Golden Sun

aka: Golden Sun: The Broken Seal , Ougon no Taiyou
Moby ID: 5413
Game Boy Advance Specs
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Description official descriptions

Isaac is from the town of Vale, on the island of Angara. He is an Adept, meaning he is skilled in Psynergy, the technique of moving objects without touching them. Mages from the rival island of Gondowan plan to destroy Angara by using four Elemental Stones, so Isaac has assembled a team to snatch the stones.

In the universe of this role-playing game, four different types of elements (fire, water, wind and earth) are combined to create spells. Combat often involves facing multiple monsters at each time.

Djinni creatures can be captured and used to give one of your characters extra strengths. Energy is needed to cast spells, but this constantly replenishes while you are not using one. A two-player link-up game exists.

Spellings

  • 黄金の太陽 開かれし封印 - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Game Boy Advance version)

130 People (81 developers, 49 thanks) · View all

Translation Coordination
Writing & Editing
Additional Localization
Localization Management
Testing & Debugging
Special Thanks
Illustration
Graphic Supports
Artwork
Public Relations (広報)
Coordination
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 87% (based on 47 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 85 ratings with 5 reviews)

A great RPG with classic game play and original aspects

The Good
The tunes are really exciting, the graphics are nice, colored and detailed (especially in the battles), the controls works perfectly in the games, well, all the "I/O" part of the game is really great. Before seeing this, I was thinking that many "new generation" RPG that have a release date of 1998 or +, would never be as great as some SNES RPGs about this, but this game proves that this is false. The story is somewhat great. I can't really explain why, but even if the usual "go on a journey and save the world" thing repeats itself for many RPGs, the story is really exciting. A thing I liked about the gameplay is that you spend more time in the game to fight monsters than to watch stupid scenes without doing anything, like many "new generation" RPGs. For example in Final Fantasy X, you're always walking, speaking with people, or seeing scenes like in a film, and you're in average not often doing battle. In the other side, in very old RPGs like Dragon Warrior or the first Final Fantasy, you were always in battle and you hardly ever spoke to people. In Golden Sun, the balance is just right, you never spend a big amount of time without speaking to anyone or without advancing in the story, but you also never spend a big amount of time without fighting. The battle system looks plain at the beginning of the game, but it becomes interesting after a while, and actually there is a lot of strategy in it, unlike Final Fantasy games for example. It's also pretty hard to collect all Djins. But, once you got the strategy to defeat very-strong monsters, the game will become pretty easy.

Finally, the great thing in Golden Sun is that there is very challenging enigmas everywhere. One half of the enigmas are optional (to get items, weapons, etc...), and some of them are so hard that you'll give up (this happened to me a couple of times, but I tried them at least one hour !).

The Bad
The thing that disappoint me in the game is the item-quantity limitation. Here you can only carry 15 items per character, and this is pretty frustrating to be unable to collect all the weapons of the game, etc...

Also, there shall be ~10 sound effects in the whole game, and all magics and attacks does just a combination of them. They could input more different sounds effects. However I really like the noise that make someone who is speaking. It's really fun ;-)

Well, I found that the last boss was a bit easy, and the ending shucks. I mean that the game finish just where is should not be finished. I just completed the game several hours ago and I was disappointed by the ending. They just want you to buy Golden Sun 2, just to make themselves twice money, just like Pokemon ruby & sapphire and so on... What a shame. By the way, I'll surely buy Golden Sun 2 someday, but... well this is frustrating to buy a game in those conditions, just to know the sequel of the story. Usually, when I buy a game, its for discovering a new world, a new story, not to know the sequel of another one.

The Bottom Line
Golden Sun is a very great RPG that shows the full-potential of the Game Boy Advance. I would recommend it to anyone who like RPGs. I think it has the good side of old RPGs, and the good side of news ones, and just this stuff make it really great.

