Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
After many years of waiting, I have now played and finished Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. I enjoyed it overall, though it took a while to "feel" like a GS game and I don't think I like it as much as the original games. (Warning: lots of grumbling ahead!)
I don't think the party system was implemented very well. GS2 had the eight-member party as well, but that was after spending a long time with all of them as seperate four-member parties, and they'd all had a lot of character development so you knew them all well. In GS3 most of the additional characters joined you at a weaker level than your established party - with the main exception of Amiti, who basically took over Rief's role as a useful fourth member and story-important character within a few hours of Rief joining in the first place. (I really liked Rief but there's simply no need for a dedicated healer when Karis has party-healing spells AND has decent physical attack as well.) Sveta was useful too but I tended to swap her out for Karis again; Eoleo was not quite strong enough to swap out Tyrell for him; and Himi just got no character development whatsoever (having joined, at a plot level, right before the finale), and again, just wasn't useful enough other than during the final boss battle.
The final boss was WAY overpowered compared to anything encountered before it - all the other bosses and even the shadow monsters were pretty easy to defeat, and suddenly I'm being completely thrashed by something that gets four attacks each round, most of them high-damage party attacks. I spent most of my time just keeping my party not-dead. It took me AN HOUR AND A HALF to defeat it. @_@
Also, they brought in too much new mythology/history and geography. How come nobody in the original GS games ever mentioned all this Jenei business, and how did we explore all of Angara and miss the Great Wall of Ei-Jei and so many other ancient-but-not-there-thirty-years ago features? I guess they were trying to make it more interesting than just revisiting the same places, but it seemed too out-of-place, not just an extension of the world that was already there. I think that was why it took a while for the game to feel like Golden Sun. Also, there was too much "magic is actually ancient technology" stuff going on. I don't like it when they do that.
And just one more minor gripe - I wish they'd kept the 2D sprite artwork. The GBA games had such gorgeous detailed sprites, but this was pretty average 3D.
Anyway, it looks like I have a Golden Sun 4 to look forward to... but I think I'll go replay GS2 in the meanwhile.
I don't think the party system was implemented very well. GS2 had the eight-member party as well, but that was after spending a long time with all of them as seperate four-member parties, and they'd all had a lot of character development so you knew them all well. In GS3 most of the additional characters joined you at a weaker level than your established party - with the main exception of Amiti, who basically took over Rief's role as a useful fourth member and story-important character within a few hours of Rief joining in the first place. (I really liked Rief but there's simply no need for a dedicated healer when Karis has party-healing spells AND has decent physical attack as well.) Sveta was useful too but I tended to swap her out for Karis again; Eoleo was not quite strong enough to swap out Tyrell for him; and Himi just got no character development whatsoever (having joined, at a plot level, right before the finale), and again, just wasn't useful enough other than during the final boss battle.
The final boss was WAY overpowered compared to anything encountered before it - all the other bosses and even the shadow monsters were pretty easy to defeat, and suddenly I'm being completely thrashed by something that gets four attacks each round, most of them high-damage party attacks. I spent most of my time just keeping my party not-dead. It took me AN HOUR AND A HALF to defeat it. @_@
Also, they brought in too much new mythology/history and geography. How come nobody in the original GS games ever mentioned all this Jenei business, and how did we explore all of Angara and miss the Great Wall of Ei-Jei and so many other ancient-but-not-there-thirty-years ago features? I guess they were trying to make it more interesting than just revisiting the same places, but it seemed too out-of-place, not just an extension of the world that was already there. I think that was why it took a while for the game to feel like Golden Sun. Also, there was too much "magic is actually ancient technology" stuff going on. I don't like it when they do that.
And just one more minor gripe - I wish they'd kept the 2D sprite artwork. The GBA games had such gorgeous detailed sprites, but this was pretty average 3D.
Anyway, it looks like I have a Golden Sun 4 to look forward to... but I think I'll go replay GS2 in the meanwhile.