Are you INSANE!? Or maybe you think you're funny? Let's Play Golden Sun 2!

Hello, and welcome to my Let's Play of Golden Sun 2: The Lost Age!

First off, a little backstory. The Golden Sun series was developed by Camelot Software Planning. They are also responsible for the Shining series and the Mario Tennis and Mario Golf games (as well as some non-Mario golf games). It was published by some backwater company that's done nothing of note. I think they're called Ninto or something? *shrug*

Anyway, on to the game itself. Now, ask any Tyrant and they'll tell you that Golden Sun games have lots and lots of . In fact, I checked a game script on GameFAQs, and only counting the mandatory scenes, Microsoft Word counted about 37,000 words. All dispensed in tiny little text boxes. That's a lot. So, in order to cut things down, I am going to attempt to summarize every scene with up to three screenshots. Nothing more unless absolutely necessary (or funny).

Golden Sun 2 comes with a way to import a cleared save from the original Golden Sun for bonuses in this game. I will not be doing that. However, the final sidequest dungeon requires this...or, more accurately, requires all of the Djinn that would be carried over. If we're lucky, I'll figure out how to hack the save file to add the missing Djinn when we get there, just so we can experience that dungeon. If not, I'll just skip it.

Thanks to Lathi and Kalir (and the realization that editing in Djinn is actually complex as poop), we will be importing a save file! What this means for you, dear readers, is that I won't suddenly gain 24 Djinn at the end of the game (instead it'll be 28 in the last 20% of the game)! There will also be a few extra scenes I can show off hopefully, illustrating continuity between ANIME's old adventures and RIOT's current ones!

So, with all that out of the way, let's start naming people! First update will be three days from now.



(5 letter limit)

Updates:
Episode 1: Leaving Venus Lighthouse (309 skipped textboxes.)
Episode 2: Meditation Gives You Wings (136 skipped textboxes, 2 MacGuffins, 1 Not-Psynergy Psynergy)
Episode 3: RIOT SMASH!!! (57 skipped textboxes, 1 MacGuffin)
Episode 4: I should have saved the Dryguy preview for this update. (52 skipped textboxes, 2 MacGuffins)
Episode 5: Are We There Yet?
Episode 6: A Boulder Chase Short of an Indiana Jones Movie (202 skipped textboxes, 1 Not-Psynergy Psynergy)
Episode 7: At Least This Isn't Lamakan (6 skipped textboxes, 1 MacGuffin)
Episode 8: Twice the Text, Half the Plot (236 skipped textboxes)
Episode 9: "Golden Sun" Is An Antonym Of "Simple" (14 skipped textboxes)
Episode 10: You Spin Me Right 'Round, Baby (288 skipped textboxes, 1 Not-Psynergy Psynergy, 1 MacGuffin)
Episode 11: Cross-Continental Runner (169 skipped textboxes, 1 MacGuffin)
Episode 12: I'm Stupid (2 MacGuffins)
Episode 13: Obligatory Swimsuit Edition (6 skipped textboxes, 1 MacGuffin)
Episode 14: Blowing Things Up (2 MacGuffins)
Episode 15: What do you mean, this update isn't about explosions? (200 textboxes)

Supplemental Updates:
#0: Passwords
#1: Battles
#2: The Damage Formula
#3: Djinn
#4: Classes
#5: Class-Changing Items

Character Profiles (by Kalir):
Golden Sun 2 Adepts:
Felix RIOT
Jenna BOSS
Sheba WUSS
Piers NERD
Golden Sun 1 Adepts:
Isaac ANIME
Helpful NPCs:
Kraden FOSIL
Eoleo YOLO
Antagonists:
Alex TOOL
Saturos and Menardi FOR20 and BLZIT
Briggs YARR

Counters:
Pointless textboxes: 1675
Inventory MacGuffins: 13
Not-Psynergy Psynergy: 3

Inky, Blinky, Pinky, Stinky, Heckle, Jeckle, Luis, and Dot.

Nathan
Explosion
Pickles
Toki
Wartooth
Skwisgaar
Skwigelf
Murderface

I did a quick check, and the character limit is 5 letters. Which really sucks.

Nathn
Expsn
Piklz
Toki
Warto
Skwis
Skwig
Mdrfc

Heart, Star, Hrsho, Clovr, BMoon, PtGld, Ranbw, Balon

Is the lack of a link password just 'cause you don't wanna, or you don't have one? I have my GBA and the cart at-hand with everyone in the low 30s, all extras and bonuses collected. Admittedly, they're ridiculously convoluted passwords, but it beats hex-editing jiggery-pokery for an extra summons and a bonus dungeon.

Honestly?

So you guys can have fun naming them. Can't name the GS1 crew if you use a password.

I mean, sure, I could do similar hackery to just edit their names, but...actually, name editing is a lot easier than djinn editing. It also allows for 14-character limits.

Okay, new plan! Names can be 14 letters long, I'll hack the names as soon as I get a chance to save, and we'll have bonus scenes since things will be transferred!

(Lathi, if you don't mind, PM me that password as soon as you get the chance.)

