Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (A Game Summary in a Terrible Not-Actually Script Format)

This is a very brief summary of what happens in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn with spoilers literally out the butt. Reading this without having played Golden Sun or Golden Sun: The Lost Age? Okay, here's the list o' characters:

Warriors of Vale (A group of children who saved the world, known as Weyard):
Issac
Garet
Ivan
Mia
Felix
Jenna
Sheba
Piers
Kraden

Literally everyone in Weyard knows of the Warriors of Vale (if not their names, then at least their actions).

The only (consistent) antagonist is Alex.

I tried to make sure it was put together with as much care and loving as Dark Dawn itself was. As such, I haven't explained anything and at every turn someone will be saying something extremely stupid or extremely obvious. Also I've made sure to keep the objective of the mission completely hidden and to make all the transitions as lame as possible. I'll do my best to make sure it's as true to the game as possible by making fun of it at every turn. Go!

Narrator: 30 years after the Warriors of Vale saved Weyard...

Issac: Matthew, I used to be afflicted with Avatar-itis too. The best way to fix it is to generally agree with everything that everyone around you says. You know, that also makes you pretty good leader material. Oh, here comes Garet and Tyrell.

Garet: Hey, we'll be in this for like two seconds even though technically, we could solve the coming problems on our own!

Tyrell: There are going to be problems?

Issac: Tons.

Garet: Yeah seriously, it's about to be a whole different world. Also, We've gotta get this plot going, so for no reason, here's Karis.

Karis: My dad's Ivan.

Tyrell: Who's Ivan?

Name: Ivan
Element: Jupiter (Wind)
Warrior of Vale (i.e., saved the world)
At 15 years old, he was the most gifted Jupiter Adept in all of Weyard

Matthew: ...

Issac: What's this invention here?

Karis: It's called the Soarwing. My dad made it.

Tyrell: S'okay if I break it?

Karis: Don't see why not.

-breaks the soarwing-

Karis: GOD DAMN IT HE BROKE IT

Garet: *sniff* just like your old man.

Issac: You wanna go get him?

Garet: No, leave him. Me and his nameless mother can make another one.

Karis: But the soarwing!

Garet: Fine... whiny brat.

-Saves Tyrell, runs into psyenergy vortex and plant boss-

Issac: OH MY GOD A REPERCUSSION OF WHAT WE DID 30 YEARS AGO!

Garet: OH SHIT

Tyrell: Are you guys going to fix it?

Issac: ...nah, it'll work itself out.

-defeats plant boss-

Issac: Looks like a major component of this is plucking a feather off of an endangered species. Fortunately one lives like right over there. Why don't you kids go get it?

Tyrell: But you're an adult. Why don't you?

Issac: Because I need a drink. Garet?

Garet: YES.

Issac: Also, I'm going to call Kraden, you know, with like... my mind or something. So you should meet up with him when you're done with this bird thing.

Karis: Who's Kraden?

Name: Kraden
Occupation: Scholar
Warrior of Vale (i.e. saved the world)

Tyrell: Matthew, do you know?

Matthew: ...

Tyrell: Yeah, I liked that episode of Whose Line too.

-Meets Kraden, Rief, and Nowell-

Kraden: I'm Kraden.

Karis: Who's Kraden?

STILL TOTALLY SAVED THE WORLD AND SHIT

Kraden: Me, I'm Kraden.

Tyrell: You're ancient, but not THAT ancient.

Kraden: Yeah, immortality and all that jazz.

Karis: Oh. Well, I'm Karis. My father's Ivan.

Tyrell: Who's Ivan?

Inheritor of the powers of an ancient tribe of Jupiter Adepts
STILL TOTALLY ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO SAVED THE WORLD AND SHIT

-silence-

Karis: This is Tyrell. And that's Matthew.

Rief: I'm Reif. My mother's Mia.

Tyrell: Who's Mia?

Name: Mia
Element: Mercury (Water)
Warrior of Vale (i.e. saved the world)
Powerful adept beaten only by Alex, the previous game's antagonist

-silence-

Nowell: I'm Nowell and I'm in love with Piers.

Karis: Who's Piers?

Name: Piers
Element: Mercury (Water)
Warrior of Vale
Only known Lemurian (a race thought to be extinct) living today.

-silence-

Rief: OH NO SOLDIERS I'M CAPTURED!

Matthew: ...

Karis: I don't have a love interest.

Tyrell: Well, I think--

Karis: SHUT UP AND STOP THINKING, MATTHEW IS OUR LEADER

Tyrell: But Matthew doesn't talk!

Karis: BUT I LOVE HIM

Tyrell: Wait, what?

Karis: No, I don't love him, but he's still the leader.

Matthew: ...

Kraden: We have to stop them and get Rief back! Quit having love interests or maybe not having love interests and let's go after Rief! ... Actually, nah, you go after Rief, I'm gonna go with Nowell to Morgal. Catch y'all bitches later!

Nowell: I'm still in love with Piers.

Blados: I'm part of the Tuaparang. Supposedly we're lead by Felix, but no one ever mentions that.

Tyrell: Who's Felix?

Name: Felix
Element: Venus (Earth)
Warrior of Vale (i.e. saved the world)
Literally the protagonist of Golden Sun: The Lost Age

Blados: IT DOESN'T MATTER FIGHT ME

-fights-

Blados: Choose an exit and we'll free your little friend.

Karis: Well, this is the only one we can take, but what if they kill Rief?

Tyrell: Wait, who's Rief?

-saves Rief-

Rief: Well, let's go to Morgal and meet up with Kraden.

Matthew: ...

Tyrell: I agree, it would be a good idea to blindly go after him since apparently we can't go back home and get our much more experienced parents.

-Reaches Passaj-

Rief: Ah, the ancient Alchemy Forge that no one knew about until 30 years ago, when it was either built or unearthed.

Karis: So... not ancient?

Rief: SHUT UP AND LET'S GO TO MORGAL

Random townsperson: Well, we need this thing called the Sol Mask to operate the forge, but we don't have it. It's in Kaocho. But once we have it we can pretty much just send you to Morgal. Fetch quest FTW

Tyrell: What? How do you NOT HAVE IT?

Random townsperson: I don't... I mean, it's not MY FAULT personally...

Karis: You guys wanna just go get it?

Rief: Might as well.

