to be a strategy rpg, more like fire emblem, is that true or not? Bc that would be kinda be a lil turn off xd but i will still try it
@@Zerbraxi well i guess it wont happen. cant find the original for playstation 1 ROM, removed everywhere, probably because of the psplus version. but bc i dont have a playstation its hard to get the game. guess its gonna be a mystery to me for a few more years :(
Camelot is still around. And my two cents are this: Camelot has already created a Mario Tennis and a Mario Golf game for the Switch. So the options for what to do next is clear (I don't see Nintendo forcing them to sit on their thumbs until the Switch 2 comes out). 1. Make a 4th Golden Sun Game 2. Remake Golden Sun & The Lost Age for the Switch (in a similar fashion to what they're doing for the Advance Wars series) 3. Port Golden Sun & The Lost Age to the Switch (rumor has it that Gameboy Advance games will be downloadable onto the Switch) 4. Make a Mario Sports All Stars game for the Switch 5. Make a Shining Force sequel 6. Make a Brand Spanking New IP for Nintendo. 7. Make new DLC for Mario Golf and Mario Tennis (this seriously is my least favorite option)
I would LOVE another Golden Sun. The potential is for sure there. The boom of JRPG's recently helps a ton. Persona 5,Yakuza Like A Dragon, Bravely Default 2, Live A Live, Octopath Traveler, all of these show that Golden Sun could do incredibly well. My fear is that we'll just get Mario Baseball or something instead
I'm sure you've already heard, but incase you haven't: GS + TLA will both be released on NSO in three days (the 17th). I don't care if it's a 15 second blurb, can't wait to see your video on it.
Funny that you got stuck in the Poseidon part, I have NO idea how I beat that as a kid with no proper English (Spanish speaker). What I remember being the bane of my existence is the Great Serpent/Dragon that you have to poison or something so it gets weakened and you can actually fight and defeat him. I remember grinding SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much thinking I was just weak. I managed to beat it without weakening it and became a god unknowingly.
LOL!!! I love hearing these types of stories. It's so funny how some of us will just randomly miss a tell or indicator of some sort and just be forced to brute force it when the solution is often right there. I had this similar experience with Breath of Fire 3 which I played for the first time a couple of years ago. I won't the say the mechanic in case of spoilers, but I missed something obvious and just grinded for a weekend to brute force the hell out of it and win that way. Thank you for sharing that.
@Zerbraxi Hahaha nah man. Thank YOU!!! For the content and engagement :) I actually remembered how I did the trident part. I already told you about the great serpent, so. Since I spent around 2 weeks (give or take) grinding all over the map, that was it. That's how I solved the trident puzzle. Just being a braindead kid grinding all the way to like level 65 in a part of the game whete you are like 30-40 hahaha
@@serezelveydawn Yes, yes he does, I'm telling you, I was like a 10 year old kid with so much free time on his hands. I had my characters at like lvl 70 at that point because I didn't know how to get the orbs. :(
@@RobotnikPlngas @serezelveydawn Ya, I've seen clips of this being done more and more now over the past few years. Seems like your 10 year old self was just 20 years ahead of the rest of us lol
Thank you so much! I still have at least 1 more game to go, and I have a feeling I'll have more to say even beyond that. I hope you enjoy what's to come.
There are games that veer off into the childish realm for sure. I didn't see golden sun in that light, but many games have gone in that direction and it sucks when it does. The whole reason why games were successful to the younger audience is because they saw older kids playing it. Sane adults don't want to play overly cutsie games. Even pokemon as "childish" as it was in the beginning, is nowhere near the levels of cutsie they are trying to do with some of the new games.
Okay, I have to say, you completely lost me for a moment during the whole whirlwind djinn menu rant. I never had to fiddle with djinn for puzzles, (that I can remember) because there's an item super early that gives the equipped adept Whirlwind. I used to give it to Felix so he'd have a Jupiter psynergy for Venus-resistant creatures in the early game.
There's an item for it?! I must've completely missed this because I've never heard of that item in The Lost Age. Playing through Dark Dawn quite literally as I type this and Karis knowing Whirlwind innately is definitely what I was describing and hoping would happen.
@@Zerbraxi yeah. It's been quite a while since I played, so I don't remember exactly where you get it, but it was somewhere around the dungeon you get Lash in, IIRC. It was definitely early on, because I remember needing to use whirlwind a lot to blow away leaves and later at Ayer's Rock, so I passed it around to keep my PP expenditure even. EDIT: okay, I can't find any mention of it online, but I definitely remember giving Felix Whirlwind somehow in the early game. I'm gonna have to drag out my copy and play again to figure this out. Oh no. How onerous. How shall I survive.
@@Rizaidym Oh man, how horrible. Having to play one of the best JRPG's ever made for a portable console. I wish you the best on this arduous journey. I'm gonna have to reply back in a few days for a wellness check just to make sure you aren't having too much fun :)
For some reason this comment was stuck in my head lol and I wanted to come back to report that I have finished Dark Dawn 100% and am writing the script for it in another tab as I reply back to this comment.
Come to find out...it's actually not Atlantis....Crap.
LMAO
the amount of times Totally not Atlantis is used in the video is increasingly frustrating when knowing it is literally not Atlantis 😂
@AdeptCharon imagine being the idiot saying it and finding out....I still have nightmares lol!!
It's subject to the same kind of crackpot theories, though. Easy to confuse the two.
@wasneeplus
There were ancient civilizations that invented the wheel. The wheel wasn't invented 300 years ago or whatever the mainstream archeologists believe. There's a temple in India that's estimated to be about 5,000 years old and there's a depiction of a wheel there as well as a lion hybrid that was thought to have gone extinct like 130,000 years ago. So yeah "someone" or some "group" doesn't want us to know our past or origin point.
@@kennymichaelalanya7134 if there's indeed a depiction of a wheel dating to 5000 years ago, then that's perfectly in line with current estimates of mainstream archaeology. It seems you are just completely unaware of what archeologists actually say, and that's not anyone's fault but yours.
As for the rest, I have no idea what you're on about. Lion hybrids haven't gone extinct; they've never existed outside of human breeding programs.
So many years later and I still just absolutely love these games. I don’t care what console it would happen on, if a fourth ever gets made I will be there day 1 playing that game.
I'll be joining you there! I'm really hoping with the revival of games like the Bravely Default series on Switch that we'll get more classic JRPG series as well.
Amen. Any excuse to return to Weyard is a good onem
I feel that dark dawn gets flak because they did the same thing as the first golden sun ending but without as much reason to most people. But I do see the reason.
Golden sun was one game broken into two when they had to move development from the N64 to the GBA. I always view the series as an incomplete trilogy. The gba games are the first one. DD is the second. I want the third so bad so I can see myself and all my old friends finishing Alex’s ambitions off or seeing them realized.
