>>3930992
4 elements, anon.

>>3930994
I mean I get it. More games should what this did and borrow from mythology regarding elements. Earth was associated with the underworld, life and death.

File: 143628481755.png (1.4 MB)

1.4 MB PNG

>spiritual successor
Wish granted

>>3931021
You know I don't even hate Bryce Kho as an artist or person.
But that game is.....ehhhh

>>3931021
This game isn't bad enough for me to hate but it's also so bland that I'm surprised I bothered finishing it. I guess I was hoping it would turn out to be more than it seemed like The Messenger.

>>3930992
>I would rather have a spiritual successor than address the giant cliffhanger the last game left off on
this is how people can tell you weren't old enough to play video games when it came out - not even the original duology but DD

File: 42r4.jpg (158.7 KB)

158.7 KB JPG

We need more jrpgs with furry races

>>3930992
my back hurts

>>3931021
Satanic piece of shit game. Geoff is a hack for naming this indie game of the year. Fucking ridiculous

>>3931975
/pol/ baiting should be instant perm-ban. It's infuriating we have to actually manually report you.

>>3931021
>sea of sludge
The only thing that puddle of lukewarm sewage succeeds in spirit is bovine fecal matter.

>>3932049
I'm shocked people turned on that game.

>>3932778
>endless shill threads and astroturfing didn't clue him in
ngmi

I only played the second game because I found it used for $5 a very long time ago. I mostly just remember a pretty generic RPG aside from the djinn mechanic, but mostly finding it tedious like dealing with HMs in a pokemon game. Is there anything actually to the Golden Sun games I'm overlooking?

>>3932818
No, it's just a nintenbaby's first RPG

Trying hobby gamedev I stumbled into the djinn system by accident. Iterating over the rest of the game I got more and more changes over time:

>active djinn give more stats because no classes
>djinn need to be unlocked for each character individually
>djinn are found from exploration, bosses, quest, rare drops, etc.
>many djinn are still limited so you can't give everyone the same djinn
>each found djinn grants a skill point to unlock active and passive abilities
>unlocked djinn carry over to NG+
>number of active djinn determined by secondary system(doesn't carry over)
>summons focus more on effects over raw damage(give extra turns, extra special effects, set permanent weather, etc.)

I've tried many versions over time, from the same classes as GS, to having djinn overcharge normal skills instead of being special items, tying them into D&D-like skills or making them full pokemon you raise and you fuse with. All have their own pros and cons.

>>3931021
I've heard this was mostly based on the Mana and Chrono series, what does it take from Golden Sun?

>>3932818
There's the artifact attacks that makes the weapons you find more interesting than usual for an JRPG, where they are mostly just the same number going up. You've also got the overworld psynergy system that connects combat and exploration to make the world feel tangible. Then you've got pretty decent presentation and the interesting twist of switching to the villains halfway through the story.
In the end it's really just a bunch of neat little things that allow you to look past the gamedesign not being that great. The ideas of Golden Sun are really undercooked, but that just further fuels the desire for either a sequel or a spiritual successor.

>>3932835
When you realize that lots of video games are designed and intended for children, you're gonna feel an immense sense of liberation.

File: bafkreifgg3ha7kwfh3cukmn5yuqi6rwoaocckpr5o4xm6h6frr2bd4mr3m.jpg (496 KB)

496 KB JPG

>>3932926
I mentioned this before and still think about it but I wish more RPGs would do what this game did and go all out with the 4 elements.

Like, Earth isn't just associated with plants, rocks and earthquakes but curses, life and death to name a few. The summons reflect this to a degree too. Air grants a control of ligtning and a higher degree of mental abilities.

>>3932818
>Is there anything actually to the Golden Sun games I'm overlooking?
the two GBA games are essentially 1 game split into two. Starting with the second one is like starting FF7 at disc 2 after aeris dies.

File: 1732625056509364.png (147.6 KB)

147.6 KB PNG

>>3931982
Literally what does that have to do with /pol/? It's a dogshit game with horrible art and one of a million different indie chrono trigger copycats. There's nothing special about it and it didn't deserve any awards at all. Take your fucking meds.

>>3933062
By using the word 'satanic' in a negative context you implied that you do not worship Satan. That reveals your political affiliation.

