Mash A to Win - Let's Play Golden Sun Dark Dawn

Huh, it’s already September. Time to get off my ass and start working again.


Golden Sun Dark Dawn is the third installment in the cult classic Golden Sun series. It’s also a rather polarizing game, mainly because it was released seven years after the second game in the series. During those years, the fan base speculated and speculated, and when the game was first announced in 2009 the hype was insane. But once the game was released, fans were saddened to discover that their long awaited game was… what I’m about to LP.

Much like my BN4 LP, I’m not going to waste time trying to detail why this game is so bad in a wall of text. Instead, I’ll show it to you throughout the course of this LP.



Starting up the game brings me to this book. It’s this game’s version of the first two games’ save data management screens, but since I don’t have any save data yet I’ll explain it later.



I’m immediately brought up to a name select screen. I’ll be going with the default name because it’s refreshingly normal.



Here’s one of the main things about Golden Sun (and Camelot games in general I think): every single Yes/No option is some kind of emoticon.

♫ Intro ♫







I’ll just summarize: ancients went crazy with power and began to destroy the world. To prevent this, some other ancients sealed away Alchemy, causing a lot of problems, most notably the gradual destruction of the world. But there was hope!



The game thankfully skipped over explaining how the heroes of the past two games saved everything, but it’s still important so…

♫ Mars Lighthouse ♫



I’ll show you, Lufia style.



Welcome to Mars Lighthouse, the final dungeon of the original two Golden Sun games. I’ll be going through the final sequence of The Lost Age, and there are probably going to be a lot of terms and names you won’t understand. Don’t worry, I’ll explain most of them when they pop up in Dark Dawn/upon request.

Felix runs to the aerie to light the final lighthouse, but before he can…



He is stopped by a mysterious voice.

♫ Enemy Appearance ♫



Confused, Felix’s entire group tries to see through the blizzard around them.



Piers quickly gives up and urges Felix to hurry up and save the world.



But when Felix walks up, he is pushed back by some strange force.



Annoyed at the voice, Issac walks forward and demands to know the speaker’s identity. In response, the voice merely wonders if both Isaac and Garet have already forgotten him. They haven’t; as soon as the Wise One, a giant stone eyeball, manifests, Isaac and Garet recognize him.

Upon being questioned, Isaac and Garet explain that way back in the beginning of GS 1, when Isaac and Garet were trapped in the erupting Mt. Aleph, the Wise One did the impossible and held off an entire volcanic eruption just long enough for Isaac and Garet to get the hell out.



Before the group wastes even more time babbling, the Wise One approaches.



Originally, Isaac and his group (Garet, Ivan, and Mia) were ordered to stop the Elemental Lighthouses from being lighted lest the release of Alchemy destroy the world. They failed spectacularly at stopping Mercury and Venus, then dropped off the face of the plot for a while.



But when they reappeared at Jupiter, they met face to face with Felix and his group (Jenna, Sheba, Piers, and Kraden). Kraden explained that while the release of Alchemy could destroy the world, its seal definitely would.



Unbeknownst to Isaac at the time, the seal on Alchemy had caused the very borders of Weyard, the world of GS, to erode.



Kraden demands to know why the Wise One insists on stopping Mars from being lit.



The Wise One explains that when Alchemy is released, mankind may once again go insane with power and destroy everything. Kraden tries to counter by saying that humanity wouldn’t be so foolish this time, but the Wise One interrupts him and explains that somebody’s already in position to use the power of Alchemy to rule over all.



The Wise One dryly notes that Alex knows far more than Felix’s group. Upon being questioned by the heroes, the Wise One reveals that when Alchemy is released, Mt. Aleph will be struck by a tremendous amount of energy, the titular Golden Sun. Alex intends to absorb this energy to become a God.



Upon seeing the heroes’ resolve, the Wise One sighs that he is not allowed to directly interfere with the actions of mankind.



♫ Trouble Is Brewing ♫

Cue giant three headed dragon.



Unimpressed, the group gets in position for one final battle.



Kraden, on the other hand, tries to stop the battle. He’s too late.

♫ Doom Dragon Battle ♫

You know what? I think I’ll use this battle to show something.



Here is the result of Sheba using a spell that both hit an elemental weak point and is being boosted by her equipment and class.



Here is the result of Sheba just getting a critical hit with her weapon, also hitting an elemental weak point. Yes, my squishy wizard does more damage with her physical attacks than with her spells.



