Golden Sun Game Boy Advance Review

Introduction
Camelot the company famous for golf and tennis games.
Their most popular games include Everybody's golf, Mario golf and Mario tennis.
So how do they cope when they swap golf clubs for swords?
In 2001 Camelot released Golden Sun for GBA, the first 32-bit handheld system. Until Golden Sun all other RPG's had been ports of SNES games.
The game was published by Nintendo, who in all fairness has a good record as far as RPG's go.


Single Player
The games story revolves around the elemental science known as Alchemy and the magical power known as Psynergy.
You take the role of Isaac a boy from a village called Vale.
One day Isaac's life is changed after Vale is nearly destroyed by a land slide, many are lost including Isaac's friend Felix.
3 years later Isaac is assigned with preventing the return of alchemy after the elemental stars are stolen from Mt.Aleph by two fire adapts known as Saturos and Menardi.
Can Isaac stop the return of alchemy?

Multiplayer
The game features a mode that lets you battle with other Golden Sun owners, which is quite different because most RPG's don't have that.
The game also lets you link up to Golden Sun: The lost age.

Gameplay
There are many turn based RPG's out there but Golden Sun does a good job of standing out.
Golden sun is at first your typical turn based RPG, you run around, get into random fights, kill stuff, gain exp all the usual stuff. But in golden sun it isn't all about grinding (in fact you end the game at about level 30).
Like i said the game play in general isn't anything special, it plays just like every other RPG you would have played, the reason golden sun stands out is because of its class system, the class system plays a huge role in the game, without it the game would be impossible to beat.
In the game you have several classes, you have a balanced classes, offensive classes, magic classes and so on.
The class system is controlled using magical creatures known as Djinn, there are four types of Djinn, Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, each has their own advantages, try using different Djinn on your characters, there are certain spells and ability's that can only be gained using Djinn.
Djinn are more helpful than level ups will ever be, using them can double you stats, to add to that you can set you Djinn's on and off.
Setting them on increases your stats and lets you use different spells and ability's.
On the other hand setting them off lets you summon creatures to assist you in battle. At the end of the day your skill is determined by how well you use your Djinn.
And that is why Golden Sun stands out, it is one of the few RPG's were grinding isn't important, very few RPG's are like that in fact there is only one other RPG I can think that works like golden sun (Final Fantasy VIII).
There is also one other area where the game stands out, in golden sun you have a power known as Psynergy. Phynergy is the power to do things with your mind for example more objects, see hidden things and read peoples mind, in all fairness it does add some more variety to the game play and it does make for some interesting puzzles.

Graphics and Sound
Golden Sun has what were probably the best graphics on the GBA at the time, even later in the consoles life the graphics still stood out as some of the best.
As for the music, well it is a good enough sound track but not the best I have heard in an RPG.

Conclusion
In all golden sun is one of the GBA's best games, I strongly recommend this to any RPG fan.

+ Good Graphics.
+ Has interesting characters.
+ Brilliant Class system.
+ Psynergy adds variety to the gameplay.

- Can leave you confused at times.

9/10