Nintendo Expands Switch Online's GBA Library With Two RPG Classics

Happy dance:

Golden Sun was one of my favorite GBA games years ago. So excited to be able to re-play it.

Some of the best RPGs ever made. Bring back Golden Sun, Nintendo!

What a day! Golden Sun finally on Switch. Now let's see a new one!

Great games! I would love a new entry.

Outstanding news, I'd love to see them continue this series. Even an HD-2D remake from Square would be great!

Teh hype is real in meh!

a whole two games, thank you Mr. Nintendo for this generous offering.

Assuming the transfer of data from the first to the second game will still work, wasn’t it via a password system?

Want a remake for Switch.....hurry....I want a eShop not only NSO and then they close or remove it.

This is so cool! I never played these the first time around. I'm excited

I'm so happy for the people who are going to experience these gems for the first time, and everyone who gets to play them again. Truly some of the best JRPGs of all time!

Will these games likely carry over to Switch 2?

Cool I will give it a shot but where is my zero mission.

I'm pleased that Nintendo gave both games at the same time. It would be obnoxious of them to leave players with the "to be continued" from the first game's ending with no ability to play the next one right away.

This was my first non-Pokémon, non-Zelda RPG game that I played on the GBA in my childhood. Along with Phantasy Star Collection also for GBA. Golden Sun holds an extremely special place in my heart as an absolute top-tier RPG that is just fun to play.
I hope everyone enjoys it!

I don't have the Expansion Pack myself, so I won't be playing any GBA on Switch, but I do have these two on both the original GBA release and the Wii U VC versions already, so I might actually give them another playthrough one of these days hehe.

It's happening!

@Don everything will, if not and they started again we would be in for a twenty year wait for GC games!

@Axecon Thank you I’m excited to play these as well since I heard these were great RPG’s…now I have to wait until I get the expansion pass again since i only have a regular subscription.

Wow, I actually just started to play these on my Odin 2. They've been on my GBA backlog for years. Glad to see they're coming to the switch!

I can't wait to replay them!!

I'm ready to relive these games. The gba era is a really special time for me.

Yes! What a great surprise! I loved these games and can’t wait to play them again! I always wanted Isaac to be in Smash too. At least he was an assist trophy and a Mii costume.

I've only played the first one, but really enjoyed it. Is the second one also good?

Cool! It’s really just Part 1 and Part 2.

Transfer of data can be accomplished with a password

Oh wow! I literally bought the first one for my brother as a Christmas present! Still, the box is very cool and he doesn't have the Online Expansion 😜 guess I'll be trying em too! I adored Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Perhaps I could try and play them all in order now?

Just wish we could just purchase them. Preferably in remaster and or remakes with announcement of a new one on the way.

@andyg1412
That would be nice. It would be awesome if the next console includes a purchase option for these games but that’s probably not going to happen.

i enjoyed Golden Sun when i used to have it for my Gameboy Advance SP a long time ago.

Plus I still have Golden Sun 2 physical game cartridge in my Gameboy Advance SP carrying case and the save battery in the game still works

This is neat. Never finished the 1st one and never even played the 2nd, so this is great to have them on NSO.

They're great rpgs

These are solid games. I wish Camelot would get back to making their charming, straightforward brand of RPG.

Uhhh never played these back in the day so i am excited . I remember being put off by the first game’s slow introduction but nobody has anything negative to say about these. I’ll finally give them a try.

Any opinions on the third game on DS? How is that one?

I'm genuinely happy that a new audience can experience these games. I played through both on the Wii U VC and really enjoyed them. Though I'll admit I used a guide for a certain dungeon in Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn on DS wasn't as good, but I still really enjoyed it. The Belinsk Ruins theme is still one of my fave videos game tracks. Shame there was never another game to resolve its cliffhanger.

@Classic603 Oh very much so. It also finishes and fully explains the story of the first game.

Praise the lord, it finally happen. Now we just need to wait for the two Fire Emblem games too.

Cool.

I'll be looking forward to playing these Golden Sun games.

What is Camelot up to? Since 1999, they have only made Golden Sun, tennis, and golf games. And they only make 1 Mario Tennis and 1 Mario Golf per console. With Switch's long lifespan, they HAVE to be cooking up a non-sports game. Is it a Golden Sun?

@Yoshif3 The first game does indeed start out a bit slow. I'm glad I stuck with it though. Golden Sun: The Lost Age is the better of the two and pretty much picks up where the first game left off. In fact, they were meant to be one huge game, but they were split due to hardware constraints.