Little tip: if you have Jenna in the main party, with felix and isaac in the backrow, her theme will replace the normal battle theme.
Likewise if you have isaac but not felix in the active party, you'll get GS 1 battle theme
Thank you for the clarification. I love that this is an option and serves as a wonderful Easter egg for those who tinker with party make up.
@@Zerbraxi Totally, otherwise the only way is in the battle mode sound test (Press one of the shoulder buttons while talking to a girl on the left side for those who never tried :p)
Sadly, Piers doesn't get the boat battle theme, and once you have Isaac, that song never plays again....
@@antenna_prolly It is a bit sad yes
I just said this too. Didn't realize someone else posted it😂
1 year later, but:
The thing with Yallam is that its actually the closest main town to Lemuria, which the devs assumed you would beeline to. And once you get kicked out of the currents outside Lemuria... you end up almost outside Yallam.
Likewise, once you get past the currents and fail at defeating Poseidon, the currents throw you out in the direction of Briggs' town, Champa. Which you would visit anyways if you want to find him after his last appearance.
Damn, that makes so much sense but oh boy did I miss that lol. Sometimes the curse of giving players freedom is that they'll just completely miss all the hints...whoops!
I am still eagerly waiting for a Golden Sun 4 (Or a remake of Golden Sun 1 and 2 merged into 1 full story). Might not happen, but only time will tell. 😅
We're all just gonna have to stay optimistic on this one. There's just no way a series this good can get left behind like it has been.
When I did air's rock for the first time as a teen I thought I was in a fever dream. It's what the fuck levels of long and complex for being one of the first dungeons. Probably the longest in the entire series.
It's such a cool dungeon that opens a lot of potential to puzzle solving methodology in Golden Sun, but I totally think it was put in the wrong spot of the game. It should've been after the halfway mark. I've heard of so many people just getting completely stuck there and being turned off.
I'm REALLY glad that Lost Age went way deeper into the dungeon design, but Air's Rock is just in the wrong spot.
@@ZerbraxiI've read goldensun 1 and goldensun the lost age are meant to be 1 game for nintendo 64 , but it was split to two just for it to fit in GBA that explains why air rock is that hard because it was really mid party of the game
@@forestlink6673 the director has time and time again denied those claims, they were never meant to be in n64
@@riplix20 it was in Google that it was for n64
If i recall correctly, the original and Lost Age were supposed to be one game but due to system limitations and not being used to the hardware it was split into two games. God, i want this rereleased as a collection. XD
Great video, i'm subscribing.
Thank you so much. I'm glad you enjoyed the video 😀
Eclipse & Catastrophe are still my favorite summons
I LOVE the Eclipse summon especially!
Welcome to the golden sun team! I still have nostalgia from these games over the last 20 years when I first got a hold of them.
Happy to be aboard! While I don't share the same nostalgia, I'm now developing new memories for these titles. So far those memories have been overwhelmingly wonderful.
One (Atlantis) was in the Atlantic Ocean, and the other (Lemuria) was in the Pacific.
Lemuria is actually a sunken sister continent to Atlantis. Atlantis sunk into the Atlantic Ocean while Lemuria into the Pacific. Some scientist thought Lemurs came from there.
I will forever regret the day I so confidently made a running Atlantis joke in this video lol. Though I have learned so much more about Lemuria than I ever thought possible from all of it so that's good at least.
Joking aside, I do appreciate the info. It's rather cool :)
@@Zerbraxi Haha! While I typed that I did have two thoughts on the back of my head...That maybe people have told you about this or "He might have meant to hold the SARCASTIC sign on his head". But yeah, one was made by a philosopher and another by a zoologist trying to explain the origin of Lemurs. Weird how mythology and zoology mixed like that. Keep up the good work.
Fun fact: You can listen to Jenna's theme again after both teams join forces and neither Isaac nor Felix are in the active party 😁
Someone did tell me that and I feel like a fool for not knowing that!
Love watching people become superfans of my favorite JRPG franchise of all time! Such a great retrospective 👏🏽
Thank you for the compliment!
I remember liking the original game, but never expected to like The Lost Age so dang much.
Ive been "warned" a lot about Dark Dawn, but I'm still excited to check it out.
Dark Dawn is actually very solid. It's just that it sold terribly so the plans for the sequel never went through, leaving DD on a mega cliffhanger that now leaves everyone with narrative blue balls :c
I don't want to say too much on my thoughts before the video releases, but now having 100% completed Dark Dawn....I've definitely been blue balls'd and I only just finished it lol.
They might be working on a fourth golden sun game.The leaker who said a mario sports game was launching in the first half of 2021 and he was right about it, he also said a golden sun game is/was in development so who knows...
What I don't like about this game is that we never discover what happened to Isaac and Co's Boat that they took to reach Jupiter Lighthouse as well as the fact that Isaac and Co. never got any stronger between Venus Lighthouse and Jupiter Lighthouse. It also doesn't help that their own Black Orb takes up an Inventory Slot.
Ohh!! Those are both incredibly interesting points to bring up. The party not getting stronger is a tough one because there's an equally awesome experience by having the party be at the exact same strength as when you, the player, last interacted with them.
thinking about it, Camelot was really good at making multi part games. the shining games all link in some way, shining three all connect.
That's a good point. I've not gone through all of the Shining games yet but I did know that about them.
I can confirm that Dark Dawn isn't that bad, it's actually a great game with a few flaws that have been blown out of proportions.
Legitimate flaws, but some that are only exacerbated by the lack of a sequel of its own. Kind of as if Golden Sun never had Golden Sun: The Lost Age to complete it.
Glad to hear your thoughts on the matter. I'm trying to go in with as open of a mind as possible. I attempt that for every video, but I'm especially going to try and be fair to a contentious title.
In any case, I'm still really excited to eventually play through it.
@@Zerbraxi Going in with a strategy guide is likely the right call to avoid the one thing most people complain about, but even if that happens reach out to the speedrunning community, earlier in the year they found relatively easy workarounds so you could use those if need be :)
my biggest problem with Dark Dawn is that the difficulty of the game is subpar. Like, seriously, the only time I struggled a bit while playing was when I fought the final boss... and I still beat it first try.
@@thetwelfthdoctor9892 Yes, the main reason is that they give you too many ressources early on. When putting some challenges/restrictions on it's much more fun. (no artifact weapon, or no summon rushing etc)
Not many people talk about this, but I think it's really worth mentioning that the creators of the game had to write at least 2 dialogs for each NPC because of the mind reading psinergy.
