Customer Reviews:
  A Great RPG August 2, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I'm a giant fan of all RPG's, and I have The original Golden Sun, all of the Pokemon series, and countless other games. I seriously believe this is a great game. While the bosses aren't -too- hard. I'm around halfway through the game, and I have loved the music and graphics. I'm now a HUGE fan of this series. If you don't decide to buy, at least borrow it and be hooked.
 decent and fun game but low replay value August 1, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
- Golden Sun 2 : the lost age - continues the story from the original Gloden sun. You can transfer your character stats, dejinn, and items from the original Golen sun with link cable or passwords.
- graphic - 7/10
same graphic as the first goden sun. not bad but could be improved.
- game control - 9/10
the game control for this game is very simple but its annoying to use phyenergy unless you eqipped it to your shoulden buttons because you are required to use them to solve puzzels frequently.
- sound - 8/10
the sound is decent for some maps while repetitive and irritating
for others.
- replayability - 5/10
the flaw of this game id that there is not enough side quests and
other alterations during game play for plays to want to replay the game. I find it hard to continue on my second time playing the game.
- overall -7.5/10
great game for RPG fans but can be improved.
this game is not perfect but it's still one of the best games you can get on GBA, so buy it if you like RPG games.
"Elemental energy drives the growth of civilization. Without it, we and our world will wither."---Sheba May 30, 2006
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
I loved Golden Sun, so I was very excited about playing this sequel. At first, I was disappointed because you are no longer the character in the first game. In fact, you won't hook up with Isaac and the gang until way into this game. You are now Felix, the kid who was swept away in a stream back in Vale and who seemingly joined the darkside but, since you are now taking control of his character, he must not have been so bad after all. So, instead of starting out with Isaac, Garet, Ivan, and Mia with their level 31 powers, you need to start all over again with a new posse of characters. I guess this makes sense as you do not need to complete the GS1 to play Lost Age. The first team will have all the powers you gained for them in the first game, but they won't be needed too much. Djinn Flash and Granite and some of Ivan's psynergy will pretty much be the only pivotal things they bring to the group.
There are several things different about Lost Age than GS1. First, I found that I used attack Djinn much more often in battles. I almost never used psynergy to fight. Psynergy was almost exclusively used for performing tasks and solving puzzles. You get a lot of new psynergy like Tremor, Scoop, Pound, Sand, Cyclone, Hover, Blaze, Burst, Teleport, and Parch.
I also noticed that I hardly bought any weapons, armor, or healing items. Most of the stuff I used I found (including the ultra powerful Sol Blade), earned in battle, or won at the Contigo slots. Consequently, you can amass a ton of coins (coins were much more precious when I played GS1). One of the most useful purchases will be Mist Potions in Prox near the end of the game in preparation for your final showdown, and money will be no object by then. I had almost 415,000 coins before my final boss battle, over double what I had in GS1.
Another difference about this game is you'll be able to travel by ship to different continents. This ship will also have wings built on it so you can fly over certain barriers (alas, not all barriers).
You get a better idea what's going on here, too. It seems that, because the lighthouses are not lit, there is no longer enough elemental energy to grow and sustain the world. A map reveals that the continents of the world are shrinking. The beacons of the four lighthouses thus must be lit (Venus will be lit at the beginning of the game). Isaac and the gang did not know this in GS1.
A lot of things I loved about GS1 are in Lost Age. There are many different places to see and things to do. There is also excellent music that changes with almost every place you go. The melancholy music in Garoh fits the tale of the lycanthropes who take the form of werewolves because they borrow powers from beasts and are, therefore, often considered beasts is a beautiful combination. I kept that part saved on my game for a long time. You can also save the game anytime, except during battles, which is an incredibly useful feature.
Another similarity to GS1 is that, in LA, the toughest battle is not the last. It is the Star Magician on Treasure Island. I would not tackle it right away. I would wait until you find the powerful Sol Blade in the Mars Lighthouse on the other side of the world and backtrack to Treasure Island. The Star Magician is aided by four balls (or spheres, if you will). You need to defeat his strongest spheres in the following order of priority: 1. Guardian Spheres, 2. Refresh Sphere, 3. Anger Spheres. Only after the magician has 4 Thunder Spheres do you attack him. Unlike other boss battles, you do not use summons. Set all your Djinni, and attack with Felix's Sol Blade. Sheba and Piers should alternate Flash and Granite. I tried Shade instead of Granite but it did not work. Shade allows a little more damage which is just enough to prevent me from keeping my guys alive. Jenna should either be using Flower or healing psynergy. She should also have some Mist Potions and Waters of Life just in case (maybe divide them up between Felix and Jenna). This strategy will take a long time--maybe 45 minutes--but it will work eventually. If it goes right, you won't even need to use Isaac's team. It took me many tries to beat this dude. Incidentally, you do not need to defeat the magician to beat the game, but why not go for it?! This strategy will also work in the final boss, the Doom Dragon.
