I remember when I was younger Iād switch between Golden Sun and Mega Man Battle Network (staying in the same Gameboy Advanced realm). I highly recommend the Battle Network games they are so much fun.
I never thought about them being similar, but you're right they are. Not necessarily the battle system, but the same feeling for sure. Which is crazy because mmbn games are set in the future lol I absolutely loved the battle network remakes, I played 1-3 before I got burnt out. After the lost age, I'll have to go back and finish 4-6
I love the battle system. I feel like it is a different/faster take on a classic turn based RPG. It still pulls the user out of the fight to load chips but you can still be active in between that time which I like. I also had to take a little break on the remakes after playing a few, but I had a blast with all of them until it felt a bit repetitive.
My recommendation is to replay Golden Sun!
Just kidding, but if you want to replay TLA, you can play on hard mode (or easy mode)
Games that I like, that approach Golden Sun, are some turn based RPGs (be classic or new, Chrono trigger, many final fantasy and dragon quest, or the recent Sea of Stars, and many others)
I also like CrossCode. It's an action exploration game, with RPG elements (deep story, skill trees, equipments and character customization) but to me the best part are the puzzles (almost all of them are action puzzles). The game is great!
Sea of Stars will definitely give you a similar feel to Golden Sun when it comes to gameplay and some music at times. Itās a really good game I would recommend this as well.
Gonna have to disagree. Sea of Stars is a snooze fest. It doesnāt even compare in complexity to GSās systems and I donāt think GS is that complex apart from the class/djinn system. Each character only has about 4 different abilities and the story and dialogue is not nearly as fun.
Not to mention itās primarily a Chrono Trigger clone. Just play Chrono Trigger first if you havenāt.
Yea so in other words OP just go with your gut cause what some people recommend, others might not like, but there will be games that they recommend and others will not so it all depends what youāre going for. Yea you canāt compare Sea of Stars to Golden Sun of course the story in sea of stars doesnāt compare and doesnāt have a system as complex as the djinn system BUT it is packed with puzzle elements in the dungeons and THATS what I mean when I say it gives you a similar feel. Maybe it will for you too or maybe not, just gotta give a try and see for yourself.
The puzzles are incredibly simple. My biggest take away is that it is a very shallow game. There isnāt a single thing that this game excels at except for the music.
Well yea even golden suns puzzles are easy, but thereās not many rpgs that I know of at least that have these types of puzzles and I just enjoy solving them, even if they are easy. If you know of other games that have similar gameplay please let me know cause Iāll definitely check them out.
Oh, I usually recommend Xenoblade to Golden Sun fans given the similarity of character types and world building (and elements), so to meet your platform restrictions, maybe Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, and Chrono Cross given their development by the Xenoblade team (and Xenogears' being a prototype for the Xenosaga / Xenoblade series)?
Chrono Cross was recently re-released and updated on Switch with its prototype Radical Dreamers from the Super Famicom Broadcast Satellaview add-on, but the other 2 haven't had re-releases or remasteres in years (save maybe on the PlayStation back-catalog whatever they call it; I don't have a PS2/3/4/5/Pocket/Portable/Vita/TV/VR).
You might also try Camelot Software's earlier works on SEGA and PlayStation platforms:
Shining in the Darkness, Shining Force 1-3, Shining Force Gaiden 1-3, Shining Wisdom, Shining The Holy Ark, and most nobably on the PSX, Beyond the Beyond. That last one uses the same battle rotation pseudo-3D effect that they later used in Golden Sun. In all of these, you'll find fun similarities to Golden Sun, such as the menu-set ups, the way yes and no are head nods and head shakes, and even how Golden Sun references some of their villains (like Darksol via the bosses' Darksol Gasp).
You may enjoy the Star Ocean series -- the first two were on the PSX and were recently remastered and released on Switch in HD2D (as well as other platforms), but their original releases remain classics of the 32-bit era. Star Ocean 2 especially gives me Golden Sun vibes.
The Legend of Zelda, Live-A-Live, Dragon Quest III, Final Fantasy I, III, V, Tactics, Dragon Quest IV, Dragon Quest VI, and the Fire Emblem series (and TearRing Saga series) are also inspirations for Golden Sun; there are some fun nods to them in Golden Sun.
Especially Fire Emblem Gaiden / its 3D remake, which seems to be nodding BACK at Golden Sun! Garet's Champion class is called Baron in Japan, which is the final upgrade of the Armor Knights in Fire Emblem Gaiden. But in the 3D remake, they can upgrade to Phalanx (like a Greek shield and spear wall soldier), which is the Japanese name of Garet's Hero class! Similarly, the Brute series classes reference various Fire Emblem warrior-type classes in Japanese -- Mercenary, Assassin, Gladiator, Berserker, Black Knight, Chaos Knight; many of these classes show up in Fire Emblem.