-Goes to Kaocho-

Chalis: I'm Chalis and I'm part of the Tuaparang. We're led by Felix, maybe.

Rief: Who's Felix?

Older brother of Jenna, Matthew's mother.
STILL TOTALLY SAVED THE WORLD AND SHIT

Tyrell: We want the Sol Mask.

Chalis: So do I. It's in the Ouroboros.

Tyrell: Seriously?

Karis: How do we get in?

Chalis: You go to Ayuthay and get a key.

Tyrell: So you can't just HAVE the key. Why is there a key to this place?

Chalis: I'll tell the king you can do it.

Karis: But I don't want to.

Chalis: TRAITORS

Reif: Wait, what just happened? How are we traitors? We're just kids who want to get to Morgal and WHY IS THE MASK FOR SOMETHING NEARLY A CONTINENT AWAY OVER HERE?!

-locked in the Oroboros-

Tyrell: Oh, look. An exit.

-Ayuthay-

Amiti: I'm Amiti. I'm a prince and also the son of Alex, maybe.

Rief: Who's Alex?

Name: Alex
Element: Mercury (Water)
Literally the antagonist for the Golden Sun games on GBA

Amiti: I'll help you for the low low fee of getting me the hell outta here.

Karis: But you're not the boss of us, okay?

Amiti: I know, it's this guy who hasn't said a word yet.

Matthew: ...

Tyrell: Dude, I LOVED that movie. Crazy special effects, right?

Amiti: anyway, let's go to Te Rya, they have bitchin' parties. Also you want to go to Morgal, right? So let's do that.

-Te Rya-

Ryu Kou: BELINSK WAS FOUNDED BY ANIMAL PEOPLE

Rief: You know, way back in the day there was a village made up of just werewolves.

Karis: How uninteresting I find that. Don't go on.

Rief: I'm just saying that an entire sub continent of animal people is like a REALLY weird thing when not even a century ago there was only one set of animal people who were pretty much murdered on the spot if people saw them.

Tyrell: You know what else is really weird? You not shutting up.

-Belinsk-

Karis: Welp, no Kraden. This was pointless.

Sveta: I'm Sveta and I'm not related to any of the warriors of Vale because I'm a beastman.

Tyrell: Oh, that's cool.

Sveta: Also I can read minds.

Karis: What am I thinking?

Sveta: You're trying to kill the Mountain Roc? YOU BASTARDS.

Tyrell: Actually, we just wanted a feather, so--

Sveta: BASTARDS!

Rief: Well, I guess we should go to Port Rago?

Tyrell: Why?

Karis: Yeah seriously, why?

Rief: Maybe Kraden went there?

Tyrell: Good enough.

-Port Rago-

Briggs: I have to be like a million years old but I am  trying to save my 30 year old son from Belinsk. I met Felix in the Lost Age.

Tyrell: Who's Felix?

Had a captivating storyline that made him an anti-hero in the original Golden Sun.
STILL JENNA'S OLDER BROTHER, SO HOW DOES MATTHEW NOT KNOW WHO HE IS
STILL TOTALLY SAVED THE WORLD

Matthew: ...

Tyrell: Man, dude, you crack me UP!

Karis: Yeah, let's go to Kolima Forest, which is close to here for no explicable reason.

-Kolima Forest-

Tret: Matthew...Your father is Issac and your mother is Jenna.

Matthew: ...

Tyrell: Who are those people?

Name: Jenna
Element: Mars (Fire)
Warrior of Vale (i.e. saved the world)
Matthew's mother and most technical Mars Adept in Weyard

Laurel: Wait, you should go activate this thing in Belinsk. I hear it's a pretty cool guy. It's like, ruins under Belinsk.

Reif: Ancient ruins?

Laurel: I don't fucking know. Just do it.

Karis: Yeah, okay.

Tret: Amiti and Rief are distantly related.

Amiti: Is that tree talking to us?

Reif: Dunno, I've been smoking since we got here.

Laurel: Wait, guys! I meant DON'T activate that thing under Belinsk! Don't! It'd cause an apocalypse!

Everyone but Matthew: Okayyyyy!

Reif: Hey, so... want to go activate some ruins under Belinsk?

Karis: Chekov's gun, amirite?

-Talon Peak-

Ryu Kou: SVETA'S THE YOUNGER SISTER OF THE KING OF MORGAL AND SHE'S LOOKING FOR A MEANS FOR YOU TO GET TO THE MOUNTAIN ROC

Matthew: ...

Tyrell: OH MY GOD, I didn't realize Snape killed Dumbledore! Dude. CRAZY.

Amiti: Want to help us get the feather?

Ryu Kou: ONLY IF I'M ALLOWED TO BETRAY YOU AFTERWARDS

Karis: What kind of game would this be if you DIDN'T?

-Mountain Roc defeated! Feather get! Magma orb get!-

Blados: Betray your friends, Ryu Kou

Ryu Kou: YOU GUYS REMEMBER THAT TIME WHEN I SAID I'D BETRAY YOU TOTALLY DOING IT BYE

Chalis: AH HA HA HA HA

Tyrell: MY GOD

Matthew: ...

Tyrell: You're right, I do find the portrayal of women in today's media quite appalling, Matthew.

Karis: But... on topic... WHO WOULD'VE GUESSED RYU KOU WOULD BETRAY US!?

Amiti: I know I didn't see that coming at all!

Karis: Well, now that he has the Magma orb, what do we do?

Tyrell: Weed?

Amiti: Wait, let's stop them from doing bad stuff like heroes!

Rief: Genius! But how?

Amiti: The magma orb activates that thing we want to activate, right? So let's go see if they activate it.

Tyrell: I thought the tree said not to activate it.

Rief: Yeah, but Chekov's gun, remember?

Tyrell: Right! Okay, let's go activate that thing!

Karis: But wait.

Amiti: What?

Karis: We need music. First let's reunite a band.

Tyrell: Yeah, I really like that plan.

-Belinsk, Underground Ruins-

Karis: The ruins! Let's go!

Arcanus: Ah ha ha! I am Arcanus, also known as Alex. I tricked Ryu Kou into activating these ruins also known as the Alchemy Dynamo! I AM YOUR FATHER, AMITI

Amiti: Nooo... that's not true! That's impossible!

Arcanus: Search your feelings, young one!

Tyrell: Sorry, but who is Alex?

