Golden Sun is known to a lot of people as one of the best RPG'S around. I myself also consider it one of my more favourite RPG game. I'll try my best not to be biased in this review as this is one of my more favourite games. I got a lot of recommendations from my friends about this game a long while back and now it remains one of my most treasured games to date. So lets get this under way.

STORY: The story of Golden Sun blew my mind. It's obvious that a lot of thought was put into this game. The game starts you off in the village of Vale. Vale is no ordinary village for it is the source of a force called psynergy. A power that gives you the ability to many things such as read minds, move objects or even beat the living hell out of monsters by summoning flames and blizzards! You start as Mt.Aleph is about to erupt and all of Vale is taking cover from the flying boulders (I wanna know who's bright idea it was to build half the village next to a volcano). Your character, Issac, is woken up b your mother who tells you to leave. As you are leaving the house with her you and your mother are told that they need help to save a boy named Felix. Your mother tells you to get someone who has psynergy to help them lift Felix out of the water. You then meet up with your best friend Garret who then joins your party. You then set out and search Vale for someone with psynergy. Once you accomplish this you attempt to return to your your mother,Jenna (the sister of Felix) and Felix you is hanging on my a rope (literally). Until you are stopped by a mysterious pair who accuse you of eavesdropping (the nerve of them right!?). Even if you deny it they challenge you to a fight and then you get your butts handed to you. It then goes 5 years into the past where we meet the grown up versions of Issac and Garret. You meet up with Jenna who reminds you to meet up with Kraden to go to Mt.Aleph for a field trip on Alchemy. On your way you meet up with the mysterious pair with whom you fought 5 years ago. They tell you to go on and continue to get Kraden (nothing suspicious about that) and you continue to do so. Once in Mt.Aleph after solving multiple puzzles you are teleported into a mysterious room with a giant eye watching you. Kraden tells you and Garret to retrieve the Alchemy gems (Mars,Venus,Jupiter,and Mercury) then the mysterious pair show up and have taken Kraden and Jenna hostage ordering you to give them the stones. But wait there's more! Felix suddenly shows up saying the the pair (who now call themselves Saturous and Menardi) saved him when they found him floating in the river. You give them the stone then they leave with Kraden and Jenna much to Felix's contempt. The giant eye that was watching you before then tells Issac and Garret the with these stones they plan on lighting the 4 lighthouses and bringing alchemy back to its former self. Once you escape the once again erupting Mt.Aleph you set of on your quest to save Jenna and Kraden and to stop Saturous,Menardi and Felix from lighting the light houses. This story s quite amazing would you not say? It is unique in almost every way and creative nonetheless. I'll challenge you to find me a story even closely similar. For all these aspects I will give the story a 9/10 because of it's amazing creativity and fun story line.

DIFFICULTY: Something I found quite amazing in this game is that it's simple yet not simple. Complex yet not complex. It wasn't so simple where it wasn't any fun to play and it wasn't so complicated where you shut down before you even figure out hat to do. Even using your psynergy or items was as simple as pressing a button. The game play and combat was also quite easy to learn and actually felt amazing! I'd say the one thing that did irritate me is in the world map where it looked like to could walk thought a gap in a mountain but really you couldn't. Finding your way around the map was also quite difficult. However overall learning the controls and actually playing the game were not a challenge at all. Even though it's not what i'm rating I will say that the game itself is no cake walk. The bosses actually give you a challenge and the puzzles require you to use your brain. It's not like most games where you just sit back,relax and show the bosses what for. You're actually required to be on your toes with these guys or you will die. But back on topic I will give difficulty a 5/10

GRAPHICS: The sprite animation in this game was quite decent.There were no problems in it and it looked quite clean. Some people might complain about the world map but they forget that 5% of your game is actually spent there and it's the areas you visit that actually count. However what really gives this game such a big score in graphics is the combat animation. Even normal attacks felt like you were using some sort of special attack. It wasn't just as if when you attacked the characters body moved towards the enemy and you to some crappy hit looking animation. They actually put effort into the effects that went into it. The combat effects were beyond my expectations especially when using psynergy or summoning a djinn. Fighting made me feel like a warrior god just because of the effects. In the actual locations I will say they made the scenery and even the puzzles look quite good. It was always nicely detailed and the rooms never looked boring or dull. Considering this game came out only a few months after the GBA's release the graphics are beyond any ones expectations. The monster sprites in the game are creatively designed and look fantastic. The character sprites are well detailed and clean. The graphics in this game are comparable to quite a few Nintendo DS games I've played. The only complaint I might have is that the world map is maybe a bit blurry. I'm not sure how I would explain it besides by saying it's maybe a bit too low res. But it's not as bad considering it's not the actual location and it's just the world map and basically only 5% of your game is actually spent there. Overall the graphics are undoubtedly some of the best when it comes to GBA. The graphics get an 8/10.

