Golden Sun Dark Dawn on November 29th

[Suichimo]

NINTENDO'S GOLDEN SUN: DARK DAWN LAUNCHING ON NOV. 29

August 30, 2010

The dawn of a new entry in the renowned Golden Sun™ video game series has nearly arrived in North America. Nintendo has announced that Golden Sun: Dark Dawn for the top-selling Nintendo DS™ family of portable game systems will launch on Nov. 29.

Offering a planet-sized world of adventure to explore and conquer, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn puts the raw power of the elements in players' hands. Each of the game's playable characters is capable of carrying Djinn, spirits that imbue their owner with unique and powerful abilities. Players can collect more than 70 unique Djinn, granting them the ability to summon mighty deities who unleash devastating attacks that fill both Nintendo DS screens. Djinn powers can also be used to navigate puzzling dungeons and overworld environments that will have players flinging fireballs to burn away obstacles, freezing water to raise platforms, or summoning whirlwinds to create bridges out of floating objects.

Taking place 30 years after the events of Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age for the Game Boy™ Advance system, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn introduces a new generation of heroes that are struggling to survive in a radically changed world. What begins as a simple journey to rescue a lost friend turns into a dramatic quest to save the land from catastrophe as players are drawn into a world full of magical energy.

For more information about Nintendo, visit http://www.nintendo.com.

Finally! Though the last sentence in the second paragraph intrigues me. Djinn powers can be used to navigate dungeons?

[FaceDancer]

I'm excited about this game too though I may not pick it up immediately :o

Yeah, the Djinn may be used to, I dunno, levitate yourself up to a ledge, push blocks around for a pressure-plate puzzle. I imagine it won't be too far from the likes of Zelda.

[IntegerZero]

When they mean unique, they meant it. I remember seeing pictures of a few different djinn that all had different sprites and it stated that they would all have a slight personality and unique sprite.

I mean the first two were incredible games. They most certainly have high expectations.

Also, you get to have some fun with Issac and Garet (Play). No world on the others though, but I assume they will be there. I just cannot wait to see what new classes and summons they bring to the fold. I want a Dullapwn summon.

Edited August 30, 2010 by IntegerZero

[chococoke]

HELL YES.

I brought a few things to college with me this year to entertain myself. 1 of those things was a Gameboy, which which I brought a few games. 2 of which were the Golden Sun games.

[Galenforcer]

Cool. Might look into it in the future.

Also, did anyone ever swap djinns around for classes to use effectively? I only do that when I see psyenergy I like and when I have all the djinns.

Edited August 30, 2010 by Weegee

[IntegerZero]

Cool. Might look into it in the future.

Also, did anyone ever swap djinns around for classes to use effectively? I only do that when I see psyenergy I like and when I have all the djinns.

Oh yes, so very much so. They base classes are fine enough, but some of the mixed classes are too good to pass up. Paladin and Chaos Lord instantly come to mind.

[Zanarkin]

It seem like an interesting game. I would ask it for christmas buy it

[Suichimo]

Oh yes, so very much so. They base classes are fine enough, but some of the mixed classes are too good to pass up. Paladin and Chaos Lord instantly come to mind.

The end of the Ronin line, IIRC, was awesome. I think it was called Master. It was either 5 Mars/4 Jupiter or 4 Jupiter/5 Mars for the Venus Adepts.

[Pride]

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

If it's anything like the first two, than it'll be great.

get hype

[IntegerZero]

The end of the Ronin line, IIRC, was awesome. I think it was called Master. It was either 5 Mars/4 Jupiter or 4 Jupiter/5 Mars for the Venus Adepts.

It was cool. The Ninja was a badass as well. I'm partial to the Paladin though. I luvs me Jenna. Hell, talking about these makes want to do a whole LP on the two games, or even just rate the classes. Maybe I should.

The Necromancer was just lulzy though. Summon Dullahan?! Yes PLZ.

EDIT: Double checked sources. It was Necro that could, Not Beasty.

Edited August 31, 2010 by IntegerZero

[grandjackal]

Geez, it's about time! How long's it been since we've heard anything about this? With only what, 3 months left to wonder? Nintendo's doing a great job of keeping things behind curtains until it's about time to release.

Still, good to know the game wasn't just mysteriously canceled behind closed curtains and being released. Sure purchase from me.

[Kriemhild]

Finally! Though the last sentence in the second paragraph intrigues me. Djinn powers can be used to navigate dungeons?

