Should There be a Golden Sun 3?

We owe a lot to the Golden Sun games. They combined beautiful graphics and music plus a classic console feel to create the quintessential handheld RPG. They also helped bring console RPG games back into the limelight, which up until now had been a virtually dead genre since the Super Nintendo faded out of existence. Truly, Camelot software planning should be praised for giving such a gift to current RPG fans and for helping to create a new generation of RPG fans too. Notice how the GBA is now an extremely popular outlet for RPGs? Well, Golden Sun was one of the first to tap into this potential, and for that we should be grateful.

High praise aside, GS continues to be a popular franchise amongst fans even more than a year after the release of TLA. Sometimes it’s hard to understand why. The plot of the games is nothing spectacular when compared to massive classics like Chrono Trigger or any of the Zelda games, and much of the in-game dialogue is bland and drags on for ages. Even I sometimes wonder why I like it so much when it seems to rehash every console RPG stereotype out there.

Stereotypes or no, new fans of the game are emerging every day. Some of them even go so far as to write very lengthy fan fictions about the characters as part of their obsession (ahem). But with the series comprised of a mere two games, which is miniscule compared to an RPG franchise like Final Fantasy, some fans keep hankering for a third installment. This is where we enter dangerous territory. Some of the people who claim to love the games are desperate for another chapter to it, whereas others are ready to beg and plead Camelot and Nintendo to leave the series untouched.

Since it should be obvious why a fan would want more to the GS series, I’m here to explain why a die-hard fan like myself would prefer it be left alone. A lot of it stems from the release of part two (the Lost Age) and some of the subsequent disappointments afterwards. As someone who played GS1 probably hundreds of times and loved every moment of it, I had naturally formed some expectations for TLA. Maybe my standards were too high and that accounts for some of my disappointment with it. But whatever the reason, only a few of the expectations I’d had were actually met in the second game, and many of them were dashed to pieces. That’s not to say that TLA isn’t a good game—it is. But when compared to the first one, it’s obvious that somewhere along the way, Camelot lost their focus.

A few of my friends (who shall remain nameless) are convinced that TLA is evil incarnate and that it ruined the Golden Sun premise completely. I do not take such an extreme stance. While I was disappointed with it, I still think the game has its own merits. Some of it is even an improvement over GS1. So one day when I was thinking about those nameless friends and TLA, I started to make a list of the good and bad qualities of the game. This list is not all-inclusive, of course; it’s completely my own opinion and you’re allowed to agree or disagree with me all you want. It’s also doubtless that I missed a point or two along the way that I meant to say but forgot because I’m kind of flaky that way. The points also aren’t ranked—they’re numbered only for the sake of convenience. Be aware that there are some SPOILERS included here:

What TLA Got Right:

1. A longer quest. My chief complaint about GS1 was that it was too short and it ended just as I was really getting into it. TLA is nearly double the length of GS1 and that’s a decidedly good thing!
   


2. More areas too explore. Related to #1, of course. I think the "Elemental Rocks" were a neat idea, and even though I hate stupid Air’s Rock with a passion, it was still pretty fun overall. And getting to go to places like Lemuria and Contigo was nifty too.
   


3. The blacksmith. Definitely a good idea putting Sunshine in there and his ability to turn raw materials and rusted items into powerful weapons and armor. Adds replay value, though requires a lot of backtracking sometimes.
   


4. Teleport. Who can argue that this isn’t one of the best abilities? Being able to travel almost anywhere in Weyard instantly seriously cuts down on walking time. This would be an even better thing if it came a little earlier in the quest but...oh well.
   


5. More sidequests. There were only two sidequests in GS1—rescuing Hammet and going to Crossbone Isle. TLA had a lot more of these optional quests and the rewards were even greater.
   


6. Combination Summons. They rock. Enough said.
   


7. New Psynergy and Classes. The item classes in particular had a lot of cool things to offer, and there were plenty of new spells like Odyssey and Diamond Berg to spice up the fights.
   


8. Dullahan. OK, he’s evil incarnate and next to impossible to beat the old fashioned way, but I love a good challenge!
   


9. Rewarding GS1 veterans. While the password is obnoxiously long, the greatest rewards in the game are reserved for the people who thoroughly explored and mastered the first quest. Plus it was nice running into familiar faces like Feizhi and the buffoons from Colosso.
   


10. Alex. I always knew there was something suspicious about him in GS1. Now I have real proof that he’s a backstabbing, arrogant bastard!
    


