Golden Sun Series

Recently started replaying this series again which was always close to my heart being the first real JRPG I got really into as a kid (12 years old~). I remember barely beating the game not exploring at all, and thinking I was hot shit. Beat it a few more times when I was older, including the sequel (which allows you to transfer data). It really is still to this day one of the more interesting RPG's in terms of how the combat works.

It is all about a rotating system of stats. Basically you have your basic attack, Psynergy (spells) etc. But there are Djinn to collect (little monsters), up to 7 of each element. Using a Djinn in battle has a unique effect that differs per Djinn (each is unique). Once used they are 'set' and can be used as fuel for summoning.
The downside is that they also give passive buffs when NOT used, allowing you acces to higher stats, spells and even other classes.

Give protagonist Isaac, who's an Earth user, full Fire Djinn as a setup he'll become a Berserker Class, which has very powerful Psynergies, high attack stat and tons of HP. The differences can be monsterous. A level 40 Felix will have around 1000 HP and 710 attack as a Chaos Lord class, but give him 0 Djinn and he barely has 350 HP and 300 attack. So using Djinn to fuel summons is great for massive damage is fine, but you sacrifice damage output and defences greatly afterwards.

The Djinn system is all in really cool, always gives the feeling of "hm, what if I do this" when toying around with it. The biggest downside is that the game is too easy, meaning even if you barely use the system and just spam Djinn and Summons you'll most likely win (outside maybe one or two rare and hidden boss fights).

But all in all, great series. Adorable sprites too and godlike music. I'll never tire of the theme of Saturos. Anyone here ever played the games?

Here's an example of the combat (just googled a random boss vid, nothing special):

Played the first one many years ago. I was impressed with how good it looked and really liked the way the camera swings behind whoever is attacking.

I remember the Djinn but not too much about how they worked. Looking back, I dont think I understood the mechanics at all.

Yeah same here, as a kid I had no idea. Especially about the classes which I just found 'annoying'. Now it was the funnest part almost. They are very well worth revisiting imo.

I remember those summons but not how they worked. I once called up this guy who was flying and shot this DBZ blast into the ground and Im pretty sure it blew away the whole country lol.

Haha yeah that was Judgment! Awesome summon:



Talking indepth details on the game with SBK atm, pretty sweet number crunching.

It's great you brought this game up! I always wanted to play this since it was developed by the original Shining Force team (part II was my favorite Genesis/MD RPG), but I never got the chance to try it. Didn't get a Game Boy Advance until the SP released, and I was more into PC games at the time.

This game looks very good for a handheld title, and the art style retains and expands on the classic Shining Force aesthetics. You can really tell it's Camelot's work! I do recall my old schoolmates saying the series is easy in general, and the DS game was really disappointing compared to the prequels. Quite a shame too considering the good track-record the dev team had.

Will have to add this game to my never-ending backlog.

The games are a joy to play, very fun graphical style and a great combat system. The biggest flaw is as you noted the difficulty. Foes are dumb, spamming attacks and abilities at random; some are even worse that always do the same chain of attacks in a row meaning you can predict what comes if you have decent know-how. It has great combat though. In a nutshell you have these creatures that give massive passive buffs to you, with all of them buffing you you can easily have 800 HP instead of 300 for instance. You can then use these little critters called Djinn to activate special abilities that are very powerful like attacks, shields, buffs and more. But doing this sets them to 'standby', which no longer has them buff you but instead be usable as fuel for powerful summon attacks.

Summons are pretty unique in that they deal a specific number + % of the enemies HP in damage. Meaning they are great against bosses. But they are also dangerous since using them leaves your characters unbuffed and vulnerable. A very cool mechanic imo! The Lost Age (the sequel) has a Hard Mode that makes the mechanics shine more imo.

The DS game had a lot of faults, mostly being that it had a lot of points-of-no-return, which is bad form in an RPG.

Finally caved and bought a 3ds for the sequel I never played...it's okay. Story is bad, the problems with the combat remain unfixed and it is way too easy. The 'roadblock' boss got nuked in 1 turn by me. Even level1-runs using emulators seem very easy so far, sad.

I might grab Dark Dawn at some point.

How much customization does the Djinn system offer? Or does it wind up as a basic class system?

The Djinn system is still probably my favourite mechanic in the genre.

Basically Djinn have three states:
- set
- standby
- recovering

When "Set" they influence your character, a character can equip a maximum of 7 (or 9, depending on the game). For instance Garet will have 250 HP without the Djinn named Forge, and 300 with it. When "Set" they also build to your class. Having Garet only have Fire type Djinn will make him a fire-mage, but if you for instance give him 3 wind and 4 earth, he'll become a "Ninja" iirc which is specialized in debuffs and single target spells that hit hard and benefit from Attack Power stat.

Each Djinn has a very powerful ability as well. When you use that, the djinn goes into Standby and cannot be used anymore. For every Djinn on Standby you get a 'point'. So if you have 3 Mars Djinn on standby, you get 3 Mars points that you can spend on Summoning. Some summons require a mix of different types. Summons are really great since they have a high base damage, and the rest is damage based on a % of max hp of the target. So for instance Judgment, a summon that requires 4 Earth Djinn on Standby, deals 400 damage + 15%maxHP of target. Great for low-level runs.

