Part two of Golden Sun improves the game in just about every way.
Golden Sun: The Lost Age is the conclusion to the two-part Golden Sun story. As such, you really can't play this game without having played the first one. There's a brief introduction that tells you what happened in the first GS, but I doubt it explains enough for you to really know what's going on. However, if you've played GS then you'll be able to jump right into GS:TLA. Like all good follow-ups, GS:TLA builds on the successful formula of GS, but adds more depth and difficulty to keep the gameplay fresh.
GS:TLA gets its inspiration from classic 16-bit RPGs. If you've played any of the Final Fantasies on the sNES, you'll feel right at home. Most of your time is spent wandering around the world map, fighting random battles, diving into dungeons, killing powerful bosses, and leveling up your characters and items. This time around, however, there's much more to see and do.
The world map has been dramatically expanded this time around. In the first GS, you were limited to traveling on foot around one continent. GS:TLA gives you access to the rest of the world, and a ship to do it with. You'll find a wide variety of places to go and things to do. This expanded scope also makes GS:TLA longer than GS, which was a complaint that I had about the first game.
Like GS, there are a number of dungeons to traverse. GS:TLA keeps the puzzle-based dungeons, but they noticably ramped up the difficulty in getting around. I scratched my head at a couple of puzzles in GS, but GS:TLA really does have some difficult puzzles to figure out. Also, you'll find that you won't be able to get through a dungeon the first time that you visit it. You'll have to go out and get a new Psyenergy power and come back later. By the end of the game, you'll have to use a combination of Psyenergy from GS and GS:TLA to get through the dungeons. I really liked that I had to put more foresight into getting through a room, and enjoyed the difficulty offered by these puzzles.
The battle system hasn't changed, but you will gain access to more powerful abilities and summons. While GS:TLA draws its inspiration from classic RPGs, there's definitely some combat elements in this game that draw from more modern RPGs. First, the graphical effects are suprisingly rich for the GBA. Your characters make critical strikes often when attacking. With a magical weapon, this unleashes a special effect like fire damage, life leeching, or stunning your enemy. The really powerful weapons unleash very impressive visual effects that make it feel like you're blasting your enemy. Summoning is also more reminisent of something you'd see in more recent RPGs. Classic RPGs usually displayed a summon by showing a large creature descend on the enemy and attack. More recently, RPGs have been using overly long and sweeping animations to emphasize that you are raining an unholy amount of pain on your enemies. GS:TLA takes that tack, and the results are very impressive. If you complete the sidequests to gain access to more powerful summons, you'll see more and more overblown summon animations. Fortunately, you can skip these with a button press when you get tired of seeing them.
The very deep djinn system has been retained with practically no changes. This is a good thing, as balancing your djinn amongst your characters changes how you'll use each character and how well you'll do against the bosses. Combat is not any more difficult than in the first GS, but you'll fight stronger enemies than GS, since your characters become more powerful. Alas, there's still no intelligent targeting, so you'll waste a lot of turns when a character you're attacking has already been defeated.
I did have a beef with the final boss. You can beat on him for 30 minutes with a good pattern and he'll randomly bust out an unblockable attack that will cripple you. I had to fight him a number of times to finally beat him, and it was by sheer luck that he didn't pull out that critical attack. I appreciate difficult bosses, especially when it's the last boss of the game, but that was just really cheap.
Overall, GS:TLA takes all of the successful elements of Golden Sun and expands on them. The already impressive dungeon elements and battle system are given a bit of a boost without changing their formula, and the story will keep you engaged throughout the entire game. Golden Sun: The Lost Age represents 16-bit role-playing gaming at its finest and is recommended to anyone with a passing interest in RPGs.