BTW, Ninja class (which in my opinion is the best for Jenna) has a psinergy called Gale, which works the same as Whirlwind outside of battle.
Ya the 2 dialogs is an interesting one for sure and a really awesome attention to detail that really expands the world itself and sometimes gives a significantly deeper insight into some of the characters or events.
Another game that does something similar is Legend of Dragoon, where almost every NPC has 2 things to say. Sometimes the second dialog is just expanding the world, the character themselves, or to provide more context that players just "clicking through" would miss.
Actually 90% of the time, they just took the dialog they wrote and split it into two parts. It's rare for it to actually be dialogue that fits within the concept of "Mind Reading"
@0rangaStang it tricked me!
With the iron boots comparison, when in a dungeon you can set 2 shortcuts to the shoulder buttons. So you can freely have 2 psynergies always availble without menu navigation. This is specifically for those long dungeons. This was also a feature in GS1 btw
Very true and I definitely should've mentioned that. It does help mitigate that complaint I had a bit. There are still some dungeons though where you rotate through like 4-5 psynergies constantly and it's a bit rough.
Though, honestly, really not a big complaint in the grand scheme of things.
As someone who played the game a long time ago, I don't recall having as much trouble identifying the use of the trident. In fact, I seem to recall that I had all 3 pieces, knew what I needed them for, knew where I had to go to get it, but got stuck (temporarily) trying to figure out how to get Briggs out of jail. Took me way too long to try burst.
What might have made a difference though is that my copy of the game came with a small map of the world, which showed most of the eastern sea locations. The western locations were also present, but not labeled. This likely helped a lot because I could see the 3 towers holding the trident pieces.
One final note is that there is a fortune teller in Naribwe (I think I spelled it right) who can give you hints.
I was gonna mention the fortune teller but it becomes incredibly time consuming to revisit her after you start hitting the 10 hour mark, but I love the idea of her. Maybe one in each major town could've been a good solution.
I swear I must've missed something about the trident. Everything else was directed decently well but I legit had no clue what that trident was for quite a while.
That map must've been really cool and helpful. Thanks for sharing that.
@@Zerbraxi To be fair, he (I think characters in game refer to him as male despite his appearance) doesn't have much of anything new to say after visiting Lemuria. He'll hint to Djinn locations, but for most else he'll just say that you should go west.
@@elliotlevy8610 Oh whoops fortune teller. My bad !
That's good to know though. Djinn locations are also a good hint for sure.
This duo is one of my most beloved games of all time, and it was a joy to watch you come to the same conclusion! Glad to have you as a fellow fan. We may never get more games but at least we can share I the awe of this pair. I always loved the psynergy puzzle-based exploration and how much there is to discover all over the world. My experience with the trident pieces was definitely similar to yours in that I didn’t know what I was collecting them for when I got the first 1-2, but I don’t recall feeling particularly lost about it because I was just going all over the place wherever I hadn’t explored yet. However that may be a factor of having been 13 or 14 at the time instead of playing as an adult.
That’s it, I’m replaying these!
I knew I would end up liking The Lost Age, but I didn't expect it love it as much as I did. The puzzle solving and use of Psynergy is top notch.
I don't get upset or frustrated when getting lost usually. It takes quite a bit of time before I'm genuinely ready to just look up the solution. As I mentioned in the video, it was several nights of playing before I finally just used the guide to figure out the last piece. However, it's also the fact that I'm playing these games to make a video from them that definitely adds a certain pressure to finish a game "on time". It's a weird thing, but I also try to make sure I don't let that bias twist my thoughts, which is why I try to be sure to mention the good part of the exploration too.
Here's to seeing how Dark Dawn came out. I'm not jumping into it immediately, but should hopefully be within the next couple months or so.
@@Zerbraxi dark dawn in my opinion commits the grave sin of feeling like it doesn’t take place in the same world as the first two but keeps saying it is. Part of the problem is that TLA pretty much showed you the whole world, so there isn’t much room for suddenly adding hitherto unheard of cities and ancient societies unless they’re meant to have been hidden somehow. I tried replaying it a few years ago and couldn’t stay interested
Good to know. My biggest fear whenever I play a game for a video is that I won't have much to say because the product is just bland and forgettable. We'll see how it goes when we get there :)
I still play the Golden Sun Duology once a year from A to Z. It's one of the most obvious signs of it being such a brilliant game series. But to me, it isn't really a Duology, but more a single, grand game into two cartridges. It would have been too big to combine both masterpieces into one GBA cassette. My first time playing it was back in 2001. I was in sixth grade. I am now 33 and still play the games on my phone. No JRPG ever came close to Golden Sun for me.
I have a friend who feels the exact same way. He actually doesn't even like JRPGs , EXCEPT for Golden Sun which he adores. It's so funny how this series hits some people in such a special way.
A lot of people like GS1 more than 2, which is understandable, but I like the "endgame" of GS2 more. Being able to much more easily revisit old areas (via boat hovering) was great, and searching for the multi elemental summons was super satisfying.
Oh god that invalid password moment unlocked a core memory for me. I spent so so long trying to make it work.
Then on later playthroughs I used the password to get a completely overlevelled save with absurd Tolbi luck items and that was fun too. But it took so long.
I do think GS1 has better pacing overall. There are a couple of points in Lost Age where I forgot why I was doing what I was doing, but that just never happened in the first game. I think that is probably the biggest aspect that the original has over its sequel and probably why some still replay it more often.
Trust me...I forgot about how bad the invalid password feeling was until it happened...lol
I played Lost Age and completed it many times (same as the Book 1 Golden Sun) In The Lost Age, the most useless outworld Psynergies were Cloak and Halt Psynergy. Cloak Psynergy is useful in Book 1, but in Book 2, it is useless, you can't even use them. You can't use Cloak in any places in The Lost Age. Second, it's Halt Psynergy, although I find the use of Halt Psynergy in stopping NPCs and Djinni from talking, etc. But that's just for my personal entertainment. But in terms of the progress of the story, Halt is also useless. These are the two useless Psynergies in The Lost Age.
Also, I don't forget the Ragnarok/Heat Wave Case. In Book 1, even when you have 7 djinn, Isaac still has Ragnarok as Psynergy, and Garet has Heat Wave. But in Book 2, When you have at least 6 djinni, Ragnarok evolves into Odyssey, and Heat Wave also evolves into Liquifier.
Oh man...I forgot Halt and Cloak were even a thing. Thanks for reminding me, but considering how useless they are I'll probably forget about both of them by tomorrow lol.
I find it funny that you had the same issue with the whole whirlwind thing. But this games are still awesome and have so much replay value I keep coming back to theme every once in a while
I've been itching to replay The Lost Age soon honestly. I can't believe how much I fell in love with it after doing this episode. I liked all 3 of the games but the first 2 especially are something truly special.