BOOM



COUNTER BOOM



EVEN BIGGER BOOM



So yeah, the Doom Dragon got its ass kicked. Unfortunately, the dragon was Felix/Jenna’s parents and Isaac’s dad, forcefully transformed due to the Wise One. There is much angst.



But Mars Lighthouse does get lit in the end. Rather than take their cue to get the hell off the Lighthouse, the heroes decide to engage in a little mind conversation with people from across the world.



So they get blasted with pure Psynergy. This both revive the parents and make the heroes immortal.

♫ The Golden Sun Rises ♫



Meanwhile, Alex is also getting blasted with pure Psynergy.



He decides to test out his power. Oddly, nothing happens.



GIANT ROCK OUT OF NOWHERE

♫ The Elemental Stars ♫



The Wise One puts on his troll eye and explains that way, way, way, way back at the very beginning of GS 1, he sealed a significant chunk of Alchemy in the Mars Star, the tool for lighting Mars Lighthouse. This is presumably why Mars’ lighting had such an effect on the heroes.



Annoyed, Alex tries to get the Wise One to go away.



The Wise One takes that as a challenge.



The Wise One responds by slamming Alex straight into the mountain, presumably breaking his spine.



Just in time for Mt. Aleph to start sinking! Alex is presumably killed in the collapse.



Much later, the heroes return to Vale only to find it destroyed.



They don’t take it very well.



But it turns out that the Wise One warned everyone in Vale so they all got out.



There is much joy.

And then this picture pops up, inspiring quite a bit of shipping related debate no doubt.



Yay.



Then I get to save Clear Data that doesn’t do anything in Dark Dawn. Speaking of that, let’s start the actual LP.

(I’d like to post the music for Dark Dawn, but my emulator is screwing it up so much I can’t identify it. Sorry.)



The game begins with an airship ominously hovering over a mountain.



Then clouds!



And a bird. This guy has been in the intro of every single Golden Sun game.

The game proceeds to give another info dump: it’s been 30 years since the second game, the heroes are now called the Warriors of Vale, some people praise the Warriors for saving the world, others curse them for because the release of Alchemy caused a lot of chaos. Think Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World.



Specifically, Isaac and Garet, who have abandoned their wives (Jenna and Unknown Woman respectively) to go live together under the pretense of studying the effects of the Golden Sun.



Title drop! Kind of.



The game finally starts with Isaac and Matthew walking up to their home with some supplies on their back.



Every time you see a red word in the dialogue, you can tap it to get an Encyclopedia entry. This has a completion percentage, but it doesn’t really do anything but make you fell frustrated. Anyways, I’d just like you to note that this entry says Isaac is a man of few words.



This is directly contradicted by Isaac expositing for the next couple of minutes or so.



Eventually he prays to the Wise One for a sign.



His husband partner is not amused. Garet points out they did what they had to do to save the world, and there’s no point moping about it now.



Isaac responds with more exposition: basically Psynergy black holes have been popping up everywhere for some reason, and this might be connected to the Mourning Moon, which is some sort of disaster related to the Golden Sun that occurs every decade. Garet counters with his own exposition: Ivan, another Warrior of Vale, became an engineer or something and recently built a Psynergy powered glider that Garet and Isaac intend to use to fly to Mt. Aleph.

Then some exposition on Karis, Ivan’s daughter. “Powers of observation“ means that Karis just states the obvious. A lot.



Then a disaster happens: Tyrell is introduced. Tyrell is both a dick and a massive fuck up, and he’s the direct cause of a lot of the game’s problems. Fuck Tyrell.





Tyrell responds that he has everything under control.



Matthew’s response isn’t very positive.

Unlike Isaac, Matthew actually is pretty silent. It’s obvious that he speaks, but there’s a decent amount of lines where he says nothing but “…”. Anyways, unlike Isaac and Felix, Matthew doesn’t just say Yes or No; he makes emoticons to respond to things.



Garet and Isaac decide to stop Tyrell before he breaks the Soarwing and run off.



Matthew is prompted to chase after them. This screen appears at the end of every damn cutscene, and it is a tremendous piss off.

Anyways, that’s about all I need to show off. Let’s skip to Tyrell fucking up.



Karis encourages Matthew to stop Tyrell.



Karis, Matthew has had to live with Tyrell for most of his life. This is his way of freeing himself.



Tyrell takes off and quickly discovers that no, he can’t fly the damn thing. He begins to spiral downwards.



Seriously, fuck Tyrell.



