But thou must! Let's Talk About Golden Sun!

Ah, who is this I see? A young person... a gamer, I may presume. I assume you've played Golden Sun, as all gamers who owned a Game Boy Advance (tm) (patents pending) have. Tell me, you have played Golden Sun?

<<Yes/No>>
If yes: A kindred soul. Why, the first time I played Golden Sun was back in 2001, when it was released. Now, I grew up with a Genesis, and then an N64. I didn't have any of these fancy RPGs. Golden Sun was one of my first ones. One of my first RPGs, I mean. I didn't know what I was missing. A whole world, of moving blocks, and pushing logs, and picking blocks up and dropping them, and floating logs in water, and pushing statues around, and mashing the attack button to get through battles awaited me.
If no: Kids these days. Why, back in my day, we had to sit through 100 hours of dialogue every time we got to a new town! And we liked it. You want to know what you missed out on? You missed incredibly deep characterization, and the best, most engaging, most riveting yarn to be spun since Odysseus plucked string from Calypso's harp to make his famed 100-ton ball of yarn. And battles were rock-solid, always interesting, never missing a beat. Now! Now you have shit like Infinite Undiscovery, Tales of, etc etc etc -- all boring, no class. And speaking of class! Did you know that Golden Sun features the widest selection of totally redundant classes ever seen in a video game? Everything was better back in the day. Everything.



But enough about that. You're here to read a let's play, I've been told. Hmm. A let's play... where have I heard that before? Plet's lay? Fate's pay? You know, I'm not entirely sure what a Let's Play thingamajig is. Do you know what a let's play is?

<<Yes/No>>

Good for you. But I'm not entirely sure of the basics, myself, so let me think. Now that you mention it, I believe I have instructions lying around somewhere. Let me go find them. I'll only be a minute.

/me spends 5 minutes digging through musty bookshelves. sweatdrops form over your head.

Ah, here we go. Would you like to read them?

<<Yes/NO NO NO NOOOOOO>>

That's too bad. Instead, I'll read them. Let me get a drink before I start.

/me gets a drink.

Now then. Ahem. Cough. A Let's Play, phonetic pronounciation lett ss puh-lay, is what happens when a bunch of lazy video game nerds sit around listening to a slightly less lazy video game nerd play through a game and talk about it in detail. Me? An almost-lazy video game nerd? The nerve! Tell me, do you think I'm a video game, or a nerd?

*sweatdrop forms over your head*

Tell me!

<<.... yessssss/shut up>>

Fine! Be like that! I'll just cut this conversation short then.



What? I have to do this? Fiiiine.

Welcome to Let's Talk About Golden Sun



For a little while, I considered writing the whole LP in that manner. But actually typing the above out broke my soul. I'm sorry! Never let it be said that I am not magnanimous to my captive audience.

We are going to play Golden Sun. By which I mean that I will pretend to play it, and you will pretend to learn something from me. This is not going to be a typical playthrough. I have played this game far too much, and grown more and more disgusted with it each time. Therefore, this LP will care not for petty things such as representing the game well. Rather, I intend for this to be the last time I ever play it, and so I shall completely destroy the game, on its own terms.

But to do that, we need to name our characters. Behold, the three clueless souls who are tasked with saving the world.



From left to right, we have Isaac, Garet, and Ivan. Here is the naming screen.



Normally you're only able to name the spikey-haired protag there, but inputting a simple code - pressing select three times on this screen - lets you name the rest of the playable characters. We've got five characters to work with. To help you decide on suitable epithets, I have written up summaries of the characters.

Isaac is your typical mute protagonist. He gains a voice in the second game, which turns out to be every bit as annoying and talkative as everyone else. He starts off as a Venus Adept, which means he uses earth-based magic, but like everyone else in the game, all you have to do is give him a new pet to completely change his psychology.

Garet is a ginger brute. He's not the stupidest character in the game, but he's the one the devs intentionally try to characterize as idiotic, which ironically makes him come out ahead. His features include being extremely slow in battle and casting fire magic... but once again, that only lasts up until he gets his first little pet, at which point he becomes infinitely malleable, like everyone else.