Golden Sun and Golden Sun the lost age are both halves of a great game
Agreed. Individually they are incredible. Together they are legendary.
I've always seen these games like a Kill Bill situation: had to be two only because the game/movie couldn't be that long
Ys 1 and 2 too
Golden Sun 1&2 best games ever for me, + best soundtracks
That's awesome! They're really dang good games huh.
Thank you for making this video! Not enough people talk about TLA on youtube and your take on it was great!
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed.
In Dark Dawn, the Mars Lighthouse still is right at the edge of the Gaia Waterfalls, Apojii Island was consumed by them, Lemuria either turned invisible or is now a submerged city, and the worst of all, the Mercury Lighthouse was affected by the Grave Eclipse and neither Rief or Kraden cared for a little trip to Imil to check if Mia is fine and/or Weyard is inbalanced again.
Hmmmm, I hope I didn't just read too many spoilers.
I really appreciate you having the correct and true opinion that The Lost Age is the better game of the series. Which is NOT TO SAY that the original is bad, exactly the opposite; the original is a great, classic game for the GBA. But TLA is just a better game. I recently played GS and TLA back to back, as is tradition every few years, and there's just some small things I appreciate. It controls a little sharper, it looks a little better, it pushes the hardware a little more. You can tell that Camelot learned and improved while making Golden Sun, then turned right around and implemented those improvements in The Lost Age.
I don't really get how people can say TLA is "lost potential" or it was "overly ambitious". It's a longer game, you're always doing SOMETHING, on the quest to SOMEWHERE, and you are always pushed to keep going. You have your goal and there's always an eye on the prize. I like that it changes things up just enough when you start - you have 3 Adepts from the get-go, and you are without your 4th for a decent time, so you need to manage how that works with Djinni and the like. I like that it makes this world seem like a world, with different geography and cultures and spread-out places. I like that the next lighthouse isn't just in your backyard (which, Mercury and Venus are kind of close to each other, if you think about it). And we got Piers!
One thing I like about JRPGs is they really give you bang for your buck, and TLA is no exception. I think I have it down to about 30-40 hours, depending on how I'm going, which is insane for a handheld. It's just more to love. Golden Sun is my favorite game series, but The Lost Age is my favorite game, period.
I'm always nervous, but also kind of honored when I read a comment noting how I talked about their favorite game. The Lost Age is a relatively new experience to me, at least from finishing it that is. With that, damn...I still think about it pretty often. It's incredible. It's beautiful. It's fantastic, and fun, and pure, and complex, and the perfect expansion to everything the original game is. On it's own it's already a phenomenal experience, but as a sequel, it's truly one of the best and deserves to be studied and celebrated for that.
I hope I did your favorite game justice. Quite honestly, I figured I'd like Lost Age, but I never imagined just how much I came to love it. It's truly one of my favorites now.
@@Zerbraxi I was joking with my friend that nobody talks about The Lost Age on UA-cam, so I was just happy for that. But I was SUPER glad you enjoyed it so much, especially since it was new to you.
I watched all 3 reviews and I loved them, very nicely done and said! Thank you for taking the time to do these 😊
Thank you for taking the time to watch them. It means so much to me.
Very cool analysis. You’re making me want to boot up GS:TLA again as I’m sure I’d understand the themes of the game that much better now.
You can listen to Jennas theme in random encounters with only her in the party, leaving Isaac and Felix out.
It's always cool to revisit something as an adult since typically all the nuances and deeper themes tend to be more noticeable. The Lost Age is littered with such things. I definitely think you'd enjoy a revisit.
Thank you for this tip. Her battle theme was way too much fun to have as little as I originally thought.
Literally playing it now. Such an incredible game! I’m doing so much more now in the game to try and 100% the items and mind read everyone.
@@ma.2099 I hope you enjoy it! I would love to hear your thoughts when you're done and see how it the journey went.
These games are incredible
I couldn't agree more
Back in my 100% run, I defeated Dullahan without any summons. It was difficult, but I just refused to beat him with a cheesy summon rush strategy.
Honestly, this actually sounds like a fun challenge. I'm gonna have to boot up Lost Age and do it.
Though clearly you and I are very different in how we view strategies. Winning is winning.
In DD the wind adept you get early on has Whirlwind permanently, which solves the djinn issue you were talking about. Hopefully, if/when the first 2 games get remade, they give this to Ivan and Sheba.
That's interesting to know. I haven't started up Dark Dawn yet but hoping to later this year.
Just found your channel, on a golden sun binge, this video popped up. It's really well done!! Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thank you so much and I'm glad you found it too! I hope you enjoy what else I have and what's to come.
No negatives? Okay, I'll give one: while the puzzles are still an overall improvement over the first game, a lot of the new map-exclusive Psynergy in _Lost Age_ falls into the same trap as lesser _Zelda_ titles, being glorified "keys" for specific "locks," like Burst, Grind, and I'd even say Teleport. An exception to this is the one cave where the rocks you Grind down double as stepping stones, so you do have to be more strategic in applying it, but that still could hypothetically be done with other spells/items.
Also, most of the native Psynergy that you have to Djinn-off for have equip-items that let you use them permanently, though when/where you get each one, I don't recall.
Yeah I had another conversation about the equip items for certain native Psynergy but it's not all. Whirlwind for example which was my key example doesn't seem to have one.
You're totally right about the Zelda "problem" though. It's an interesting debate to have because while I totally agree with on one side, the way it's used is perfect for anyone new coming in to a series or genre. It's this constant back and forth that veterans will get annoyed by because we've "seen this pattern before" but a first timer will feel incredibly clever when that same pattern clicks. Then they become a veteran and the cycle continues. So I see the problem and there are clear ways out it, but too many tools that could be used anywhere can also lead to analysis paralysis and then players get stuck because they genuinely don't remember what tools they even have access to.
This in itself could be a really interesting video topic exploring solutions to this problem, though I worry that the "best" solution might just simply be more involved UX design which can also dimish immersion. Anyway, before I keep just rambling lol, I totally get your point but I'm still not entirely sure where I land on the solution
Ironically, you can obtain Iris by a game glitch you can exploit. :3
After all that work and I could've just glitched for it...shoot...
@@Zerbraxi don't worry about it. Not every golden sun lost age player knows this. heck, I recently learned how to get multiple Sol Blade's by exploit glitch. XD
7:45 fun fact, you can play Jenna's theme later in the game after getting Isaac's party if you put Jenna in your front 4 and Felix & Isaac in your back 4 party members.
I remember making that note and forgot to mention it in the video. I also thought it was SOO cool that you can have Isaac's theme play if you have the original cast as the front 4 party members.