11. Larger party. I liked having more Adepts to choose from. Made for much more variety and interest in the fights. Bonus of being able to switch people mid-battle.
    


12. No cliffhanger. Whatever you thought was wrong with the plot or the ending, at the very least the game actually came to some sort of conclusion this time!
    


13. Jenna. Giving her a more active role as a playable character was definitely a good move. She’s hysterical at points and very useful in a fight.
    


14. Picard. I simply cannot complain about the addition of a handsome and all around cool guy from an ancient civilization. Whether or not he’s useful in battle is debatable, but if anyone tells me he’s ugly or stupid, I will rip his or her tongue out personally. ^^;

What TLA Screwed Up:

1. Plotholes. It seems the writers completely forgot about a couple of things when coming up with the story, the most glaring question being what the hell happened to Isaac’s boat?! Clearly someone had his or her head in the clouds.
   


2. Inconsistency. There are several points in TLA where the plot seemed to directly contradict events in GS1 (and it’s not explained why), and we’re also informed that about 90% of what we learned in GS1 was "conveniently" incorrect. For example, Saturos and Menardi apparently weren’t evil and only wanted to save their hometown. Um...wait. Weren’t they the ones who attacked all the guards in Lalivero with little provocation? Not much that’s benevolent about that, nor was it benevolent to kidnap Jenna, Kraden and Sheba and hold the Valeans hostage. And then we’re told that the Valeans were the evil ones for refusing to help Prox in the first place. WTF? It’s one thing to tell us we were misinformed before, but it’s a whole different cup of tea to change around the entire plot so that the bad guys are now good and the good guys are now bad! And this is just one example of the inconsistency. Read on...
   


3. New Party. While I like having more Adepts at my disposal, leaving Isaac’s group behind never sat well with me. I would’ve pounced on any opportunity to play as Isaac during part of the quest. And why the heck does it take till 2/3 of the way through the game for the parties to merge? I agree that Felix’s story needed to be told, but they could’ve gone about it differently...without shortchanging Isaac and Garet’s importance.
   


4. Felix. No, I’m not saying he’s terrible character-wise. My problem is that stat-wise, he’s basically an Isaac clone. Camelot easily could’ve given him different abilities or a greater variation in his statistics to help him stand out from the crowd (like they did with Jenna). As he is, I didn’t like using him in fights because he seemed like a very cheap Isaac rip-off, and then when I got Isaac back, he was at a higher level (thanks to my password) so there was no need to use Felix much at all. The poor guy really got hosed.
   


5. Sheba. Again, it has nothing to do with her as a character. Like Felix, she’s little more than a clone of a GS1 character in battle. She’s exactly like Ivan! They have the exact same set of spells and classes, their stats are nearly identical, and they even look alike! They may as well be twins, though one could argue that Sheba is the weaker of the two Jupiter Adepts since Ivan is the one who can use Light Blades. Sheba got hosed too. Is a little creativity with the characters’ abilities too much to ask?
   


6. Sense of urgency. This factor was prominent in GS1 because you were trying to stop Saturos and Menardi from lighting the beacons and they were always ahead of you. But in TLA, the urgency factor is pretty much nil. Even after Karst and Agatio started muscling in, the general attitude was "light the beacons when you get to it," not "light the beacons right now or else we’ll destroy the world" or something. The plot really fell flat in this manner.
   


7. WAFF. That means "Warm and Fuzzy Feeling" to anyone who didn’t know already. There were some genuinely sad moments in GS1 (most notably the opening Vale boulder event) and these really added depth to what would otherwise be a humdrum sort of game. TLA, however, completely nullified all of those sad moments with various explanations and plot points, and the overarching story suffers. There were several attempts to bring that emotion back into TLA, particularly at the end, but it didn’t matter because everything turned out fine in the end anyway. I’ll freely admit that I wanted all the characters to have a happy ending, but...the way they did it turned out just a bit too cuddly. It was satisfying on the most basic level, but it was cliche and felt contrived at several points. It might’ve been more enjoyable if they’d had a better script writer.
   


8. Party reunion. That scene in Contigo where Felix and Isaac join forces was way, way too clean. These two had been on opposite sides from the very beginning, and after five minutes of dialogue suddenly all was forgiven and they were the best of friends again. Um...yeah. Granted, no one wants to sit and watch the character sprites bicker for an hour, but this particular event rubbed me the wrong way the very first time I played TLA. It was just too simplified. A better script writer probably could've saved this scene too.
   