Ivan is the game's smart character, which means that he's by far the dumbest motherfucker to ever stare at me through a screen. He walks around in a perpetual marijuana haze, repeating the most basic plot points until a light bulb goes off over his head, at which point he repeats them again, but with a smug expression. And then, since he's the smart one, he is the one the developers tasked with enunciating the most basic implications of said plot point. Not that the plot really has implications. But unfortunately for him, we figured them out five dungeons ago, so he's missing the boat there. Ivan is the attack caster of the team. He starts off with wind magic, but as you already know, that doesn't last very long. Unlike the other two, he has caveats: he can't wield some of the bigger weapon types, and his strength stat is so low that you don't care. In return, he gets the suckiest weapon type in the game: wands.

Funny, the team is all guys. How homoerotic. Anyways, chime in with your name suggestions, and I'll get this thing up and rolling this weekend.

Oh man this series. Never has a game more needed a skip cutscenes option.

Anyways, how about you just go for the original names? I mean, if you choose to name everyone possible you'll have to introduce all of the characters now.

As a side note, I love how Dark Dawn's first entry on Matthew says that he is a man of few words like his father... followed by Issac chattering non-stop.

If you're doing both games, definitely name the characters thus: Isaac as Dasher, Garet as Dancer, Ivan as Prancer, Mia as Vixen, Felix as Comet, Jenna as Cupid, Sheba as Donner, Piers as Blitzen.

It almost makes sense! Plus, this has the added benefit of allowing you to refer to Alex as Rudolph.

Bill's idea is the best idea. I vote for that.

There's no way I'm doing both games. That said, I do plan to post pics of the password, if anyone later is so inclined. Who knows?

Also, some of those names exceed 5 characters. Gotta shorten them.

All right, then.... For just the first game, let's say Isaac is Reed, Garet is John, Ivan is Ben, and Mia is Sue. Which means Alex is Doom.

This works even better.

Already this Let's Play is the best Let's Play. Looking forward to it so hard.

I can get behind this. Bongo Bill: officially on the ball today.

I see Isaac has golden nipples.

I thought I heard this was a ridiculously easy game. What do you mean?

I came here for a Let's Play not a Let's Talk.

I'm quite looking forward to this since I've been putting off playing Golden Sun forever probably because of the text or something else so hopefully I play along or just watch you play. Hopefully the first one.

I think in recognition of all the talking, you should name them after the four talkingest dudes on TT, presently Calorie Mate (Calri), Brickroad (Brick), alexb (alexb), and shivam (shivm). Isaac can be any of the dozens of no-posters who're registered. chiizu (chizu) has been registered since 06-03-2007, but has never posted and has a fairly abbreviable name.

Isaac = Roger
Garet = Pete
Ivan = John
Mia = Moon

-OR-

Isaac = Rob
Garet = Jimmy
Ivan = John
Mia = Bonzo

This, so much.

Are you going to beat the game without Mia?

Barring some manner of crazy glitches, you can't. I presume the lack of Mia in the introduction is a humorous allusion to her lack of a role in the game proper. She has something like a dozen lines in total after she's introduced.

Tanto: Explaining the Joke Since 2007

Well, yeah, "Some manner of crazy glitches" was what I was hinting at. It's not really a crazy glitch though, just one that lets you skip her. And it's totally possible to beat the game without her, as far as I know.

*sweatdrop*

If you had done the whole thing like that, everyone else would have broken your fingers.

I believe only the main character's name carries over and that the second game does not allow renaming anyone else. Could be wrong.

If I wasn't plotting FFX-2, I'd totes jump on Lost Age.

I quit this game pretty quickly in disgust, for reasons I have long forgotten.

It is now your job to remind me.

The second game does allow for renaming of everyone, through button codes as usual.

I will be reading this LP as someone who still enjoys the entire series for being a charming, albeit flawed, experience.

Seriously though fuck Dullahan.

Oh, hey, this is the game that I bought with my GBA! I was so excited, and impressed with at at the time! Just, really, with the concept of, "Wow, it's a handheld, but it's Super Nintendo quality! I get a second era of 16-bit-style games!!!" I did like this game pretty good back then. I think I liked some of the music as well? It's system seemed a little sloppy, but I was willing to overlook it. I was delayed to see the manner it visually presented its battles, which made me think, "Oh, cool, the battle look like battles in Beyond the Beyond did!" Did I mention that I actually beat Beyond the Beyond? It was... an experience. I don't think the game was so bad. Very grindy, though. Once I realized Golden Sun was made by the same team, I was curiously delighted about it, and a fair bit astounded that the company was still around.