@@Zerbraxi It's actually just Isaac in the front and Felix in the back (e.g. you can have Isaac, Sheba, Piers, Jenna and have the original theme play).
@@GoldenSunAlex Oh that's even easier. There's so much to learn about these games.
@@Zerbraxi Yeah, a lot of it is hidden. e.g. did you know that if an enemy uses a multi-targeting attack psynergy, the big arrow (more damage) will always be on one of the two characters in the middle? They will never focus it on the edges of the party.
What this means is players want the squishier party members (Ivan and Mia) at the edges.
@@GoldenSunAlex I had a huge hunch with this but couldn't confirm it so I just imagined I was giving TLA too much credit. That is so helpful, and definitely would've helped me a bit against the last couple super bosses as well lol.
Do you know if this carries over into Dark Dawn as well? Now that you've helped confirm my suspicions I'd love to put it to the test if the next game follows the same rules.
Key point to remember for people playing through GS/TLA via emulation..using the gold cheat code automatically gives you all the djinn and best in slot equips
Ohh, interesting. I didn't know that.
You put a lot of effort bro thanks for covering golden sun!
Thank you so much! I really try to give each game the effort it deserves, but some titles definitely deserve more effort than others. The Lost Age is one of those games.
I played Lost Age first as a kid, not knowing it was a sequel. I think the general fan base likes the first game most, but I gotta say Lost Age is my favorite. It was basically my first jrpg.
There definitely seems to be a much larger appreciation for the first game across the wider reaching fans of Golden Sun. However, judging from comments and conversation on my channel now that I've made these two videos, the more devout definitely seem to side more into The Lost Age it seems.
I'd personally count myself in that camp as well. I LOVED the first game, but The Lost Age is one of my favorite JRPG's in general now after having played it.
@@Zerbraxi after watching this video I’m actually thinking of going through with jailbreaking my PS3 so I can emulate the first two games.
@@JamesJones-oz9tq Do you happen to have a Wii U by chance? It's easy to jailbreak and the emulation for the first two Golden Sun's was done by M2 whom is famous for as accurate emulation as possible.
@@Zerbraxi nope, no Nintendo consoles currently.
Critics: "Golden Sun beginning is childish because in the first 5 minutes the main characters father and the parents of his friends get crushed by a boulder"
Lol! Yeah...As I'm sure you noticed I made sure to have that be the footage showing when addressing that. Ya know, cuz nothing says child like wonder and innocence like trauma and survivors guilt.
BEEN WAITING FOR THIS! Literally watching the first one as I'm typing this. Keep up the great work!
That's awesome! I really hope you enjoy both of them! Thank you for watching.
You can run mono element classes effectively, you just need to standby djinn. It helps a lot with the areas that require specific Psynergy like Whirlwind.
The best part about Iris, is that the only likely remaining enemy it's worth using on, actually resists it. The best use case I've found is having it ready for the back row and if the front row goes down, you immediately summon Iris, which revives everyone, including the back row.
You should look into some of the glitch exploits that have been found. My favourite is using the Retreat glitch in Air's Rock to get infinite Sol Blades. I have a file where the weapon shop has like 15 Sol Blades in the artifact section, including the actual Sol Blade from Mar's Lighthouse.
The Password system has been deciphered as well. There are passwords that can spawn unused items and Lost Age items into the first game's party. I can be fun to mess around with.
Oh these glitches actually sound like a ton of fun. Maybe on a repeat playthrough I'll try some
I put way too much time to this game. If you let the credits roll on the first game, you actually get the intro sequence where they're casted off from the second game. That's why the title screen happens when it did, that whole segment before was in the end of first game's credits.
You also get Jenna's battle theme again once you have the full party, and you bench Felix and Isaac with Jenna in the front party.
The music in this game still second to none for me.
Garoh... Was so inspirational to me as a kid, I've written stories, and even gotten into wolves. Always a treat with the lore.
Plus it was an open world game that's fully fleshed out, on the GBA. Just impressive.
It's incredibly impressive as a JRPG of its time in general, but the fact it's on GBAs hardware makes it truly a masterclass of a game.
My goto method for dealing with Dullahan: Summon Daedlus x4. First Party Wipe while doing as much damage as possible. Summon Eclipse x4. He dies rather quickly that way. Needs a few resets and your party needs to be at a decent level.
Eventually this was mostly the way I also got him down. He ended up interrupting me quite a bit actually a few summons in but had done enough damage to limp my way to the end.
These might be the best RPGs I’ve ever played…. Just beat them on switch and am planning on doing another run I just hope they remake these
I'm glad you liked them. They're pretty dang fun 😁
17:31 If I recall correctly, you can force Jenna's battle theme to play at will if you remove both Issac and Felix from your active party.
You're correct.
@@Zerbraxi It's not at all -optimal-... but teenage me was pretty proud to figure that out at the time. The original Golden Sun was the first game that introduced me into understanding RNG manipulation.
Making my own "cheat" to replicate a Kikuichimonji drop made me feel like a madman at the time.
Just a small detail:
Dullahan's move "element swap" doesnt actually change his elemental alignment, it doesn't do anything.
It's part of a group of moves that don't have any actual effect, like how some random enemies will "glare at you" or "growl".
It's designed to be a small reprieve for the player.
Ya know...this isn't just cool to find out so thank you so much for sharing. But it's also such an interesting game design element to basically paint a free turn as a move so the player never feels like they were given a freebie. I would've never known that if you didn't tell me.
Golden Sun is awesome man...
@@Zerbraxi it is really cool, so many different good ideas in these games
you can still get jenna's theme in the rest of the game i think by putting her first on your team list or something like that
Yeah, someone did tell me that. I wish I would've known that when playing cuz I love that theme.
Originally it was planned to release the entire adventure of GS and GSTLA as one single game.
They encountered memory-storage/limits on the GBA cardridge and had no other choice then to split it.
Ofcourse the cliffhanger is absurd but watch a modern Netflix series with super cliffhanger at the end of any season and sometimes the series is even canceled after that cliffhanger (Final space, super snift :(...
However the extra development time and experience from the first-title did soo well to the result. I think the extra money from sales of GS1, led to more experts being able to hire, more time to focus in a separate project made the world be so much bigger more defailful. I think that buy-off with the cliffhanger split between GS 1 and 2 has been absolutely a positive trade-off.
And it only affected people who played GS1 before GS2 was released anyway.
I had imagined that technical limitations were an element of the split into two games. I mean, it's so hard to look at the Golden Sun titles and compare them to other GBA titles because in sheer size and scale they are just so unmatched to so much of the GBA library. It also did appear to just be budget constraints and feature creep based on what I had read so compounding technical limitations with an out of control scope, I think it was inevitable to have Golden Sun be split.