Game Boy Advance · by Bregalad (937) · 2006

Bottom line: Golden Sun is the best handheld RPG ever, and one of the greatest of all time.

The Good
Golden Sun has everything good about this game. The gameplay and story is just like a movie, and it draws you in much like a great movie, novel, or RPG (which this is.) The graphics are some of the best on the GBA, despite this being one of the earliest GBA releases, and the battle animation will leave you awe-struck. The in-game music does NOT grate on you like many handheld games, but actually enhances the game and also sounds like a movie (soundtrack) and the sound effects are brilliant.

The Bad
Probably the only thing wrong about this game is that it confuses you many times on what exactly to do, but hey, it's supposed to make you use your head! So nothing's really wrong with it. That's right! Flawless!

The Bottom Line
Golden Sun is one of those games you absolutely must have if you own a GBA. It's also one of those rare and wonderful games that sell systems. It's a deep, highly satisfying role-playing game that ranks as one of the Top 5 RPG's of all-time, and if it's not among your collection, then you're missing out, BIG TIME.

Game Boy Advance · by pocketgamer2000 (20) · 2003

One of the best original RPGs on the GBA.

The Good
I have very fond memories of playing Final Fantasy Legends I-III on family road trips years and years back. FFL III in particular gave you great flexibility in developing your characters how you wanted. Playing Golden Sun, I had pleasant flashbacks to the FFLs of yore. Golden Sun is every bit as much fun as those older games, and a whole lot prettier to boot. You're placed in the cliched RPG plot in the shoes of a young man (default Isaac, but you can change it to Assmaster or some such if you wish) with extraordinary powers. And those powers are what makes Golden Sun stand above the rest. You must use them not only to do battle with the thousands and thousands of monsters roaming the land, but also to interact with the game world in a variety of ways. See that little sprout by the ledge? If you have the growth power, you can make it spring up into a vine, thus creating a very efficient little rope ladder, opening up new areas in the game world to explore. In order to achieve these powers, you must amass a collection of Djinni (think Pokemon with less personality). Each one confers one of four elemental powers (earth, water, fire and wind), augmenting your characters and giving them new Psynergy (magic). By combining different Djinni on a character, you change the types of spells and powers he or she can wield. This is a nice touch to the typical magic system, which is usually the weakest part of electronic RPGs. You are forced to make tough decisions when determining which powers your characters will wield.
The graphics are Super Nintendo-quality, with nice spell effects and impressive character animation. Your little guys (and gals) emote in ways that previous GB RPGs couldn't manage. Finally, the challenge level begins to ramp up quite nicely later on in the game. You are actually forced to use strategic thinking in some of the later boss battles, which is a good thing - most RPGs seem to be designed to please the least common denominator.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the package is not completely free of flaws. Worst of them is the insane amount of low-level monsters you have to hack through to navigate even the smallest of mazes. I would rather see slightly less combat with higher experience point awards. Be prepared to spend a lot of time ridding the land of moronic entry-level baddies. Combat graphics, strangely enough, are not nearly on par with those of the isometric view. Some monsters, especially the big ones, are chunky and ugly.
Dialog is excruciating, as you would expect. I found myself rapidly pushing buttons to wade through several inane NPC conversations that I was forced to overhear, despite their apparent complete lack of relevance to my quest. This smacks of self-indulgent programming, and does not make for enjoyable gaming.

The Bottom Line
It's a Game Boy RPG done right. Think Final Fantasy Legend plus a lot more environmental interaction.

Game Boy Advance · by Lucas Schippers (57) · 2002

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The Game Boy Advance version of Golden Sun appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – Game Boy Advance RPG/Strategy Game of the Year

Analytics

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  • MobyGames ID: 5413
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by NeoMoose.

Wii U added by Michael Cassidy.

Additional contributors: Kartanym, Apogee IV, Exodia85, gamewarrior, Caelestis, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added November 27, 2001. Last modified July 17, 2023.