I remember virtually nothing of this game now, so, I guess it really couldn't have been too fantastic. :/ Looks like Talking Time will once again be refreshing my rusty memory of a game!

]

That's bad, right? Let's get out of here.



The game immediately starts setting up the player's use of psynergy to solve puzzles and interact with the world by having Reed's mom snatch his cloak off the wall. But we don't know about that yet. Right now, she just has a really stretchy arm. Just like Reed.



As we race towards the door, the candle on the table spontaneously snuffs out. Neat little effect.



And once Reed makes it outside, his parents tell him to make his way to the town plaza. Alone, in an emergency situation. Reed isn't quite as small and helpless as his sprite appears… he's 14 (I just looked this up), and he's been entrusted with a machete for the journey. Personally, I'd like to see someone real try that in a crowded mall.

In any case, said parents run off to help others. Reed heads straight south, towards the plaza…



o

Well, there's another stair over here. Maybe if…



Nope, these boulders are going to roll straight down and plop themselves at the foot of the stairs. Guess we're heading north.



Along the way, we see some doofus who managed to get his stuff out of the house… and then got stuck. He doesn't look very smart, so let's pass by without talking to him.



goddamnit

oh, and the boulder decides to start crashing down right about now. Reed and John are saved, however, by the timely intervention of a group of people who decide to stand directly in front of the boulder and use their psychedelic psynergy to hold it until they're exhausted. At which point the boulder will topple them like bowling pins, because they're exhausted. We must press on, quickly.



Oh, and there's this fucker. We'd run right by him, except he calls out at Reed if we get too far past him. He informs us that a boulder broke the fence, and monsters are roaming throughout the town. Never mind that the boulder is a taller and more formidable barrier than the fence ever was to begin with.



To repay him for bothering us, we answer yes. We must press on, quickly!



And we almost immediately reach our first battle. It's not random; there are four in total before we reach the plaza, all at predetermined spots with predetermined enemies. They are remarkably trivial; we won't be anywhere near needing to use any of the three herbs we have on us unless one person gets criticaled twice. We've just gotta mash attack, which is the only way we have to deal damage. I suppose we could run, but Reed and John were given machetes by their parents! Kids like this don't run from rats. After the first battle, music starts playing on the map, where previously there'd been nothing but rain and thunder sfx. This music, to be exact.

Side note: The game's soundtrack is composed by Motoi Sakuraba, probably the most prolific RPG composer. He did the soundtrack for pretty much every Tales Of and Tri-ace game, among other things. His work in Golden Sun is decidedly mixed. Let's be honest: the GBA sound chip is fucking terrible and the GBA's built-in speaker is even worse and butchers stuff that sounds good in mp3 form, but even beyond that, every song that isn't a dungeon or battle song is forgettable at best, and only some major boss tracks have any of the prog rock he's known for. I'll take the time to point out any moderately good or exceptionally bad track, just for you.



Halfway to the plaza, we see this scene. Another dumb kid, this time named Felix, fell off a pier. We have several layers of silliness here. One, the pier's useless. There's a waterfall just off screen to the north, and another waterfall just off screen to the south. Let's build it, so we can… uhh… yeah. There's also a crowd standing around uselessly; they say they can't use psynergy to save him right now, since they're out. However, people who have been dealing with magic powers for their entire lives would know that psynergy slowly regenerates if you run around. And Catch only costs 1 psynergy point (pp) iirc. If they would just move back and forth for five seconds they could save him. Hell, just walking onto the pier would be enough.

The adults in this town don't seem very smart either.

Also, they ran out of rope, and don't have enough left to reach him. Perhaps they used it all building this useless pier.

We, being kids running to our safety, are tasked with finding help. The adults are too busy standing around looking at a drowning boy.



When we reach the plaza, we find help. That big purple rock at the top is a giant psynergy stone; touching it restores PP to full. We've located a dude who's restored his pp with it, and now we have to guide him, and the river boy's sister Jenna, out of safety and back to danger. Let's do it!