The cliffhanger didn't really bother me all that much if I'm being honest. The piece that felt so odd was more how abrupt it was. The end of the first Golden Sun just kind of happens. There doesn't seem to be an indication of any sort outside the narrative resolution against Menardi and Saturos, but mechanically and in terms of pacing, the credits just kind of roll. I can't really say it "bothered" me, but it is something I remember is that feeling of just "oh, I guess this game is over now." What impressed me so much though is that in spite of limitations, budget constraints, feature bloat, etc, the transition and setup into The Lost Age was so brilliantly done. There are SOOO few games out there that have a direct sequel that is truly a "direct" sequel. Again, that abrupt ending doesn't really work on its own and comes off a bit odd, but for sure, in context to both titles existing side by side, it's almost the perfect solution.
In these retrospectives I try to view the titles from 2 different lens. First is the view of "then" when the product was released and developed. Second is the view of "now" where we have years, and sometimes decades of hindsight. Sometimes these views are at odds with one another and other times they are still perfectly in sync. With Golden Sun, I don't recall people disliking the game and I even remember hearing then, despite not having played The Lost Age myself until recently, that the moment The Lost Age released so many people were expressing just "how it all makes sense now". It's a cool story to tell for sure and I think the reason we all want to give Golden Sun so much credit is because of just how good they pulled it off when so many in the industry have fallen flat on their face attempting to replicate something even remotely similar.
Aka...Golden Sun is pretty damn awesome.
The Lost Age is brilliant but MAN I got lost SO often… my play through was so much running around trying to work out where I was supposed to be.
It kind of made the whole thing feel even more immersive, but I also get why people get frustrated with it.
If your goal is the destination, it's annoying. If your goal is the journey, it's satisfying. I always try to view it as an adventure
I actually got my start with the series through The Lost Age, which was... incredibly confusing, but damned if I wasn't super hooked on it
Definitely goes to show just how incredible The Lost Age is.
I hadn't even heard of the game until a friend offered to trade it to me for my copy of frogger advance. Huge w on my side
im from iran. in my kid ages I didn't know English so i play this game recently. and i play this game after years of pkaying world of warcraft that makes me not interested in any other game, but i fall for golden sun from the beginning. i deeply love golden sun. and i say this as a wow player. everyone knows wow players rarely love other games.
That's awesome to hear :)
I'm a recovered WoW player myself. Had an entire channel dedicated to it actually until I moved on to other drugs lol
total masterpiece. my altime favorite GBA title of all time.
still have both cartridges with my saves and stuff.
Yeah it's awesome!
Thank you so much for your opinion on this. As a really long time GS Fan its amazing to hear your perspective as a new player. Tbh i dont remember the Djinn-Out of combst psynergie problem since the Djinn distribution is still rather balanced if you know where to get all Djinn and get them asap. Not as evenly as the first game, but you can easily have at least one character always pure elemental. But growth xD i hate where they hid growth
Thank you so much for watching :) It always means a lot to me that people would give me their time.
I've read goldensun 1 and goldensun the lost age are meant to be 1 game for nintendo 64 , but it was split to two just for it to fit in GBA
This is true!
Great video. Oh man, I'm really dying to replay Golden Sun 1+2 now...I remember the Star Magician being such a satisfying secret boss to fight. I don't think I ever got to Dulahan though
I think if you can do Star Magician then you can do Dulahan. These two games seriously own!
Somehow, I played Lost Age *first* back in the day. Replaying on the Switch now.
What are your thoughts then vs now?
@@Zerbraxi Well I’m glad my memory holds up so I can do ‘em without checking the guides. Much.
They were kinda the only JRPGs I ever got invested in but they basically scratched every itch I wanted from story to gameplay to amount of exploration. Going from Lost Age to the first game definitely felt like “Oh, this was where the difficulty curve was supposed to start,” even if you were just to compare the respective first hour of gameplay. I’m very glad Nintendo is keeping them accessible because the more I see videos like yours, the more I realize that a game I loved is lowkey a staple of its genre.
Before I fully finish this. I swear I didn't leave that review. Now continuing the video.
Doom dragon was brutal first time I fought him, but being beat then leaving and grinding out close to another 5 levels I came back and destroyed it easy. It would be nice if they made a 4th game though. We shall see what the future holds, but it's nice that they are even still around to this day.
We all know it was you. No need to hide any longer. Just accept what you said :)
If the rumored GBA releasing on NSO is true, I'm hoping we can all drive enough interest to get people to play Golden Sun on it. Hopefully, if there's enough stats for Nintendo, we can get another one.
I've been playing this game and I can honestly say, this might be the most difficult JRPG I've ever played
Oh really? Any particular part that's standing out?
You can hear Jenna's battle theme again if you put her first in the party!
I found that out after playing and I'm so sad!!
Keep up the great work you inspire newer youtubers like myself
This is quite possibly the best compliment I could receive. Go for it and have some fun creating.
Awesome Video! I remember when i was like 10 years old, I wanted to jump out the window from the amount of frustration that typing in the 6 page password gave me. Now i know this might sound like an overkill reaction, BUT!, Back then, i didnt know that if u make a mistake while typing the password, u can delete the characters and type again, so whenever i made a msitake on like page 5, i had to start over AGAIN. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH :D
OH! Oh I'm SOO sorry for your younger self!
Golden sun my high school game back when it first came out
A good one to have for sure :)
My main issue with GS 2 is just how aimless it feels at certain points, someone already pointed out how they basically throw you in the general area of the next story towns but when your given a Ship within like not even halfway through the game its VERY easy to get lost(I did the Poseidon Trident tower before I even found out about him) and dur to how big the gae is its much easier to forget what your supposed to do since areas are so widespread
Ya there's a tough balance between player discovery and feelings of aimlessness. It's actually why I wanted to bring this up myself in the video because it's one of the very few things I think 2 missteps on. I appreciate the more open approach but don't think it entirely landed.
That said, I'm glad they tried something very different from the first game yo mix it up ya know?
Still a god tier JRPG adventure
Beating Lost Age stand with the other games that blew my mind and stuck with me years later.
Like when I picked up a copy of the original Persona 3 on PS2 with zero knowledge about the series or anything it's connected to 😅
Or finally beating Xenogears the first time.
Xenogears and Persona are both games I REALLY wanna play.
@@Zerbraxi Both completely worth the time.
Xenogears gets put on a pedestal to much.
It's best to go in not expecting anything and let it happen to you.
Expecting a masterpiece will make it easy to be disappointed.