The beauty is that there's a TON of classes and with 8 playable characters in Lost Age and Dark Dawn, a ton of possible combinations and setups, especially when you add gear with certain benefits into the mix. You might for instance give Felix a strong sword and built him fully towards attacking with his weapon, giving a class that has the highest attackbuff. But as a result you cannot use his Djinn, which is a sacrifice. Lots of little details.

I would recommend you try to play the original GBA games. They are far better in every way imo. They are on the GBA and WiiU.

This might sound odd, but I'm more interested in status effects. Is there poison, freeze, burn, etc?

Basically everything under the moon.

https://goldensun.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Status_Conditions

The game's biggest problems is difficulty, you have all these great mechanics but the game is piss easy. So you really need to challenge yourself.

Damn, someone needs to rewrite that whole thing.

Death Curse sounds extremely interesting, but it's hard to understand exactly how it works due to the poor writing. Can you explain it better?

if the afflicted isn't healed in seven ACTION turns ( = a turn in which an afflicted character acts - enemy/ ally), they're instantly downed.
Ok, this makes sense. You or the enemy drop dead if you don't remove the curse within 7 turns. But it says 'action' in caps so I assume it doesn't count if you pass your turn?' Can you do that in this game?

This means the effect can last longer, due to the effect of Lull, for eample ...
What does this mean?

I basically means, if the character spends 7 of his turns, he dies instantly. The reason it is a bit more complicated than that, is that there are abilities, like the Djinn named Lull, that immediately cancel 'the turn' when activated, as well as other abilities that stun a player, forfeiting their turn. Some characters can also attack more than once per turn, which then still counts as one turn.

So say you let Isaac do a spell, but he's stunned for that turn before he can do the spell, that turn doesn't count. Unlike most RPGs, Golden Sun lets you input all the actions for all your party members first, and then if plays it out in a row.

It's a fun ability, and it even works on most bosses iirc. Again, the downside being you might as well just nuke the boss and kill him in 2-3 turns if you know how. A no-summon playthrough is already a lot more intersting if you avoid Shield-abuse (more on that in the future).

>just nuke
Well sure, but that's optional.

>no summon
Is summoning basically just huge, high power attacks?

> summons
Basically. They are essentially very powerful and cinematic spells. For instance Judgment deals 240 Earth Damage + 12% of the enemies maxHP. Some of the summons in The Lost Age and Dark Dawn also have bonus effects, or not deal damage at all. Megiddo for instance does minor damage, but also gives the entire party an attack-buff.

I can't get Dark Dawn in my country, but I see Playasia has the US version. Might grab it at some point.

Started playing last night. This will be on and off.

Let me see if I'm understanding this correctly.

You equip djinns and certain combinations create classes. Ok.
But you can also use the djinn to do some sort of assist, and this sidelines it temporarily. Same for summons? And if you do this they essentially disconnect from the character, removing your class and any stat changes they granted?

A small correction, the way it works is that Djinni have three modes:

Standby: they can be used for their ability and until then will give stat-buffs to your characters and influence their class. If you use the ability, they are 'Set'.

Set: they no longer give bonuses or influence your class. You can spend a turn to put them on Standby again manually. Or they can be used as fuel for summons i.e. two Venus Djinni on Set can summon Ramses. Summoning puts the Djinn in recover.

Recover: while recovering it takes one turn for them to come back to Standby, until then they don't give any bonusses or influence your class, and cannot be used as fuel. Note that only one of them can 'return' per character per turn. So if you use 4 Djinni to summon, and they all belong to one character, you'll have to wait four turns until you have them all again.

So you're constantly juggling their (very powerful) abilities to the need for statboosts and summons. Summons deal a big %-damage, so great against bosses. Djinni tend to give buffed versions of regular buff spells which is great too etc. It's a fun system.

It sounds like you get crippled if you use them.

Basically yeah, it allows for a variety of playstyles. Either you keep them on Standby for the buffs and use the weaker psynergy, or you go ham with Djinn abilities and summon things into oblivion. It works up more towards the end-game where you can make pretty fun builds, like having one character a lot of Djinni that give good passive stat-boosts, while others use support djinni to buff the party and have one dedicated summoner etc. Fun stuff!

I just want their spells.

Played a little while on a break. Noticed set and standby change the list, either removing or adding spells.

Got one called Delude. Instantly disappointed that every enemy I tried it on nearby was 'unaffected'. JRPGs need to stop making ailments so useless.

Delude is tied to your Luck-stat, so you were probably just using it on enemies with a high resistance to that specific effect or had a low Luck.

> set/standbye
Djinn combinations change your class as noted, which influence you stats and spelllist yeah. It's the only way to gain access to Growth for example (needed for some exploration) of some of the more powerful spells. In other cases the spells are terrible but the stats are great, fantastic if you're going for a high-unleash% build for Isaac or Felix.