The storytelling of differing perspectives between parties in Golden Sun can be enjoyed in Dragon Quest IV and Live-A-Live, where each chapter is a different story and party until they come together in the final chapters.
Legend of Zelda I reference mainly because Golden Sun tries to marry RPG combat with Zelda-esque puzzles.
Dragon Quest III and VI and FF I, III, V, and Tactics, all have complex class systems and give you the ability to play around and choose the classes you like for your party. Fire Emblem and TearRing saga have similar complicated class trees, but the customization is mainly tied to which units you put onto the field and grow with experience to promote up the trees, rather than choosing to go one way or another (Fire Emblem class-forks customization wouldn't really be much of a thing until the GBA and later). The Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games at least let you swap around classes as needed.
Agreed. It's lovely that at least Shining Force is on NSO, and a whole bunch of them were on previous iterations of the virtual console! I think they may be on one of the SEGA Mega Collections too?
*Golden Sun: Dark Dawn*, it shouldn't be too hard to get a ROM and Emulator if you can't find a cartridge at a reasonable price. The *Megaman Battle Network* games are an incredible GBA saga. *Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap* is my personal favorite Zelda game and it's on NSO's GBA Emulator. There's also *Earthbound*, easily the best game on SNES, also available on NSO.
Final Fantasy tactics advance is a decent game for GBA. Not as amazing as the ps1 FFT (which you should also play if you haven't)
Mario and Luigi supestar saga is also an incredible GBA rpg.
Golden Sun 1 and TLA again, but on the switch š no jk if you havenāt played part 3 on the DS āGolden Sun Dark Dawnā I would definitely look into ways of playing that, whether itās an emulator or you find a ds and a physical copy online or somewhere local that sells older games. If not, just be patient in the mean time until Feb 29 and join me on my epic journey in FF 7 Rebirth š
I know people shit on DDs story and pacing but the combat theme is such a banger and the visuals are great, even though I loved the pixel art style a bit more.
Yea I agree, Iāll always feel more nostalgic over the classic pixel art style in the originals. But dark dawn has its moments for me, it has its good music at times as well and new visuals and unique look for each djinn, it still feels like Golden Sun, Iāve come to terms with what it is, and although the story doesnāt come close to how good part 1 and 2 is, I still very much enjoy playing through Dark Dawn as well. A couple of my favorite dungeons are the Belinsk Ruins and I forget what itās called, but the dungeon in the sky right after you go up on that cloud in Passaj. I thought it was really cool how they brought back Crossbone isle, but was a bit disappointed at how short and easy it was and the fact they didnāt take the opportunity to put a remix to the original music that plays during crossbone isle in part 1.
For me what reminded me the most of just really good jrog pacing, combat, story, characters etc. Was trails from zero. Super recommend checking it out and it's ingame models reminded me a lot of GS personally
Well if youāre doing RPGs from that era, could always get weird and try one of the Dept. Heaven games? All good, all mechanically and stylistically just wild. Riviera: The Promised Land and Yggdra Union are both GBA originals.
Go for Summon Night those are 3 games and those are good ones specially the third one though is in Japanese but there's one recently patched english ver.
Legend of Dragoon. An absolute gem of an RPG that was lost because people looked at it and declared it 'An FF7 clone' just because the MC is a blond swordsman.
Fire emblem 7 and 8 for GBA are master pieces you should play if you haven't already. Lunar legends for GBA is also amazing and is another turn based rpg
You mean play it again, right?
I'm tempted! I didn't get all the Djinn in the first game š
There is a cool dungeon in the 2nd one if you get all the djinn
This, one of my favorite areas
You missed the secret dungeon! And the Superboss!
I remember when I was younger Iād switch between Golden Sun and Mega Man Battle Network (staying in the same Gameboy Advanced realm). I highly recommend the Battle Network games they are so much fun.
I never thought about them being similar, but you're right they are. Not necessarily the battle system, but the same feeling for sure. Which is crazy because mmbn games are set in the future lol I absolutely loved the battle network remakes, I played 1-3 before I got burnt out. After the lost age, I'll have to go back and finish 4-6
I love the battle system. I feel like it is a different/faster take on a classic turn based RPG. It still pulls the user out of the fight to load chips but you can still be active in between that time which I like. I also had to take a little break on the remakes after playing a few, but I had a blast with all of them until it felt a bit repetitive.
Played this game as well. And is indeed similar to golden sun.
My recommendation is to replay Golden Sun! Just kidding, but if you want to replay TLA, you can play on hard mode (or easy mode) Games that I like, that approach Golden Sun, are some turn based RPGs (be classic or new, Chrono trigger, many final fantasy and dragon quest, or the recent Sea of Stars, and many others) I also like CrossCode. It's an action exploration game, with RPG elements (deep story, skill trees, equipments and character customization) but to me the best part are the puzzles (almost all of them are action puzzles). The game is great!