9. The Madra blushing scene. OK, this is obviously a Mudshipper’s bias talking, but dammit I’m allowed to complain! I mean, there was plenty of evidence pointing towards Mud and Flame pairings in GS1, but then TLA confused all of that with rather idiotic scenes like this one. It’s like taking the characterizations in the first game completely out of context and it’s annoying, especially since it’s led to a lot of very heated flame wars over at FF.net. (I’m serious—this one little scene in the game has led to endless shouting matches. One scene! Valeshippers cling to this event for dear life.) It speaks greatly to TLA’s inconsistency.
   


10. Spelling issues. I caught several typos in the game text, including a place where it says "Pynergy" when it should be "Psynergy." I never saw such problems in GS1. And they also misspelled or changed character names: Master Hama from GS1 became "Master Hamma" in TLA, and Hsu from GS1 became "Ulmuch." Ulmuch? That’s not even close to Hsu! Once again, it speaks volumes about the inconsistency.
    


11. Too many item-dependant Psynergies. Obviously Teleport was a good idea, but there were a lot of field Psynergy abilities that relied on items and the result is that your party’s pockets got filled with required items and left little room for anything else (like healing items). There were eight item-dependent Psynergies in GS1, and three of those were completely optional to get. TLA had nine, and only one of those was optional—the rest you needed to complete the game. Sounds like a small difference, but couple all of those with the other non-item-dependent field Psynergies (10 in total) and that’s a lot of junk to remember in the field areas! This leads me onto my next point...
    


12. Annoying puzzles. Oh my how annoying the puzzles in this game could be! GS1 had some annoying areas too, but not in the same volume as TLA. Air’s Rock and Jupiter Lighthouse in particular had some of the most aggravating puzzles I’ve ever seen, and it wasn’t because they were hard—it was because they required so much backtracking and so many Psynergy commands! Gah...I would’ve enjoyed them if they actually required some head-scratching to figure out, but they really didn’t: they were just plain irritating.
    


13. Alex and the Wise One. I do like that Alex turned out to be the power-hungry bastard who manipulated everyone—it was probably the only plot twist I didn’t detect a mile away. But that end scene where he’s on Mt. Aleph and has a confrontation with the Wise One...why didn’t the Wise One just kill him outright? Or send him to the Adepts to battle or something? Because as they wrote it, it’s very possible that Alex is still alive, and it’s another dangling plothole, plus a cheap cop-out to allow a possible sequel. Makes for interesting fan fiction though...
    


14. Villain redemption. Related to the WAFF issue, it felt unnatural making the GS1 bad guys "victims" as opposed to greedy and violent incarnations of evil. And trying to redeem Karst and Agatio before they died with quotes about human warmth didn’t do it for me either. The way Saturos, Menardi, Karst and Agatio acted throughout the games screamed that they wanted to light the beacons for reasons other than saving Prox. Agatio even says at Jupiter Lighthouse that the world will bow before Prox. Trying to paint them in a redeeming light seemed like an effort to make everyone in the game (except Alex) "good," and that’s just too fluffy. The four of them deserved better than that.
    


15. Kraden. Ugh...what possessed them to make that old man a member of your party? All he does is take up space since he of course can’t fight, yet I think he talks more than the eight Adepts combined. In a word: annoying. There are some good jokes at his expense but basically, all he does is talk and get the group in more trouble.
    

By now you've likely noticed that the "bad" list is pretty lengthy and points out more overarching things like plot, theme and character development than the "good" list does. Hopefully that alone should make it obvious that TLA had a lot of problems that the writers and programmers failed to take into account during development. And that’s basically my reason for not wanting a GS3. If the second game had this many flaws, imagine what could happen if they made a third? Unless they start over completely from scratch in a third game, Nintendo/Camelot will have all of these issues working in the background. That’s not a good way to start a new game, and the end result would likely turn out to be an enormous disaster, which would in turn end up degrading the entire series and leave a foul taste in the mouths of all but the blindest fans. I don’t want that to happen to a series I love so much. I say it’s better to just leave it alone, complete with the problems inherent in TLA, and just enjoy it as it is. Such a choice may result in GS disappearing off of the popularity charts, but I know that there are plenty of loyal fans out there who will still be obsessing over it for years to come. Gamers are loyal that way.