Funfact: If you have Jenna in slot one of your party it changes the battle theme to her unique one
If I knew this before playing I would be even happier with this game somehow
Worth noting that in mythology, Lemuria and Atlantis are actually two separate things. So Lemuria really ISN'T Atlantis. ^^
Edit: Got to the point about the Djinii and Class systems. I think this is more of a holdover from manuals at the time. The original Golden Sun came with a full manual, but also an insert with the world map on one side, and a guide to alternative classes on the other.
You don't really see that these days as stuff like that is put in the game, but in the original, all we got was a quick guide from Flint showing Garet with a Venus Djinni and Growth, as back then games expected you to read manuals and the like.
Edit 2: There are other ways to use Whirlwind - but they require Isaac, Garet, or Felix being in the Ninja class to get 'Gale' (a 3pp version), so the point stands.
Edit 3: Element Swap doesn't actually change Dullahans elemental Alignment. It's just an indicator to show that he will use Charon two moves later and does nothing.
Edit 4: Something you didn't cover relating to the soundtrack, if you go into the battle room, and talk to the lady on the bottom-left in TLA while holding the L button, you can listen to the soundtrack of the game. If you load a 'clear data' file, you also get the soundtrack of GS1 in there as well.
Touche! Totally not Atlantis. :P
Been watching pieces for a week(60 percent through now) or so but wanted to be the first to comment on this and say GS1 AND TLA TO NSO ON 1-17!
Yoooo I know!!! We gotta spread the word
@@Zerbraxi 💯
Golden Sun and pre gen 7 Pokemon games are great courses in how to do out of combat magic in a videogame. GS executed it better on the whole, though lack of industry standard Exit Dungeon and Fast Travel to Visited Town spells is a glaring and I must presume very conscious omission.
I also would argue that such a thing had to be intentional. Though fast travel as a whole is an interesting topic in and of itself quite honestly. Convenient? Yes. Immersion breaking? Yes. It's more complicated than that but it's a hard balance to strike and means a lot of different consequences for all sorts of different players.
Hmmmm....maybe this is a design discussion I could make something on actually.
Actually, in Golden Sun, you CAN fast travel to visited towns with Teleport. Sure, you only get it in the very late game (Mars Lighthouse) and you actually can't fast travel to EVERY towns, only big ones, but that's still better than nothing. About exit dungeons, there's one though? And it was introduced since the first game, it's called Retreat? (It works in a very specific way though so in one or two specific dungeons, it might not work as intended but works perfectely everywhere else)
@@jubeikuragami7349 When it comes to Retreat, my feelings on it are more that dungeon layouts should create some sort of natural exit point. It doesn't just need to be a back door behind the boss, but perhaps an escape sequence that pushes you down a different path back to the entrance, or the landscape changing to display a new exit. Retreat totally works as a bandage for this, and I'm thankful it's there because it also allows for backtracking through older dungeons to be significantly more friendly, but I don't love it as a catch-all solution.
Fast Travel...I didn't even realize it was there and I'm glad you mentioned it here.
i said to myself id only give you 2 minutes to convince me to watch this behemoth of an hour vid
you got me tho
Wow! I'm glad you enjoyed it. The next one probably won't be quite this long thankfully :)
Sheba was one of the youngest characters and I loved her wisdom in the game.
Definitely incredibly wise for their age.
Man amazing video, great job!
Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed.
Never got to play lost age but I just finally got a switch and got the Nintendo online and started playing the original Golden sun and as soon as I beat it I'm transferring my data to the next one if I could
Can you do the password system on NSO?
@@Zerbraxi You can! Did a gold password in my recent playthrough. It's so much quicker when you can type it down instead of handwriting lol
Your videos are awesome, keep up the good work!
Thank you so much! Hoping to get better and better at this.
I know this comment is super late, but I really hope that golden sun comes to the Nintendo switch. I loved this game as a child so much.
Thankfully it's on NSO at the moment, though it requires expansion pass. It's definitely not a remake or anything but it's at least a modern way to play on Switch.
I'd love to see it get more love though
Jokes aside, I grew up in a tough moment with these games. They helped me get through it all and enjoyed them all.
I know that feeling as well. Those become that games that transcend our widest expectations. It's a truly magical moment that can only really happen during a time of turmoil in our lives.
Iris also heals your party to max as well
Wow... I can't believe I didn't mention this. Woops!
Thanks for pointing it out.
@@Zerbraxi no problem.
You can actually keep jennas battle theme! Make her the leftmost in the battle order and then use any other adepts other than felix/isaac. This causes the game to use her theme again on encounters
I found this out AFTER playing but I'm so happy with how many people have told me this. Yall are the best
@Zerbraxi appreciate the vids man. I'm out doordashing rn and I just binged all of your golden sun videos lmao now I'm gonna download golden sun to replay on my phone gba emulator. TLA has an optional HARD mode you can access after beating it and it's so much fun. Makes the game even more fun and makes the encounters way more deadly
Yepp. First time I got to the end of golden sun 1... I thought I had gotten a "bad" ending by my choices.
Turned out, none of my choices didnt matter and it was ENTIRELY needless for me to grind to level 60 before the second lighthouse. Probably detrimental, in fact.
Edit: *none of my choices mattered* not "none of my choices dodnt matter"
I think that Golden Sun baiting the player in both the beginning AND the end of the game is some of the coolest elements about its design.
loved this game as a kid but got stuck and stopped playng :( was very cryptic in some places
It definitely can get pretty unclear where to go at a couple points. There are apparently indicators along the way but even for this playthrough I clearly miss them and stumbled around blindly a bunch.
The reason that the 1st game ended the way it did is because originally golden sun and Lost age where 1 game just on the N64 but because at the time of it's development the game cube was about to be released Camelot was forced to redo it for the gba and the game was to big to fit so they split it into two games
Did I not mention that in the 2 videos? I might've actually forgotten to say it but yes, you're absolutely right and it's pretty awesome how well they adjusted it and made it work in the new format and split.
@@Zerbraxi haven't seen the second yet sorry
Brace yourself for dd… also great video, watched instantly but fell asleep ahahha
LOL!!! Totally been there before!
I already have low expectations for Dark Dawn, which might prove helpful to get a more honest look at it. Still really curious about it since I like the setup for it at least.
Lemuria is in "fact" not Atlantis, and is a separat yet similar civilization/culture
Learning this fact after I made the video will forever be the bane of my existence lol
Played the game few years ago, it was great, even better than the first one. Why is that you may ask me? And the answer to that is because in my humble opinion if there should have only one thing to learn from this video is that Lemuria is TOTALLY NOT Atlantis
You have no idea how stupid I felt when I learned about "real world" Lemuria a week AFTER I posted this video...That joke will forever be the bane of my existence LOL. What a dumby.
Its the best rpg i my opinion and the best original rpg on the gba.