260 characters, oh joy...

EDIT: I misread things. You *can* have 14-letter names without actual glitches, but it still might not display properly. I don't feel like bothering with that, so back to 5 we go.

RIOT


BOSS


WUSS


NERD


ANIME


WEABU


POCKY


NOONE

Bim Jes Tes Tim Jim Dim Zim Bes

i agree with this

You poor bastard.

Oh no. Playing this for an LP is nothing. If this game could break me, it would have managed to do so seven years ago.

I will explain why once I get to the point of the game where it will have the most impact.

Go with BEAT's names because why the hell not.

A small part of me wants to make a romhack of this game that edits only the script, making it a little more concise and giving the characters a little more actual personality.

The rest of me knows that's fuckin' crazy and goes back to playing Brogue.

No, no, it's simple.

Open the ROM. Delete every single word in the script. Save.

You're done!

BEAT has the right of it.

No comment on naming.
I played Golden Sun to completion but I never owned GS2 and I honestly remember almost nothing from the original game.

Looking forward to this and good luck on your editing.

RE: MY NAME SUGGESTIONS
Oh man that first guy looks like he's sick of this shit! Like he wants to wreck everything!

Oh man that girl looks like she knows what's up! She should be in charge of the guy who wants to wreck everything!

What the fuck everybody else is a fucking dork.

Okay, so! I originally said three days because I figured naming eight people would take a while, but you guys seem to all be satisfied with BEAT's names. So unless there's a large clamoring to change names, that's what they're gonna be.

Just waiting on that password, then I'll start on the first update.

BEAT's names, BEAT's names.

PREVIEW OF NEXT UPDATE:





EDIT: PREVIEW NUMBER TWO:

Fun fact: most password levels are generally useless unless you want to import weird rare items. Since Djinn are the only thing that really matter, the Bronze password is basically the best.

Dwooo, I never got this game even though I beat the 1st one... dis gon b gud

This is actually good advice. So bear with me for just a moment, and I can easily dig up a bronze password that has levels that aren't actually broken (a quick search finds one with all four at level 36).

no i didn't plan any of this out why do you ask

Anyway, now is a good time to talk about passwords, anyway.

Supplemental Update #0: Passwords

Golden Sun 2: The Lost Age allows you to transfer completed game data from the original Golden Sun to add things to your playthrough. This can be done in two ways: Either by connecting two Game Boy Advance (SP) systems via a link cable, with one containing Golden Sun and the other containing Golden Sun 2, or by a password obtained from Golden Sun and put into Golden Sun 2.

Now, of course, when Golden Sun was made, there was no sequel to link it with. However, the developers intended to create a sequel (actually several, but more on that later), which is why they were able to make this connectivity. Otherwise, Golden Sun wouldn't know what to do with the other game. To conceal the fact that Golden Sun could connect with its sequel, the link menu was concealed by a button combination on the main menu. To open the link menu, you have to hold L, R, and Left, then press B on the main menu. (This button combination was clued in by the Golden Sun 2 instruction manual.)

Golden Sun 2, on the other hand, obviously has no such problem. It will directly ask you if you would like to transfer data as you're starting a new game, right after you name Felix RIOT, or Piers NERD if you choose to name everyone.

Of course, there's a lot of data to transfer via a password. So Camelot gave three options for players who didn't want to have to do so much work and didn't have a way to link games. Those options are the Bronze, Silver, and Gold passwords. Each is approximately five times longer than the one before, but will transfer more than the last.

Bronze (12 characters):

• Character levels.
• Obtained Djinn.
• Psynergy-granting items (e.g., Douse Drop).
• Completion status of certain optional events.

Silver (61 characters):

• Everything above.
• Character stats (not doing this causes stats to be re-randomized and stat-boosting items to be undone).

Gold (260 characters) (Note: A link cable automatically transfers at this level.):

• Everything above.
• Character inventories.
• Obtained gold.

The obvious draw of the Gold password is to import your then-amazing equipment, such as the Gaia Blade. However, literally everything you could import from Golden Sun (...legally, anyway) gets outclassed in a hurry by equipment in Golden Sun 2. So all that time you spent typing in the Gold password, getting one character wrong, and having to cross-check the entire thing to realize you swapped a t and a +? Wasted effort.

There is a rather neat thing about the password system, though. If you look at the list of characters in one of the images above, you will notice some are missing. Specifically, you can't find the capital I, the capital O, the lowercase l, the lowercase o, the number 1, or the number 0. As you may guess, this is because these characters often get mixed up. Did nothing to stop + characters from looking like lowercase t characters, though.

Thus concludes my lecture on passwords. Tune in next time and we might actually get to play a game or something!

Episode 1: Leaving Venus Lighthouse.

A few password issues before the game started, but it's all sorted out now. If you'd like to play along, here's the Bronze password I used.


Less than a twentieth of the Gold password's size!

As it turns out, even with a password, you can name the returning cast, so I don't even need to mess with hex editing and whatnot to do that! Hooray!

In any case, the game opens by "summarizing" the events of the first game. (Assume from this point onward that any use of the term "summary" has irony quotes around it.)