Forced the hands of literally every single Warrior of Vale.
Pretty much the ONLY villain the Warriors of Vale had to face constantly.

Arcanus: This place is a lighthouse, except that it's really not. It's a tower and now for the Grave Eclipse.

-City of Belinsk-

Ryu Kou: I WAS TRICKED AND NOW MY QUEST TO SAVE MY GIRLFRIEND OR AVENGE MY MASTER OR WHATEVER CAN NEVER BE COMPLETED

Karis: Here's your girlfriend. Get out of here.

Tyrell: Oh, shit. There's Briggs!

Briggs: I'll save you, Eoleo! *dies*

Eoleo: MY FATHER'S DEAD

Briggs: SHUT UP SON I DON'T CARE

Volechek: The kingdom is destroyed. Sveta, take this orb that may save the world, I'll stay here.

Sveta: Gotcha.

Kraden: I'm here now!

Rief: What the fu--

Kraden: Nowell is sailing with Piers.

Rief: Who's Piers?

Only Warrior class Mercury Adept in-game
STILL SAVED THE WORLD AND SHIT

Eoleo: Matthew, you seem like you know what you're doing. I'm a pirate and this is my dad's ship AND he's dead, but... why don't you be the captain?

Matthew: ...

Tyrell: It is pretty hard to find your niche porn online, you're right, Matthew.

Kraden: Let me save you a bunch of trouble and tell you the only way to stop this thing is the Apollo Lens. It's ancient, but I only heard about it like, JUST NOW.

Karis: I think that old man said something, but let's travel the world for no real reason.

Tyrell: Okay.

-Izumo-

Kushinada: I am Kushinada. My wife and I met because of Felix and now we have a daughter.

Amiti: Who's Felix?

Possibly one of the most powerful adepts period in Weyard.
STILL JENNA'S OLDER BROTHER, SERIOUSLY MATTHEW WHAT THE FUCK
STILL TOTALLY SAVED THE WORLD AND ALL THAT SHIT

Himi: Go get the Umbra Gears.

Tyrell: What's that?

Himi: Ancient armor that appeared 30 years ago.

Karis: So... not ancient?

Himi: SHUT UP AND GO GET IT.

-Endless Wall-

Reif: This is the endless wall.

Tyrell: But we're at the end of it.

Reif: FIGURE. OF. SPEECH.

Eoleo: Look, it's that blue haired guy again.

Arcanus: I'm Alex.

Himi: Who's Alex?

Mia's cousin, probably.
STILL THE MAIN ANTAGONIST OF THE SERIES

Chaos Hound: *roars*

Sveta: LET'S KILL IT OH SHIT IT'S MY BROTHER

Matthew: ...

Sveta: You're right. I'll die now so that I can atone for his sins.

Volechek: No! *dies*

Sveta: He did it!

-later-

Sveta: I'm the queen of Belinsk, now get the hell out of here.

Eoleo: Well, I'll take Himi home and then go to Champa.

Reif: I'll keep traveling with this old man.

Matthew: ...

Amiti: I guess I'll just wander around aimlessly?

-Goma Plateau-

Karis: Awright, we're home!

Tyrell: Look! There's a giant Psyenergy Vortex in the sky and if I'm not mistaken, that was the reason we left home in the first place!

Karis: Actually, we went to get a feather from the Mountain Roc. The rest of this was just gravy.

Tyrell: Oh.

Karis: I guess they'll have to make a sequel?

Tyrell: Guess so.

Matthew: ...

Karis: Yeah I do hope the sequel has more of our parents in it.

Tyrell: They ARE immortal.

Karis: Oh well. THE END...?

Theresia

Far be it from me to say that people who like scaring the living crap out of themselves are crazy. Personally I don’t understand it. After all, there’s plenty of stuff that’s already really scary and they don’t need a video game written about them to make me fear them. For example, bees.

And fuck bees.

But hey, I can understand the need to feel a little scare every now and then. Life is mundane and a little horror goes a long way. That’s why video games like Silent Hill and Fatal Frame have the audiences that they do. But for every innovative horror game that comes out, there’s always seven that figure, “Hey, we don’t actually need to be scary to actually be a horror game!”

All of those games are probably weapons developed by fucking bees.

Today’s game is Theresia. It’s a mystery/horror/adventure-esque game that, in case you couldn’t figure it out, is not scary. Normally I’d start out by telling you what the story is, but I have no idea what the story is-- and I beat the game. Twice, because I had to replay it to talk to you guys about it!

Well, I’m sort of lying. See, I do know what the story is and it is an okay story, but... I mean, I didn't figure out the story from the game. I actually could not figure out the story until I sat down and did some research, and even then I can't say I figured all of it out. Ah, well. Here’s the beginning of the story for you.

You, as a young girl, wake up in a room on a cot. Try as you might, you can remember nothing about yourself or where you are. You must find your way out of this facility and to some other people! All you can really remember is a woman, a beautiful woman, with alabaster white skin, crimson lips, and long dark hair.

Yeah, sounds riveting to me too.

So there’s a lot of stuff that made this game into the crowning achievement of not scary that it is, but there is one major reason why this game flopped the way it did and one major reason why I think it shouldn’t have been made at all.

A reason that isn't bees, though.

The game originally was an episodic cellular phone based game. After all the parts for both of the stories (that’s right, this one game is split into two parts) were finally completed, I guess it turned out pretty popular so Aksys figured they’d make it into a DS game. Not a bad idea, but it was executed pretty badly.

“So who developed this game,” you ask. “Was it Aksys?”

Nope, good guess. Actually the developers are a Japanese company called WorkJam. WorkJam mostly seems to make mobile phone applications for Japanese model phones, but they also have made some pretty good console games. I’m actually a pretty big fan of their work. Now if you do know WorkJam, you probably know them from their console releases, namely the Tantei Jinguji Saburou series-- not to be confused with Tantei Jingūji Saburō, which is Detective Jake Hunter in English (also developed by WorkJam). Anyone into mysteries would love their work. Theresia is, I’m sure, a popular game of theirs. I’m just saying that this adaptation is lacking.

Alright, alright. I’ll stop meandering about the topic here. Of course you want to know about gameplay and all that jazz. Let’s start with the music. It’s terrible. Moving on.

You're supposed to be solving puzzles, but I'm pretty sure that's this game's excuse for why you just... wander through hallways aimlessly. I walk around in my everyday life, Aksys. This game about walking, that's pretty much been handled. I'm going to need more motivation to play this game. You know, like cutting edge graphics and beautiful scenery!