>>3932979
I think that just happens naturally in an elemental system, or when you have multiple units with the same element that you want to be distinct.
You often see games that have the dedicated wizard/caster so they get all of the elements, but only surface-level representations. The secondary casters then get the holy/unholy magic. Your FF Blackmage, D&D Wizard, Elder Scrolls Destruction school, and so forth.
But if you require an equal amount of spells per element or need multiple single-element wielders to be distinct you are forced to go deeper. E.g. In Path of Exile Fire has both Tribal and Holy themes, while Physical gets Earth, Plants and Wind. Pokemon and its ilk also have to make various takes on a Fire type, and at the tail end are gacha games, where they need to pump out a new character every six weeks and somehow fit them into one of their elements.

With my game it took me a while to figure out how many damage types to use which resulted in a bunch of weird combo-elements. Every time I added/cut an element I had to go through the entire spell/item/class/djinn list to refactor, and often make new things to keep all elements balanced. And for a while every element had a dedicated healer class, which required a bunch of weird themes.
The themes ended up being:

>Earth
Stone, sand, thorns, flowers, disease, crystals/gems, vulcanism, acid

>Storm(cut water)
Wind, lightning, water, ice, sound, fog, smells, illusions

>Fire(cut Light)
Fire, meteors, light, prayer, dragons, ancestor spirits, phantom swords

>Darkness(cut psychic)
Shadow, blood, sleep(healing), deep space(black holes, time dilation, cosmic horror), seduction

Stuff like that just accumulates over time, but I guess it's better business to put out the bare minimum as quickly as possible.

>>3931021
>Chrono Cringe
Never enjoyed the games, i know the Takahashi bros were Enix alumni, but i found their strongest strength to making games that feel like a mishmash of the Erdrick+Zenithian Trilogy

>>3932818
The developers have stated they had a book's worth of personal notes on design elements of other rpg's which they liked or found interesting, and golden sun was an implementation and refinement of those elements.
Mind read, new dialogue when returning to old areas, djinn, puzzles, etc. all stem from this and it's really well implemented for being the pioneering games to try and bring it all together in one package.
TLA does some things better, such as new psyenergy and bigger dungeons, but falls short of the original in many key areas.
>>3932991
It's more like one game but the second is them running damage control.

>>3932926
>what does it take from Golden Sun
Nothing, sea of slop fans are just desperate for people to join their dying playerbase after the honeymoon ended and all the hype around it died

>>3933082
I'm intrigued by what you've got regarding themes. Fire's not just limited to fire but things fire is associated with and Earth has a general nature theme.

You mentionec how every element had a healer class. Maybe you could storm area-based healing or have fire focused on reviving spells.

>>3934039
Oh I've already had the spell list fully done, multiple times. I'm probably on version ten of the skill system by now. Those were the healers:

>Physical
Military logistics/field surgeon that cares a lot about positioning and uses the deflect mechanics prevent damage and throw it back at the enemy. Got folded into the paladin skill tree.

>Earth
Nature healer. Uses direct heals and is an all-rounder.

>Wind
Bard skill tree. Healing over time + defensive buffs. Redirects Debuffs to put them on the enemy.

>Fire
Priests that grants temporary HP and a phoenix-mage with self-sacrifice and revival. Phoenix got turned into GS style summons.

>Darkness
Sleep theme with weak direct healing and healing over time, but puts debuffs on enemies that reduce their damage done. Got cut apart and put mostly on a specific companion.


Had a lot of iteration since then and I'm down to Nature, Holy and Bard healers with the others cut down to just the most interesting parts and scattered across the world.

Air's Fucking Rock.

https://youtu.be/wq3pagbvzA8?si=MxP4Tm8N7h_DFRvc

https://youtu.be/Z9tSqe1KsaQ?si=gWvic-7CDvuSgeXN

https://youtu.be/fhIQtQyBs7A?si=GopNgYlWS35iN_bd

https://youtu.be/PXaWjCaB9Ns?si=LPBTX4obD6oP3D7N

Good remixes.

>>3930992
I'd rather have remakes in the style of the Link's Awakening one.

>>3933093
They intentionally split TBS and TLA into two from very early into development. It wasnt damage control at all.

>>3934213
Disgusting and disturbing trend.

>>3931021
Fucking monkey paw

>>3930992
Spiritual Successors are all just shitty hacks banking on nostalgia and missing why people liked the original and this game wasn't good in the first place

>>3935097
I disagree

>>3931021
I liked the game, the DLC is also great, but it's not even close to Golden Sun, even Cross-Code shares more similarities.

https://www.avclub.com/mario-tennis-fever-camelot-rpgs

>>3930992
>Golden Sun
isn't it basically a spiritual successor to Arc The Lad or something?

