Alright… Okay. This is – different.

The “this” that is, in fact, “different,” is Golden Sun for the GameBoy Advance. Personally, I haven’t played an RPG like it in… Well, I never have.

Why do I say that? Well, to be brutally honest? I couldn’t give less of a damn about what happens to the characters. The story is useless and silly. It’s full of trite conversations, questionable amnesia (“He kidnapped who? Me!? Oh yeah…”), and an incomprehensible need for painful backtracking.

I recommend everyone with the SNES Pocket buy it. If you haven’t already.

What’s this, you may be asking to yourself, or perhaps carving into your flesh with a bowie knife. I understand. (Except for that carving thing – ick.) It’s one fine game, is what it is. (The game, that is, not the carving. Again – ick. [Parallelism!])

Golden Sun features a bunch of strange looking Pokémon rejects called Djinn (that’s D-Jinn, aspirate your “J”, jackass) that bond to characters, boosting stats, providing new spells and abilities, as well as summon attacks. That’s right, RPG fans, it’s the GFs, except with the lack of the sucking we’d all hoped for. You put the little rat bastards on a character, altering their class title and the spells they’ll learn upon leveling up. The more Djinn “on” when a character levels, the better. You can also have them standby, which makes them ready to summon. The more of a type that are standing by, the bigger the summon. (four types – earth, wind, water, fire – I feel like it’s the seventies all over again… Wait, how would I know?)

Another neat thing in the game is the command system – turn based, relying on agility to determine order, (and also, possibly, difficulty of the action, I’ll get back to you on that one). Here’s the fun bit: you select actions for all four of your characters at once, and they proceed to carry them out. If an enemy’s turn comes before your slower characters (the dumb redhead for me, results may vary) they go first. Simple as that. And if the action you’ve selected can no longer be performed? Oops. Once you adjust to not just slapping the select button and relying on the game to slide attacks over once an enemy’s dead, this is an extraordinarily fun system. You start to judge enemies, estimating attack power and hit points, and when you accurately pull of some ridiculous marshalling of the troops to take out three nasty enemies in two turns, you get one of those good feelings I’ve heard so much about.

Oh – the puzzles are inhuman, track down a guide; I suggest gamefaqs.

Let me drive a point home though, ladies. If you want character development, this game is not for you. Your character (default: “Isaac”) never speaks, and you will soon wish that everyone else in the world followed his example. You will not care about these characters. Stubbornness and the desire to destroy monsters is the only reason this world will be saved.

So, if you’re looking for something to gallivant around the town with, get this. Duh. It’s a portable system, didn’t you notice?

Okay, okay. It’s that time again, for the very first time. It’s the Wind Waker in review, boyos.

First, let’s talk about story. It’s possibly got the best Zelda story ever. (I have not the experience to make a definitive claim to that effect – hence the ‘possibly.’ That’s why I’m sm00v. Heh.) Instead of the previous motivations, such as telepathic pimping (Link to the Past) or the fact that you’re of a different race than all the friends you’ve grown up with (Ocarina of Time), you instead want to save your sister, who’s been abducted. Who doesn’t want to save their sister? (Other than those of us who don’t have sisters, that is.)

Along with the story, is the setting. It’s islands, kids. Very wet, what with the water and all. (View my mad alliteration and glee.) You start on Outset Island, and shove off from there.

And here’s the place to mention one of the things that really, really makes this game fantastic: its sense of humor. It successfully pulls off the difficult combination of humor and seriousness. The story itself is of the utmost importance: your sister is imprisoned against her will. (I won’t get into anything else, you’ll need to just go play it.) But it has funny moments. Link is ‘snuck’ into the fortress by the pirate band by being shoved into a barrel and shot into the wall. Quite painfully. And it makes fun of itself. Read through all of the texts on how to play the game sometime. (In game tutorial room.) The last piece of advice is “DON’T STAY UP TOO LATE PLAYING!”

