Well, during this time, im not posting much here...
But i read some posts about Dark Dawn and even if this is already in previous pages of the thread. I think that is good time to post it again. Personally i dont suggest to play Dark Dawn before GBA games.
Summary of Dark Dawn:
-Gameplay: almost identical to the old games, but way more easier. Featuring a really incomode menu, when Golden Sun GBA menu was practical and effective. On top of that, points of no return, that dont allow you to complete 100%
-Graphics: dont follow the original aesthetics of the original games.
-Sound: Some bad sound effects, Soundtrack not as great as in the original games with less variety.
Here is a response that i got of another follower of Golden Sun series about my complains of DD:
"Graphical issues aren't that it's cartoony. The originals were as well. The issue is the tone and aesthetic - the original games were quite bright with colors and had this "pop" to them, so to speak. They also had amazing particle effects in battle, and it was quite great to look at. That's all but gone, though. Sure, DD has great battle models and really cool GUI icons, but the actual GUI layout, the spell effects, and the overworld just... they don't look nearly as good, clean, and crisp. Instead, they have this "watered down" feel, the GUI layout is just plain horrible (XMB, anyone?), and the battle effects... well, they just don't have the flair the particle effect-heavy first games had. To top it off, the sound effects in the game were absolutely horrible. All and all, it betrays the original aesthetics of the game, which is why people didn't like that.
Musically, Motoi Sakuraba is hit and miss. The original GS games were mostly a hit, though a couple tracks were kind of "meh". However, DD was somewhat even on the hit and miss spectrum - for every great song there was another that was either "Meh" or "uggh...". I kindly point in the direction of Mountain Roc Rising and the Final Battle Themes (which were horrible) and contrast with the Final Dungeon and Endless Wall themes (which were awesome). Hell, even within songs you have instances of great and bad music. The Tuaparang Battle Theme has a great chorus, but the rest of the song kind of sucks.
The relative ease of the game is three-fold. First is bad pacing. You just get access to djinn much too quickly, and thus your power multiplies far past anything the enemies can keep up with. Second is bad growth rates. Enemies just give too much experience, so that additive growth in combination with the multiplier growth that comes with djinn acquisition compounds the problem. Third is weak enemies. Some bosses can't even survive a single round (4/5 turns) of the Djinn Build/Summon tactic, which usually takes them down in two (8-10 turns).
As for multiplayer... yeah, that did kind of suck, but sit down and think about this for a second... would you really want multiplayer for Dark Dawn? Everyone has max speed thanks to Zol Gear, has an unleash setup utilizing Centurian rushes, etc... It doesn't make for very much fun when you have a game as broken as DD's battle system. Perhaps we're better off not having it than having them butcher it too.
Finally, like it or not, DD is a part of GS. You can't just throw it into fanon discontinuity, because the next game will likely have direct references to the events in this one. It's like Suikoden IV or Battle Network 4 - they're actually pretty bad games, but they're still a part of the franchise, and the franchise as a whole, despite suffering through the game, may even have benefited by learning what not to do. The fundaments are here to stay, but since the game never bothered to define them, we have the freedom to define them how we please until it's proven otherwise. So for now, perhaps you can embrace the Aspect Approach that I champion. This lets you use the stuff from Dark Dawn without any of that annoying lore-breaking stuff."
But the worst, and the reason of why i dislike Dark Dawn, is for its terrible plot, some terrible characters, history is way too much slow-paced at the begginning with a tone of text that was not necessary at all. They filled the game with things that did not existed at all in the first games and Dark Dawn takes places just 30 years after the events of the first game, if those 30 years were 300 instead, i would not complain at all for this. But the game overrall does not feel like a sequel.
Things that i like of Golden Sun Dark Dawn:
-The new system of psynergy outside of battle was great, sadly the game does not take profit of that as much as it could, but well.
-Djinn individuals design that was a great improve in the series.
-Ancient Devil, it was not hard, but i liked the concept of the boss.
-Crystallux, that was really funny, indeed.
-Sveta, the most unique character of Golden Sun in gameplay.
And this was the best thing of Dark Dawn:
) moveset.