Let's see if I can do better.



Skipped textboxes: 18.

Then we start off with a cutscene. RIOT uses the Force Psynergy to open a path for BOSS and FOSIL, then runs off the other way. Rid of their silent protagonist, they take their first strikes at your A button, your reading ability, and your sanity. also some blue-haired pretty boy pops in



True enough, Alex. In this scene alone, we've skipped 70 textboxes. Current total: 88.

Player's Tip: You can hold B instead of A to let textboxes run automatically.

Venus Lighthouse, in this game, is less of a dungeon and more of a hallway with a couple of spokes. On one of those spokes, we encounter the first "puzzle" of the game.



In this room, we learn that you can hop over one-block openings if you push in that direction. The reward for figuring this out is an Herb, a common restorative item.

Making it outside, we run into yet another cutscene.



This scene: 62. Total: 150.

FOSIL prevents us from going east, so west it is! Four more textboxes (154), and we come to our first battle!

♪ Battle - Jenna ♪



I'll talk about the battle system in depth in a later supplementary update. For now, though, BOSS's "Fume" Psynergy makes this a one-turn battle.

Continuing westward, we reach Suhalla Gate. Three more textboxes (157), another easy battle. We are very strictly railroaded by FOSIL, so it's impossible to actually get lost. Attempting to enter a cave prompts three more textboxes (160) and a battle against three of the Ruffians we saw before. Not that's it's actually a harder battle.



Entering the cave, we see a Psynergy Stone, which will fully recover your Psynergy Points once. But before we can use it, we get ambushed by a monster (without textboxes this time!). Just as easy as the humans, except on defeat, FOSIL starts blathering again (162).

Exiting the cave brings us to the Idejima peninsula, whose name has been mentioned something like fifteen times already, and will never be said again outside of this cutscene. Which, by the way, one starts when you get here.



This scene: 60. Total: 242.

At this point, the game finally shows the title screen. A small aside, after beating Golden Sun, there would be a small cutscene at the end. That cutscene is the same as the tail end of this one (the last 20 textboxes or so).

Of course, the cutscene isn't done yet.



This scene: 67. Total: 309.

Funfact: When the tidal wave washes over Idejima, the camera is zoomed out enough that each person is only a few pixels at most. You can see FOSIL trying to run away from the tidal wave (even though there's nowhere to run to).

Also, chances are, if you have any idea how geography works, you should realize that this cutscene is not actually possible. Landmasses do not "float" on the sea. They are connected to the sea floor and held up. So, when Idejima was split from the continent of Gondowan, one of two things should have happened. Either it was still connected to the sea floor, in which case it would have stayed right where it was, with naught but a small fissure between it and the main continent, or it was separated from the sea floor, in which case it should have started sinking. Having the landmass float like some sort of seafaring vessel is absolutely absurd.

Anyway, I'm gonna stop this update here. Next time, we become Boy Scouts!

Amazing.

Hey, would you be cool with me posting a bit more info on character profiles (such as they exist) between updates? I promise they will be informative amusing legible.

By all means! Despite the fact that I'm absolutely gutting the game's dialogue, I do plan on having everything that there is to know about the game in this LP. So if you want to contribute info of any kind, please feel free.

Excellent. I'll start simple.

Kraden


BEATNAME: FOSIL
Class: Scholar
Psynergy: None
Weapons: None
Advantages: Knows a ton about the world's setting and Alchemy in particular
Drawbacks: Cannot shut up to save his life (even by Golden Sun standards), cannot fight to save his life

Kraden FOSIL began his long life as an orphan taken under the wing of Lord Babi, ruler of Tolbi (we don't care about him right now and he doesn't even show up in this game anyway). Under Babi's care, FOSIL's aptitude for knowledge was given ample room to grow, and he became one of the leading experts on Alchemy, which is the driving force behind the game's equivalent of magic. Think like if Aristotle was actually totally right about everything.

Golden Sun Book One starts FOSIL researching Alchemy in the village of Vale at the base of Mt. Aleph, home to Isaac, Garet, Felix, and Jenna ANIME, WEABU, RIOT, and BOSS. After being briefly interrogated by Saturos and Menardi about the Sol Sanctum atop the mountain, he takes it upon himself (and every one of the mentioned characters save RIOT, believed dead from a slam dunk by the mountain itself) to investigate the Sanctum and learn the secrets of Alchemy. Due to his curiosity and ANIME knowing how to push statues, Sol Sanctum gets its ass robbed, causing everything to go tits-up in Weyard (read: za wa-ru-do) at large. Saturos and Menardi capture him, and BOSS for good measure, mostly so ANIME and WEABU can pick up the slack for them.

Since we begin with BOSS in play and Saturos and Menardi bit the dust at the same time as Venus Lighthouse's activation, FOSIL is also in the party, and will remain so for the whole game. He cannot fight, and his only purpose is to add more text boxes. Oddly enough, he's actually one of the better characterized people in the game due to this, but that REALLY isn't saying much.

I approve.

Also, PREVIEW OF NEXT UPDATE: