Replaying a series

Ok, deciding that tonight I was going to post a new blog on here couldn't have come at a better time. The in-game events that are taking place right now are perfect to talk about, and have given me much to think about. All of my game time lately has been focused on Golden Sun. Oh yes, the original Golden Sun for the GBA, not the new one. I picked that up last week, but have yet to open it.

The original Golden Sun came out around 7 years ago, or so I've heard, since I haven't taken the time to look it up. The second game in the series, Golden Sun: The Lost Age came out shortly after, probably within the next year. I absolutely loved the games, and played through both of them rather quickly. The fact that the second game is a straight continuation of the first game helped me play through it even more quickly. For most people the end of the first game would be a huge turn-off, because it's a cliffhanger. Just when you think you're about halfway through the game, due to in-game events, the game just ends. It was a high note, so that was nice, but no one saw the ending coming like that, and it brought about quite a bit of confusion. It's not very often that a game developer will release a game (unsure of how well it will do, by the way) with a straight cliffhanger ending, having not even announced a sequel yet. So when this ending came about, people were confused because there was no second game to continue the story! Many fans, including me, waited very anxiously for the sequel, and ate right through it when it came out.

What was strange about the sequel, is that it starred a whole new cast of characters, even though the developers had said that the cast would be returning for the second game. Fans had to play through around half the game before even running into the cast of the first game, and it was a bizarre feeling. Here you are, spending 20-30 hours learning about the cast of four characters from the first game, their pasts, and about their personalities, and then right when things are getting intense - the ending of the first game - the player gets shoved into a different room, with all new faces. To make matters even more confusing, the player THEN spends 10-15 hours with all these new characters, starts feeling comfortable with this "scene" of characters, but ends up running into the original cast of characters. I can't remember how things play out, but I'm pretty sure you can control all 8 of the characters, so at least the developers didn't totally pull out the rug from underneath the players.

Which leads to why I'm replaying these two games. I heard that the third game has quite a big of fanservice to the fans who played very close attention to the details in the first two games. People like me, who couldn't get enough of the games. Seriously, it was people like me who were dying for another Golden Sun game. For years rumors floated around that they were making another GS game for the GBA, and then rumors that it was being made for the GameCube. That one was a particularly strong rumor, and I believe they even started work on a game for the system, but didn't get very far into development. Well anyways, after 7 years the developers announced a new game in the series, which continues 20 years after the events of the first game. The characters are all supposedly the kids of the characters from the first game. I'm not extremely excited about that, since I enjoyed the characters from the second game more than that, but at least they're continuing the story even deeper with related characters. I also have no idea what the story is of the new game, which is pretty exciting.

Okay, enough chit-chat about how I LOVE the first two Golden Sun games. They're not even that revolutionary. Combat is standard turn-based RPG fare, out-of-combat is standard as well, talking with townspeople, learning the story, and traveling to the next town or dungeon, leveling up along the way. Yes, the psynergy (magic) is a little new, since you can use powers to move objects and the likes outside of battle. It makes for some fantastic puzzles, which get especially difficult in the second game. Oh, and I should mention that since the second game is basically a direct continuation of the first game, the developers don't hold the players hand for very long before throwing them back into what they know and have been craving for. The second game is basically the second half of the first game. Except, 40-60 hour RPGs don't fit onto one GBA cart, so obviously they made it into two. Returning to the subject at hand, you can also collect Djinn creatures around the world to upgrade the characters' magic powers to use in battle, and can summon even more powerful magic when "set" to the character. Stronger moves, but at the cost of lowering the characters' stats considerably.

So here's where things get really interesting. The developers did not announce a sequel to the first game until some time after the first game was out, and many people were finished before then. People were ALSO confused about this, because at the end of the game you can save a special file, but it cannot be played, like "continued" at the start screen. People didn't know what this did, but had a feeling a sequel would use this somehow? But game-to-game transfer of information was rare even back then, so people weren't sure what this would do. Come to find out, it basically transferred ALL the character data from the first game to the sequel. So when the player took control of the characters in the second game, everything, all stats, all items, all weapons, and all Djinn came with them. A HUGE advantage to playing through the first game, and people were EXTREMELY surprised. People saw maybe a couple things transferring, but everything?! So how do you think people felt when they transferred this information, and then had to play as totally new characters, all at level 1, for 10-15 hours? Oh yeah, very confused. You'd think this would just make players even more eager to get further and further to get these characters. But this just returns to the subject of A)the characters in the second game are more interesting and B) after playing as characters and learning about their plot for 10-15 hours, the player basically forgets the original characters were even in the game. Very bizarre turning of events in the second game, but the developers did a fantastic job entwining the two together, both story and gameplay-wise.

And now we return to me playing the original again. Sorry this post is so long, but c'mon, by now you should be used to this. Once I start typing about a game (especially one I love), I'll go until my mind is done, or until I'm about to fall asleep. But anyways, I'm about 22 hours into the first game, and almost done. I'm in the middle of a sidequest that I've been putting off until I was near the end of the game, just so I could level up first, and then blow through it later. And since I'm at the end of the game, I'm also doing quite a bit of collecting of rare items. I believe I have the rarest weapons and armor in the game, but most are cursed, so I'm looking for a way to remove these curses before I fight the final boss. Or else I'll be paralyzed randomly throughout the battle, at the expense of much strong weaponry. Along with finding rare items, I'm looking for the last remaining Djinn that I have not yet found, and these can be a bitch. I can clearly recall using a guide to find the rest the first time I played through the game, and I'm definitely going to again. Most can be literally seen in a town or dungeon, and just need to walk up to it and fight it (or it just joins without a fight), but the outside ones suck. It's like trying to find a rare pokemon, except you have no idea where it is in the world, and it's in one tiny patch of grass (speaking in Pokemon terms). But since they all transfer over to the second game (and cannot be found in that game, unlike weapons which just get strong in the sequel), they are very important.

The event I spoke of at the very beginning is a sidequest I just finished earlier tonight. It's a sidequest boss, the hardest boss in the game, and I've been working on him since last night. I was ECSTATIC when I beat him tonight, and was literally smiling and moving around my apartment just so happy. He took me three tries to beat this time, whereas the first time I played through the game he probably took me eight to ten tries. He's Deadbeard, a dead pirate, deep below nine floors of increasingly difficult puzzles. I'll admit, he's one of the hardest bosses I've ever fought, and it feels great beating him. The first time I beat him it took me about an hour, and this time about 45 minutes, because I've become a little better at strategy over the past 7 years.

So now all I have left to do is complete this quest, find the 5 remaining Djinn, and then I think I'll be ready for the final lighthouse (dungeon) and battle. I might be playing The Lost Age by tomorrow, or at least I hope so.