Golden Sun

Kraden: So these are the sources of all matter in the universe and even a single one of them could allow you to conquer the world.

Please collect each of them and shove them in this bag, will you?

If this was a Western RPG, I'd assume he was the villain, pulling a Jade Empire on me. As it is, I think it's just some clunky writing. This game has a lot of that so far.

But i can dig it. It's quaint. We have to go save the four Elemental Crystals - er, I mean Stars. And naturally only two teenagers can do it. It's like I'm playing FF 3 again but everyone talks a lot more.

The names are what's throwing me off. How am I supposed to be intimidated by Alex? Fantasy setting demand fantastical names, especially for the bad guys. I guess the other two aren't so bad but these three stooges feel like underlings anyway. Like, seriously. I played that Neptunia game kinda recently and Ms. Underling might as well stand in for these clowns.

I But yeah, I just left the village. I decided to play these games because I discovered this cool site called Golden Sun Hacking. I love romhacks and mods to pieces. I'm not using any mods yet of course. I just like having the option tto, after I've beaten the game, to be able to change things up and offer a new experience.

Does this game have like, a Job system? Is it perhaps, again, like FF 3 and it just takes me a while to unlock that? I know the Djinn are supposed to be big parts of the gameplay and I haven't seen any of that yet. Anyway, I really like Job Systems and Classes and stuff.

I've heard this described as possibly Motoi Sakuraba's best soundtrack ever, too. It's been pretty good so far but it has a long way to go before it can rival Baten Kaitos.

The Djinn are a HUGE part of the game, as well as what unlocks the class system. Though you can't start to find any of them until you leave the town. So, yeah, you should have just met Flint, and now you can start to find the rest.

Basically, each character has a number of different classes available, based on the element of Djinn they have equipped. Try swapping Flint to each different character and seeing how their stats and available Psynergy change. As you unlock more Djinn, you gain the ability to mix and match in more ways, and access more classes.

Ah, I miss these games. The third one was such a let down. And they're the last remnants of my beloved Shining Force pedigree. They certainly played up an archaic story type for the genre. In fact it was like a greatest hits of turn-based RPG mechanics until Bravely Default took that throne. Other than the Final Fantasy Advanced games, I don't remember a lot of turn based RPGs being popular at that time, or if they were, then I either missed out on them or didn't like what was available. I remember the games being a breath of old fresh nostalgic air when I got my hands on them

Sad thing is I got my GameCube's GBA player after I beat them. They would have been fun to play through on the TV at the time