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Golden Sun: Nobody Tells You Where to Go
Since I last wrote about Golden Sun, I have quietly sunk another four hours into it, just sitting on the sofa, quite easily. I am fairly sure I had other things I was meant to be doing. I did not do them. I was also supposed to be levelling up some Pokémon for a battle at work, and that has not happened either. Make of that what you will.
When I left off, I had just finished what I would call the tutorial and stepped out onto the world map for the first time. Since then I have met new party members, talked to every NPC I could find, stumbled into new villages, and even wandered into a village that was, for reasons I will get to, entirely made of trees.
Here is the thing that keeps catching me off guard. There is no marker on the map telling me where to go. No glowing waypoint, no quest arrow, no helpful line drawn from here to the next thing. You forget that games used to be like this. You forget how much modern design quietly does the thinking for you. It is a whole new way to play (lol, a new way, it is obviously just the old way), and after years of being told exactly where to stand and when, being handed a map and a bit of trust and left to get on with it feels genuinely refreshing.
You actually have to read the text. You have to get involved in the story, because the story is how you work out what to do next. And you get rewarded for exploring, which is just as well, because you also have to explore. There is no progressing without it. Poke around, talk to people, notice the thing you were not necessarily meant to notice yet. That is the game.
Which brings me to the trees. I found a sacred forest, and in it, talking trees, one of which had at some point flown into a rage and turned an entire village of people into trees. Brilliant. Genuinely, what a premise. And then the game just sort of looks at you. No instruction, no "go here to fix it." Just a village full of former people and the strong implication that this is now my problem. Suppose I had best have a look around, then.
I will not pretend the dungeons and boss fights have been a pushover, because they have not. A couple have actually made me work, and I mean that as a compliment. I do not want to roll through a game like this on autopilot, never really knowing why I am anywhere. I want to earn the next bit. So far it has asked me to, and I have been more than happy to oblige.
On the party front, I have just picked up Mia, my latest recruit, and she is a neat addition. I have got some proper elemental coverage now, which is starting to make battles feel like something I can plan rather than just survive. I have also gathered a few Djinn along the way, and I have to say, they are a lovely mechanic. Fun to find, fun to fiddle with, and they turn the whole system into something worth tinkering with rather than just another menu.
And the trees? I turned them back. The villagers are people again, which felt like a proper little victory. Now, apparently, I need to go south. I did try to go south earlier, in fairness, but the person I needed to speak to was, at the time, a tree, so that did not get me very far and I went off to explore elsewhere instead. That is a sentence I never expected to write about anything, and it is exactly why I am enjoying this as much as I am.
No idea what is waiting south. That, I think, is rather the point.