I think... okay, fine, more like I "hope", that it means that Djinn can now be used to navigate dungeons in a similar manner as Psynergy is used. Which hopefully means that you'll have to capture a particular Djinn to progress through some part instead of hunting down a particular item (Orb of Force, Carry Stone, etc). The reason why I want this to be the case is because it means we don't have to keep clogging our inventory with Psynergy items that you can't drop, even though Halt is pretty much useless in Book 2.

When they mean unique, they meant it. I remember seeing pictures of a few different djinn that all had different sprites and it stated that they would all have a slight personality and unique sprite.

That's certainly good to know. Echo and Flint were both pretty cool but none of the other Djinn had any character whatsoever. This is gonna be really awesome. Unique sprite would be pretty great!

Also, you get to have some fun with Issac and Garet (Play). No world on the others though, but I assume they will be there. I just cannot wait to see what new classes and summons they bring to the fold. I want a Dullapwn summon.

Wait, where did you hear that you can play as Isaac and Garet?

Also, there was a Psynergy called "Call Dullahan" in Book 2. Necrolytes and Necromages (give somebody the Tomegathericon and 2/3 Djinn of each of the other three elements) learn it from Level 53 and up. And none of the summons actually made it outside the battlefield so I doubt Dullahan would be one of them.

Also, did anyone ever swap djinns around for classes to use effectively? I only do that when I see psyenergy I like and when I have all the djinns.

I did, a lot. Pierrot, Ninja, Samurai, White Mage, Ranger, Medium and all of their higher ups were the ones that I used to like. But I figured that the default classes end up being more effective overall. Because they end up using the element they're most suited to, and you don't have to worry about one guy getting some weird Djinn combination.

The end of the Ronin line, IIRC, was awesome. I think it was called Master. It was either 5 Mars/4 Jupiter or 4 Jupiter/5 Mars for the Venus Adepts.

Uh, Ronin WAS the end of the line. Samurai > Ronin. 5 Mars/4 Jupiter and 4 Jupiter/5 Mars are both the exact same thing. Both of them turn a Venus Adept into a Master, which is from the Ninja line (the middle one is Disciple) and not the Ronin line. Ronin requires 5 Jupiter/4 Mars for Venus Adepts.

Either way, I'd say both were awesome. Skull Splitter and Annihilation were both appropriately named.

[Suichimo]

I think... okay, fine, more like I "hope", that it means that Djinn can now be used to navigate dungeons in a similar manner as Psynergy is used. Which hopefully means that you'll have to capture a particular Djinn to progress through some part instead of hunting down a particular item (Orb of Force, Carry Stone, etc). The reason why I want this to be the case is because it means we don't have to keep clogging our inventory with Psynergy items that you can't drop, even though Halt is pretty much useless in Book 2.

I'm thinking of something similar.

Cloak was absolutely useless in TLA.

That's certainly good to know. Echo and Flint were both pretty cool but none of the other Djinni had any character whatsoever. This is gonna be really awesome. Unique sprite would be pretty great!

This is the picture that Joystiq has up. That Venus Djinni looks quite a bit different than the others.

I did, a lot. Pierrot, Ninja, Samurai, White Mage, Ranger, Medium and all of their higher ups were the ones that I used to like. But I figured that the default classes end up being more effective overall. Because they end up using the element they're most suited to, and you don't have to worry about one guy getting some weird Djinni combination.

Thats where you give the odd Djinni to Piers because he sucks like hell anyway.

Uh, Ronin WAS the end of the line. Samurai > Ronin. 5 Mars/4 Jupiter and 4 Jupiter/5 Mars are both the exact same thing. Both of them turn a Venus Adept into a Master, which is from the Ninja line (the middle one is Disciple) and not the Ronin line. Ronin requires 5 Jupiter/4 Mars for Venus Adepts.

Either way, I'd say both were awesome. Skull Splitter and Annihilation were both appropriately named.

Yeah, I was meaning for the second one to be 5 Jupiter/4 Mars. Goofed on that one.

And its Ninja? Ok. Master, as far as I'm concerned, is pretty much the best choice for Isaac. Felix goes Chaos Lord, due to the shortage of Djinni to make him a Master as well, on my team at least.

