So I've been thinking of the Golden Sun series for quite a while, and I think it's high time we had some new material.
Camelot looks like they've given up on the offer to make a new one for enough request, and I don't think they'd be up to it anymore.
Nintendo also hasn't even mentioned the games in six years besides virtual consoles.
So with the development of Open Golden Sun, I think we should take matters into our own hands, and make a game that makes the six year wait worth it.
I propose:
Golden Sun: The Convert Dusk
Setting-
Golden Sun: The Convert Dusk (or GSCD or TCD) is an episodic adventure taking place hundreds of years after the end of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. The world is in a new golden age, but the dangers of alchemy begin to resurface, and the heroes learn why alchemy was sealed in the first place as they journey to return the world to a balanced state.
Concepts-
The fundaments from Dark Dawn return, but not they way you'd think. Instead of being true "elements" they are two sides of a whole, and can be wielded by anyone.
:Luna:"Luna", the fundament of shadow, represents: cold, solitude, calm, healing through recuperation, and damage through deterioration
:Sol:"Sol", the fundament of light, represents: heat, company, excitement, healing through invigoration, and damage through overwhelming
Neither has an alignment towards morality, only approaches to the world.
In addition there are no luna or sol spells, nor are there any luna or sol adepts. Instead, elemental psynergy spells, djinn, and summons may be aligned towards one fundament, giving radically different effects than usual for the element.
Due to the events in Dark Dawn, a new game mechanic will be introduced, the eclipse event.
What is an eclipse event?
An eclipse event is a mechanic that benefits the player in battle through careful planning, although you may just get lucky.
When does an eclipse happen?
An eclipse event can occur at random, but is very rare, only happening about ten times through the entire game.
Alternatively, there is a meter that shows up during battle. This meter looks something like this:
:Unknown: :Unknown: :Unknown: :NeutralStar: :Unknown: :Unknown: :Unknown:
When you cast any fundament-aligned ability, the meter fills up.
For example:
Isaac (not a party member) casts vertigo (venus-luna)
:Unknown: :Unknown: :Unknown: :NeutralStar: :Luna: :Unknown: :Unknown:
Garet (not a party member) unleashes blind! :MarsDjinni: (mars-sol)
:Unknown: :Unknown: :Sol: :NeutralStar: :Luna: :Unknown: :Unknown:
And so on
When the meter increases, so do your chances of activating an eclipse event! In fact, when the meter is completely full your next turn is guaranteed to be an eclipse event. But be careful, filling up one side of the meter much more than the other can lead to consequences.
What does an eclipse do?
Glad you asked! It's not like I wasn't going to answer it whether you like it or not.
During an eclipse event, two of your party members will be able to combine attacks for one turn. This can range from super-buffing someone for one powerful attack, to combining a spell with a summon. Hopefully, this will greatly increase the strategy in battle and make for some amazing memories.
Story, party members, and more mechanics soon.
Some of this kinda sounds like Rolina's ideas around light/dark stuff; I wonder what she thinks about a lot of this?
The concepts are similar, but I did come up with this before I found this forum, besides it's better to have all the ideas in one location
Part 2:
Characters-
Note: None of these characters are fleshed out, if you have any suggestions, please leave them below.
Venus:
- A girl who recieved a message from an ancient hero. She is tasked by the long-dead holder of the Golden Sun to deactivate the lighthouses to save the world from a war over alchemy. Type: Mage
Mars:
- A half-proxian who wants to clear his race's name by making up for the evil that Saturos, Menardi, Karst, and Agatio did. Has access to monster skills in addition to psynergy. Type: Warrior
Mercury:
- An inept, has no access to psynergy. However, through use of martial arts and chi, he can emulate typeless psynergy. Can also change his attack's elements using djinn. Type: Warrior
Jupiter:
- Sveta 2.0, probs male, I dunno. Type: Mage/Hybrid
Other:
- A venus adept, his significant other died many years ago. Due to his access to the revive spell, and due to her being a jupiter adept (mind element), she fights alongside him from beyond the grave. Type: Warrior
- A descendant of Kraden, like him, he has no psynergy. But he makes up for it by having access to alchemy, being able to cast completely unique spells. Type: Mage
- An inept, he makes use of items such as Weasel's claw and Oil drop. To make up for his lack of psynergy, he is very practiced in combat. Type: Warrior
Again, if you have any ideas, please put them below.