So... the graphics in the game are pretty standard bad 3D. It’s not so awful you have to drop the game and projectile vomit for about twenty minutes before playing again, but it’s also not super immersive. It reminds me of Wolfenstein 3D. You know, the one you played on floppy disks back in-- aw, damn, I just dated myself there. Theresia is grainy at its best and pixelated at its worst. I don’t want to tell you that you should just accept bad 3D on the DS, because... well, the DS does have the capability of making good looking 3D. In this game, you spend almost every moving moment in the midst of grainy 3D, which makes me wonder-- did Aksys just take the 3D from the phone application and put it into the game? The DS has more capability than a phone for 3D rendering, so why would they do that?

See how the left wall is pixelated? Isn't it weird when it's contrasted with the right wall? Then there's the ceiling and floor, which seem grainy to me.

One of the worst aspects of the game is the backdrops when you’re not in the overworld, if you could call it that. It’s not even that the backdrops are bad. The backdrops are actually really good! They’re just super dark and because of the size of the DS’ screens, it’s really, really hard to make out how good they really are. Some of the artwork that went into this game is amazing and I’m upset that there’s so much darkness in the game that you can’t really see how great it really is.

This is one of the brighter images, also the first one you run into in the game. It's good looking, right?

So if you’re anything like me, at this point you’re like, “Well, I need to actually see the phone application to know if they did anything to the graphics, otherwise I guess this is okay.” Well, enjoy this:

So they’re small, sorry. But I can’t download Japanese apps-- and even on my iPhone emulator I can’t really get good screenshot-- so let’s just go with these. The top one is a 3D scene like the first Theresia screenshot in this review and the second is a still screen like the second Theresia screenshot in this review. I know you can’t really tell, but the port to the DS was a downgrade.

Yeah. It’s a downgrade. I don’t get it! To be fair, the 3D probably looks better because my picture is small-- I tried to do a little more research and found out that there’s a lot of 3D screens in the game that look pretty much dead on like their counterparts in the DS version-- but given that we know that the DS has better capability than a phone for 3D, why would Aksys not update the graphics?

Most of the regular artwork is still really beautiful in either adaptation.

The storytelling in this game is so bad it should be put into a museum. Seriously though, what is with this disjointed storytelling in games that can’t utilize it? I promise you, you won’t be able to figure out a single thing in the game on your first playthrough. Or your second, or your third-- if you play that far. So if you don’t know what I mean by disjointed storyline, I’m talking about spreading out a story haphazardly through the game’s environment, usually in such a way that you have to pick up books or notes to determine the "truth". However there is an overarching storyline that gives you the most generic version of the plot ever. This kind of storytelling technique is better in games where the purpose is vague, like an MMO or... you know, a cellphone app. Theresia’s purpose isn’t vague (and it's not a cellphone app). In Theresia, you have two clear objectives: 1) Get out of this weird, half-collapsed facility. 2) Figure out what the heck is going on. This should be easier than taking candy from a baby.

Ah, well. I do know why the story’s so disjointed. It goes back to the episodic gameplay. Previously you could replay pieces of the game. So, for example, say you complete your game and you realize you don’t have all the information in the game. Then you could easily go back to a previous episode and find that information. When you port an episodic game directly to a full game, it’s harder to go back and forth. If the overworld connected you to every area within Theresia, that would be one thing. But this was a direct port, it seems, so instead of working with the entire area within the game, after you pass checkpoints, you can’t move back and forth to find out what you’ve missed. Oh and trust me, you’ll miss something.

“But... uh, you! That’s impossible. I’m the most through adventurer this side of the sun. I’ve never missed anything in any game!”

I don’t believe that, but if you’d like to put it to the test, then welcome to Theresia: The Game That Hates You. I promise you, no other game goes through so much trouble to make sure that you have absolutely no fun playing it at all. Theresia is like the reigning king of skullduggery-- the moment you think, “Oh, there’s no POSSIBLE way this could be booby trapped!” the game’s like, “LAWL, FUCKING BEES!”

Seriously though, fuck bees.

Everything is booby trapped. Books, chairs, those things you hang key rings on, doors, floors, gates, your face, your computer, your mom, your fingers, thinking, breathing, red, blue, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, PSP Vita, Nintendo DS, Captain America-- Okay, so maybe I went off on a little tangent, but if you can dream it, it’s probably booby trapped. You have limited life, so after spending like twenty minutes getting shocked, shot with darts, or lit on fire you’ll probably stop playing the game.

“Boy howdy,” You say, “That sounds awesome!” To which I respond, where are you from, the 1950s? Boy howdy, really? Anyway, this is about as awesome as sticking thumbnails into your eyes. Or chewing through concrete. Or harvesting sweat off of a sweaty person to make a perfume that you have to wear on your very first date with a girl you’ve been pining after since the third grade. So is it awesome? No. No, it is not awesome. It is the opposite of awesome.

How about characters? Are the characters interesting? Nope. Well, yes (in that you do kind of want to learn what happened to them) and no, but for right now, no. The main female is kind of dreary and she gets on my nerves. I understand that she doesn’t know anything, but you’d think someone who knew nothing about anything going on around her would-- oh, I don’t know-- be a little more concerned that she’s alone in a facility where everything is out to kill her and she has no memory of getting there or if she’s being watched. Doesn’t that sound realistic? Prepare to be amazed at how little this girl cares.

She spends most, if not all, of her time speaking in ellipses. Like so: “I went... to the market. … … … … … It was a long trip... … … hampered by the FUCKING BEES” When she’s not speaking in ellipses, she’s talking about blood, the woman in her dreams, or flowers. That’s. It. It’s not compelling story telling, in fact it’s actually quite weak. But she can’t tell you the story, remember? She has no knowledge of anything. That’s actually one of the stronger points of this game-- she is consistent. Sure, her dialogue is stilted and unrealistic, but they made her out to be an amnesiac, and for the duration of the game she is exactly that.

But hey. I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering if I actually like anything about this game (I can sense your thoughts by looking into the screen of my 3DS and chanting ancient ritualistic curses). I guess that’s a valid question. What do I like about this game?