>>3939055
Not at all man

>>3939055
youre thinking of shining the holy ark, both have arc in their name.

File: golden-sun-dark-dawn-button-edit-1643159738438.jpg (236.2 KB)

236.2 KB JPG

>>3930992
Dark Dawn was the warning to leave the damn thing alone already.

>>3939443
I hated Dark Dawn when it came out but I feel like my opinion will be different if I replay it today. Except I want to continue hating it so I dont want to replay it.

>>3931021
this game looks woke, eww

>>3934214
>split introduces massive plot holes in both games
>story is backlogged until the last 10% of tla to pad out the game
>areas which are side content in the first game are reused as story centric in the second
>the originals unhinged ending and tla's bumbling start
It should be self evident they ran out of time developing the first game and had to concede in making a sequel.
>>3939012
Doubt nintendo ever tried to stop camelot from making rpgs, if anyone they should've known just how big golden sun was in the west.

>>3939521
That article felt a bit whiney for lack of better term.

>>3939521
>split introduces massive plot holes in both games
name one and characters behaving in a way you dont approve of is not a plot hole.

it sucks that issac is so much better in smash flash 2 than in project m. They removed his stance dance aspects in the recent update to simplify him. Idk what character they did a PSA over to put issac in project M but it should have been olimar imo. Have the djinn trail behind him.

I would really like to see monolith soft and camelot collaborate to make a 3-d open world golden sun game. Golden Sun is the perfect franchise to mix everything they learned from xenoblade and zelda together in one place.

>>3939782
Didn't read past the title figuring it's probably the same nintendo cope as always.
>>3939829
Isaac never going to Lemuria despite being sent there, instead Felix goes there to learn of the world ending, which is obviously something he already knows.

>>3940383
>Isaac never went to Lemuria
You can't go to Lemuria unless you solve the Sea of Time and defeat Poseidon. Isaac could theoretically solve the Sea of Time but they'd never be able to beat Poseidon because they didnt get the Trident (Felix did). There's other narrative reasons such as Isaac needing to figure out a way to the western continents to get access to the jupiter/mars lighthouses, chasing after felix and what's likely other general delays.
>Felix learnes that the world was ending
No, the point of the Lemuria trip was for Piers to go back home and convince the senate that the world was ending. Well that and pick up Grind to unlock access to the western half of the world.
>Side areas in the first game becoming important
TLA takes places almost entirely in areas that you never pass through TBS. Only a handful of zones are shared between games (primarily at the beginning)

>>3942127
The final arc of TBS was set up to have Lemuria be the next destination in the story and give Isaac's party a reason to switch from trying to stop the lighthouses from being lit to lighting them themselves.
>the point of the Lemuria trip was for Piers to go back home and convince the senate
It was to show the state of the world during the time alchemy was sealed and the state of the world when Babi and Lunpa arrived in Lemuria, Piers and the senate can be written out of the cutscene and it has little narrative change.
There's also no reason to explain the world ending to Felix' party either since Felix has lived in Prox and seen the world eroding first hand, which was the reason he traveled with Saturos and Menardi in the first place.
Lemuria's inclusion in TLA is more or less pointless unless it's to try and mend the story originally written for TBS.

Video for reference
https://youtu.be/8c3AXO8W5mU&t=10138s

>>3944274
Ivan : You didn't forget, did you, Garet?
Mia : Our promise to Babi.
Garet : Oh... Lemuria!
Ivan : I wonder what kind of place Lemuria is.
Mia : We have to find Jenna before going to Lemuria, don't we?

As you can see, they prioritized finding Jenna and the others over Lemuria as it wasn't a mandate from Babi and more of a request on his behalf.
In fact, TLA brings this up, when Kraden finds out that Babi died from Karst/Agatio because he's no longer required to find Lemuria (among other things) on his behalf.
Furthermore, the Lemuria trip was equally benefical for Felix's team narratively because most of them also did not know that the world was dying because Felix/Saturos/Menardi did not tell them anything.

>>3944274
>Piers and the senate can be written out
And then lose the contrast between the stagnant Lemuria and the dying world around them?

>>3939487
>>3939443

wat? Dark Dawn is great. I just finished it a few weeks ago, never having played it before. I played the other two Golden Sun titles years back but missed out on Dark Dawn. It's fantastic, you two have no idea what you're talking about. No opinions here, just facts.

>>3930992
>spiritual successor
How are there still 0 RPGs with zelda dungeons + turn based battles out there?

