The Ten Days of Sodom – a log of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

Here is a condensed version of my posts regarding Golden Sun: Dark Dawn – a game that everyone should play as a way to know what not to do with RPGs.  Note that this takes place over a month or so as play takes place mostly on the bus to and from work or just prior to sleeping.  That and I just plain had better things to do, like eat lead paint chips and to defecate on police officers in an attempt to get myself away from this game.

Disclaimer: Post contains words considered vulgar and disgraceful.  Read at your own discretion.

20/12/10  Day 1

I have started Golden Sun DD as well, why I have spent money on it I don’t know.  I just needed something different to play.  I am loving it.  It is bad in all the ways I expect GS to be, it is easy, stupid and it sucks hard.

On the other hand I get to make Matthew make ANGRY FACE in response to every piece of dialogue and laugh at how inappropriately the game interprets that response to be.  Like Garret’s retarded son being a retard ANGRY FACE and Garret snaps back at you telling you not to get pissy at him.

On the other hand though, the world did not need to know that Garret grows up to have a pornstache in his mid forties.

31/12/10  Day 2

I don’t feel like actually saying all this again because yeah. A chunk of text from IRC are quoted here.

<Grefter> Sooooooooooooo.
<Grefter> Golden Sun Dark Dawn just went to a really dark place.
<hinode> ff.net?
<Xeroma> as in can’t see shit on the screen?
<Grefter> No as in it shocked me and I had to close my DS.
<Grefter> Go to get the Ice gem thing from a ruin so that I can make big blocks of ice.
<Xeroma> uh oh
<Grefter> You come across the Ice Queen.
<Grefter> “NO Don’t take me back I don’t want to be a slave ever again.”
<Grefter> So boss fight ensues against this women against her will.
<Grefter> ACTUAL LINE FROM TYRELL AFTERWARDS.
<Grefter> “I guess she knows her place now.”
<Grefter> Wow.
<Grefter> Just fucking wow.
<Namagomi> …jegus wtf
<Xeroma> that’s bad even for GS writing
<Grefter> Five across the eyes and go make me a sandwich.
* Soppy-ClearGenderRoles is now known as Soppy-CLEARGENDERROLES

Covers it.

What the fuck Camelot.
31/12/10  Addendum

Only posting it here so that they are together because I feel bad that people are going to be skipping Dark Dawn because of one line.

When I stopped going oh my god they actually had that line and opened up my DS there was a bit more context to it.  Karis says that she feels bad about forcing it on the spirit against her will and Tyrell does some embararssed sad face emoticon thing.  Someone wonders whether the spirits came first or if the stones that they are kept in came first.

Then the monk dude from the first games that had been tricked into freeing her says “It doesn’t matter she is back where she belongs now”.

Camelot:  What do you say to a woman with 2 black eyes?  Nothing, she has already been told twice.

Keep it classy.

31/12/10 Response to why are you playing this game?

To revel in mediocrity.  I think Golden Sun is a very important RPG series.  It shows what happens when you make an RPG and know exactly how it all goes together without actually putting any thought or effort into it thereby making an utterly shit game that gets all the essentials right.

Also managing to do this three times, each time getting critical acclaim and great reviews.

04/01/11 Day 3

So some people wanted more Golden Sun Dark Dawn nonsense.  I haven’t been playing it much becase it is stupid.

But anyway, so after sending the women back to the kitchen you can now restart the Alchemy Forge in one town that you have gone back and forward to constantly so that you can fly to another mountain peak so that you can try to go back to your original fetch quest.  This game is matryoshka doll of fetch quests much like BoF 2 is.

NOTE: FROM THIS POINT ON THERE IS NO DIALOGUE IN GAME.

Anyway, so you fly to the other mountain by going through a short floating platform sequence.  Then the only thing you can do over there is go into some ruins and start up a series of clockwork devices by solving horoscope themed puzzles.  Once you have all them started the Sagitarius puzzle (the last one) causes the mirror outside the temple entrance to have an arrow shoot out of it.  You exit out of the ruins again and use Grip synergy on the arror and it starts the mirror swinging as it was a pendulum on a giant horoscope clock.  Because you started this clock a path down from the mountain levitates up from no where and you exit to the world map.

