Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is a role-playing video game developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS. The third entry in the Golden Sun series, Dark Dawn was released in late 2010, becoming the fifth-best selling game during its release window in Japan.
| Golden Sun: Dark Dawn | |
|---|---|
North American box art | |
| Developer(s) | Camelot Software Planning |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Director(s) | Shugo Takahashi |
| Producer(s) | Hiroyuki Takahashi Shugo Takahashi Toshiharu Izuno |
| Designer(s) | Hiroyuki Takahashi Shugo Takahashi |
| Artist(s) | Shin Yamanouchi |
| Writer(s) | Hiroyuki Takahashi |
| Composer(s) | Motoi Sakuraba |
| Series | Golden Sun |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo DS |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Role-playing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Dark Dawn is set thirty years after the events of the first two games and follows the descendants of the earlier games' heroes. Players control characters as they travel through the fictional world of Weyard. The game utilizes gameplay elements pioneered by its predecessors, primarily the use of magic called "Psynergy" to defeat enemies and discover new locations, help local populations, and find elemental djinn which can augment the player's powers.
The game was generally well received by critics, receiving a 79% rating on the review aggregation website Metacritic, although its score was lower than both of its predecessors. Dark Dawn was praised for successfully transitioning the 2D-style graphics of its predecessors into 3D and for being relatively easy for newcomers to the franchise to play. However, critics noted that the game shared shortcomings present in previous games, such as excessive in-game dialogue, and that the features of the Golden Sun series that were refreshing when the original games were released now felt dated.