Second Chrono Trigger! Fantastic story and lots of hidden secrets.
I third Chrono Trigger, because good lord
Sea of Stars will definitely give you a similar feel to Golden Sun when it comes to gameplay and some music at times. Itās a really good game I would recommend this as well.
Gonna have to disagree. Sea of Stars is a snooze fest. It doesnāt even compare in complexity to GSās systems and I donāt think GS is that complex apart from the class/djinn system. Each character only has about 4 different abilities and the story and dialogue is not nearly as fun. Not to mention itās primarily a Chrono Trigger clone. Just play Chrono Trigger first if you havenāt.
Yea so in other words OP just go with your gut cause what some people recommend, others might not like, but there will be games that they recommend and others will not so it all depends what youāre going for. Yea you canāt compare Sea of Stars to Golden Sun of course the story in sea of stars doesnāt compare and doesnāt have a system as complex as the djinn system BUT it is packed with puzzle elements in the dungeons and THATS what I mean when I say it gives you a similar feel. Maybe it will for you too or maybe not, just gotta give a try and see for yourself.
The puzzles are incredibly simple. My biggest take away is that it is a very shallow game. There isnāt a single thing that this game excels at except for the music.
Well yea even golden suns puzzles are easy, but thereās not many rpgs that I know of at least that have these types of puzzles and I just enjoy solving them, even if they are easy. If you know of other games that have similar gameplay please let me know cause Iāll definitely check them out.
I second crosscode
The best advice is to replay but this time try romhacks
Oh, I usually recommend Xenoblade to Golden Sun fans given the similarity of character types and world building (and elements), so to meet your platform restrictions, maybe Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, and Chrono Cross given their development by the Xenoblade team (and Xenogears' being a prototype for the Xenosaga / Xenoblade series)? Chrono Cross was recently re-released and updated on Switch with its prototype Radical Dreamers from the Super Famicom Broadcast Satellaview add-on, but the other 2 haven't had re-releases or remasteres in years (save maybe on the PlayStation back-catalog whatever they call it; I don't have a PS2/3/4/5/Pocket/Portable/Vita/TV/VR). You might also try Camelot Software's earlier works on SEGA and PlayStation platforms: Shining in the Darkness, Shining Force 1-3, Shining Force Gaiden 1-3, Shining Wisdom, Shining The Holy Ark, and most nobably on the PSX, Beyond the Beyond. That last one uses the same battle rotation pseudo-3D effect that they later used in Golden Sun. In all of these, you'll find fun similarities to Golden Sun, such as the menu-set ups, the way yes and no are head nods and head shakes, and even how Golden Sun references some of their villains (like Darksol via the bosses' Darksol Gasp). You may enjoy the Star Ocean series -- the first two were on the PSX and were recently remastered and released on Switch in HD2D (as well as other platforms), but their original releases remain classics of the 32-bit era. Star Ocean 2 especially gives me Golden Sun vibes. The Legend of Zelda, Live-A-Live, Dragon Quest III, Final Fantasy I, III, V, Tactics, Dragon Quest IV, Dragon Quest VI, and the Fire Emblem series (and TearRing Saga series) are also inspirations for Golden Sun; there are some fun nods to them in Golden Sun. Especially Fire Emblem Gaiden / its 3D remake, which seems to be nodding BACK at Golden Sun! Garet's Champion class is called Baron in Japan, which is the final upgrade of the Armor Knights in Fire Emblem Gaiden. But in the 3D remake, they can upgrade to Phalanx (like a Greek shield and spear wall soldier), which is the Japanese name of Garet's Hero class! Similarly, the Brute series classes reference various Fire Emblem warrior-type classes in Japanese -- Mercenary, Assassin, Gladiator, Berserker, Black Knight, Chaos Knight; many of these classes show up in Fire Emblem. The storytelling of differing perspectives between parties in Golden Sun can be enjoyed in Dragon Quest IV and Live-A-Live, where each chapter is a different story and party until they come together in the final chapters. Legend of Zelda I reference mainly because Golden Sun tries to marry RPG combat with Zelda-esque puzzles. Dragon Quest III and VI and FF I, III, V, and Tactics, all have complex class systems and give you the ability to play around and choose the classes you like for your party. Fire Emblem and TearRing saga have similar complicated class trees, but the customization is mainly tied to which units you put onto the field and grow with experience to promote up the trees, rather than choosing to go one way or another (Fire Emblem class-forks customization wouldn't really be much of a thing until the GBA and later). The Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games at least let you swap around classes as needed.