I have no words to describe what the fuck here.  This is what I mean when I say the game has all the key things to make a decent RPG.  There is a long sequence to get to the next town, a series of puzzles and fairly short challenges.  There is just nothing connecting these things, no reason for them, no explanation for them at all and no way at all of knowing the effect these things will have.  Why do you solve these puzzles?  Because they are there and it will probably get you to the next place.  Somehow.

Who the hell made this ruin?  Why would you make it like this?  This was supposedly a special road that ancient civilisation used.  How did the path levitate?  How do you make that work on clockwork?  Why the hell is it on a horoscope clock?  lolanswers

Worst part of it?  There was actually a block puzzle Lufia styles where you have 3 blocks to put in spots without overlapping the paths of the blocks that I looked up the answer for online because I was lazy and didn’t feel like thinking about puzzles at 8 in the morning on the bus to work while I am listening to a podcast.  Easy puzzle, just feeling lazy.   You want to know what the answer was? LOL CAST THIS SPELL THE GAME GIVES YOU IT WILL TELL YOU THE ANSWER.

This game has easy puzzles and then like 1/4 of the way through the game it gives you a solve the fucking puzzle spell.

Note- Upon getting further into the game it becomes clear that this doesn’t quite end up being as bad as it sounds, there isn’t many other places the spell actually tell you where to move objects around, just tell you when you can certain Psynergy on objects.  So I guess instead of a solve puzzle spell it is a solve mildly thought invoking puzzles spell, but not stupid puzzles that are poorly designed like the one where the answer is to fuck around with an Astrolabe.

05/01/11  Response again to why are you playing this game?

Similar reasons to why I played FF13.  I payed full price for entry on this ride, so I sure as shit am finishing it.

06/01/11 Day 4

So we finally stopped dicking around and made it to the town where we should meet Kraden that is right next to the mountain area where we can find the Mountain Roc and get to the outer layer of the Matroyshka Doll fetch quest.  FUCK YES SOMETHING MIGHT HAPPEN.  The new recruit left and asked us to get the band to play a specific and she would come back in town.

Can’t find the dude in town.  The band doesn’t have an option to pick the song to summon the chick.  So you leave town.  You get some dialogue of lol couldn’t find that bitch or dude.  Then 2 of the band members that can play the song mention that they are going on journeys and that someone else is already on a journey and that there is only 6 people in the world that can play the song.

You are fucking kidding me.

07/01/11 Discussing why it is stupid to throw a stupidly easy fetch quest for you to talk to people that show up along the way during the main plot so that you can summon second Wind user recruit
They didn’t have to do that though.  Svelta clearly wanted nothing at all to do with getting the Roc feather and that she was cool to wait until you had done that shit before coming to chill with the party.  That is all they needed to justify it.

07/01/11 Day 5

The game threw out some more fetch quests and then it crashed.  I lost back to before the band incident.  Not sure when I will pick it back up.

11/01/11 Day 6

So I forced myself to play through the parts I knew.  This game goes much faster when you know exactly where you are going and where to search in town for all the hidden stuff worth shit.  I am now falling asleep to uncurse a tree or something.  Again I am not exactly sure why this is happening.  I thought I was supposed to be saving some pirates kid from being boiled alive, but hey I ended up in this town, talked to a woman and she said to do it.  So it is happening.

Also a side plot that only really comes up in books and in one area of the game (has been expanded in books in like every town since that one area) is the exploits of Emperor Ko and his general failings as a human being.  I approve of this message.

13/01/11 Day 7

Fuck this game.  Fuck it in its stupid fucking everything.  It pushed beyond the point of mediocrity in how far it will stretch being mind numbingly dull.  The fetch quests have no end in sight as the fetch quest that started the game is resolution to another fetch quest that we only just recently got (that we still have other things spiral off to fetch to get answers from).  I lost my patience with a 10 minute text scroll of bad dialogue between a Djinn and 2 Trees that told us that the princess fetch quests were in another castle.  I hate everything.

13/01/11 Response to “So the game is Lufia 1?”

No.  Lufia 1 is a fucking masterpiece compared to this shit.  Lufia 1 has actual classical story telling techniques in it.  Lufia 1 is regardless of all the bullshit an overarching plot that is a love story.

This game is about getting a feather to fix a jetpack that some dick head broke.  I am about to get that feather and in doing so going to keep going with more sidequest bullshit that oh my god just make it fucking stop.

I am clearly not framing this properly.  There has been a single sequence with the main villains at this point it is a good few hours into the game and is long out of sight by now.  One scene with someone who is probably a lackey that was never properly defined and happened a couple of hours after the main villains.  Otherwise there has been absolutely zero interaction with your antagonists.  It has just been chains of fetch quests to do completely bat shit insane random bullshit.

That is right.  This is a game about a magic back pack and it is FUCKING BORING AS SHIT.  HOW THE FUCK DO YOU SCREW THIS UP.

I haven’t been this pissed off about a game since FF13 god fucking dammit.

13/01/11 Transcript of IRC during the above posts.  Presented to you by DjinnAndTonic who felt the need to log my bursts of anger.

[00:19]   <Grefter>   ;’jklfdsff THIS GAME
[00:20]   <Grefter>   So go through a forest maze in Golden Sun. Jump on a Tree branch. Get lifted up and talk to a tree with a face on it. Half way through the conversation the party gets suprised by a talking cliff right behind them that they didn’t see.
<Grefter>   This entire fucking game is full of “ERrrr what do we do here? Oh I know talking cliff from original games”
[00:21]   I wish someone had been actually physically pregnant with the idea of this game.
So I could build a time machine and punch them in the stomach.
<Grefter>   So then the fact that this game is a complete and total miscarriage would at least be my fault.

<Grefter>   Wait, sorry, it isn’t a talking cliff.
It is an arse ugly tree that just looks like it is made of rock.
[00:25]   <Grefter>   STOP TALKING OH MY GODS JUST STOP TALKING
<Grefter>   For fucks sake.
So much stupid shitty dialogue to get a fetch quest.
And it still isn’t over.
[00:28]   <superaielman>   You really make that game sound worse than GS1.
<Grefter>   We have to have the next part of another fetch quest pushed along.
<superaielman>   And that is pretty damn bad
[00:29]   <Grefter>   It should be played.
FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
FUCK FUCKING FUCK YOU
<Grefter>   The solution to the next fetch quest?
[00:30]   Involves resolving the fetch quest that starts the fucking game.
MY GODS I WANT TO FUCKING PUNCH SOMETHING>
[00:31]   <SageAcrin>   So basically they decided that what people liked about Golden Sun was “Everything” and didn’t bother examining anything and instead cloned GS1 in a haphazard way that accidentally made more fetchquests, then tossed in GS2’s battle system.
I see.
<Grefter>   SO MANY FETCH QUESTS.
I can’t keep up with why we are going fucking anywhere anymore.
[00:32]   <Grefter>   AND THEY ARE STILL TALKING.
[00:33]   <Grefter>   Subtracting five minutes for me to bitch about it.
<Grefter>   That is 10 minutes of raw text scroll.
To be told to go away.
I hate this game.
This is the first time I actually ahve hated it.
Not just it being bad.
<Grefter>   I just straight up fucking hate it now.
[00:36]   <Grefter>   Nonononononon onononononon o don’t make my read more tlaking after walking one screen.

[00:39]   <Grefter>   stoptalkingstoptalkingstoptalking

24/01/11 Day8

Played more.  I am just blindly following the walkthrough at this point.  I am honestly not sure how the fuck you are meant to know where to go between these towns.  They don’t mention each other or give directions.  The walkthrough tells me to go there and the plot keeps flowing.

