Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Prima Official Game Guide

Like several of the other reviewers have said, this game guide does *not* have any information on the different classes available for using more than one type of elemental Djinn (spirits which can be attached to your characters to increase their stats, be used in battle to perform various actions, or summoned in battle for a powerful attack) or which monsters drop which items. Information like this, which can be helpful for people interested in more than just completing the game or completing the game with all the Djinn, is available at various gaming websites like [...] and will likely become more detailed/complete as people update and finish their guides.As for what's in this guide, you have a pretty good introduction to how the game is played and a detailed walkthrough telling you how to progress in the story and where items/Djinn are located along the way. It's not 100% perfect in picking up items - for example, if there's supposed to be an item in a barrel, check the surrounding barrels or boxes around the area - but it does a very good job with where and when Djinn and treasure chests can be obtained, especially where or when to go back if your current party is unable to obtain it at the first time you see it.In summary, this guide does lack information that more seasoned RPG players or those familiar to the Golden Sun series may find helpful, but it has most of the basics that a casual or first-time player would need to complete the story and would be a decent purchase for novice and repeat players of the games in the Golden Sun series.

The first game didn't even have an official guide until The Lost Age was released.Anyway, I preordered this guide soon after I noticed it had a page on this site. To be honest, I'm rather disappointed with it. How is it possible that a previous Golden Sun guide - made by the very same people, no less! - should contain far more information than a guide for a newer game in the series? You should look at your previous work as a jumping point, no?This guide is missing a section about the weapons and armor. It's missing a section about the various Classes and psynergy spells that can be at your characters' disposal. Also, while I personally wouldn't find much use for it, there is no bestiary. I believe the hypothetical section about the Classes and spells would have been immensely valuable because it's makes up so much of what makes Golden Sun unique and popular like it is. And sure, we can all go back and pretend like we're playing the first Golden Sun when it didn't have an official guide for itself and we can go onto GameFAQs, but we shouldn't need to when we have an official strategy guide in our possession.Bottom line: This guide will get you from the start of the game to its conclusion, but as far as RPG guides go, this is a sad and sorry excuse for one. It's missing many essentials.

I had intended to play Dark Dawn without a guide, seeing as I had no problems with TLA and it's predecessor. Got all the Djinn, hidden weapons, hidden dungeons, summons, everything. Dark Dawn seems to not want to allow that though; at multiple point in the game, large chunks of area you previously had access to get "forever lost." If you want everything, do yourself a favor and get the guide.

Arrived exactly as indicated by the seller. The attention to detail is typical of a Prima guide. Highly recommended if you can find a clean copy like I did.

A competent overview of an excellent game, with very helpful maps and lists of nescessary items. This is a game that I want to play again, using this guide to get the most out of the game, catching the things I missed. It is definitely worth getting.

a good companion for those tricky puzles and hard to find items and stratgeies for boss battle, a very good find

This guide is quite informative, and if you actually bother to go through it, it gives instructions on how to obtain each of the Djinn. I would recommend this guide to anyone who wants to ensure that they miss nothing as they play the game.