Once we get back, we spend 20 seconds talking about how we got back and how we were just in time. Unfortunately for Felix, that was 20 seconds too much.



The boulder comes crashing down, and eliminates the eyesore pier. As collateral damage, it also eliminates everyone on it, and Felix. Everyone standing around is stunned. They've been trying to get the homeowner's association to condemn the pier for years; why didn't they do this earlier?

Reed decides to run back to the town plaza alone to inform the elders what happened. On the way back, we hear some voices.



Ok, so we get to blame these two evil-looking fuckers. Having an Other is always nice. Now to get away without being seen--



goddamnit

Well ok, maybe we can get through this. All we have to do is hit them, right? Let's just attack…



o

Fun fact: there is no legitimate way to beat these two, as there are a limited number of battles up to this point. But their stats kinda suck, and a level-10 party could take them. If you gameshark your level and stats up and actually beat them, however, the result is predictable: it makes no difference, and the game continues on as if you died.



They leave you unconscious on the ground, and then hop away like frogs. Time to play the title card!





We're treated to a slow scrolling/dialogue heavy scene. The game follows Jenna as she walks up, past Reed's house, up to John training. He tries to light the wood block on fire, but fails, and pushes it instead. Then John quits and the two walk back down to Reed's house, where Reed is patching holes in the roof. They climb up and accidentally punch more holes in the house. Reed's mother sighs, says she'll fix it herself, and tells the three (Reed, John, and Jenna, who now form the party) to go off to this old geezer called Kraden for alchemy lessons.

Why did I type that out? The stereotype for this series is that it is incredibly chatty. It's already echoing through this thread, but if you haven't played the game you might not realize how bad it gets. The above takes 5 minutes if you skip through it, 10-15 if you read it. Most other RPGs would have it done in 30 seconds tops. 15 minutes of this song gets very bad. Imagine the worst sort of bullshit questions, like "You're training hard because you feel responsible for the accident 3 years ago, right? <yes/no>", with the game giving basically the same response no matter what you pick, over and over again.

So yeah, the party sets off to find Kraden.



The game once again drops boulders on the path, to direct you towards the goal. Except instead of boulders, it's puppies. When we're almost there, ominous music starts playing.



Oh hey, it's these dorks again! We heard their theme before, and we'll hear it several more times over the course of the game. Which sucks, because it's pretty bad. It starts out with 15 seconds of absolute terrible, then 20 seconds of song, then 10 more seconds of terrible before it loops. I mention this because it is so much better when sped up by 200% in an emulator. Now it sounds like a slightly schizophrenic genesis boss theme, and everybody's happy.



The pair are discussing whether they can exploit the knowledge of one Kraden, who happens to be the very same alchemy tutor we intend to pay a visit. In the process, the guy calls Kraden cunning. The music and red background of his portrait may have informed us that he's a villain, but now we also know he's insane.



They have really improved their peripheral vision. Nobody tipped them off this time. They simply and spontaneously divined that they had listeners.

But no matter how Reed answers, they can't do shit. Onwards, to Kraden!



We find Kraden pacing back and forth in front of his house, monologuing about his encounter with the pair. Once the party starts talking with him, we come to some conclusions. One: the ominous villains are thieves, come to steal… who knows what from Sol Sanctum, the shrine located on Mt. Aleph. Two, the villains revealed intimate knowledge of the Sanctum, indicating that they have been in it before (no access of any sort is allowed). Three, we can't immediately go inform the authorities, because we are merely speculating.



No, we must go 100% confirm everything they mentioned. The party wholeheartedly supports this endeavor.



Welcome to Sol Sanctum!



I have been through this intro dungeon so many times before, you have no idea.



It's a standard intro dungeon, with passable music, whose purpose is to acquaint you with the sorts of things the game lets you do. The second room, shown here, teaches you that you can jump across small gaps by holding forward. Later rooms have you push things around, or use the Move psynergy to push things around, or have you find and place gems in slots on walls to open doors. Standard RPG stuff so far.



But, you know, this update is getting pretty huge. I'll save and quit for now.