Another thing that interests me is that it says that there are over 70 Djinni in the game. To me, this clearly means that the original 72 will be in the game along with some possible new ones. However, if we don't have a second party, that means we might end up with something like 18 Djinni per party member. Although, IIRC, there is data in the first two games for classes that use more than 9 Djinni.

[IntegerZero]

Warning: This post has a few pictures. I've put all the big pictures in the spoiler tag. Also info Heavy too.

But first, proof of Issac In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn?

See that guy in a blue trench coat? He seems much older than the party (Piers doesn't count.) and he looks quite a bit like Terry (Isaac's kid.). It is all speculation, but it seems very much probable that Isaac will shop up as part of the tutorial. Garet has no word ATM though, though I merely assume.

Here is a shot of two different fire Djinn.

And here shows you the new world map. Or part of it at least.

On another note, we have all four names finally. Crown is a Male mage Water Adept. Karis is our token mage Wind Adept. Metthew is the standard fighter Earth Adept. And Tyrell is representin' our fighter Fire Adept.

Bonus Videos!

Battle!

Random note: They have different attack icons depending on what weapon you have equipped. Cool!

I will put up another video shortly.

[Suichimo]

I thought Crown was supposed to be the guy in the blue trench coat. If it was Isaac, I wouldn't want him to be in the party for more than one or two dungeons, preferably in the beginning of the game.

Hopefully Crown is better than Piers as a Mercury Adept Fighter. They tried to balance Piers between Mage and Warrior too much and he paid by being absolute crap. Ivan and Jenna were pretty good for hybrid Mage/Warriors though.

Weyard has changed, aesthetically, quite a bit. But it doesn't look to have changed to much in its general shape. Looks like the area up by Prox is still somewhat frozen though, although I think thats normal. Imil looks to have changed quite a bit though, no snow at all up in the area where it was. Can't extract too much more information from the map though.

Here is the old map of Weyard, in Spanish I think, for comparison.

The map above looks like it covers from Vale down to Lalivero, just above Venus Lighthouse though. I'd also be wrong on saying that Imil isn't frozen over anymore. You can't see Imil on the shot of the new map that we have, so I was in error.

Edited August 31, 2010 by Suichimo

[Kriemhild]

I'm thinking of something similar.

Cloak was absolutely useless in TLA.

That too. Hopefully, in Book 3, they'll put the Cloak ability inside the Haze Djinn, which means no stupid Cloak Balls in the inventory.

This is the picture that Joystiq has up. That Venus Djinni looks quite a bit different than the others.

Oh snap, looks like they really will be different then! Which is gonna be really awesome.

Thats where you give the odd Djinni to Piers because he sucks like hell anyway.

He's not THAT bad. He can use Excalibur, which is a big plus, and I think I remember using Diamond Berg quite a few times.

Yeah, I was meaning for the second one to be 5 Jupiter/4 Mars. Goofed on that one.

And its Ninja? Ok. Master, as far as I'm concerned, is pretty much the best choice for Isaac. Felix goes Chaos Lord, due to the shortage of Djinni to make him a Master as well, on my team at least.

My team varies from boss to boss. But I generally prefer putting a Master in, for their high speed. If I'm not just sticking to default classes, that is.

Another thing that interests me is that it says that there are over 70 Djinni in the game. To me, this clearly means that the original 72 will be in the game along with some possible new ones. However, if we don't have a second party, that means we might end up with something like 18 Djinni per party member. Although, IIRC, there is data in the first two games for classes that use more than 9 Djinni.

18 Djinn per party member is just way too much. I don't think there would be much new ones though, since lack of transferring implies that you'll have to hunt the old Djinn all over again (if they return). I thought 44 Djinn for Book 2 was too much and I really don't think they would bring more than 72.

Did the original really have classes programmed for more than 9 Djinn? Like, could Ivan theoretically turn into a Master, or at least, a Disciple, if he were to somehow have more than 9 Djinn?

Warning: This post has a few pictures. I've put all the big pictures in the spoiler tag. Also info Heavy too.

But first, proof of Issac In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn?

See that guy in a blue trench coat? He seems much older than the party (Piers doesn't count.) and he looks quite a bit like Terry (Isaac's kid.). It is all speculation, but it seems very much probable that Isaac will shop up as part of the tutorial. Garet has no word ATM though, though I merely assume.

I think that guy is Crown...

On another note, we have all four names finally. Crown is a Male mage Water Adept. Karis is our token mage Wind Adept. Metthew is the standard fighter Earth Adept. And Tyrell is representin' our fighter Fire Adept.