Well, I don’t much like the music or the sound effects, but like I said, I like the static backdrops when they’re bright enough to be seen. There are red bugs that show up halfway through the game that are interesting and they’re accompanied by the only creepy sound effect. I like some of the puzzles, which I barely mentioned in the review because if you reach the puzzles, that probably means you probably just picked up the game after three months of not playing it. The ending is particularly good in my opinion, but again, to play up until that point requires a special type of gamer. Not a nerd... just someone who enjoys waterboarding and eating vomit.

Is this game bad? Well... yeah. Yeah, it kind of is. In fact, can I just say that I feel cheated out of my money for buying it? The strange thing is that I can see how it would work in episodes-- it would have been better to keep it as an episodic game rather than doing what Aksys did. As an episodic game, I think I might’ve enjoyed this a lot more. It probably would’ve made more sense. The booby traps wouldn’t have bothered me less, but at least I could reach the end of a part and felt like I accomplished something.

I guess in the end it has to be up to you. Do you find it interesting based on what I've said? Are you that waterboarding vomit eater who's been waiting for a game to show up and give you all of the fun with none of the mess? Then, surprise, Aksys literally only thought about you when they made this game. That's a pretty small demographic you went for there, Aksys. Oh wait, I forgot. THIS GAME WAS MADE BY FUCKING BEES.

Wait, it was YOU GUYS?!

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

Hey, remember that time I said I was done reviewing Sonic games? I lied.

Learning from the king.

See, you can't keep me from Sonic games. Me, Sonic, Nintendo DS-- that's three great tastes that taste great together, if we were all edible things and if that didn't sound even the slightest bit odd. Look, the point is that I play far too many Sonic games. And I watched a lot of Arnold movies. Maybe not that second part. Today's game is Sonic Chronicles. (Sorry about the lack of pictures of in game stuff though. Hopefully long dry paragraphs are more your thing. No?)

Look, here's the thing, nerds, Sonic has a storied and altogether faulty past with games that aren't just "press right, dodge enemies". He's not like Mario, who is pretty much just... copy pasting himself through games and he's not like Megaman, who has no problems because he is God.

This guy gets it.

But here's the problem. Sonic is way more story driven than his counterparts. Think about it (honestly). If you were to pick one of these three characters who has constantly changing plotlines and relatively complex ideas, who would it be? (We are only counting the series of Megaman where Megaman is Megaman, and not some kid dressed as Megaman, or Zero, or the crazy ZX Advent game. Just Classic Megaman.)

If you picked Mario, you're lying. Seriously. Luigi's a completely different matter, but Mario is pretty much just the story of a guy in overalls who really just wants to go home but crazy girls in multicolored dresses keep showing up and demanding he save them for no good reason. And then, you know, he does exactly that.

WHERE THE FUCK WAS MY CAKE WHEN I SAVED YOU IN MARIO 2?!

Megaman is the story of Dr Wahwee and his Master Robots who, surprisingly, get beaten by a guy in a blue suit with a pellet gun. So... not masters. Also there's a couple other people in the game.

And then none of them beat Megaman, and Dr. Wily fell into bankruptcy.

I'm not saying Sonic games are smart, because if Sonic 2006 is any indication, Sonic is probably the stupidest of the three. But Sonic also has the distinct difference in that at the very least, the games aren't same-y story wise. I mean, SEGA just saves the same-y part for the gameplay. Even then they try to switch it up. They tried turning him into a werewolf and even characters from stories. I don't know what Sonic 2006 was even trying to be. Sonic can't survive in the 3D world without a gimmick of sorts, and with Mario blanding his way through the ages, Sonic often resorts to the kind of gimmicks that send him from semi-healthy to critical condition.

"But... uh, you," You say, stymied, "What does this have to do with Sonic Chronicles?"

Well, reader, the difference between Sonic Chronicles and the majority of the Sonic library is that Sonic Chronicles is an RPG. And it's possibly the crappiest Sonic game I have ever played. And I touched the unholy wasteland that is Sonic 2006.

I...can't get clean...

I... don't actually know where to start with this, because I should like it. Initially, I did. Hell, I loved it. I don't even hate it now, I just think it's kind of crappy. But, it's weird because it's got all these great aspects to it and I still don't like it.

It's an interesting take on Sonic and went into some story that no one cares about... I ate that up. It's an RPG, of all things. Awesome. And BioWare, as in Mass Effect BioWare, as in Knights of the Old Republic BioWare, that BioWare-- they developed this game. BioWare, you guys. Three great tastes that should taste great together... and I think I ended up with a mouthful of mud.

This guy gets it.

Sonic Chronicles isn't diabolically bad. I mean, history books definitely won't be like, "This one time, SEGA made this game worse than Sonic 2006 in the Sonic franchise, and it's the ruler by which we measure crappy Sonic games since then." But it's not good. It's not the kind of game you tell your friends to play because you want them to enjoy themselves, but you can't tent your fingers and chuckle in your swivel chair with that long-haired white cat you just bought after they start playing either.

I guess if we're going to tackle this bad boy, I might as well start with the story. Most Sonic stories are probably crap to... okay, everyone, but I liked this one. Without revealing too much, Sonic is vacationing after beating the Egg Carrier. I think it's the first one, but only because I don't want to think about the alternative.

This was the only Egg Carrier. This was the only Egg Carrier. This was the only Egg Carrier.

Also, in a weirdly dark twist for a Sonic game, they think Eggman's dead. The dude survived a fall from space, guys. Nothing short of a miracle can kill this guy.

Tails calls Sonic, because Tails is adorable and the plot needs to move on, and says things like, "Chaos emeralds taken" and "Knuckles missing" and presumably, to incite Sonic to move, "chili dog shortage, need assistance," and Sonic decides it couldn't hurt to show up and bash in heads. Tails says the chili dog thieves are called the Marauders. Also they pretty much just kidnapped Knuckles, took the Chaos Emeralds, and there are no chili dogs.

Sonic meets up with his possy (Tails and Amy) and goes to save Knuckles. But he needs help from some other familiar faces, like Rouge and Shadow, and e-123 Omega, and... BIG THE MOTHERFUCKING CAT?!

For shame, BioWare.

I thought we were phasing this guy out. Why is this a thing? Why is this a thing?!

Anyway, as soon as they find Knuckles, shit really hits the fan. It's a really well told story that I'm not going to ruin with aborted humor.

If I like the story, then what do I dislike? Is it the controls?

