Taste is subjective, of course and this isn't meant to impugn anyone who likes Golden Sun, but even accounting for time and platform I can't for the life of me understand the high ratings for this game. The story is largely incoherent and bland, and both the characters and the world lack any defined personality despite the huge amount of text in the game—it feels like a bit like a cautionary tale about how more isn't usually better, especially considering how hollow traversing the large and empty map feels. It's not much better to play, either—the puzzles tend to be fairly similar, which wouldn't be a problem if there was any sense of increasing difficulty or iteration on them. The battle system is pretty similarly uninteresting, with summons doing most, if not all, of the work for the bosses—any regular enemy isn't much more than cannon fodder.

I wish I got it. But two Fire Emblems, the GBA Tactics Ogre, Superstar Saga, Ruby and Sapphire, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and Battle Network 3 came out no later than two years after this for the GBA, and while none of them are purely a JRPG like Golden Sun is, they all feel miles ahead of Golden Sun, which doesn't feel like much of anything.