Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (黄金の太陽 漆黒なる夜明, Ōgon no Taiyō: Shikkokunaru Yoake), announced June 2, 2009 at E3 2009, is the third game in the Golden Sun series. Originally shown as "Golden Sun DS," the game was revealed to have the subtitle "Dark Dawn" on June 15, 2010.

The announcement of this title came over five years after the release of The Lost Age in 2003, something that the game director Shugo Takahashi had expressed "more than a fair bit of regret about." .

For information about hoaxes and fan speculation prior to this game's confirmation, see Golden Sun 3 Prerelease Speculation.

Plot and Setting
The game takes place 30 years after the end of Golden Sun: The Lost Age, at the end of which Alchemy had been returned to the world of Weyard via the tumultuous Golden Sun event. The lands were all rearranged and changed by the chaos, and new nations have founded themselves throughout the continents of the world even as all manner of ancient ruins and technology have been unearthed in various locations.

The eight controversial heroes that changed the world, now known far and across as the Warriors of Vale, have taken unto themselves the responsibility of watching over and guarding the world and now live separately from each other. Several of them are known to have offspring, which they train as Adepts so that their children may one day watch the world in their stead. Isaac and Jenna wed and produced a son named Matthew, a Venus Adept. Garet has a Mars Adept son named Tyrell, Ivan has a Jupiter Adept daughter named Karis, and Mia has two Mercury Adept children named Rief and Nowell. Isaac, Garet, Matthew, and Tyrell live at a Lookout Cabin Isaac constructed to overlook the still-erupting Mt. Aleph, while Ivan and Jenna live in Kalay, Mia lives in Imil, Sheba presumably lives at Lalivero, Piers now sails the world's seas investigating mysterious phenomena, and Felix left his homeland some time ago and has not been seen since. Kraden is still alive and traveling the world, despite being over a hundred years of age, because he and the Warriors of Vale all received somewhat extended lifespans when they were bathed in the energy at the aerie of Mars Lighthouse.

At around the time Tyrell breaks a hang glider-like invention of Ivan's called a Soarwing, Isaac tasks Matthew, Tyrell, and Karis on a quest intended as a rite of passage to hone their abilities as Adepts. They are to travel to Angara's northeast corner and fetch a feather from the mammoth Mountain Roc bird that roosts just above Kolima Forest, so that the Soarwing may be repaired. North-and-northeastern Angara is now the territory of a kingdom named Morgal, a kingdom of the beastmen, a race of hybrid humanoid animals that mutated and gained sapience after the Golden Sun event and is as much a political player as Bilibin to the west. Isaac and Garet stay behind to study the Psynergy Vortex phenomenon while their children set out on their quest.

Early in what should have been a relatively straightforward journey towards Morgal, Matthew and his friends are sidetracked by agents of a sinister and technologically advanced nation named Tuaparang. Its field commanders are comprised of the warlike swordsman Blados, the voluptuous Chalis, and one styling himself "Arcanus" whose partially-masked face would be all too familiar to those who took part in the quest to restore Alchemy thirty years earlier. Thus, Matthew's group is forced to explore the southern half of Angara first, now known as the Ei-Jei region, and find ways to cross the Khiren mountain range dividing the continent in half by reactivating ancient Alchemy Machines. As the group quests from Ei-Jei into Morgal and the seas beyond, it gains Rief, the princely Mercury Adept Amiti, the female beastman Jupiter Adept Sveta, the Mars Adept Champan pirate prince Eoleo, and the Venus Adept Himi (daughter to Susa and Kushinada) as traveling allies. The party's priorities change when their quest takes a dark turn in Morgal, however.

The game features an encyclopedia system designed to bring up to speed players that may have played the previous games or not, and explain plot and character elements occurring in the present. As characters talk, specific text will highlight with hyperlinks, and if the player taps on the text with the stylus, that term's page from the encyclopedia will open up on the upper screen to fill players in on the details. If the page has already been read beforehand, the hyperlink will remain, but in a darkened color. 

Gameplay
The game features a world with 3D environments and entirely 3D battles, and it features optional touch-screen stylus control. Stylus control appears as an additional way of controlling the functions that can otherwise be handled by the base control scheme from previous games, with touchable icons on screen that quickly and easily select and use Psynergy shortcuts. The ability to handle the controls without the stylus is affirmed by the game's producer in a 1up.com developer interview. Videos of E3 show this to be the case with Psynergy like Move and a new "Fireball" Psynergy that can burn objects on the field from a distance.

Eight all-new playable characters comprise the eventual final party, and unlike in previous games where there would be four characters at first and then suddenly jump up to eight, the full party is assembled at a steady rate as the game progresses. Characters are more-or-less similar in battle to previous games, but one of the characters, Sveta, has an entirely different battle style in which she transforms between humanoid and werewolf forms, where even her Attack and Defend commands are altered. Once again, there are 72 Djinn to collect, 18 for each element and therefore 9 for allocation to each of the eight playable characters; however, some of the Djinn themselves are different. Some of the otherwise missing Venus and Mars Djinn are present on adult Isaac and Garet, who join battles as uncontrolled "guest" characters in the beginning stages of the game. Each Djinni now has its own unique design variation to differentiate it from all of the other Djinn of the same element.