Well, to be fair, the controls are pretty straightforward and easy to use. I don't really have a problem with them. You use the same sensibilities you would for most RPGs. Any button progresses the dialogue (if you're in the middle of a dialogue, obviously), make a choice with A, back out of menus with B, move with the D-pad-- do I have to get out my arrow key diagram? Because I can do that.

The button ---> moves you to the right.

Okay, so it's not the controls and it's not the story. So what is it? Is it some element of the gameplay? Hmm... Now that I'm thinking about it...

Let's talk about the Chao. You know them. Cute little guys, introduced in Sonic Adventure? If SEGA actually wanted to make a buttload of money, they'd just keep adding "develop your own chao" mini games to regular campaigns. I'm just saying that Sonic Adventure 2 was a blast because the story and the Chao were just all too good to be true. Surprisingly, though, they took a breather from the Chao. That's fine. It's cute, it's a great idea, but you don't want to wear out your welcome. I get it. But you know, you can't go from fully customization Chao to this watered down version of "caring" for Chao eggs.

Sonic, from time to time, will find a chao egg and pick it up. After a little while, a Chao hatches. Bam. That's what we get for Chao this time. On top of that, you can get multiples of the same Chao, which of course means you're not even naming them. And they're just an equippable item, on top of that, ones that can't level up unless you have a friend playing the game with you. Sonic Chronicles isn't a 3DS title, so you didn't have the SpotPass feature when it came out. You have to either bully someone into playing with you or hopefully have a group of friends playing the game at the same time.

Just so that you can trade away three extra copies of this guy.

I mean, there are a lot of Chao, and they're all really cute, but... it's such a let down that this is what they are now. Just things that Sonic and his party equip. I barely used them, on top of that, because if you don't have a friend to play with, they tend to be not very helpful at all. See, in that picture above, there's a line that says "Level: 1". If you don't have a friend to play with, just get used to that, because the Chao don't level up otherwise. That is crap.

"But... what's your name again? Look, they can't just dump the customizatiable chao thing into this game. That's a really big feature." You say. Right you are, reader. But that's not really an excuse for this, is it? Up until this game, Chao haven't played such a huge role. You need to get the Chao in Sonic Advance, for example, but it's only so that you can get 100% completion, if you want to. Technically, you don't have to use the Chao in Sonic Adventure/Sonic Adventure 2 either, only if you want 100% completion. In this game it's kind of hard not to use them after a while, because it's an RPG and you take what boosts you can get... you could say that you don't have to use them-- I didn't-- but I feel like this game kind of pushes the Chao onto you instead of letting you choose to use the Chao. And even with their current system, there's a way to make improvements. I mean, why can't you have four slots for "Original Chao", where you can breed some of the chao you've found and make four babies with the looks and the name and the skills that you want? Why not have the leveling up feature take place in the Chao Kindergarten, which costs rings depending on level? Why not have the trade feature be one of many features with the chao-- why not also have a "play" option that allows you to level up chao faster than you can in the Kindergarten? I'm asking why they made the Chao, one of the most interesting and fun aspects of new Sonic, so... boring. It's so boring, I barely wrote any jokes into the last two paragraphs. 

This guy gets it.

And while we're on the topic of boring, try repetitive. The battle system is annoying and really, really repetitive, but requires that you watch the screen. It's kind of like playing a rhythm game... but exactly the opposite of that. I mean, the special moves are an absolute mess in my opinion.

I get it, we're playing an RPG... but I don't see why they just didn't go the Persona 3 route and have Sonic tell everyone what he wants them to do generally and then just pick an attack and then go. The "hit detection" on that red circle there is absolutely arbitrary, because sometimes if I drag across quickly, the thing's like, "HOLY CRAP, YOU DID IT!" and other times it's like, "...Man, you suck." It's the same if I go slowly or at the pace of the circle. I've seen other people do it with ease and it makes me wonder if I just suck... but then I remember I did this exact thing in Elite Beat Agents, which I beat on the highest difficulty. So it might just be this game, then.

Err... yeah, I... guess this guy gets it?

On top of that, there's a system where you have to tap on bubbles on the screen or repeatedly tap inside a circle. Why not just have some classic Sonic gameplay in there somewhere? I don't get it-- did BioWare look at the older Sonic games and go, "Yeah... fuck all of that" and then decide to do this? Or were they like, "You run enough on the map screens and to escape battles or chase enemies, no more of Sonic doing Sonic related things at least until the end of this battle, maybe longer"? Are you telling me "Press A to jump, press A two times to hit an enemy" was too hard to do?

OK, so it WAS too hard then?

There's a battle counter on the top screen that's okay... I don't have much to say about it outside of I'm sure you could've done better, BioWare. I have that much faith in you.

Then there's the results screen and the difficulty. No, please, allow me to give you my opinion in .gif form.

Hey, people who are developing Sonic games, Sonic != Devil May Cry. I don't know why you randomly decided we needed to be told we sucked in letter form, but I'll tell you one thing-- if you're going to do it, at the very least make it some kind of fair. I can S rank most things in Sonic games, mostly from repeated plays. I have played this game twice, total, and I can count the number of times I've gotten an S rank on my hands. Which I bet would make you think the game is hard, but it's actually so easy that I just spammed the same move all the time when I realized it literally kills everything, until I couldn't use it anymore (POW uses PP and once that runs out you need to use an item if you're in the field). So, yeah, if you go from  one-hit KOs to taking four or five turns to kill things... you do tend to start getting lower grades. And as the game progressed I found myself getting bored because, while the story is great, you still have to play the game to further it and that is kind of annoying to do. It took me a year to beat this game the first time. Not in hours, I mean. I bought it, played it for like a week, and then switched it out for Rhapsody. I went back to it and beat it in another week. I don't even know how many hours it took. 

But I like this game, I just... don't like this game. Say what you will about Sonic 2006-- and trust me, I take potshots at Sonic 2006 like it's going out of style, but you at least were engaged in it. this game isn't engaging. It was just boring. Like this review. I tied it all together, right Arnold?

Jeez, alright, alright.

Knuckles Chaotix

I promise I’m done looking at Sonic games. Well... no, I can’t promise that. I’m just really into Sonic, pre-Wii era Sonic anyway, and there’s a ton of games featuring Sonic characters that don’t really get that much air time. I mean, let’s face it, when people think about Sonic, they think about the Sonic Quartet-- all Genesis games that were all... well, really great, but still! How many people think of Tails Adventure when they think of Sonic games? Or Sonic Triple Trouble? Or, hell, Knuckles Chaotix?

