[First Impressions] Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

Narrative's place in video games is so difficult to pin down. Because the story is definitely what peaks my interest in a new installation of a series, but new innovations in game play are what get me to buy a game of a new series, or rather, a series new to me.

So, I decided to test some of my thoughts from my last post "Writing and Narrative in Video Games" in my new purchase of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.

Golden Sun originally came out for GBA in the latter years of GBA's run. It was November of 2001 and the DS would come out in November of 2004. Golden Sun was one of the last really good RPGs for GBA. It is also one of the very few games that I've played all the way through, start to finish, and with a great amount of love. The graphics were the best seen on GBA yet. I was impressed by special attacks, which were often reminiscent of the first Playstation game I ever played and my favorite game for Playstation still, Legend of the Dragoon. The story was interesting and compelling, and the game was just impressive all around.

So why has it taken me this long to buy Golden Sun: Dark Dawn? Because I haven't heard anything yet that contradicts my supposition that the story is very much the same as it was in the original Golden Sun. Additionally, there didn't seem to be any innovations in game play. This supports what I said about Fable III in "Writing and Narrative in Video Games," where I said that what causes me to buy a new game in a series is innovations in story rather than game play. Although I might have bought the same story if the game play was significantly different, I wasn't willing to buy the same story, same game play.

What would I like to see? My major bugaboo with the original Golden Sun is the class system.  It was very boring and stagnant in the first Golden Sun-- there was a class system, but it seemed irrelevant most of the time, and I pretty much ignored it because it seemed useless. I want a class system that seems useful.

Now, I'm going to see if any of my suppositions were founded. Is Golden Sun: Dark Dawn more of the same-old, same-old, no matter how good that same-old was? Or is it a new game, as interesting and compelling as the first?