I think I fully agree about best original RPG on the GBA. Definitely at least based on what games I've played at least.
the legend of...dragoon? had to check that out. never heard of it. im also sure i never in my life saw this gamecover before...this game went completely past me, im 31 now D: gotta download rn XD
Omg if you're actually gonna play it please let me know what you think. Even if it's bad news and you end up hating it I'm just happy it's getting any attention at all
@Zerbraxi i mean if you ask me nicely like that... i know this love for certain games from myself xd so im really intrigued now. I'll be back :p
It seems to be a strategy rpg, more like fire emblem, is that true or not? Bc that would be kinda be a lil turn off xd but i will still try it
@@Zerbraxi well i guess it wont happen. cant find the original for playstation 1 ROM, removed everywhere, probably because of the psplus version. but bc i dont have a playstation its hard to get the game. guess its gonna be a mystery to me for a few more years :(
Camelot is still around. And my two cents are this: Camelot has already created a Mario Tennis and a Mario Golf game for the Switch. So the options for what to do next is clear (I don't see Nintendo forcing them to sit on their thumbs until the Switch 2 comes out).
1. Make a 4th Golden Sun Game
2. Remake Golden Sun & The Lost Age for the Switch (in a similar fashion to what they're doing for the Advance Wars series)
3. Port Golden Sun & The Lost Age to the Switch (rumor has it that Gameboy Advance games will be downloadable onto the Switch)
4. Make a Mario Sports All Stars game for the Switch
5. Make a Shining Force sequel
6. Make a Brand Spanking New IP for Nintendo.
7. Make new DLC for Mario Golf and Mario Tennis (this seriously is my least favorite option)
I would LOVE another Golden Sun. The potential is for sure there. The boom of JRPG's recently helps a ton. Persona 5,Yakuza Like A Dragon, Bravely Default 2, Live A Live, Octopath Traveler, all of these show that Golden Sun could do incredibly well.
My fear is that we'll just get Mario Baseball or something instead
I'm sure you've already heard, but incase you haven't: GS + TLA will both be released on NSO in three days (the 17th). I don't care if it's a 15 second blurb, can't wait to see your video on it.
Great video, subbing!
Thank you so much. I'm glad you enjoyed the video.
40:30 I wonder if you noticed the insane amount of damage Agatio dealt to Isaac in one attack. He dealt 9999 Damage.
I did not notice that.
Funny that you got stuck in the Poseidon part, I have NO idea how I beat that as a kid with no proper English (Spanish speaker).
What I remember being the bane of my existence is the Great Serpent/Dragon that you have to poison or something so it gets weakened and you can actually fight and defeat him.
I remember grinding SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much thinking I was just weak. I managed to beat it without weakening it and became a god unknowingly.
LOL!!! I love hearing these types of stories. It's so funny how some of us will just randomly miss a tell or indicator of some sort and just be forced to brute force it when the solution is often right there.
I had this similar experience with Breath of Fire 3 which I played for the first time a couple of years ago. I won't the say the mechanic in case of spoilers, but I missed something obvious and just grinded for a weekend to brute force the hell out of it and win that way.
Thank you for sharing that.
@Zerbraxi Hahaha nah man. Thank YOU!!! For the content and engagement :)
I actually remembered how I did the trident part. I already told you about the great serpent, so. Since I spent around 2 weeks (give or take) grinding all over the map, that was it. That's how I solved the trident puzzle. Just being a braindead kid grinding all the way to like level 65 in a part of the game whete you are like 30-40 hahaha
How??? Doesn't it regen like 2k hp every turn if you don't light any of the orbs????
@@serezelveydawn Yes, yes he does, I'm telling you, I was like a 10 year old kid with so much free time on his hands. I had my characters at like lvl 70 at that point because I didn't know how to get the orbs. :(
@@RobotnikPlngas @serezelveydawn Ya, I've seen clips of this being done more and more now over the past few years. Seems like your 10 year old self was just 20 years ahead of the rest of us lol
35:36 They actually did that for dark dawn.
Oh interesting. I haven't started it just yet. Be honest with me. Was it a good or bad idea?
Subbed for golden sun content:)
Thank you so much! I still have at least 1 more game to go, and I have a feeling I'll have more to say even beyond that. I hope you enjoy what's to come.
There are games that veer off into the childish realm for sure. I didn't see golden sun in that light, but many games have gone in that direction and it sucks when it does. The whole reason why games were successful to the younger audience is because they saw older kids playing it. Sane adults don't want to play overly cutsie games. Even pokemon as "childish" as it was in the beginning, is nowhere near the levels of cutsie they are trying to do with some of the new games.
Pretty much agree 100%.
We need to find Ryan again for an update
I really hope Ryan see's this video so I can interview him one day. I need to know what was going on in his mind.
Okay, I have to say, you completely lost me for a moment during the whole whirlwind djinn menu rant. I never had to fiddle with djinn for puzzles, (that I can remember) because there's an item super early that gives the equipped adept Whirlwind. I used to give it to Felix so he'd have a Jupiter psynergy for Venus-resistant creatures in the early game.
There's an item for it?! I must've completely missed this because I've never heard of that item in The Lost Age.
Playing through Dark Dawn quite literally as I type this and Karis knowing Whirlwind innately is definitely what I was describing and hoping would happen.
@@Zerbraxi yeah. It's been quite a while since I played, so I don't remember exactly where you get it, but it was somewhere around the dungeon you get Lash in, IIRC.
It was definitely early on, because I remember needing to use whirlwind a lot to blow away leaves and later at Ayer's Rock, so I passed it around to keep my PP expenditure even.
EDIT: okay, I can't find any mention of it online, but I definitely remember giving Felix Whirlwind somehow in the early game. I'm gonna have to drag out my copy and play again to figure this out. Oh no. How onerous. How shall I survive.
@@Rizaidym Oh man, how horrible. Having to play one of the best JRPG's ever made for a portable console. I wish you the best on this arduous journey. I'm gonna have to reply back in a few days for a wellness check just to make sure you aren't having too much fun :)
@@Zerbraxi by the way, the item I was thinking of is the Cyclone Chip. Which gives Cyclone. Not Whirlwind. Oops.
dark dawn? never heard of it?
Plugging your ears every time it's mentioned can go a long way.
you can use gale instead of whirlwind :)
Oh!?
as the ninja class, if you have access to it
When are u going to get to dark dawn?
Funny you ask that. I'm actually playing through it now alongside editing Suikoden. My hope is to get the video out before the end of the year
For some reason this comment was stuck in my head lol and I wanted to come back to report that I have finished Dark Dawn 100% and am writing the script for it in another tab as I reply back to this comment.
@@Zerbraxi ayye glad to hear cant wait to see it