Oh wait, the “overjoyed” emoticon was just Matthew saying something sensible.



Tyrell’s response is a sad face.



Matthew’s response is to laugh.



Oh no wait it’s encouragement. What the hell is this.

Just shut up and get going.



Karis demands Isaac and Garet to let her and Matthew come with them. Garet is unsure, but Isaac (who is kind of a dick) sees this as an opportunity to train his son.



While Isaac and Garet debate, Matthew and Karis just stare into each other‘s eyes. As you’ll see over the course of this game, Matthew has a way with Jupiter Adepts.

Garet eventually agrees, and Isaac instructs Matthew and Karis to get some equipment.



So of course they immediately head to Matthew’s bedroom.



This is supposed to be a tutorial for equipping things.



And I think that’s supposed to be Karis putting a Leather Cap on Matthew.



God damn it Karis, just go!

Anyways, that brings me to the end of the first update, and to a vote.

To put it simply, this game is piss easy. The best strategy in the game is to buff then spam the basic attack (the titular "mash A to win"), and that’s not very interesting. As such, I’ve decided to do a "challenge" run (challenge is in quotes because it’s still easy), and I’m leaving it to you guys to decide what I should do.

Here are the choices:

-Low Level
-No Revival
-Only use Psynergy in battle
-No Psynergy in battle at all

Hm... low level, I guess.

Low level seems like it'd be (a bit more) challenging while letting the audience see most of what the game's battle system has to offer, so I vote that.

Low Level's just going to be me abusing the shit out of buffs, barriers, and class changes.

oh hell no you can't make me

It's a pretty accurate comparison: both games have multiple natural disasters and tenous political relationships after the world has been saved.

Low level shows off how to best abuse the game mechanics, which is always a massive plus for me.

Oh, and good luck with this thing. I didn't even bother finishing the second one. ^^;

You know, for all the problems with text walls I know we'll get to, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn's simple but colorful 3D looks pretty nice compared to the GBA's plastic renders. Also, Isaac suddenly becoming a chatty bastard and Felix going the mute route due to the second game's protagonist swap was the most jarring change ever.

My vote also goes to a low level run. I know the game's a breeze, but it'd be nice to see its gameplay mechanics in action.

Still sounds much better than the alternative. I like Low Level, but I wonder if you can combine that with No Revive if you want (if not, just do Low Level, as much as I also want to see no reviving).

I vote... all 4!
Oh fine, low level

I say go for some sort of compromise where you are underleveled but not the lowest level. That way you aren't forced into exploiting every last thing. Perhaps by fighting 1/2 or 1/4 of the random battles?

I found the Golden Sun games boring as crap but I've liked your previous LP efforts so I'll give this a read anyway. I vote with the masses: low level. Minimal revives if you need an extra challenge.

Low Level is clearly the winner so I’ll be doing that. This means I’ll be trying to beat the game at the lowest level possible, ideally only battling required fights.



I have a save file now so I’ll explain this. Like the previous two GS games, DD gives you three save slots and the options to start a New Game, load a save file, copy a save file, and delete a save file. Unlike the last two games, the top screen gives you a hint as to where you are and there is no longer a Battle Arena for you to dick around in, which is quite a shame because that might have actually been fun in this game.



Getting back to my save file, here’s another difference: auto run. Now instead of holding B everywhere, Matthew will just start running after a few slow steps. You can still hold B to start running immediately though.



The pause menu holds an Encyclopedia that lets you look up all the red text you’ve selected throughout the game.



It’s also got a status screen, which is pretty empty right now but whatever. I’m going to take the time to explain this game’s stats, which are honestly pretty confusing.



Huh, something happened to the top of the image. Oh well, nothing important was lost.

The top screen has a short summary of all the important things you need to know about the character, and the character's battle model. The bottom screen holds the exact same information, only it gives a more detailed Elemental Power stat and lets you see the character’s inventory and Psynergy list.

Anyways, those stats. I’ll go off them one at a time.

Level: If you need me to tell you what this is you’re completely hopeless.

Class: I can’t really describe this in detail right now, but for now just know that every character has base stats determined by their level. These stats are increased/decreased by their class, eventually by absurdly high multipliers.

HP: Guess.

PP: Psynergy Points are basically MP, only they regenerate over time. Since I’m going to be low level, my characters won’t have much PP, so puzzles (which require Psynergy most of the time) are going to be a pain in the ass.