It was good

Being a huge fan of the Golden Sun series, I got the game on release and played it through once without consulting anything. Having obviously missed a fair bit, due to the two "points of no return" in the game, I decided to play it again, this time using some kind of guide.Usually, I use the internet for this sort of thing - with almost everything under the sun now having it's own Wiki site listing everything you could possibly want, it's certainly a viable option. However, at the time, the game was so new sites had not yet been updated with the relevent info, and I thought that a book would be easier - I could follow it through page by page to make sure I didn't miss anything, and with contents pages, it's usually quick and easy to find what you need. Plus I wouldn't have to start up my PC whenever I wanted to quickly check something.However, I was very disappointed. The guide itself is in fact very vague - which in some ways is good, as you don't want a guide to give you spoilers if it's a first play through, but there was really VERY little info. Most of the guide section is taken up with large pictures, with perhaps four lines of text beneath.And I was, in all honesty, expecting in-depth monster lists - with each monster's name, HP, and item drops listed, stuff like that (like in every other guide I've owned). But there isn't.I was also hoping for a comprehensive item list - what weapons and armor there are, what their attack/defense/unleash is, where to find them, how much they cost (again, another common thing in pretty much every other guide I've read). Not a peep. Another thing I was hoping for was a list of all possible weapons/armor/items you can get from each forgeable material. Nope. Nothing like that, either.One of the MAIN things I was hoping for with this guide, however, was a class list. As anyone who's played any of the games will know, character's classes change depending on what Djinn they have set and as a result, there are a VAST number of classes for each character. I wanted to experiment with classes during my second playthrough, but I did not even find a single MENTION of the class system in this book - let alone an in-depth guide on how to use it! And whenever it told you where to find a Djinn, all it said was "You found a Venus Djinni! Try setting it to Matthew." That's it. "Just set it to the character that has the same element so there's no variation at all. Class changes? Pah, we couldn't be bothered to do that." was the message I got from the guide.And a Psynergy list? Listing each Psynergy, what level it's learned at, what element, secondary effects, how powerful, what class, and what characters can learn it? Hope you're not expecting that, either...Want an easy to follow map for Otka Island? Ahahaha... it DOES have a map, I'll grant you - but it doesn't show what path to take. It's just a bunch of boxes, and the guide just says "Follow the map." It DOES make it easier to find your way, (let's face it, anything would - it's almost impossible to find the way on your own, lol) although you'll be squinting at the tiny boxes, trying to see how to get all the hidden items AND get to the boss at the end. It'll take you a while to plan a route from it, and it's still easy to get lost and have to start over.I found a much better map online, where someone had shown the route to take - picking up all items on the way - with a red line. Obviously done quickly in MS Paint, but still much more useful than the one in this official guidebook.GOOD POINTS - It does, however, have a complete Djinn list, written in the order in which you find them, so you can tick them off easily. And when you come to a new place in the guide, such as a town or cave, it has a little map with each point of interest, such as a chest, labelled, which can come in useful. It also comes with a big pull-out world map in the back, which is nice.But really, I was very disappointed - when you pay money for an official guide like this, you expect it to have every little bit of the game revealed within it's pages. That is, after all, what you buy them for. But this was definitely somewhat lacking. It felt... well, unfinished - it really just has the basics, it's as though the writers couldn't be bothered to delve any deeper into the game. No weapon/armor lists, no class lists, no Psynergy lists.For just making your way through the game and making sure you find all the Djinn and summons, it's fine, but if you want anything else, it's useless. Now that the game has been out for almost a year, all the Golden Sun sites have been updated with FAR more info on the game than this book does - and for free. So just use those - buying this would be a waste of money.

This book is concise and definately required to complete the game. It is in full colour which is good for viewing captions in the story line.Overall, definately required for this game.

This is surely a very good guide.It brings your from point to point, noticing you on taking chests, hidden items, djinn and weapons/armor, before leaving a town or area.Plus it gives an exact guide on how to battle a boss, which moves he does, what his weakness is and the attacks that does the most damage against him.Going to look for more guides from prima games, for the games i own, i will definitely buy them.

Excellent guide, comes with a map as well which is always a nice touch

Da ich die Golden Sun Serie schon immer mochte und gespannt auf "Die dunkle Dämmerung" wartete, war es natürlich Ansporn, das Spiel mit allen seinen Geheihmnissen und Orten zu erkunden. Wie schon bei Golden Sun 1 und 2 (siehe  Golden Sun & Golden Sun 2: The Lost Age: Prima's Official Strategy Guide: v. 1 & 2 ), habe ich mir auch hier das Lösungsbuch zugelegt, um auch jeden Winkel des Spiels zu erforschen und wurde auch hier nicht enttäuscht.Das Lösungsbuch ist in sehr guter Qualität. Der Einband sieht hochwertig aus. Es ist durchgängig farbig und zahlreich bebildert. Als gute Zugabe gibt es eine Karte der Oberwelt mit allen Orten und der Oberwelt Dschinns. Das Lösungsbuch ist klar aufgebaut, am Anfang noch ein paar kurze Basics wie Kampf, Psynergy usw. Daran schließt sich der Lösungsweg an, der leicht verständlich beschrieben ist und detaillierte Karten zu den Orten beinhaltet, zudem sind die (versteckten) Items und Dschinns markiert. Das Lösungsbuch ist zwar auf Englisch, aber das Englisch ist relativ einfach gehalten und auch für diejenigen, die keine Englisch-Experten sind, gut zu verstehen. Die zahlreichen Bilder tragen zum Verständnis bei. Wer dem Lösungsweg folgt, dürfte kein Item und auch keinen Dschinn verpassen. Im Anschluss an den Endkampf werden noch die optionalen Dinge aufgeführt, z.B. wie man an die ultimative Beschwörung Iris kommt. Im Anhang sind dann noch diverse Listen wie die Enzyklopädie-Einträge, Dschinn-Liste und Beschwörungen.Was ich persönlich vermisst habe, sind Listen der Waffen, Rüstungen, usw. Auch das Thema Schmieden wurde kurz gehalten, hier hätte ich mir mehr Infos gewünscht, damit man weiß, welche Gegenstände beim Schmieden entstehen können und was ich dazu benötige. Deswegen auch "nur" 4 Sterne.Alles in allem ein sehr guter Guide, den ich nur empfehlen kann! Golden Sun & Golden Sun 2: The Lost Age: Prima's Official Strategy Guide: v. 1 & 2