A Look at Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

“Golden Sun: Dark Dawn” is a JRPG made by Camelot which was released 2010 for Nintendo DS and sequel to “Golden Sun: The Lost Age”.

30 years after the events of “Golden Sun: The Lost Age”, the descendants of the Warriors of Vale, the protagonists from the previous games, set out on a journey for a simple errand. It was supposed to be a very simple one. As they are forced to take another route by a group of shady characters, they find themselves in an unfamiliar place and try to find an alternative route to their original destination. What is that group plotting?

Being a fan of the series, I enthusiastically pre-ordered a copy of “Dark Dawn” as soon as I heard about it. When I told my fellow Golden Sun fans about it, they all had the same question: “If Matthew is Isaac's son, who did Isaac marry?”. Spoilers: it's Jenna, although she never makes an appearance in the game. Previous main characters altogether don't turn up as much as one would hope.

But I was rather disappointed upon clearing the game way too fast and too easily. I guess it is good not to be too challenging, but then even the secret Boss Dullahan, who was considered the ultimate Boss in “Golden Sun: The Lost Age” was a pushover in “Golden Sun: Dark Dawn”! It definitely lacks the feature to play on a higher difficulty.

Also, going into the third dimension plus using touch controls kinda ruined the Golden Sun feeling a little. Especially move puzzles lost all the challenge they ever had.

I'd rank it with 3 of 10. There's still hope the possible sequel might fix the issue.

EDIT: It's 2022 and we're still waiting for a sequel or remaster to happen.