Attack: As you might have guessed, this determines how much damage your character’s physical attacks can do. This stat (and the three following it) can be increased through levels, classes, equipment, and stat up items. In any case, what I want you to note for now is that it is very easy to raise your characters’ Attack.

Defense: How much damage your character takes. It’s kind of important.

Agility: How fast your character is. This stat becomes completely pointless once you go far enough in the game.

Luck: Your character’s chances of getting hit by a status ailment. This stat is by far the hardest to increase, but most status ailments are trash anyways so who cares.

Experience: Guess.

Elemental Level: How good your character is at an element. There’s only one way to boost this, and it’s not by leveling up.

Elemental Power: How much damage your character will do with a Psynergy attack of the corresponding level. This can only be increased through either rare equipment or by increasing Elemental Level.

Elemental Resistance: How much damage your characters will take from a Psynergy attack. It’s boosted the same way Elemental Power is.



Matthew opens the chest next to his bed for his first sword.



Matthew can equip four different types of weapons, but the only ones you’ll want to keep on him are swords. Anyway, Dark Dawn has one dramatic difference from its predecessors, and that’s how it handled weapon unleashes.

Alright, the first thing you need to note is that weapon unleash = critical hit. Your characters’ chances of dealing them depends on their mastery of the weapon (or by certain rare equipment). This Short Sword only has Critical Strike, but future weapons will have more than one unleash that will need to be unlocked through increasing weapon skill.

The only way to increase weapon skill is to hit things a lot. This kind of conflicts with my low level run, which is unfortunate as high level weapon unleashes tend to have absurdly ridiculous damage modifiers, with one of the strongest being a flat x3 damage.

Okay, that’s enough exposition. Let’s go on with the game.



In a bookshelf just above Matthew’s room is this. The Sun Saga books are essentially fairy tale versions of the first two Golden Sun games, and exist to give new players some backstory. I’d show them, but they happen to be long, slow unskippable cutscenes so I’ll pass.

More importantly, Sun Saga 1 was hidden in a bookshelf. Many items are hidden all over the place, and for the most part I’ll ignore mentioning that I picked something up.



Upstairs are some gloves for Matthew to wear. This is the last thing I need, so let’s start the game!



This is Karis’ response to Matthew saying that he knows where to go. This game apparently assumes its player has short term memory loss, and it goes out of its way to remind you of what you should be doing.



Anyways, Karis has joined Matthew’s party now. As you can see, she’s no physical attacker. You might assume that she’d be better as a magic attacker, but you’d be wrong; her Jupiter Power is the exact same as Matthew’s Venus Power.



Matthew arrives to find Isaac and Garet discussing how they’ll be following Matthew and Karis from a distance so they can monitor them.



Garet’s not very happy with the plan. Isaac reminds Garet that being an Earth Adept means he can feel what’s going on in the forest (this is total bullshit) and that Tyrell is okay. This is enough to Garet to agree with the plan, but before they can discuss it further they finally notice that Matthew and Karis have been watching them.



Everyone in the game gets the occasional awesome one liner.



After some more talking, Matthew and Karis are finally free to go.

♫ Battle! [Matthew] ♫



My first battle.



And I quickly run away from it. Unlike in the first two games, this times the party members just jump backwards instead of springing five feet into the air.



The hell are you talking about?



The first puzzle in the game. Matthew needs to move that stone pillar out of the way to proceed, but he can’t get next to it to push it. The obvious answer is to use the helpfully named Move spell.

I would just like to note that the game lets you figure out on your own that you have to use Move.



That would be why it makes absolutely no sense to have the game give you the tutorial on when to use Move after you’ve already figured out you need to use it.



Isaac and Garet reveal that the stone pillar was just a test. Garet, who has suddenly completely forgotten about how his son is in critical danger, is angry that Isaac made the test so easy.



How the hell did you do that, anyways? And when?



Ugh, why do you want me to contribute to your inane discussion.



And with that,



The actual tutorial starts. I’ll do you all a favor and skip the text.



Dark Dawn changed all of the puzzle Psynergies to be touch screened based. This is both somewhat convenient (now instead of being limited to what was directly around you, you can manipulate things in a large circle around the character) and a huge piss off (now you need to manually direct every single spell).



Here’s a good example of one of the game’s favorite puzzles: manipulating objects to create a path for your character to jump/walk over.

More talking.



We would already be there if you didn’t insist on starting a lecture every ten steps.



Guess what the next dungeon is.



On one side of Matthew is late afternoon. On the other side is night.



As is mandatory of all evil forests, Tanglewood has little streams of fog.