Wait, Karis is Wind? And all this time, I thought she was Water...

I thought Crown was supposed to be the guy in the blue trench coat. If it was Isaac, I wouldn't want him to be in the party for more than one or two dungeons, preferably in the beginning of the game.

^This

Hopefully Crown is better than Piers as a Mercury Adept Fighter. They tried to balance Piers between Mage and Warrior too much and he paid by being absolute crap. Ivan and Jenna were pretty good for hybrid Mage/Warriors though.

At least he started off 4-6 levels above your expected average level

Weyard has changed, aesthetically, quite a bit. But it doesn't look to have changed to much in its general shape. Looks like the area up by Prox is still somewhat frozen though, although I think thats normal. Imil looks to have changed quite a bit though, no snow at all up in the area where it was. Can't extract too much more information from the map though.

I would imagine that the World Map would have expanded in 30 years after the Golden Sun rose over Weyard

Here is the old map of Weyard, in Spanish I think, for comparison.

The map above looks like it covers from Vale down to Lalivero, just above Venus Lighthouse though. I'd also be wrong on saying that Imil isn't frozen over anymore. You can't see Imil on the shot of the new map that we have, so I was in error.

The new map DOES have some snow in that general direction. Also, Gondowan and Angara seemed to have split up. Hmmm, maybe Poseidon got revived after the Mars Lighthouse got lit?

[BEST TRYNDAMERE PLAYER]

Battle!

That looks awesome. I like Ragnarok's animation too. Although I think I prefer the GBA one over this one.

[Paper Jam]

Here is the old map of Weyard, in Spanish I think, for comparison.

Not that it matters if you're not a linguist, but that looks like French to me.

[Suichimo]

New images! First we have a magazine scan showing Crown, the Mercury Adept.

Then we have what appears to be the Djinni screen, with a lot of different Djinni:

The one selected currently is Flint.

This seems to imply two things. First, and probably the most noticeable, is that the party is bigger than four characters. Second, it seems to imply that Adepts are limited to nine Djinni again.

Then we have a couple of battle pictures:

[IntegerZero]

Dude! Digging those new designs for the Djinn! Woo! Also, you can slightly see the 5th party member. I wonder who it is?

EDIT: Doing some random manipulations in GIMP, he/she appears to have a hat.

Edited September 6, 2010 by IntegerZero

[Kriemhild]

New images! First we have a magazine scan showing Crown, the Mercury Adept.

[spoiler=Size]

Cool! His clothes suggest that he's from Imil. Maybe he's Mia's son or something?

Then we have what appears to be the Djinni screen, with a lot of different Djinni:

The one selected currently is Flint.

This seems to imply two things. First, and probably the most noticeable, is that the party is bigger than four characters. Second, it seems to imply that Adepts are limited to nine Djinni again.

More than four characters means there's at least eight characters since most RPGs try to even out all the different categories (in this case, the elements).

I'm kinda relieved that 9 is the max though, since they would have to be hunted all over again and 72 is no small number. Unfortunately, this means I'll never see a Jupiter Adept as a Master.

Then we have a couple of battle pictures:

JUDGMENT!!! Awesome. And it looks like they tell you which Djinn are set in the top-left corner of the screen.

Crown is holding a Mace. I hope he's better than Piers.

[Suichimo]

New video including a new character(at 1:44)!

Pound looks like its usable in battle now, assuming the psynergy with the two hands clasped together is Pound. The watery area around the 2 minute mark looks somewhat familiar as well, though that may just be me.

[Acacia Sgt]

That Psynergy with hands doesn't seem to be Pound. According to the text box, it's Crush. Considering the field effect, that's most likely the case.

Hm, in Romanji, the new character's name is Harumaani. Attempting to convert it to English, would be Harmany/Harmony. Something like that...

Edited September 15, 2010 by Acacia Sgt

[Life]

Oh... my... god... Someone better put the ROM for this game up on the internet within 3 days of it coming out. I want to play this game so badly now.

[IntegerZero]

Hm, in Romanji, the new character's name is Harumaani. Attempting to convert it to English, would be Harmany/Harmony. Something like that...

He also has water Psynergy too it seems. I think he used Diamond Dust. Two Male Mercury Adepts this time. I wonder what we'll get for our second Earth, Fire, and Wind?