Another difficult part was a room full of Hover pads in the Jupiter Lighthouse. You have to stay above the Hover pads to keep hovering but a whirlwind will force you onto some broken tiles and, if you're there too long (which seems like just a nanosecond), you'll fall through the floor and have to start all over again. After many tries and many swear words, I discovered that if you leave the hover pads and return to them at a angle, you'll shave off just enough time to make it. I did this twice, to the right to activate one of the statues to the lighthouse, and to the left to pick up the Phaeton Blade, which was the most powerful weapon I had found up to that point. As it turns out, the Phaeton Blade is not that powerful compared to other weapons you will get and I ended up selling it so you really only need to conquer the Hover pads once on the right side of the room and save yourself the frustration of having to do it twice.
The end of the game was neat but I was a little disappointed because I was looking forward to returning to Vale (the first town in GS1). Seeing that town again with that old music would be a real treat. As it turns out, that will be impossible. Oh well, I'm more nostalgic than most. I definitely recommend beating GS1 before playing Lost Age, although it is not necessary. I think you will love this game so much you'll want to play both, so you might as well play them in order. As always, get a walkthrough! Good luck, adept.
A spectacular sequel to a great RPG! December 15, 2005
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I simply loved the first Golden Sun, but this game was phenonomal! If you played the first game you pretty much know what's going to happen in this game, but WHO CARES! The main idea throuhout the game is that Felix and his gang (Felix, Jenna, Sheba, and Piers) are attempting to light the Jupiter and Mars Lighthouses and restore Alchemy to the world. Gain new psynergies, fight intimidating bosses, and team up with Issac and company and light the remaining lighthouses!
A reason to buy a GBA Micro October 6, 2005
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
It's amazing really. I have this itty bitty little GBA Micro and yet this game contains an entire world! In fact, that's the most striking thing about this game, just how expansive the world is in which it is set. You travel from land to land (suspiciously like familiar places like India, Japan, Africa and even Jamaica once you find out how to use the ship) and each one is packed with towns, dungeons and mountains, all of which are in turn packed with monsters, treasures and the occasional cunning puzzle.
Essentially it's a standard two level RPG game - you can either be wandering the world map or be within individual locations within the world map. The combat system is turn based and very rich with a remarkable number of actions available each turn: spellcasting, item using, direct combat, using djinn powers (djinni are cute looking creatures you collect up along the way which bestow abilities onto their 'owners') or summoning, not to mention the strategic exchange of objects or even character class changing that might go on within a battle. All in all this means that the combat strategy can get pretty interesting.
There's no rush. Almost all of the game takes place at whatever pace you feel like. This makes it a great game to pick up and drop whenever you have free time. This is helped by the fact that L-R-Select puts the GBA to sleep at any time in this game. This makes it the perfect game for the Micro. You can carry it with you all the time and get a moment to play it even if you only have 30 seconds to spare.
The only minor complaint is that the random encounters you meet are too easy. You need to fight them to get the experience but they're a bit easy to defeat so they merely waste time. They also lull you into a false sense of security. Just because you can kick the a** of any random encounter you meet doesn't mean you're going to have an easy time when you meet the next boss. The bosses are *much* harder to defeat. I feel that there ought to be more parity between the strengths of these two types of monster and that the spells to avoid random encounters should work for a little longer.
The puzzles are often of the pushing blocks around so I don't get stuck in a corner type. But it's surprising just how many novel ways there are to implement this, especially when the occasional spell changes the state of play. The only slightly annoying thing here is that you're never quite sure if a puzzle is soluble without you finding another item first. There's nothing more annoying than to waste a day pushing round logs only to find that a single spell you learnt later might have got you past the lot of them. And when you do solve a puzzle it's often frustrating how simple the trick was after all - but that's life in computer games.
GSTLA also has a vaguely entertaining story. It does follow on from the previous game and I found it didn't make much sense without having the back story. In fact, I started playing this game but rapidly decided to finish the prequel first before getting back to this game. You don't actually need to understand much of the story to play the game, but it's more fun if you do.
All in all, a great game with a few new features not present in the original Golden Sun - especially the freely sea-roving ship.
And I mustn't forget: the art is wonderful, and the music pretty catchy. And don't miss the fortune teller's dance for anything!
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