Upon entering Tanglewood, Garet and Isaac are disheartened that night has fallen.



Pfft.



There were like, three battles. He ran from all of them.



For this dungeon, and this dungeon alone, Isaac and Garet will be fighting along with Matthew and Karis.



They’ll also be loaning Matthew and Karis some Djinn.



Yes I do.



And screw you too.



This is a Venus Djinni. There are four types total, and they all look the same on the world map. They have different official art, though.



I basically just said this, but this picture shows off how they look so I might as well post it.



Yes, I understood that three minute long tutorial with two automated battle sequences I was not allowed to mash through.



Of course I can.

Once the tutorial ends, Garet immediately launches into a spiel about the past and how Matthew is not ready to be a leader.



Isaac does not care.



Anyways, back to what I was saying earlier. Even though Isaac and Garet will be fighting with Matthew and Karis, they’re uncontrollable. This means they’ll be very unhelpful.



Now to explain Djinn and classes. Throughout the game, various Djinni will be encountered, with the final total being 72. Some must be battled, others must be found, but in the end you’ll have a lot of them.



Djinn are the main source of boosting Elemental Power/Resistance, and the only way to boost Elemental Level. Each Djinn also gives a small boost to certain stats, and it’s a pretty good idea to find which boosts what so you can properly min-max. More importantly, they also determine what class your character will be.



As I mentioned earlier, your characters’ stats (and usable Psynergy) are determined by their class. The amount of djinn your character has, the djinn’s element, and the overall ratio of elemental djinn will determine both what class tree your character will be in and which “rank”, they’ll be.



If that sounded confusing, here’s an example. The last time I showed Matthew’s status screen, he had one Venus Djinni and two Mars Djinn set on him. This time, I put one of the Mars Djinn on standby. This dropped Matthew from the Ruffian to Brute.

There are a large amount of class trees in this game, each requiring different ratios of djinn. Some, like the base classes Squire and Wind Adept, only require one element and generally tend to suck. Others classes require two different Djinn elements, and some even require three. Generally, the more elements needed the stronger the class.

To make things more confusing, some classes are restricted to certain elemental adepts. This can be annoying.

Moving on…

♫ Battle! [Isaac] ♫



Djinn can be used in battle for a variety of special attacks. Using a Djinni will change it from set to standby, and all bonuses they granted will be disabled until you manually set them again. If you’re in a mono-element class, this doesn’t mean much since it takes at least two Djinn to drop a class level. If you’re in a dual-element class, this could be bad. And if you’re in a tri-element class, that’s definitely bad.

So what’s the advantage to using Djinn if they nerf your characters? Aside from the aforementioned special abilities, there’s



Summons. These things can only be used if you have enough Djinn on standby, and are often very powerful. Not only that, but after they’re used the summoner gets a nice buff to their Elemental Power. The only problem is that Djinn used for Summons must recharge themselves, which can only be done by waiting a turn in battle/running around the world map.

Summons are pretty damn overpowered, and it’s definitely possible to get through the game just by putting all your Djinn on standby and nuking the crap out of bosses with a wave of Summons. This is a lame strategy though.

That should be enough exposition.



To solve this puzzle, I just need to hit that flower with a fireball. Hah, looks like I managed to skip a cutsc-



Damn it, never mind. I got to skip the “shoot the fireball at the flower” tutorial, but I don’t get to skip the magi babble about the Tanglewood and how it‘s being warped by evil or something like that.



These are the only two “important” dialogue boxes out of the twenty or so that I had to scroll through.



There are a nice amount of items in the game that mimic Psynergy spells. They will be very useful.



So even though it looks like you can hit that flower with a fireball from Matthew’s position, you can’t. Why?



Because the game wants you to navigate through a simple maze first.

Oversized green seedlings can be turned into ladders with Growth. Unlike the last two games‘ heroes, Matthew learns Growth naturally so he doesn’t have to constantly shift Djinn to use it.



The next puzzle asks you to use not one, but two spells right after each other. What a revolutionary concept.



Gee, I wonder why it took so long.

The party looks around for Tyrell, and Isaac spots the remains of the Soarwing.



Rather then wait for his friends and father to pick him up, Tyrell decided to go exploring. As you’ll see to be a common theme when it comes to Tyrell’s actions, that was a Very Bad Idea.

“Deep” (and by that I mean one room in) inside the cave is a “dark” room. After Karis notes that it’s too dark to see anything, Isaac and Garet hem and hmm for a bit before Isaac gets a “brilliant” idea, as marked by a light bulb emoticon.