I quite liked Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, though it was a step down from the previous two. It's one I'd recommend if one really enjoys the series. It has some good points - part of the soundtrack and some interesting characters (Sveta!) - but also has its share of issues. Namely with points of no return, easier combat and puzzle difficulty up until the huge difficulty spike that's the final boss (It's very easy to coast through most of the game with Djinn summons), and a ton of text. To be fair with that last point, the entire Golden Sun series is pretty windy. And I've played a LOT of RPGs by this point lol.

Fun fact: Nintendo has only ever developed 4 RPG's. Despite publishing tons of successful ones, they're usually made by Game Freak, Monolith Soft, HAL, Intelligent Systems, or Camelot. No one thinks of those 4: Miitopia, Ring Fit Adventure, and 2 portable Japan-only games by Sakamoto's team called Card Hero. I think they secretly see leveling up as an uncreative progression system in their design philosophy.

@Thomystic They also team up with Capcom to make We Love Golf! for the Wii as well but other than that yeah they had been mostly about Mario Golf and Mario Tennis rehash since. I don't know if I should feel sorry for them or applaud them cause I'm not sure if they choose to only focus on Mario Golf and Mario Tennis time and time again or if they really want to make another RPG but Nintendo kept telling them no. Whatever the case it seem they like the position they're at now, the story in Dark Dawn is still incomplete and it seem they rather leave it like that than to return and actually complete it.

@Thomystic So RPGs from Game Freak, Monolith Soft, HAL, Intelligent Systems, and Camelot doesn't count as Nintendo made? Not sure how that works since all 5 are indeed part of Nintendo. Heck Intelligent Systems themselves were also the dev that design dev kits for Nintendo and their partners within the company such as the GBA and Nintendo DS dev kit as well as the Nitro emulator used for the Nintendo Wii U VC.

Add this to the list of "games I should play but am not particularly interested in at the current moment"

@Tyranexx thanks for the opinion. I think I’ll give them a chance. Gotta look for the 3rd one for my old R4 😉

i wish these games could have been remastered for the switch...

WHAAAAAATTTTTTT
THIS IS AMAZING. ATTENTION, EVERYONE, IT’S HAPPENING!!

These games are so good, hoping for an new entry in the next year!

I shouldn't say this while having not played more than a few hours of SMT and zero Persona, but Golden Sun is right up there with Bravely Default as top tier, standard, turn based RPGs. There's better stories in the genre, but they basically all come with very different battle systems or less enjoyable battles imo. Especially ones defined by being Nintendo handheld games. Love them to death, hope there's a large renewed interest in the series.

@somnambulance it did get a direct announcement tho

I need to play these along with The Minish Cap. Only played a little bit of Golden Sun when it came out. Now's a good time to revisit it.

@Thomystic what about Earthbound?

OMG I am like 5 hours in on Goldensun on my Miyoo Mini right lol.

Neat, now people can pretend they care about Golden Sun and then ignore it again after a week or so of posting how much they love the series and how Nintendo suck for not making another one.

I had the first game but it never clicked for me. I just couldn't get into it.

Not sure if having them here now is enough to get a sub. They might be cool for the kids but they are already swarmed with a backlog as it is anyways.

I’d rather purchase them and play them anytime I choose than have to rely on an internet connection at the dangdest times to check in.

Played a lot of GBA games back in the day but I can’t say I ever played Golden Sun. I wasn’t really into RPG’s back then unless it was Pokemon. Definitely willing to give these games a chance now.

It's here!!

It's literally Zelda meets Final Fantasy, it's amazing! Curious if the music will be as loved by new players as it was by me! 🤎🤎🤎🤎

So, so, so happy! I probably won't be replaying Golden Sun any time soon but I'm glad more people can discover this gem of an RPG 🥳

@GameOtaku You don't need internet connection all the time when playing these games. You just need to be online every seven days.

@Daniel36 With a slightly tweaked encounter rate and exp. Distributal this game would be unstoppable! And think of the gorgeous remaster of the Lighthouses, the woods, the elemental rocks and THAT place, they could do! 🤎

Will be sure to give them a try. They're apparently real good, so, you know, may as well!

@RobotReptile Is it? These games have been available on emulators for decades now.

This release is very much good news, I hope.
One the one hand, it means they haven't totally forgotten the series. On the other, relegated to a sub service without any real promise of a new release or remake.
So many ppl are gonna enjoy these.

Phone rings...person picks up (alarms buzzing on one side, cheerful Super Nintendo World sounds on the other)...