Part 3: Elements
Venus-
Venus is the element of earth and man. Sub-elements are:
- Rock (spire, quake, gaia, etc.)
- Crystal (inspiration from Rolina)
- Nature (thorn, bramble, punji)
- Spirit (revive, call spirit, haunt)
Mars-
Mars is the element of fire and dragons. Sub-elements are:
- Flame (flare, fire)
- Explosions (blast)
- Energy (beam)
- Mystic (fume, dragon cloud)
Jupiter-
Jupiter is the element of wind and birds. Sub-elements are:
- Wind (whirlwind, gale)
- Electricity (ray, plasma)
- Astral (astral blast)
- Mind (mind read, reveal)
Mercury-
Mercury is the element of water and fish. Sub-elements are:
- Water (douse)
- Ice (ice, cool)
- Acid (my concept)
- Divinity (ply, wish)
Fundaments:
No elements or adepts are fundamentally-alligned. Instead, a small list of unleashes, psynergy, djinn, and summons are fundamentally-alligned.
Sol-
Sol is the offensive fundament, relying on direct attacks, attack buffs, and enemy defence de-buffs. Theoretically, a true sol "element" would be the most extreme glass-cannon possible.
Luna-
Luna is the defensive fundament, relying on indirect attacks, defence buffs, and enemy attack de-buffs. Theoretically, a true luna "element" would be the most extreme tank possible.
Note: I think taking inspiration from the list of pokemon moves would be beneficial for new psynergy moves and powers.
Figure I could get this out of the way:
Why Umbra? Would not Luna make more sense, considering the names of literally every other element and fundament?
Hey Rolina! Nice to see you here, as for why, it was midnight when I wrote this. :Sweat:
EDIT: And there, fixed
Nice to see me here? Uh... thanks I guess? (I think I was the sixth member to sign up here or something super early like that...)
Noticed you assign Acid to mercury. You gonna change the elements of Acid Bath and Acid Bite then? Acid's Mars in vanilla.
As a quick reminder, I believe that GSHC (Classics) generally existed ~1~2 year (rounding figures are okay, right?) before the SMF version came. (It was InvisionFree>omgforum>SMF)
At this point, anyone who had arrived to see the GSHC Classic days of who is still here deserves a gold medal. (And maybe even a Legacy rank or something?)
--
Luna works..
Good point about Acid stuff..
QuoteNote: I think taking inspiration from the list of pokemon moves would be beneficial for new psynergy moves and powers.
Pokemon graphics on the way? (Only assuming if there are no other alternative better-looking graphics.)
Haha, sorry if that came off weird. I was saying that it was nice to see you critiquing my thread, I was especially surprised due to your aforementioned earliness to this forum.
Acid is mercury because I wanted mercury to have anything cool (pun unintended)
And steam explosions are geysers aren't? Seemed like the obvious way to go to me. I trust you've already re-assigned the various acid abilities to be Mercury instead of Mars then?
Oh... also ice lasers, because ice can make prisms, so you can straight up have ice-based light attacks.
Oh, also powerful waves, because water and stuff.
Oh, also the unfathomable depths of the abyss, because oceans be scary yo.
Oh, also cursed mists and haunted fogs.
Oh, also those mists that aren't actually vapor but are totally ice and you wind up breathing in ice and it destroys your lungs... that's a real thing too.
Oh, and water lasers, because that's also a real life thing.
Plenty of cool stuff you can do with Mercury, and with all elements. Just need to think creatively. Also, seriously - check some real world stuff out about Ice, Water, Steam, and related weather phenomenon. There's some crazy stuff out there. Here, I'll get you started: Look up "Pycrete".
Hell, if anything acid's gonna cause more problems here. Stuff's tough to work with in comparison.
You bring up good points, but my problem is that I wanted each element to have four sub-elements to its name
Abyss could work though, shadow to the venus/crystal's light.