Yeah.



I wonder if that glowing purple orb is important.



Yes it is. Isaac exposits again and notes that a Psynergy Vortex is an Adept’s worst enemy. Karis responds that that means they need to find Tyrell immediately, and Issac and Garet agree.



Matthew, on the other hand, has a working set of eyes.



So let’s get this straight. After being a complete moron and using a prototype flight machine without any training, Tyrell safely crashes nearby a cave. Tyrell then proceeds to go deep into the cave and dick around for a bit, and when a Psynergy Vortex appears, rather than get away he decides to



Touch it. Either that, or stay long enough to get all of the Psyenergy drained out of him. Either way he’s being an idiot.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you one of the main characters.



Karis is screaming at Isaac here. Can you tell from the picture alone?

Isaac defends himself by pointing out that Psynergy Vortexes (which tend to appear in places with a lot of Psynergy) have never appeared in this cave before. This cave, incidentally, used to be a Psynergy Stone Mine.

A Psynergy Stone is crystallized Psynergy.



Rather than go help Tyrell, Isaac and Garet decide to exposit again.



Hey, let’s go hit that giant flower with a fireball.



Uh-oh.

♫ Battle! [Boss] ♫



Tangle Bloom is a joke.



First off, Matthew will almost definitely have Fireball, which Tangle Bloom is weak to.



Second, Karis has Ground, which is basically Stop.



Fireball only has a power of 35, so it’s not very impressive even if it hits a weakpoint. Oh well, it’s not like I really need it.



The important thing about Fireball is that Matthew can only have it if he has a Mars Djinn on him.



Meanwhile, Karis sets Ground so she can use it again next turn. Since she’s much faster than Tangle Bloom, every turn she uses Ground is a free turn for me.



Tangle Bloom tries to guard.



Too bad Torch pierces… Defense? What the hell?

*checks wiki*

Oh never mind, turns out Torch only has a 50% chance of piercing Defense. Also, his attack power is dependent on the user’s Attack, so no wonder he didn’t do much.



That’s more like it. Delusion is basically Blind.



Oh look, Isaac and Garet are finally doing something. (Those were the only things they did all battle long)



Buffs increase stats by a certain percentage, so if you have high stats you’ll get higher buffs. This, counter-intuitively, means buffs are actually more useful to a high level party. Oh well, they’re still good enough for me.



(It did 18 damage)

Isaac wants me to use Tiamat, but like hell I will. Here’s the Short Sword unleash, Critical Strike. Not very impressive, especially when you consider that Matthew‘s normal attack does 15 damage.

Tangle Bloom hits about as hard as a feather, so I can win this fight just by abusing Ground and having Matthew spam Attack. It’d be even faster if I didn’t have Matthew put two of his Djinn on Standby, but eh.



Yay.



Yay again.



Bosses give a pretty large chunk of experience, so I’ll actually be getting a decent amount of levels. Incidentally, Dark Dawn does not skip to the highest level if you get more than one level up, so challenges like this involve a lot of mashing after boss fights.



With the boss dead, all of the vines burn up.



Also the Psynergy vortex shrinks because why not.

Next time: The quest begins.

How come the game is giving you the option to skip tutorials if they're going to make you do them anyways? That's worse than not giving the option at all.

I'm glad someone is LPing this game so I don't have to buy it. The previous games were definetely quite bad about dialogue, but this just seems way worse if you've been cutting out as much dialogue as I'm thinking. Also, the new story hook seems kinda lame, but perhaps it gets better later on.

I'd say I'm cutting out about 60% of the total dialogue. This game really does not know how to shut up.

Also, the tutorials? The vast majority "helpfully" navigate the menu for you and show you the exact steps you need to do to do anything. While it does this, you can not control the game at all. You can't even press A to skip through the text; it auto scrolls. You can only sit and watch the tutorial like it was a commercial. And considering the tutorial just loves to do everything as slooowly as possible...

This is easily the biggest gripe I have with the Golden Sun series in general, but especially with this entry in the series. It's absolutely horrific. Even the characters acknowledge it in a few scenes, saying stuff like "Get to the point already!" etc.

A game that says "Basic reading ability is needed to fully enjoy this game" on the back cover has clearly embraced its destiny of being children's introduction to the genre, and, as such, predictably prioritizes explanation over convenience. So while it's annoying, at least it's annoying For The Children.