"Sir Miyamoto, can you read me? Nintendo HQ here, we have a problem...Leon is entering the last "phase" of Tears of the Kingdom and we have nothing to satisfy him after that...what are your orders". "No worries HQ, Leon is a very slow gamer, so even the last "phase" of Tears of the Kingdom will keep him busy for a while...and look at his backlog...pfffff...142 games (why isn't he gaming more hours than he is doing right now?...Well sir...not everyone has the privilege of remaining a child forever...) but to be sure just upload the Golden Sun games to NSO GBA. If our collected data about his gaming history is correct, GBA-era-games tend to soothe him easily and keep him occupied until the next direct drops. For now I have to go...I have...uhmmm...some urgent matters to attend to over here...so uhhh...ganbatte, Miyamoto out."

Me after seeing this announcement and looking at my backlog: whooopwhooop ...and uhhhh...I am really sorry backlog-games I have never played before but could possibly easily fall in love with, our first dates have to wait a bit longer...I have to revisit a few long lost loves for now, but I promise I will come back to you some day.

@Axecon @LikelySatan Yeah these are real gems (such as a lot of the GBA-era games) . If I recall correctly, there was a topic somewhere in the past week(s) about which games you would like to be able to forget, so you can experience them all over again...Golden Sun is such a game for me (and the second and even the third one as well).

@LadyCharlie as opposed to what Gameboy, GBA,Nes,Snes, Megadrive , etc games which aren't?

Like these are legitimate releases, I'm sure you have to actually get all the right holders to agree that it can go up on NSO . Like all them Sega games didn't go up without an agreement with Sega that they could and I'm sure some sort of payment deal was agreed.

Ugh, not for me as I don't like RPGs. Metroid Zero Mission please!

@BigBluePanda Indeed, you could use a cable but there is also a password system. You have to connect them if you want to 100% The lost age.

That's a huge W for Nintendo. These are one of the most creative and best RPGs on the GBA.

@KoopaTheGamer
I just wish you could buy them like you could with the DLC offered via NSO (or what other similar services like PS+ does with its retro games)

while its not a constant online connection im still not a fan of single player games requiring any form of online in order to access them (outside of the initial download) , especially retro games, considering there are still games i love to return to every now and then.

It's cool I guess, although I already have it on my analogue pocket lol. I hope there's new entry for the switch or switch 2

Give this franchise the Mario rpg treatment and revive it. It's a shame as they were great rpg's, never played the third on the DS though. Hopefully Nintendo will give this IP some love on Switch 2.

Finally! Golden Sun is one of my most beloved games ever. I was a kid when I was so hyped about it, reading news about it, then playing on the emulator and finally buying it for my GBA. It's one of these games that don't disappoint when you compare them to your expectations, at least for me. I only played the sequel briefly and it seems to lack the magic of the original, but I'll give it a chance on Switch.

Never played them but looks cool as heck.

It always takes me by surprise that the Japanese yt channel does a super basic trailer for these releases that only shows gameplay snippets, while here it's always 1 dedicated background music track with fancy in-between messages and sometimes there's even narration.

It sounds like NOA really wants to push for these games. That said, I'm well above letting a fancy trailer influence my decision on games.

But yeah, It's as if Japan sees these releases as nostalgic bonuses and not something to sell systems or subscriptions.

Golden Sun & Lost Age deserve a new fan base and I’m stoked for 1st time players to experience these afresh. LOVE THESE GAMES.
May they never know the struggle of copying that Rosetta Stone Hieroglyph million character Password from HELL to carry over to the second cartridge save state.

I was just replaying my old cart of Golden Sun on the Analogue Pocket so this will be perfect timing to finally play the follow up. A bit too chatty at times but such a vibrant fun game.

@BigBluePanda The GBA versions included both a password system and a transfer system, the later needing 2 GBAs and a link cable. If you had a link cable and access to a second GBA (or a GBPlayer), either you owned or through borrowing, you would just transfer. If not, you'd use the lengthy password system.

This sounds like it is somehow emulating transfer ability, but of course password is also built in.

Now this... Is Epic

Wait!? Golden Sun has co-op?

Love these games. But man do I want them to be remade. Remade as 3D game, with the gameplay style similar to DQXI

Started to play the Jenna rom hack version not long ago

I played the first one back in the day, it's a great rpg. I remember finding the visuals particularly impressive for a handheld system at the time.

@Yoshif3 No problem! Golden Sun is a good series, not quite top shelf like the Xenoblade, Final Fantasy, DQ, or Trails series, but definitely worth trying out.

