Golden Sun 3 Prerelease Speculation


 * This is about fan speculation and hoaxes prior to the confirmation of a third Golden Sun game in June 2009. For the confirmed game, see Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.

Unofficial

Prior to the announcement of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn under the tentative title Golden Sun DS at E3 2009, the fan community speculated nearly unwaveringly on what a hypothetical third title in the Golden Sun series might be like. Anticipation for this "Golden Sun 3" title was such that several high-profile fan hoaxes were created.

Pre-Golden Sun DS official speculation
Talk of a third entry in the Golden Sun series began as soon as the second title was released. In 2003, Camelot stated that "the current status of a third game ... is still up in the air", while the studio's founding brothers Hiroyuki and Shugo Takahashi stated in a 2004 interview that the scenarios of the first two games were intended as "prologues to the real event yet to come", with rumours at the time suggesting a third title might surface on the Nintendo GameCube.

The lack of updates on any new releases following The Lost Age propagated several hoaxes, as described below. Speculation about a third Golden Sun title persisted, as the Takahashi brothers commented in October of 2007 that they still wanted to make a third game, going so far as to say that they "have to" and that Nintendo had indeed asked them to make another. They claimed that they had not already as they simply wished to give the title the development time it deserved. In April 2008, Nintendo Power magazine interviewed Shugo Takahashi on one of his latest games. When questioned regarding a third Golden Sun, Takahashi replied "A new Golden Sun? Well, I personally think that I want to play a new RPG, too..." Golden Sun DS was finally announced during Nintendo's press conference at E3 2009, with a release date set of 2010.

Hoaxes
Prior to the confirmation of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, there have been a number of fan attempts at hoaxing a new game in the Golden Sun series over the years beyond The Lost Age's release in 2003, made in apparent attempts to taunt the fandom and generate controversy.

Golden Sun: Alex's Road
One noticeable false rumor was a fake Nintendo DS screenshot of a Golden Sun 3 title screen. It features the false title on the top screen (with the symbol being a moon curving around a sun), a sub-title (Arekkusu no Michi&mdash;lit. "Alex's Road"), and a mysterious lighthouse in the background. In the bottom screen, there is a Send Letter icon in between a DS card icon and a GBA cartridge icon, symbolizing the transfer of data from The Lost Age into the DS card. Interestingly enough, Alex is spelled wrong&mdash;his name is actually spelt アレクス (Arekusu) ingame, making it quite clear this is simply a fake. Another give away is that the GSTLA cartridge pictured has the American released blue background, while the Japanese released cartridge has a gold/light brown background. It was created by a fan named Takam.

Golden Sun: The Solar Soothsayer
A more recent new rumor hoaxing Golden Sun 3 was found July 11, 2007 on Joystiq, concerning their E3 Special Coverage. According to the article by John Bardinelli, a user identified as "gobo_4227" stated that Nintendo held a small pre-E3 gathering to test a small handful of Wii and Nintendo DS games not scheduled to be shown at E3. Among these games were Golden Sun: The Solar Soothsayer; it was also said that all of these games were in very early development. It was stated that "The story seems to continue where previous Golden Sun games left off, putting you in control of Felix is a pseudo-3D world" and will implement similar controls as to Animal Crossing DS.

gobo_4227 managed to take shots of it from his cell phone seen here. Some issues had been found with these screens which threw some doubt upon the authenticity as is. For one thing, the game depicted is already in English. Both the first and second game were announced some time before translation to English, and released in Japan some time before the US, so it is strange that we would see an English version before Japanese. Also, the © symbol is missing. In the previous games, the © was always next to the 'Nintendo/CAMELOT (years)' line, and that is not the case with these screens, which is strange, since there is no reason to take away the copyright symbol. On another note, the bottom screen's picture is simply reused official art of Golden Sun: The Lost Age. It seems unlikely Camelot would take a picture they drew years ago and not make new content instead.

After the site dsfanboy.com wrote this blog post decrying the pictures as part of a hoax, the user, now known as Opium, has admitted to perpetrating this hoax and said as much in an interview with Vooks.Net, claiming he created the images and story in an attempt to stir up conversation among Golden Sun forums and hopefully cause Camelot to notice the continued popularity of their games, and be prompted to make a new GS game.