The music is as great as we’re used to. Some of the best stuff from Ocarina has returned, and the new music is fantastic, with a Celtic and Nordic air that suits the game perfectly, given the setting, and even the way Link fights.

Music figures into the story this time as well, just like in Ocarina. But not quite in the same way. (You’re not playing a potato flute anymore – you’re leading the band!)

The controls are very nice. They’ve built on the Ocarina control scheme, altered it for the new controller, and added a few things. It’s no longer Z-targeting, but L-targeting. The D-pad messes with your maps and things, while A is context-sensitive, and B is your sword. The most important change comes with the C-stick. Camera controls. You can swing the camera freely, or leave it behind you like Ocarina. Reset is L. Simple enough, and the Gamecube controller makes for a wondrous experience. I would recommend a Wavebird – rumble isn’t as important this time around.

Let’s talk about items! Remember the hookshot? It’s back – and better looking. You can watch the gears as you fire. Ever want to be Errol Flynn? Now you can. Grappling Hook is the way to go, swinging wildly over pits and lava. Parasail with the Deku Leaf. And if you’re a Zelda fan at all, you love you some boomerang action. Imagine this – pull up your ‘rang and target five keese at once. Let fly – they’re dead. Yes. Five targets at once.

Yeah, you’ve noticed by now that I’m avoiding something? Visuals! Let’s fix that problem right now!

Firstly, the simple: it’s rendered fantastically, from what I can tell. It moves, it flows, and I can think of a whole two places in the game that experience lag, and it’s understandable why. (I mean, one is a room where the sky is darkened with screaming, biting Keese.)

But now for the nasty: the style of graphics.

Good.

You in the back, shut up.

Those of you who are refusing to play the game because of the way it looks, or just haven’t and are still preaching about the style? Be quiet. I’ve played – I’ve saved the world – in this style. And it’s amazing. I’ll give you an advance on my final verdict and say that it’s better than Ocarina of Time, straight up. And that’s the game that (Yes, I love OoT very much, be quiet!) had the serious style you seemed to love so much. Well, the story is pulled off even better than Ocarina. And not just despite the graphics – because of them. Link, for the first time that I’ve seen, has a real personality. He is expressive. His body language, over-exaggerated for any sort of realism, tells you what he’s thinking, even though you never get to read any text that is his speech. The world is impressive, easily capable of swallowing you, thanks to the shading and textures. They are uniform, and everything is interactive. (As much as a tree with branches too high to climb is in the first place. Damn palm trees…) The characters are individuals. What is lost in the result of speeding by them is made up for, and improved upon, by their exaggeration. Old Man Ho-Ho is oddly sprightly for his age, Darknuts are frightening to face, and hilarious when you successfully surprise them with your boomerang. The fairies are hilariously Victorian, complete with wands and diaper-looking wraps. Catch them in a bottle and laugh, and laugh. And the Great Fairies… Oh, jeebus, the great fairies. Fantastic. They’re wonderfully ethereal, without being scary like the old ones were. And the Fairie Queen? Well, just go see her yourself.

I’m sure there are things I’ve left out, but you know what? It doesn’t matter. If you own a Gamecube, this game must be yours. If you don’t have a ‘cube, you have two problems. Go forth and save the land, young heroes! (Or, something like that. Your sword gets all glowy, did I mention that? Well, now I need to go take pictures of – well – everything.)

No big deal - first entry in this, and I thought I'd use it as a sort of mission statement. Recently, I had the brilliant (re: possibly stupid) idea that perhaps people would be interested in reading my take on video games. And from there, on many different things (I having varied tastes, of course). Now, whether that's true or not would hopefully be decided by my skill at writing. (I would like to have a fresh perspective on the now-familiar review, in the sense that perhaps it could be fun to read for all involved.) Sadly, that could have little to do with it all. Of course, I don't really know of a way to whore this, other than spamming, which I am loathe to do. Perhaps a note to my club listserv once there are a few decent entries under my belt, but until then, I sit, alone, hoping someone reads this, my solitary beginning. Bye for now!