Pleeeease put these on a cartridge and then I will buy them. Added bonus would be to redo the sprites, but, I'll start with just physical media please ^_^

Guess I am finally upping my subscription. oops

The classics finally return! Can't wait to jump back in again

@KoopaTheGamer
Just having the internet connected to the switch once a week isn’t enough. The switch has to want to check in. Every time I’ve subscribed a month or so I’ve always only had access two weeks out of the four I’d paid for. It always wants to check in around 10 pm when I’m at home with no connection on a Saturday and I don’t feel the special need to make a special trip to town burning expensive gas just to connect to the internet! It would be better to just buy them individually and play them indefinitely with no restrictions. Especially since to get these I’d have to pay $50 a year for something I’ll only be able to play for about half of that time on a service on which most of its features I’ll never use!

We had The Lost Age growing up but not the first game haha. I vaguely remember being stuck within the first half hour.

It wasn't until like 2018 that I played the first game on Wii U VC. Sublime music by Sakuraba Motoi (Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos) is instantly recognizable. Beautiful graphics, fun battles, and that kind of simplistic, charming, nostalgic style of story-telling perfectly attuned to its era of RPG combine to make Golden Sun worth playing.
But, to be honest, I could take it or leave it with the obtuse exploration.

I'm sure I wrote down the password. Maybe it's time to try out the sequel properly lol

@GameOtaku Yeah. I'd prefer Virtual Console style separate purchases as well, but I don't really mind the subscription service either. Relatively inexpensive in my opinion, and my Switch is almost always connected to the internet as well. But I can definitely understand that it's not for everyone.

@KoopaTheGamer
Like that meme why not both. I certainly don’t play online which kinda defeats the point of an “online play” subscription. They’d make money either way.

that took forever. Finally the best games on GBA are available

@GameOtaku wouldn’t it help to connect with your phone just to pass the check?

@Yoshif3
Not when you can’t reliably connect it’s not. Believe it or not internet doesn’t exist everywhere. Even if it was I wouldn’t be using the online service outside of the classic games and that is an ongoing yearly fee compared to buying games I’d play indefinitely.

@Friendly Not developed by Nintendo.

@Serpenterror I said Camelot has made only Golden Sun, golf, and tennis games. And you said also a golf game.

Also I said "developed" but you countered with the far less precise term "made." Games developed even by second party studios are not developed by Nintendo internally.

Surprisingly though, Nintendo has internally developed more RPGs than old school Enix who was only ever a publisher.

Wow JUST restarted Golden Sun this week. Never beat it. Always get stuck in the same place around the 19 hour mark.

Nice! I've recently been stretching out to other RPGs other than Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi recently, so I'll definitely try these out.

Yes!! Man I got SO excited when GBA was first announced for NSO. GBA and DS are ridiculously nostalgic for me. GBA and even Game Boy instantly make NSO ten times better.

Now just Pokemon, Nintendo!! Saving Pokemon for the Switch 2 launch, hmmm?

Go look at my avatar everyone.

@Thomystic true. But the company that developed it had Iwata at the head at the time. So it was Nintendo by heart 😏

Don't get me wrong they are good games, but I've never seen the genius in these. Very much by the book borderline boring story and lore. Presentation is great for the console it runs on. It's got interesting mechanics that are not really well used and okay puzzle solving.
Second game is better than the first.

@Yoshif3 you may have gotten dozens of responses already but my opinion on Dark Dawn is that it fails as a sequel because it doesn’t feel like it takes place in the same world as the previous games, and commits the sin of undercutting the victory of last game by “oh actually there are side effects”
Not to mention there are very few returning characters and those who do appear don’t feel very consequential or continuous from before.
That said I do like the new party members pretty well.
Over all it felt more like an inferior reimagining than a proper sequel.

@Dark_Isatari ahhh I get you. It’s the same feeling I got about the Tales of Symphonia sequel. Sounds like it and a reason why people tend to forget the 3rd one exists. Thanks for your opinion.

@GameOtaku I never knew it needs to check in at specific times.

@Friendly Earthbound was developed by Hal Labs and Ape Inc.

@Yoshif3 that is a great comparison, though I would say the Symphonia sequel is worse XD

@BTB20
Yeah I opened and closed the nes and snes apps several times when I was connected and it never checked (no way to force it to check either). I thought since that was the case since the 30 days would be up in the middle of the week I’d be set till the next check on Saturday and enjoy them until then……nope it knew when the sub was up and cut me off.