>>3948650
>you two have no idea what you're talking about
I just said I didnt like the game how could I not know what im talking about? Are you saying that I actually like the game and just repressed the memory?

>>3950343
These games apparently aren't all that popular in Japan.

>>3948650
Based GS enjoyer

>>3950343
Thats why I would like a spiritual succesor. The ideas these games have are to good to be forgotten. Maybe Camelot would benefit from fresh staff

>>3950688
I'll take an indie at this point

>>3950343
>>3950688
>>3950717
I've been at it for a while now(not a nostalgia-driven "thing I grew up with", elements from GS just happened to solve problems I had). RPGs are just really damn difficult to make. You have many interlocked system and a very long gameplay loop so it takes forever to make the bare minimum version of your game.
The adventure elements are also in tension with the RPG systems because anything the player can choose to abandon is something you can't use in a puzzle and the only clean solution to that is exploding complexity.
Financially it's a complete crapshot even compared to gamedev in general, and GS is not big enough to have a permanent community that could motivate and advertise for the dev. It takes a very dedicated and focus person to make an indie RPG who somehow has avoided getting into the D&D sphere that gives you reasons to make a CRPG instead. If there is an indie GS it most likely sits on some Japanese site with 50 downloads. And it's probably porn.

>>3931042
Golden Sun sucks ass. They could make 10 new games and all of them would end with a cliffhanger.

>>3931021
There is nothing that this slop does that is inspired by golden sun other than the moon/sun themes, and muh puzzles (which are mediocre and not good enough)

>>3930992
Things I like & find unique about Golden Sun:
-Psynergy + Puzzles + cool Dungeon designs
-Djinn system + pseudo-job system
-The artstyle and UI
-Individual inventories, not unique per se, just a rarity in JRPGs
-Motoi Sakuraba music
-Mind reading
-Natural Disaster as a plot device

The bad thing is the characters are kinda shallowly written, which is what I think should be what in Camelot mind for the sequels

>>3950717
The problem with that is making golden sun style puzzles is actually really hard to do in rpgmaker. Its technically possible but incredibly janky and never really works the exact way you want.

File: Screenshot_20260326-113615_Chrome.jpg (322.3 KB)

322.3 KB JPG

>>3951434
I always liked how they borrowed from mythology regarding elements

Are there any decent hacks for Golden Sun + TLA that actually make it worth engaging with the cool class/djinn mechanics instead of just summon spamming?

>>3952023
Reloaded. Both the GBA games' Reloaded versions; TLA's Reloaded was done before GS, so even the transfer code works.

>>3953091
The original release of both reloaded games came out at like the same time. TLA then got more balance overhauls leading it to feel better than 1.

>>3955585
No wonder. I guess the balance overhauls were just "updates" that made it look like it came out later to me.

>>3931021
What's the trouble?

>>3931021
Played 10 minutes and it was kinda bad.

>>3931021
It's more Chrono Trigger than Golden Sun, also with the addition of timed hits and unattractive characters and art style.
Forgettable OST.
Even the actual gameplay has no class system to mess around with especially the characters only have like 4 or 5 moves and that's it.
Not worth it at all.

Haven't played the third game yet, what kind of puzzles are there in it? Any puzzles that need to be completed on a time limit or that at least take advantage of the DS touch screen?

>>3961696
>puzzles that need to be completed on a time limit
Some of the wind puzzles launch specific platforms into the air for a duration by they go back down. Otherwise, an actual timer is only during the training grounds if I recall correctly.
>that at least take advantage of the DS touch screen
No. You can do them all with the joystick.

>>3930992
I loved Golden Sun 1 as a kid and was so excited for Golden Sun 2 that as soon as I learned about GBA emulators I downloaded the Japanese rom and tried to play it but my computer sucked and ran the game at like 5-10 fps plus I couldn't read Japanese. But when Golden Sun 2 actually came out in the US... I wasn't as excited. I did get all 8 party member reunited, but I don't think I actually finished it. Never played the one that everyone hates.

I have a feeling that if I replayed it, I'd be more annoyed than appreciative, but I do really like the Djinn system. I wish more games had interesting and dynamic systems like that, where you can trade power for versatility, or stats for immediate, free damage.

>>3962225
>Never played the one that everyone hates
Dark Dawn? I would say its less hate and more of a letdown, DD was a alright game but compared to the previous two games were so highly praised it felt like a huge let down so thats why you get the impression that everyone "hated" it

>>3962225
All 3 are pretty good. 2 is the best part of the series.