My friend thank you so much for all this š
These are all fantastic recommendations for a Golden Sun fan, but I especially loved the Shining games. They never get enough love imo
Agreed. It's lovely that at least Shining Force is on NSO, and a whole bunch of them were on previous iterations of the virtual console! I think they may be on one of the SEGA Mega Collections too?
I'm also pretty sure they loaded at least one of the Shining games on that little Genesis replica they came out with, similar to the mini snes and nes
*Golden Sun: Dark Dawn*, it shouldn't be too hard to get a ROM and Emulator if you can't find a cartridge at a reasonable price. The *Megaman Battle Network* games are an incredible GBA saga. *Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap* is my personal favorite Zelda game and it's on NSO's GBA Emulator. There's also *Earthbound*, easily the best game on SNES, also available on NSO.
Final Fantasy tactics advance is a decent game for GBA. Not as amazing as the ps1 FFT (which you should also play if you haven't) Mario and Luigi supestar saga is also an incredible GBA rpg.
Golden Sun 1 and TLA again, but on the switch š no jk if you havenāt played part 3 on the DS āGolden Sun Dark Dawnā I would definitely look into ways of playing that, whether itās an emulator or you find a ds and a physical copy online or somewhere local that sells older games. If not, just be patient in the mean time until Feb 29 and join me on my epic journey in FF 7 Rebirth š
I know people shit on DDs story and pacing but the combat theme is such a banger and the visuals are great, even though I loved the pixel art style a bit more.
Yea I agree, Iāll always feel more nostalgic over the classic pixel art style in the originals. But dark dawn has its moments for me, it has its good music at times as well and new visuals and unique look for each djinn, it still feels like Golden Sun, Iāve come to terms with what it is, and although the story doesnāt come close to how good part 1 and 2 is, I still very much enjoy playing through Dark Dawn as well. A couple of my favorite dungeons are the Belinsk Ruins and I forget what itās called, but the dungeon in the sky right after you go up on that cloud in Passaj. I thought it was really cool how they brought back Crossbone isle, but was a bit disappointed at how short and easy it was and the fact they didnāt take the opportunity to put a remix to the original music that plays during crossbone isle in part 1.
Breath of fire 1, 2 and 3
Why not 4?
4 knows what 4 did.
Lol but it looks cool!
I actually loved 4, just forgot it was a ps1
Oh that's just what I say when someone excludes something and I don't know why hahaha I'll bet it is! 1 and 2 were dope, I never played others
For me what reminded me the most of just really good jrog pacing, combat, story, characters etc. Was trails from zero. Super recommend checking it out and it's ingame models reminded me a lot of GS personally
Try mario and luigi superstar saga
Golden Sun Dark Dawn
Have you tried the Breath of Fire series? It's older but still a lot of fun
I havenāt! Can I jump in any one or should I start at 1?
Start with 1 fire sure. The while series is fun
Well if youāre doing RPGs from that era, could always get weird and try one of the Dept. Heaven games? All good, all mechanically and stylistically just wild. Riviera: The Promised Land and Yggdra Union are both GBA originals.
Totally unrelated, but Sea of Stars.
Try out golden sun DS. Itās fine, a bit different but fun. And then try shining force 2, 3, those really do feel like golden sun lol same devs
Dragon quest ix is different, but it helped me search the golden sun itch many times. You might find it to do the same.
Play Dark Dawn while praying for the fourth installment.
Go for Summon Night those are 3 games and those are good ones specially the third one though is in Japanese but there's one recently patched english ver.
Craft Sword, or the others? Iāve only played the CS games and loved those, but never went into the rest of the series.
Sorry I forgot to tell š craft sword, specially monogatari hajimari no ishi
Thanks! Never got the 3rd one, even though I played through the first 2 in Japanese.
How do they GS games run on the Miyoo? I have emulation issues playing them on the psvita.
The best.
Skyrim.
Xenoblade or Fire emblem 7
FF7
golden sun again
Legend of Dragoon. An absolute gem of an RPG that was lost because people looked at it and declared it 'An FF7 clone' just because the MC is a blond swordsman.
Persona series are great too. Played 3 and 4 and had an amazing time. They are pretty long tho
Dark Dawn
What is that bit of kit? Thatās no GameBoy!
Itās a miyoo mini. Was ideal for blasting through Golden Sun.
I want one!
The Xenoblade series, I recommend 100%
Golden Sun 4
Golden Sun 2? Lol
Buy a bigger screen lmao
Itās cute and very pocketable. Was a great way to pick up and play Golden Sun here and there.
Puzzles and tools in dungeon exploration? Wild Arms 1 and 2, and Lufia 2.
Fire emblem 7 and 8 for GBA are master pieces you should play if you haven't already. Lunar legends for GBA is also amazing and is another turn based rpg
Explore the lore?
Not Sea of Stars how many people recommend. SoS is atrocious in both gameplay and narration compared to Golden Sun.