[Nemphtis]

I figured these forums would be buzzing again after that E3 announcement. I just wanted to ask if I was the only one who thought the visuals from the presentation looked pretty lame. I thought the original Golden Sun looked great, the 2D style was nice and it stood out from other RPGs with the colours and sprites. This new 3D style is still quite unique, but doesn't look as sexy to me personally. I'll be waiting until I see more footage, and perhaps it will even grow on me, but at the moment I'm worried about how ugly this game's going to be.

Putting all that aside though, I don't really care for a new Golden Sun unless they're adding something to the series, a new battle system or anything, so if it's just Golden Sun with a new story line, then the semen on my keyboard has been wasted on a false alarm. What are your thoughts on the game's visuals?

[Aquamarine]

The visuals are very good, but nothing more than that honestly. Like you Nem, I absolutely loved the beautiful 2D graphics of the original games and personally like the visuals of GS and TLA more than many 3D games of this generation. It was unique, and had style. They've mostly managed to keep it that way in GS DS, but it seems to have lost some of its... magic.

Of course, it's still way too early to judge.

[Someone Else]

I was waiting for someone to make this topic.

So far I think the visuals are holding promise. It looks largely the same sort of artistic style the original games have. They have the same feel to them despite a transition from 2D to 3D, and that, I think, is already a great achievement in itself.

BUT, as somebody else said elsewhere on these forums, if psynergy, summons, and Djinn don't have an overkill amount of pretty particle effects, it's not going to be Golden Sun. =(

They also need to have the faux lighting effects that Golden Sun had when you were just walking around windows inside and light beams or torches outside. If they don't heads will roll.

[FusionDragon28]

When I saw the visuals, it reminded me of the remake of Final Fantasy 4 for the DS. The one thing I hate about that game was the battle sequences took too damn long.

FD28

[Blue]

Well, I imagined it might be a little different if they did do a 3d version. We haven't seen too much of the game to confirm this though. I hope the Psyenergy abilities are still flashy.

[Max]

Those of us who have spent inordinate amounts of time digging around the GS ROM or playing with the game in an emulator can tell you that Camelot managed to squeeze a ton out of the GBA, and I (as a programmer) was always impressed by the tricks they came up with.

Camelot has a great development team, and I have full faith that they'll be able to repeat and squeeze every last drop of power out of the DS. Looking at the gameplay demo from E3, it looks like the engine is a highly polished version of the 3d engine they emulated in the GBA game engine. I don't think they are departing too much from the old look and feel, and I'm really looking forward to seeing more material.

[happysister]

i agree with Max. Camelot's a good team. if they've been working on this for the past 6 years, i'd doubt it would royally phail. but i think it's too early to determine all that yet. the demo doesn't show you much at all. just enough to let you see that the graphics have tried to stay true to the original 2D. so we don't have enough to go by.

[Toasty]

I highly doubt that they've been working on this for the last 6 years. Two, maybe three, but definitely not six.

Anyway, the only thing I'm disappointed with is the low poly count, but that can't really be helped. The DS has a lot of power, but Nintendo had to go and put limiters on it for the sake of consistent framerate. I guarantee you, however, that you will never see a choppy framerate for any DS games.

[Lukar]

To put it short: I love the new game's style.

[Sothe]

I like the new style. It looks a bit choppier than the previous games, but it'll probably be polished once it's closer to release, and I was glad to see they avoided re-using GS:TLA's graphics.

I hate it when DS games re-use GBA sprites.

[Shadowed Freedom]

It looks good, can't wait for it. I'm on the edge of my seat.

[Toasty]

Sothe, on Sep 27 2009, 02:19 AM, said:

I like the new style. It looks a bit choppier than the previous games, but it'll probably be polished once it's closer to release, and I was glad to see they avoided re-using GS:TLA's graphics.

I hate it when DS games re-use GBA sprites.

It's choppier because they're using 3D graphics, and the Nintendo DS has a low resolution screen with no anti-aliasing support.

[Golden Legacy]

After just replaying through the series again, I'm blown away by the graphics that were done on the GBA... gorgeous color palette, sprites, battle effects, it rivals the presentation of console games.

I'm a little wary about the transition to 3D - the art style is the same but the technical gaps are obvious - but I have faith in Camelot that the final game will have decent visuals.

[LLoyd]

I think the graphic will be way better when it comes out :) (ex: the 1st and 2nd trailer of spirit track were... ew. but look at the game now)