Lastly, I want to apologize for the length and uneventfulness of this update. I thought I would get twice this far when initially composing it, but the length -- the length! -- of this shit made me cut it in half. The next update (coming soon, because I want it out of the way) will also contain lots of plot, helpfully summarized in my colorful manner, but after that I'm free to talk about things I want to talk about. I feel no guilt about admitting this, because seriously, fuck this game.

For what it's worth, here's the next in-game screenshot:



I was serious when I said I would break this game. :p

You're already farther than I've ever managed to make it in this game, for what it's worth...

I've beaten this game and its sequel three times.

The button mashing such a feat requires is probably why I'm so good at Mario Party.

First: apologies for how long it took to update. I had the update 3/4ths written, but then I lost it in a forced reboot, which led to a week or two of "yeah I don't feel like working on that again." But my desire to show off ultimately prevailed over my laziness and dislike for the game, even if it was a long and hard-fought battle.



We reload our adventure, and we are immediately greeted with this screen. Point of order: this is not the room we saved in (Golden Sun lets you save and reload anywhere on the world map), and Reed's party has mysteriously vanished. Pressing directions will eventually get the camera to move up and down, indicating that we are outside the map.

Odd. I wonder how that happened?



Eventually, we blindly stumble into a door. When the screen fades in, we see ourselves standing in front of the final puzzle. We've skipped most of the dungeon.

What did we skip? As I said before, mostly tutorial stuff, nothing worth noting. There's a puzzle where you have to open a chest to find a gem, then place the gem in a sculpture to open a door. Then there's a puzzle where you have to move a statue to uncover a door. Then there's a two-room puzzle where you have to find a gem in the first room, then move a statue (from a distance, with the Move psynergy) to find a sculpture to place the gem in, which unlocks a door hidden behind another statue. And then you enter this room.

So really, we only skipped a few rooms and some random battles with worthless mooks. But every little bit counts.



We walk forward just a bit and encounter this room. Kraden starts freaking out and nerdgasming, and after a minute of dialogue you realize that he has no idea what we've found.



Side-by-side with the previous room is this room, its twin. Kraden freaks out again, then goes to stand at the top of the room thinking Deep Thoughts, leaving us free to continue. There's a set of stairs just below us, which we go up.



These are the last rooms in the dungeon, and they're arranged side-by-side like you see here. On the left, movable statues. On the right, more movable statues. What's a superhero to do?

Reed walks up to one of the statues on the right and pushes it into the clearly-defined slot.



uh-oh, this triggers trouble in scholarland. Lightning strikes various spots in Kraden's room, causing him to rush up and tell us to quit meddling. If your first instinct is to keep meddling, notice that in the second pic, the statue has moved back to its original position. You can repeat this little scene as many times as you want.

So we move to the other part of the room.



If we push the two statues on the side up, they shine light onto the center platform, which reveals a hole. From there, we can move the big top statue down into it, and Something Clicks (�).

This disarms the trap. On an amusing note, the game heavily implies that not disarming the trap is what led to the catastrophe in Vale (the hometown village we've been running around in) 3 years ago. I guess the mystery men and women's team didn't leave a lazy scholar down in the basement to notice they were screwing things up.



We begin pushing the trapped statues into position. They shine lights on the floor, revealing a sun hidden behind the moon. When we're done, we go back downstairs…



And there's a portal!



We exit into a softly lit underground cavern. The most remarkable thing about the cavern is that this music plays. You can instantly identify it as a Sakuraba track from the overload of reverb. :p This is my favorite track in the series, but then, for a couple years my favorite video game music track ever was this very similar beauty, so perhaps it's just my tastes?

I wish that second track had more impact on a blind listen, but it's really the kind of thing you need to hear first ingame before it makes the leap from OK to amazing (which is why I haven't, and won't, nominate it in a thunderdome). I can't hear it without seeing Yumei die. BUT ANYWAYS

Kraden dicks around for a few moments wondering if we're in the ocean, before concluding that no, we can't be, because the ocean has waves. Yes, really. Then he lifts his eyes up and notices four statues arranged around the perimeter of the chamber. If Kraden was freaking out before, he goes fucking batshit insane right now. He goes so insane he actually takes the lead and goes to check them out himself, which is a very big step up in his life.