26/01/11 Day 9

Things happen more.  People keep talking.  Lots of people are dead because of the Eclipse thing!  Shame that like it is only people without names.  Couple of people you don’t care about are dead. woooooooooooo

29/01/11  Day 10

Coincidentally just finished it also.

I don’t really understand how you can say all that stuff above and say the game is decent, but we never really see eye to eye on games and look for different things in games, so eh what can you do.

The last ton of the game is more of the same.  Random shit in the plot coming out of nowhere.  No plot resolution for the very first things you do in the game.  It is just a pile of nonsense to string together some gameplay.  If you want my opinion on the game just check every other post I have made about it.  At least for those I had something new to complain about.  Here the only thing I could add is the slow boat, which yeah is just boat is slow like Twil noted.

The final boss at least finally had something put up a fight though!  Go it!  Going in directly after the fight with the villains was actually a bad idea!  I should have just mashed attack on the boss before it because PP was actually an issue on this fight.  I had to use a whole Psycrystal on Matthew because of all the Odysseys I had cast and there was revival required.    Also the boss has damage, so healing is useful, there was even points where I wanted both MT healers on the field.  To highlight it even more he has a move that can strip targets of all Djinn, so you have to swap people around as well (first fight in the game I ever did that on).  Actually equipping Eoleo and Amiti properly instead of just using cast offs when I remembered to change their gear would have helped a bit.  Muliple Djinn classes have better stat bonuses so might have made the fight more manageable.  He is also probably still vulnerable to Summon spam.  Generally taking the game more seriously would likely have made it fairly trivial, but hey playing fairly casually it certainly tried a little bit which is more than anything else in the game had.

So to lazy to do stat topic  even super lazy mode on it.  So someone else is going to have to play it (AHAHAHA take that bitches).

Short notes.  Game sucked, has basic concepts of an RPG there, plenty of dialogue, stats, a combat system.  It uses none of them for anything remotely any good.

Log ends here.  We now return to the present

For reference the “Stuff above” there is a reference to another poster on our forums, Twilkitri who’s viewpoint is quite different than mine, but quite intersting in and of its own.  I hope I don’t miss any points, but will try and paraphrase the general negative points he had here.  Note that overal Twilkitri is relative positive about the game and the series in general and his thoughts are well worth reading if you want some counterpoint.  I am not quoting it directly here out of respect for himself and not wanting to drag his original post somewhat away from the original context of the forums.

Missable Djinn and Djinn on the world map in general is pretty piss poor design, especially when points of no return are arbitrary and cut off large areas of the map.

You solve puzzles because they are just there, no other particular drive to do them.  The context of the puzzles make little to no sense.

The ship is too slow.

Being able to pick an emotional response is essentially meaningless, it doesn’t effect the outcome of the game or the conversation, you may as well mash ANGRYFACE for humor value and enjoy the way the game twists and turns to try and make ANGRYFACE make any sense, often by Matthew getting angry at a completely random inappropriate person.

The solve everything spell talked about in my posts is most certainly not a solve everything spell, there is particularly stupid puzzles that it is worthless on.

Regardless of all these he found the game overall better than Golden Sun 2 but not sure as to whether or not it is better than Golden Sun 1.  The first portion of the game is road blocks all over the shop, but once you get the boat it is free-roaming-but-you-totally-don’t-want-to-go-there-that-is-for-later for all the interesting stuff.

Ultimately I do stand by my statements early that people should play this game.  It is certainly one of those bad games that people with an interest in design should partake of, particularly if you are into design concepts of JRPGs, which anyone here presumably is at least tangentially.  I wouldn’t suggest that you spend moneyon it brand new or anything, but if you can then borrow a copy or get it cheap second hand (so that the money goes to someone more deserving than the publisher of this tripe, you know like a parasite that is trying to not give money to people that supply them with product).

Play this game, but don’t buy it, it bites the proverbial bag but it is something that anyone with a touch of interest in design owes it to themself to see for themselves.  Hey, I could just be a picky prick, it wouldn’t be the first time I was ever called out for wanting things like games to make sense, to try or to even pretend that anyone cares why these things are happening.