Okay... what about the redundant subelements then? How is flames different than dragons made of flame? And the subelements that consist purely of healing for one, but healing falling into other subelements for other elements (ex: Cure, Aura, Boon, etc)?
For the mystic element, I was trying to give each element a spiritual type subelement, I admit it isn't the best of categorizations. To be fair, as far as I know, mars is the only element that uses it's patron animal in standard psynergy.
And as for healing, I gave it divinity because mercury healing is by far the best and deserves its own category. Also I thought I could give it themed psynergy, like a prayer to call down a smiting on your enemies.
I just felt like mentioning this, there's a risk that the Nintendo will come and shut down this project, such things have happened before. :(
Yeah I thought of that too, but that would actually be a good thing because that means that there's a pretty good chance of them being in the process of making a new golden sun game, ie. AM2R vs. Metroid: Samus Returns
Quote from: Eon713 on 19, June, 2017, 10:35:22 AM
For the mystic element, I was trying to give each element a spiritual type subelement, I admit it isn't the best of categorizations. To be fair, as far as I know, mars is the only element that uses it's patron animal in standard psynergy.
And as for healing, I gave it divinity because mercury healing is by far the best and deserves its own category. Also I thought I could give it themed psynergy, like a prayer to call down a smiting on your enemies.
So what will you do about the limiting factor that places mercury under? Wouldn't an entire sub-element dedicated to a single type of spell, while those types could be freely placed in other sub-categories in other elements, lock down Mercury to 3 sub-elements +healing, while the other elements get free reign with 4 full subelements?
If I wasn't clear enough, I said that divinity/mercury would be getting new spells that do more than heal
My apologies, must have misread it. I see it now.
How do you plan to implement the fundaments exactly? How does one become capable of casting Sol or Luna spells? Or are they not aligned to spells themselves, but to general traits of spells?
Something like that, most spells don't have a fundament, but those that do have effects that vastly differ from the norm.
So... both of the things I asked? How does that work?
Sorry, I should have been more clear. There are neutral spells, sol spells, and luna spells. But they are all primarily an element.
Examples:
Mars-Neutral: Pyroclast
Venus-Luna: Vertigo (debuff)
Mercury-Sol: Shining (high damage, low AoE)
How will you integrate Neutral, Sol, and Luna into the class system? What would dictate a class focusing on Neutral spells over Sol or Luna spells? Do you have a kind of systematic approach to it, or do you go for the "gut feeling" sort of approach?
A bit of a mix honestly, I much prefer systematic things as they are hard to mess up, but the original Golden Sun Classes tend to be "gut-feeling".
Most spells are neutral, an adept would most likely only have around six total "alligned" spells at hand.
What I've done so far is go with my gut, and then look at it objectively to find whether it has too much going for it or too little.
By the way, I had a read of your Golden Sun Signatures, is that still a thing? Also, I saw a mention of a class design guide that included the differences between dual symbiotic, neutral, and opposite. Is that something I can access or was it never made? It would really help.
Nah, between full time work and part time school, I don't really have the time I used to to work on those things. Sorry. Could you link to where the design guide mention was? Odds are it's pretty old, and I might have a very different approach now...
No need to be sorry, you good.
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2122.msg38030#msg38030
Under "Where to begin"
Ah, you're referring to tri-element classes. Hmm... Might be able to help you there then. Do you have Microsoft Excel? If not, do you at least have Open Office Calc?
I have excel
Cool. Do you have discord as well? If you join the GSHC discord channel, I can transfer the file easy for ya. Keep in mind it's an incomplete version - I'm still working on typing out a lot of stuff, and it's going to be getting quite a bit of tweaking here and there - but the core functionality that you might be interested in - the character creation and class system - you should find useful at least. Keep in mind though that this is very much my approach to things, so I think you'll find it useful perhaps as a reference to understand my perspective on things, but depending on how you want to do things it may not be the best tool for you. It's all up to how you want to do things in the end.
Yeah i have a discord
https://discord.gg/kn78BEK
This is the discord for the GSHC - join it and I can share the xlsx with you. It's too big to attach here sadly, but it's not over the discord transfer threshold.
i'm in, thanks!
A lot of interesting concepts here. Keep it up would be interested to see of these implemented into a hack.