Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is third game in the Golden Sun series which was developed by Camelot and released in 2010. Dark Sun takes place 3 decades after the events from the previous game. The main cast is the children of the previous main cast and the game details their efforts to save the world when mysterious dark vortexes start to appear all over. Its accessible to newcomers while staying familiar to older veterans.
(the cast of the game)
It is a pretty easy JRPG and dungeons are pretty straightforward to navigate. As you navigate the game world, you find Djins each with its own elemental powers and special abilities to help you overcome challenges whatever they may be. In total there is a about 72 Djins in the game. You can equip different djins to also increase your stats and change your characters classes throughout the game. Make sure to collect as much Djinn as you can find as some parts are places where there is no turning back.
(its quicker to jump off the cn tower than it is through the dialogue of the game)
The control system is pretty straightforward and the touchscreen allows you to use the djin special abilities that you weren’t really able to control in the Gameboy Advance. The combat system was overall fun and accessible. The art style and the graphics looked very nice. The user interface was pretty straight forward and so was the control system. The character designs looked good but the animation hasn’t aged that well. You can revisit places with new abilities to unlock new routes to find treasure.
(The game's battle system)
There were some drawbacks. The final boss fight was really cheap as he had multiple turns and spammed over powered attacks and would almost always kill you instantly.
(Santa Monica studios working on a Golden Sun game would have been a disaster as there is no way at all they'd make it great because they would have sabotaged due to the fact its Japanese and also because they'd always find something extremely superficial to complain about in the name of "being woke")
The story is interesting but pretty cliched and not as different as any other typical JRPG and everyone is just as tropey as expected. The dialogue choices are totally meaningless since the story plays out the same. The dialogue was also very wordy and excessive and it dragged on the story. Characters could do really stupid things that also made the story drag. The ending is extremely sequel baity as it ends off with Issac and Garret missing and a mysterious psynergy vortex greeting them.
(Another factor in as well why there isn't going to be a sequel anytime soon is that the guy who did the art is sadly dead. )
There were also many unresolved plot points from the previous games that are left open. Many characters from the previous games did not appear even if some are big part of the story. Some of the characters, like Blados and Chalis, fates were unknown. Other characters had no role in the story. Ryu Kou was a bitter enemy picking fights with Matthew and company and only late in the story he apologizes and stated that would have joined Matthew’s party had he known they were adepts. It was pointless. Backtracking is pretty excessive too and going back and forth from place to place is super annoying. The Craggy Peaks ruins was a pretty weak dungeon due to the obvious solutions to puzzles and for its lack of boss fights.
The game overall is a good JRPG for beginners and it is pretty affordable around the 20 dollar price range.
It gets 4 out of 5 stars.
There has been talks of a new entry but that seems very unlikely given that the artist died not too long ago and Camelot is currently focused on side titles of the Mario games. Given Nintendo’s long history of playing it safe, anything outside of Pokemon, Fire Emblem, Zelda, Animal Crossing or Mario is almost always going to end up being neglected. Nintendo could only use these franchises so much before people will get fed up and really start demanding for Nintendo to get back to work on their other ips like Trace Memory or Hotel Dusk Room 215.
Time will tell if Nintendo does something with their older ips and not as an Easter Egg in Smash.
(Sakurai is aware that there is too many sword especially fire emblem characters in smash but its the boomers in Nintendo who think that its unpopular even though its a multi million dollar franchise that can sell even more if they'd lower the price already like many other games and also Nintendo is profit first ethics last so don't act surprised at all when they do cancerous fuckery.)