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The delightful smoothness of classic Japanese role-playing games
This week, Rowan Kaiser and Kat Bailey have switched roles -- with Rowan taking lead in this week's column focusing on the wonderful world of Japanese role-playing games. I was only defeated once in Suikoden. Even that was an accident – I thought it was a fight I was supposed to lose. Calling the game "easy" is something of an understatement. With a little bit of planning, you can win virtually every fight in the game, including the final boss battle on auto-pilot using the "Free Will" option in the combat menu. Yet, despite this easiness, Suikoden is one of my favorite Japanese role-playing games. "Easy" isn't the right term for it exactly. Instead, Suikoden is smooth."Smoothness" isn't a common criteria used to judge games. If anything, it's the opposite. Getting the difficulty level just right, so that the game seems like a challenge but is completable with practice, seems like it's an ideal. Or, you can use Sid Meier's model of games as "interesting choices" – but if the game isn't challenging, those choices don't seem to matter, right? I think acceptance theories like those are part of the reason that Japanese role-playing games are considered less important than they used to be.
Classic Golden Sun commercial finally explained by Dark Dawn
Back in 2001, Nintendo released a fairly gorgeous commercial for Golden Sun -- however, for all its glitz and glamor, it wasn't exactly packing in the coherence department. A giant crystal dragon, totally wrecking shop in a jam-packed opera house? We don't remember that in the original Game Boy Advance RPG. As it turns out, there's a reason for that: That sequence wouldn't make it into the franchise until this very year, with the release of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Check out a comparison of the commercial and the (slightly spoilery) clip from Dark Dawn after the jump -- just try not to think about why it took almost a decade for the translucent dragon to arrive. Was the commercial just prescient or something?
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn's Hiroyuki Takahashi on the new game, hoaxes and 3DS
It has been seven years since the last Golden Sun game, the GBA's Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Now, after that long wait, Camelot Software Planning has put aside Mario-flavored sports games (and Capcom's We Love Golf) to produce a new entry in the revered RPG series, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, available next week on DS. We spoke with Hiroyuki Takahashi, one of the two Takahashi brothers responsible for creating the series, and Nintendo assistant producer Yuya Sato about the new game and about bringing a seemingly lost series back to life.
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn features a hyperlinked 'Encyclopedia'
The "Doing Things that Should Have Been Done Long Ago" department at Camelot Software Planning has come up with something brilliant for Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, something you've seen before in other contexts: hyperlinks. To help fill new players in on the Golden Sun lore, and to help returning players remember the people, places, and events from those GBA games, the dialogue in Dark Dawn is peppered with links like the one above (the "Tap!" graphic is there because that was the first such link to appear). Tap and an encyclopedia entry for that entity appears on the top screen. It's also saved so you can go back through them later. Who were the Warriors of Vale? What's a Sol Sanctum? The game is free to refer back to this stuff, secure in the knowledge that you can figure it all out. Now that it's been done, all games with lots of characters, or lots of backstory, should implement this immedlately.
Preview: Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
Camelot knows how to make entertaining RPGs. It's something of a travesty that the studio has been whiling away the last several years on various Nintendo sports games instead of pumping out a sequel to Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Now, after seven years (seven), Camelot is finally back on the scene with Golden Sun: Dark Dawn for the DS. Based on my E3 demo, I'd say fans have cause to be excited. Playing Dark Dawn is a joy, like visiting an old friend. %Gallery-95769%
Golden Sun DS trailer summons some excitement
Golden Sun is back after six years (the last time we saw a Golden Sun game was The Lost Age sequel), and this time it's on the DS system. We've got the first video, straight from the Nintendo keynote this morning, and you can watch it above.Looks good, no? It's gone more or less full 3D, but there's still the same exploring, summons, and (we're guessing) battle that appeared in the last few games. Camelot told us a while back that they'd love to play a Golden Sun DS game, and now that it's announced and we've seen this trailer, we can't help but agree.
Camelot reckons Golden Sun DS 'would be great'
So, we're all in agreement then. Currently hard at work on the European version of We Love Golf (for Wii, natch), the folks at Camelot have told Eurogamer that they rather like the idea of bringing Golden Sun, a popular series of role-playing games for the Game Boy Advance, to Nintendo's DS. "It would be great, wouldn't it!" said the seemingly excitable Hiroyuki and Shugo Takahashi. "We want to play that game too, just as much as you. We love Golden Sun!" The brothers also noted that the RPG genre is one they definitely plan on revisiting in the future, with their thoughts already wrapped around "RPG stuff." Said the Takahashi brothers: "Camelot is an RPG maker. We don't think that we'll ever quit making RPGs."