ADDICTIVENESS: Golden Sun had me hooked for weeks. I'd be on my phone playing this game non-stop. I think we can agree that when it comes to RPG's most have a level up system where you just wanna keep playing to get more powerful. Golden Sun is exactly that. But there's more to it than that. Lets start with the puzzles for instance. I remember each time I completed a portion of the puzzle it would make me feel like I was closer to the goal. They would show me a new room or door making me think "Hey i'm almost done i'll just not sleep for my 3rd day in a row and keep playing for just 5 more minutes". When really I had 4 more rooms ahead of me. It was also just one of those game where the story also gets you hooked and you just gotta keep playing to see what happens next. The fact that the game itself is just so much fun to battle in makes it so you just wanna keep playing. As I said about the leveling up system there''s also money you can earn and secret items you can find in dungeons which want to make you search more and battle for it. I can say from experience that Golden Sun is an incredibly addictive game. However this is common in a lot of games where you are travelling and random enemies appear. Occasionally it's fine but eventually it just gets on your nerves and makes you want to put the game away for a bit. But it compensates for it by making the battles fun and giving you quite a few ways to avoid them besides just running away. Addictiveness gets an 8/10

SOUND: I'm just gonna say it, the music in Golden Sun is definitely on my top 10 list. Everywhere you go the music just fits in perfectly wherever you are. If i'm in a village it'll play a nice, soft and relaxing tune and at the same time lifting my spirits. The music pretty much controls your thoughts in this game. If the game wants you to be relaxed it'll play some nice music and if it wants to tell you some boss is gonna destroy you it'll play some intense music to let you know just that. My favourite music is the track to the Venus Lighthouse. It pretty much made me feel like the final battle was approaching and I was unbeatable! That was until the Fusion Dragon beat the living psynergy out of me. The point is that it fit in so well with cut scenes and locations it let you know how tense the situation really was. Overall the music was incredible and flawless. Now moving on to the effects. The battle effects were quite decent and went perfectly with the attacks. Even when using your psynergy or normal attacks they had a unique sound for everything which I very much enjoyed. The effects had no problems in my opinions they were nice and simple. I wont really say they were amazing either. On it's own the effects were just effects but together with the music it's pure perfection. It's quite hard to explain but good effects and amazing sound put together just complete the experience. I wont second guess myself when I say that the sound in this game deserves a 10/10

DEPTH/REPLAY-ABILITY: Golden Sun on it's own is a fairly large game with quite a bit to do. Like most RPG's most of the game is spent leveling up and finding power-ups and collectibles. In Golden Sun it's just that. You complete the game which includes puzzles and bosses, find all the djinn to complete your team and stock up on all the best weapons and gear. After that you just complete the story and that's that. This isn't much to complain about as this was on the GBA where pretty much not games have side quests. However Golden Sun does have a few optional quests to do which are mainly if you want to make the main quests more easier. However the game does keep track of your battle stats and records so it does give you that slight urge to want to beat them. The puzzles do require you to think and some skill and could take a while or not. Otherwise the game has plenty enough to offer but after you beat the the game there's not much you can do. I will give the depth a 7/10

THE GAME OVERALL: Golden Suns best features would definitely have to be it's sound and jaw-dropping graphics. It's story is interesting and gets many people hooked. I found it's combat features to be simply amazing. Even though it want mentioned in this review it's multi-player arena is also quite amazing. All of these features show that the GBA is capable of some serious RPG's. I think that this game overall deserves a 9.5/10. Golden Sun has all the aspects of a perfect RPG. A great combat system, An amazing story and character and good graphics and sound. This will most likely remain one of my most favourite RPG's for a long time.

This was a great review for a great game! I liked how you said what you think along with some facts for it. Nice job on this man. Keep it up.

i am in love with this game. you did a really nice long review. i really like how you desriped almost every thing. good with your catergories. and had so many good facts.

I LOVE THIS GAME, I finished both of golden sun GBA games but I didn't like the Nintendo DS one, its pretty boring but it would've being better if they add a speed button so we can train faster.. 

Never heard of this game. But thanks o you I'll try it out.