You shut up.

Despite the fact that damn near no one I’ve met even knew this game existed, Sonic Heroes managed to stick three of the four characters that no one’s ever heard of into its game, making Sonic Heroes responsible for the re-emergence of four characters featured in unpopular games. Yay! But also Big.

Oh god I want to punch you.

Knuckles Chaotix, or just Chaotix, was released on the 32X in 1995. Don’t worry, if you’re like any other sane human being, you probably never played it. That’s because the 32X is a BEAST of a peripheral, requiring its own power source and no more than two connections to the Genesis. It was just difficult. But if you’re like me and you did have the 32X, don’t worry. You’re not insane. But I imagine you were pissed off with the 32X’s power adaptor.

Anyway, Knuckles Chaotix is a strange game as far as Sonic is concerned. Firstly, Knuckles Chaotix is really long, in comparison to most Sonic games. I guess it’s shorter than Sonic 3 and Knuckles, but it was longer than Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles if you looked at the games separately.  So it has a save feature, which is similar to the one in Sonic 3. Yeah, some of you are like, “So what? I beat Sonic 3 in two minutes and I was giving birth and building rockets and playing chess at the same time!” Knuckles Chaotix is much longer, and it’s probably because the gameplay style isn’t the same as any of the other Sonic games until at least around the Gameboy Advance era.

In Sonic 2, SEGA added Tails as a secondary character for two players and since then, Tails has been a re-occuring and relatively welcomed character, despite the fact that for some reason he’s always just building stuff when he can fly and swim. Well, Tails’ inclusion in Sonic 2 pointed out a major flaw in AI at the time. Mostly, AI is stupid. If you don’t want the AI character to beat the game, then you have to dumb it down. But when you do that, the AI starts doing things that you don’t want it to do, like stepping on breakable bridges before you can reach them, or repeatedly killing itself instead of helping you. It is possible to create AI that isn’t completely retarded, but I guess no one thought Tails was that bad in Sonic 2. Boy, were they wrong.

Oh, but I love you anyway! You're so cute!

So Knuckles Chaotix set about it at least trying to make a second player AI that wasn’t dumb. They did this by introducing Ring Power. Ring Power allows for a lot of cool gameplay elements. Ring Power lets you call your partner to you, allows you to have your partner stand still and lets you use them as a sling, and even makes it possible for you to reach high places. But it makes the AI second player pretty much do nothing but follow you around, which, while it sounds awesome, is actually kind of annoying. You could at least count on hilarious Tails deaths with Sonic 2, right?

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

So again, not so much with Knuckles Chaotix. You get to choose from Knuckles, Mighty, Espio, Vector, and Charmy, but if those names confuse you, that’s because these characters are actually from the Sonic Comic series. Yes, there are hundreds more Sonic Furry Pals (TM) that have yet to be seen in the games. For all of you wondering, here’s a picture of what you’re missing:

Also Robotnik is dead and Eggman is a computer version of him from an alternate universe (not pictured)

“Gee whiz,” you say, presumably because you’re from like, the 1950s, “I’m learning a lot about Sonic today, but not too much about Knuckles Chaotix. How about you do your job there, bucko?”

Right, well. About Knuckles Chaotix... Despite it being connected to the Death Egg Saga, it is NOT a part of the Death Egg Saga. (The Death Egg Saga are those games having to do with the creation and use of the Death Egg by Dr. Robotnik.) This game takes place after Sonic and Knuckles, which takes place after Sonic 3, which takes place after Sonic 2. To recap: Dr. Robotnik builds a Death Star-- the Death Egg-- and then is like, “Man, I should totally take over the world,” in Sonic 2. But as it turns out-- if you beat the game-- Sonic doesn’t let that happen.

As it turns out, it wasn't unstoppable.

But, on his way to assured death by falling in Sonic 3, Robotnik’s Death Egg happened to hit Angel Island, a floating island that normally floated over the oceans, covered by clouds to prevent others from noticing its existence. There’s a lot of stuff having to do with legends in the Sonic universe here, but suffice it to say that Knuckles is not stupid, but he IS sheltered. He believed that the Death Egg might have been an egg in a legend, so he (for the most part) pretty much just leaves it be. He’s busy checking the Chaos Emerald Alters when he runs across Robotnik, who REALLY wants to use the Chaos Emeralds to get the Death Egg back into space. To do this, he tricks Knuckles into attacking Sonic, saying something along the lines of “There’s this blue hedgehog and he’s mean and stuff. Also I guess he wants the giant emerald on your floating island and all the other emeralds too, but I totally don’t and in no way am I evil. PS, I came here for the science. PPS, I really like what you’re doing with your quills.” So Knuckles falls for it and tries to stop Sonic from saving the world, but he fails (unless you never beat the game, in which case, he’s waiting for you).  

Sonic and Knuckles deals with the ramifications of the Death Egg hitting the ground, or more specifically, the ramifications of not destroying the Death Egg before. It’s pretty hard to get rid of without someone like Luke Skywalker around.

So anyway, in Sonic and Knuckles, Sonic learns about the Master Emerald, which is what made Angel Island float before Robotnik came along. Also, the Chaos Emeralds, using the power of the Master Emerald, become Super Emeralds. The Super Emeralds are kind of screwed up, so Sonic decides that he will save the day (yet again) and stop Dr. Robotnik’s evil plans, sort of with Knuckles’ help, although there’s no indication that they actually spoke with each other about this, unless you read the comics, which all are loosely based on the games for this particular saga. The Death Egg Saga is completed in Sonic 4, which SEGA is currently butchering as we speak. Anyway, Knuckles Chaotix’ tie in is that after the events of Sonic 3 and Knuckles, a mysterious island shows up and kind of sort of has something to do with Sonic 3.

Behold, we are awesome (and yes, the gray one is missing here)!

A part of the story I skipped in Sonic 3 is that Sonic finds a ring inscribed with mysterious writing, which is what alerts him to the presence of Angel Island, in a really roundabout fashion. Chaotix features those rings as “Chaos Rings,” rings imbued with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. Most of the cast in Chaotix outside of Knuckles go to the new island because... but Knuckles goes because he’s interested in the island that showed up.  Fortunately for Knuckles, but unfortunately for literally everyone else involved, only the new characters are caught by Dr. Robotnik and placed in the Combi Confiner, which freezes them in time. Knuckles first runs into Espio and after saving him, the two of them sally forth towards adventure-- and also they’re going to go defeat Robotnik.