Wahoooooooo! Let’s see if 30 year old me can get further than 13 year old me this time round

@BTB20 Iwata was the CEO of Hal at the time, though

@LadyCharlie lol. "Psssh, Super Mario RPG has been available on emulators for decades now c'mon Nintendo. Paper Mario TTYD? I just emulate it, release real games Nintendo. Wow, they're releasing 2 of the best games on GBA? Might as well just throw my Switch away - "LadyCharlie, 2024.

@Friendly And? Hal is not part of Nintendo. Iwata didn't work at Nintendo at the time. Only way later he went to Nintendo. Ape Inc. was cofounded by Nintendo btw. Still doesn't mean the game was developed by Nintendo.

@BTB20 yeah, more commenters have already said that before you.

But what’s a company other than a bunch of people with a certain spirit? Most of the workers of Hal then are Nintendo now. So the game is the current Nintendo in spirit.

@Thwomp_Stomper https://media2.giphy.com/media/xT5LMpErjwfVHUfupi/200w.gif?cid=82a1493bsnpqgbqfhzpwiypnmcl6wajrsvil6dnomdabxep7&ep=v1_gifs_related&rid=200w.gif&ct=g

@SwitchVogel I thought they were developed by Camelot not Square

@OldManHermit The art direction carries it a long way

@Antraxx777 You're right, they were! No reason Nintendo couldn't license a remake out to Square if they wanted to though

Very cool. Never was able to play these.

Hot damn. The overlords at Nintendo have listened to us and have blessed us with what we want: all of these remasters and ports! What a happy year already. Paper Mario Thousand Year Door and golden sun. Incredible start to 2024. These are games that are pivotal to replay for me. These games are what got me into JRPGS and RPS outside of Pokémon. I quickly followed it up with tales of symphonia and got me ready for the powerhouse that was PP TYD.

Thank you Nintendo, and I really mean it. More please! I’ve got disposable income.

@jorel262 I really hope that they match my memories of playing them day 1. Odds are yes they will! It’s like when people tell you that Chrono Trigger is a must play. A staple in the GBA days.

Downloading right now!

I'd consider buying them as a package. Not interested in giving Nintendo a yearly fee to retain permanent access to them.

Cheat Code to rename everyone in your party.

At the title screen press:

Up, Down, Up, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Up, Right, Down, Left, Up and then Select. You'll hear a chime.

Works on both games!!

Ad a kid I could never beat the final boss as I relied entirely on power and summons. As a grown up with 25 years worth of Pokemon experience, I learnt the benefit of status moves and a few years ago came back and slaughtered that beast!

One thing I hadn't expected with this new release is that it's SOOO nice to play with the original hardware filters and smaller screen - the game's colour palette, sprite work, and text boxes were designed with the GBA's screen in mind and previous emulation on Wii U and playing rom hacks on computer miss this LCD filter.

I just tried booting up Golden Sun on my old 2004 DS and the backlight colours on the top screen seem brighter than the colour palette I have on my TV with the game via NSO (using original hardware LCD-esque filter). The colours feel a bit yellowed and off from memory and from the NSO version, but at least capture the grainy LCD filter that the GBA has. I tried booting up my old GBA SP but it won't turn on even when charged — I think the on/off switch may have some issue on the inside. Will have to get it looked at. If I can find a blue or purple GBA around my house somewhere I'll test the colour of NSO against non-backlit GBAs, but I get the feeling that the darker color during the Vale Storm that I got with NSO emulation + LCD screen filter captured the colour feel of the game more than the DS backlit LCD top screen, and definitely hits the dark of the storm correctly.

Notably, turning off that feature makes all the sprites cleaner, but loses some of the contour and shading and makes the colour all feel a bit too bright.

I tried playing with small screen size vs full screen size and the game's resolution definitely feels more proper in the small screen size. I guess if you took off the LCD filter the full-screen would work, but LCD filter + full screen makes it feel like I can see way too many of the individual pixels, and everything feels a bit jerky and wrong. I think the game really relies on the smaller resolution and the LCD filter to smooth out a lot of the raw edges, and that's the most comfortable way to play it. Even on my huge TV, the smaller screen version feels small enough that the resolution doesn't feel any more "raw" than it did playing on GBA or DS.

I wish I could change the filters while in the game rather than having to exit out to GBA games menu and change the options there before loading back in to a save state.

Also, this has finally given me the impetus to download the Japanese versions of the NSO historic hardware apps. Rewind features makes it so much easier to explore the Golden Sun script and fan-translate the game for comparison against the official NOA translation (a personal project of mine, to clean up the errors on the Golden Sun Universe wiki, part of NIWA).

This is a dream come true. Finally!

I still have these on the GBA and WiiU. What are your favorite dungeons from each game?