As a kid, Golden Sun was the first game I fell in love with, and Mia was the first fictional character I became obsessed with. It can be hard to tell with the rose tinted glasses, but I think Golden Sun still holds up today, if more as an all around good jrpg, if not really anything that exceptional anymore. Back in the day though, it had impressive graphics for the hardware (gameboy advance), a comparatively simple story, but one that did a good job of really feeling like an adventure. Isaac and co. traveled all over basically two continents, and the sequel, The Lost Age, saw Felix explore every remaining nook and cranny of the world, and most of it as part of the main story, so even if you were bad at being thorough (like 11-12 year old me), you still saw a lot of the game while still having plenty of secrets for people to write GameFAQs for.
I don’t know exactly what it was about Mia, even to this day. Maybe it was more a case of encountering her in the right place at the right time, but I’ve loved her ever since. Looking back, I think she’s a big part of why I like playing support/healing roles in class/role based games. She was one of the first characters I imagined/projected myself as, in a roleplay sense as well. On the gender spectrum, I generally consider myself ranging from 70-55% male, and that 30-45% female side likely awakened with Mia back in the day.
Golden Sun stuff wasn’t among the first things I drew when I started drawing (that was Pokémon stuff way back in first gen, and then .Hack// things in middle school), but I did Golden Sun fanart in a time of my life that I look back on most fondly, so drawing Mia again like this felt like a bit of a homecoming of sorts. Even if I had to look up a reference since it has been a while, each stroke as I went felt increasingly familiar and warm.
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