The Class system is very similar to the original games in terms of how Djinn influence them, but in accordance with the new characters there are four new mono-element classes and two new dual-element classes, and some of the existing classes have been slightly retooled, such as with the Wind Seer series now having its own party-healing Psynergy. Classes provided by Class-changing items like in The Lost Age no longer exist, however.

All 29 Summon spirits from the Game Boy Advance titles return in Dark Dawn, reimagined for 3D, in some cases visually appearing exactly like a 3D version of the original entity and in other cases having received drastic redesigns (Megaera, Procne, and Neptune, in particular, appear more sinister than they did before). One all-new summon, a Venus-aligned summon named Crystallux, is added; it is the chandelier dragon featured in the original "Culture Advanced" commercial for the original Golden Sun. This makes for a total of an even 30, and like in The Lost Age, the party starts out with access to the "initial 16" and must collect the other 14 by finding their Summon Tablets in the game world. Djinn that are On Standby now wander around the top screen of the DS in 2D while the battle takes place in 3D below. When a summon sequence is used, the appropriate amounts of Djinn from the upper screen visibly disappear.

Psynergy old and new makes fully 3D appearances as well, such as the Move Psynergy being used to shift objects around. Growth, in particular, is now inherent to Matthew regardless of class series (without its upgraded forms, mad Growth and Wild Growth), so that he can use it as a utility Psynergy effect without having to constantly change classes. Certain Psynergies previously usable only as field utility Psynergy, such as those involving the familiar incorporeal hands, can now be used as battle effects as well.

Items and their categories are similar to the previous games, but with several important changes and additions. Long Swords are usable by Matthew and Tyrell; Axes are usable by Matthew, Tyrell, and Eoleo; Light Blades are useable by Matthew, Tyrell, Karis, Himi, Eoleo, and Amiti; and Maces are usable by Matthew, Tyrell, Rief, and Eoleo. Staffs, however, have been divided into Staffs and Ankhs, the latter of which is more of a restricted sub-category - while Karis, Rief, Himi, and Amiti can use Staffs, only Rief and Himi can also use Ankhs. Bows are an all-new weapon type usable by Karis and Amiti, and Sveta, the only bestial fighter of the group, uses her own category of weapons called Claws. Defensive equipment on the whole is less changed, though Shirts have been removed as supplementary equipment, while Rings have more emphasis on increasing stats than before, where they had almost entirely been about being Usable as items. Every single weapon in the game has its own, unique 3D model that appears held by a character during battle. All weapons have Unleash effects, and they have multiple unleashes; weapons gain unleashes when the character gains experience with the weapons in battle in a new weapon-experience system. Unleashes themselves have a wider array of effects as well, such as being able to hit all enemies on the battlefield at once.

Battle is very similar to the previous games, in that a party of four characters fights an enemy group, reserve party members may be switched in once per turn, and when the first party is all downed, the reserve party jumps in. Perhaps the most critical change is that when a character is set to attack an enemy, but another character has defeated that enemy beforehand in the same turn, the character will no longer automatically Defend; their attack will be redirected to another enemy on the battlefield.

There is no connectivity with Golden Sun: The Lost Age, even though GBA games can be inserted in the GBA slot of older DS systems. Furthermore, there is no Easy mode or Hard mode to replay the game with.

Gameplay Information
See the quick spoiler-free walkthrough for a "perfect" rundown of the game's progression and secrets in a general overview style.

Tricks and Secrets
See the full list here.

Pre-release information
The first hint of the plot was provided within teaser text shown at E3 2009. What follows is what is known of that text:


 * ...of a disaster the likes of which had never been seen before.
 * The heavens stormed. The lands quaked. The seas raged. Across the land, people prepared for the end of the world.
 * ''The tale spread that this calamity was caused by some unknown soul who had released a forbidden power upon the world.""

The official E3 2010 press release contains the following text:

Release
The Japanese release of Dark Dawn was on October 28, 2010 and sold 46,516 copies in first four days. Also released was a promotional package titled Golden Sun: Dark Dawn - Adept's Navigation Guide, billed as a "magazine book". It features the following information:
 * Character analysis files
 * Introductions to locations via setting design showcases
 * Story explanation of past and present events
 * Game system explanations, such as Psynergy, Djinn, and Summon
 * A map-based walkthrough of the full game, with marked chest, Djinn, and Summon locations
 * Lots of data concerning Items, Classes, Djinn, Summons, etc.

Also packaged with the book were two bonus products: An OST soundtrack CD of Dark Dawn music, and a special Dark Dawn manga appearing in V-Jump December 2010, illustrated by Higashimoto Kazuki. It depicts the main characters setting off on their journey and engaging in heated battles with adversaries. Includes a signed autograph on colored paper.

The game was released in North America on November 29, 2010.

Extended Gallery

Trivia

 * The August 2009 issue of the U.K.-circulated Official Nintendo Magazine made the erroneous claim that the main playable character seen in the E3 trailer, later known as Matthew, was Isaac himself, rather than a descendant of Isaac as confirmed by the E3 press release. Nintendo Power reported him to be Isaac's son beforehand.
 * At the end of Dark Dawn, the screen shown "The End ...?" in American games, but in the Japanese version, the screen only displays "The End" without the ellipsis and question mark.