Page 4

SquareSoftIsh

I couldn't even tell you who developed Golden Sun: The Lost Age, and that's not because I threw the game aside. Indeed, it's a tribute to Lost Age's design that it split my playing time 50/50 with Castlevania. Not that there's really anything that unique about Golden Sun at the outset. The game starts with a surprisingly long prologue which explains the events of what occured in the original Golden Sun. This prologue is excellent and left me completely satisfied and not at all confused with subsequent plot events.

Of course, like most Japanese RPGs, Golden Sun is plagued with kiddie adventurer syndrome. Apparently the Japanese design mind is incapable of imagining anyone who has completed puberty in the role of an adventurer, except as an evil rival or elderly mentor. While this may have been cute and relatively original back when I played say... oh... Chrono Trigger (seven years ago), nowadays it's just a worn-out cliche like giant purple tentacles. The illogic of children going out on adventures isn't that irksome as is the lack of options for the plot. There can be no mature (no, not sexual) subject matter involved in any conceivable fashion. It's not exactly like western game designers have managed to come up with particularly moving plots all that often, but gems like Planescape: Torment have shown what RPGs are capable of.

Back in Black

Game Boy Player top

Why bother putting that Nintendo logo there?

However, given my limited time with Golden Sun so far, I can't fully judge the plot and writing. Indications are that it's a much better story than most - particularly given the tie-in to the previous game and the slightly darker tone to things. My concerns are more about the long-term consequences casued by the limitations imposed by the age of characters.

On the gameplay side, Lost Age manages to introduce some new concepts to keep it fresh. It is still clearly a Japanese RPG with the standard, turn-based combat and various special abilities, but it's not generic by any stretch of the imagination. Like Final Fantasy VII the characters can be customized by their tools of the trade. Instead of using Materia like in FF7, characters collect djinns. Djinns are elemental - air, earth, fire or water. They are 'set' to a character and give him stat bonuses and an ability like double strike. Once that ability is used in combat, the djinn can be set again or used to summon his power. In addition, player characters have psyenergy, which is basically magic. They use it to manipulate their chosen element, which is based on their class. Classes can changed depending on the kinds of djinns a character has set to him.

While Golden Sun: The Lost Age is no Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy V (so far, at any rate), it's much more entertaining than I expected. The extremely impressive graphics, which occasionaly take advantage of the Game Boy Advance's 3D capabilities and always feature robust animation, certainly help this along. The sound track, clear sound effects, and even the pleasant Zelda-like beeps as text appears all lend an undeniable charm to Lost Age.