Camelot likes the idea of Golden Sun DS
While speaking with Eurogamer about their game on the Wii, the subject of RPGs still managed to come up. And we can totally understand why, as the company's Golden Sun and Shining Force series of games are widely regarded as excellent. Camelot even hinted at Golden Sun for the DS, the teases!"We want to play that game too, just as much as you," comments the Takahashi brothers. " We love Golden Sun! We are working on a lot of different things - a lot of different design documents and so on, including some different RPG ideas. Don't worry, we're thinking about RPG stuff! We've got all these ideas, many many different things we're thinking about - but of course, we still have just one team, so we'll see what happens." Of course, we knew they were working on some kind of RPG earlier this month, but to take this as a confirmation that a Golden Sun for the DS is in the works could very well mean a lot of nights spent home alone, crying in the dark. Or, they actually could be working on it. For the sake of our sanity, though, we're going to remain skeptical.
Golden Sun creators hint at new RPG
In an interview about We Love Golf, IGN asked Camelot's Takahashi brothers about a possible new entry in their popular Nintendo-published RPG series, Golden Sun. The temptation for us to say "THEY TOTALLY CONFIRMED IT" today is overwhelming, but no -- just like every developer ever, they offered vague, noncommittal hints."Just like how we said our staff has been hoping to create new RPGs, we are definitely in the planning stages of doing something interesting. We hope that you will be looking forward to our future game. We ourselves are looking forward to the next Camelot RPG as well, just like you."So they're planning a new RPG of some kind, for some platform, to be revealed in the future -- and Camelot thinks it's going to be pretty neat. That's significantly more than devs will usually let slip. Although they didn't even really say that they were planning an RPG.
Camelot on Golden Sun 3
Back during E3, everyone got all excited because they thought some screens for a new Golden Sun game had leaked onto the intertron. Of course, it was fake as we soon learned why someone would play with our emotions in that way. Shame on them.But, hope returns, as in an interview with Game Informer, Camelot reveals that Nintendo has told them that they want another game in the series. And, like a mob boss running shop on your neighborhood, you best listen to them. Camelot said "We have to do it! Not just that we have to do it, but we want to do it. Nintendo has asked us to please make it. But at the same time we haven't gotten around to making it. We're not really sure why (laughs)...One of the reasons that we haven't made golden sun is because there are so many fans of the game and we don't want to do something half-assed. We want to give it the time it deserves."While we appreciate the care on their part to create a quality game, one deserving of the Golden Sun name, we think 4 years has been plenty of time to come up with a third installment.[Via Codename Revolution]
The hows and whys of the fake Golden Sun screens
Many of you were heartbroken to discover that the Golden Sun III news floating around last week just might be less-than-real. Well, we hate to break it to you, but the creator has 'fessed up to fanning the flames of fan hopes everywhere. Vooks snagged an interview with the fellow behind the fake and asked the question we were all interested in as well: why? Was it a mean-spirited ploy to dash the hopes of Golden Sun fans? Not at all, says creator Opium. Instead, he hoped to foster discussion about the Golden Sun franchise and get people showing support for the property in the hopes that Camelot might take notice of just how desperate folks are for a new game. He also timed the fake's release carefully, hoping that with the E3 crush, it would get caught up as just another piece of news without people looking too far into whether or not the screens were real -- and it certainly seemed to work, as we saw Golden Sun III cropping up all over the place. As for the how of the thing, Opium cooked up the shots using images from Golden Sun: The Lost Age in Photoshop, and with the aid of a friend, used ninja homebrew skills to get the images to display on his DS. The result was fairly convincing ... and if it happens to help prod developer Camelot into getting to work, then we'll have to be wary around trade shows, as other uber fans might just have to follow in Opium's Photoshopping footsteps.[Thanks, Jordy C!]
NOT E307: Fake Golden Sun DS announced
Only a couple of hours before Nintendo's E3 media briefing yesterday, rumors of a new Golden Sun game for the DS began to spread like a fast-moving cancer, traveling through the internet's lymphatic system, taking over gaming blogs and forums. Even Joystiq, the wind beneath our wings, fell victim to the malignant screenshots that were supposedly leaked from a "secret press gathering" by person-in-the-know gobo_4227.To your right, you'll see one of those supposed screenshots of Golden Sun: The Sooth Sayer compared with promotional artwork that was released for Golden Sun: The Lost Age back in 2002. Unless you count the bloom filter and "Touch to Start" text, the images are exact twins. The fact that we've heard no official mention of the new RPG -- or any other Camelot-developed title for either Nintendo console -- whilst E3 continues makes this rumor seem even more unconvincing. %Gallery-4800%
Golden Sun creator parting ways with Nintendo [update 1]
DSmeet.com reports that Camelot Software, best known for the Golden Sun series on GBA, has announced plans to stop developing titles for Nintendo. Joining forces with Eleven-Up Inc., Camelot will now work exclusively on the PC platform.Besides both Golden Sun titles, Camelot is responsible for Mario Tennis: Power Tour (GBA), as well as Mario Power Tennis and Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour on GameCube. Camelot's departure from the Nintendo scene officially puts to rest rumors that the studio will release a new Golden Sun installment for Wii.Update: Looks like we jumped the gun. Most sources, including Camelot's official website, seem to indicate that the studio is merely branching out onto the PC platform with 'I LOVE GOLF!' A Wii RPG should still be in the works.