You select a character to use via the Combi Catcher.

There’s a lot you can say about Knuckles, but one of them probably isn’t “he’s immortal.” But in this game, he sort of is. Knuckles Chaotix doesn’t feature lives, and as such, Knuckles and his partner never really die, perse. If you fail super, super hard, then you get sent back to the game lobby, where you save, exit, and switch partners.

Also, you select the stage there.

Other Sonic games are separated into Zones and Acts, but Knuckles Chaotix is separated into Attractions, of which there are five. The reason-- I think-- they’re separated into Attractions is because the Westernized version of the game screwed up the story big time, forgetting that Knuckles guards Angel Island and not Carnival Island. The Western version goes on to make Carnival Island a high-tech amusement park powered by the Chaos Emeralds, which means that the island definitely doesn’t work because Knuckles shouldn’t have the emeralds at this point. Anyway, my point is that a amusement park has attractions, thus the naming convention of “Attractions”. But despite the name, the Attractions are pretty much just Zones, and they’re really weird ones at that. Like I said, there are five Attractions and each Attraction is split into five stages. The time of day changes from stage to stage (depending on the amount of time you spend in the level) but I’ve never had three instances of any particular time of day. There are four different times of day-- Morning, Day, Evening, and Night-- and it only really affects the boss of the stage, if there is one, and the placement of the enemies in the stage, as well as the number of enemies in the stage (somewhat, this probably also has to do with placement). The boss always occurs at the last stage, though.

Marina Madness in the Morning!

The Special Stage occurs at the end of each level, and, for the most part, these special stages are like the sphere special stages in Sonic 3 and Knuckles. They’re fun because they’re in 3D! Of course, this means you can fall off of things and eventually die. So in that sense, not fun. But I like them! The object is to get a Chaos Ring.

On top of special stages, there are bonus stages, which occur when you have 20 rings. It’s pretty cool, but I almost never reach it-- I always have way too many rings by the end of the level-- but it reminds me of a part of Sonic CD that connects this game and Sonic CD in yet another way ( most of the dev team that worked on Sonic CD worked on this, too).

The ring mechanic, which is what makes this game the oddity that it is, is the main focus of just about anyone who talks about the game, mostly because it’s SUPER weird, as far as Sonic games go. You can use the ring, like I said, like a slingshot. Also, it’s used to push down buttons-- one character must stand still while the other pushes the button-- retrieve rings, toss your partner or yourself to new platforms, and so on. But, probably the weirdest thing is the Ring Recall, as I like to call it. The Ring Recall allows you to call your partner when he/it is far away (there are no girls in this game). It is possible to lose your partner, at which time, this move becomes necessary. When you lose your partner and you have no rings, that’s grounds for being sent back to the main room. But, you can call your partner without having rings. When you do this, the ring counter starts showing negative numbers. You can have up to 99 negative rings before the game penalizes you.

Man, these are a lot of words that still don’t really tell you much about the game... well, to be honest, Knuckles Chaotix is just a game you have to play to get. I mean, I can tell you all sorts of things about Knuckles Chaotix, but you won’t really understand it until you play the game-- seriously. Ah, well, I guess we can talk about Metal Sonic. He’s pretty cool and this is the game that followed the release of Sonic and Knuckles and we haven’t seen Metal Sonic in ages so... yeah, let’s talk about him. But from here on out, serious spoilers, you guys.

I assume that Dr. Robotnik (read: the producers) might have actually expected Sonic to be in this game and thus, did not make a new metal creature, like Metal Knuckles or something. But he only exists in Sonic R, which came out after this game. As such, the final boss is totally not Metal Knuckles or Mecha Knuckles (introduced in Sonic Advance and then discarded). It’s Metal Sonic, being badass, you know, because he can. Anyway, it would be SO BORING if it was just regular Metal Sonic, am I right? So SEGA pulled Emperor Metallix from the British Sonic the Comic series and renamed him. Well, he can’t be so bad, I mean Metal Sonic was menacing, but in the same way that an angry puppy is menacing. So Emperor Metalltix must be--

OH SWEET JESUS, HE'S HUGE.

Okay, okay. He’s huge, but he still looks like good ol’ Metal. He’s just red, with some shoulder pads. Plus, they’ll probably tone down the size for the game and--

OH GOD, WHAT ARE YOU

And he is every bit as huge as you think he is. In fact, in this picture, his body and legs are connected but that’s not how it is in the game. He’s actually bigger. Also, I guess this:

YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE HIS WHOLE BODY.

“Question,” you say, shaking your head at the screen. “How is this even possible. Like, as a boss, I mean.”

Oh, as a boss? He blows as a boss. What did you expect, he’s giant and unwieldy.

Metal Sonic Kai mostly just flies around looking super dumb, which is a huge letdown in more ways than one. I mean, teeny-weeny-super-cute Metal Sonic raced Sonic to his death (or Sonic’s death, if you never finished that boss battle) but this guy is like, “Eh, I could kill you guys, but I’m not in the mood. Maybe if you stick a cotton swab on the end of a broomstick and use it to pick my nose?” I’m not going to ruin the final battle for you, but I will tell you this: don’t pick Vector. Seriously, there’s one part where literally any other character does all of nothing and you still will win the game, but for Vector you actually have to push a button. Sad.

We can also talk a bit about the music and the graphics, but there’s really no reason to. You can probably tell from the screenshots that this game looks amazing. Also, SEGA normally writes phenomenal music for the Sonic series, culminating in the soundtrack for Sonic 3 that featured Michael Jackson. I don’t even know how they managed that, he was one of the biggest stars at around that time, wasn’t he? Now, Knuckles Chaotix pales in comparison to the original quartet, but the music is still good. It’s not as catchy as, say Chrome Gadget was, but it’s got it’s own charm to it and all of the music fits the feel of the game. That being said, this game feels like a grand adventure, which might be why it was so hard for me to explain it. It’s a huge, huge game filled with plenty of color, tons of stunning visuals, and a pretty fun game mechanic. All in all, Kunckles Chaotix is a funny little game that came and went, but it definitely deserves a look!