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

Admittedly, I haven't started on the inside of Air's Rock yet (doing that tonight), but if memory serves, there are no Djinn in there. This will, of course, be confirmed one way or the other once I do my update.

(also i think i used flora once against briggs but that was back when i still thought summons were worth using)

I used summons because fuck, if the game's got no teeth, I may as well see all the flashy lights and stuff.

Episode 6: A Boulder Chase Short of an Indiana Jones Movie



We left off last time having blown a hole in the summit of Air's Rock and opening a way inside. There's a Psynergy Stone right inside the door (probably for WUSS's benefit), so at least the dungeon isn't completely cruel.

The random encounters are a bit tougher in here than they were outside, but it makes no difference, really.

Five seconds in and I can already guess where I need to go.



Notably, the grey face behind me isn't blowing whirlwinds. It's probably inactive. We can't do anything with that log you see yet. We also have no way of getting to the Wind Stone, so we simply continue onward.



Here, we have another puzzle. The two Pounded pillars in the middle are inversely connected to the standing pillars next to them. When one goes down, the other goes up. They're also loose, so standing on one will push it down and the other up.

The solution is to hammer both of the ones you see there down so that the two in the middle stand up, then use the logs to hold those two down so that the two in the middle won't fall when you jump on them.



Like so. ...Except that is entirely wrong. Because once you jump over, you come down to the bottom and discover there's a Wind Stone, that you have to shoot northward into the sandwall. However, as the puzzle stands, one of the pillars there is in the way.



There we go. Activate Wind Stone, blow away sandwall, yada yada yada.



ANOTHER. FREAKING. WIND. STONE. Same drill as always. *sigh*

(WUSS learns the Sleep psynergy here. Fitting, since this dungeon is monotonous enough to put me to sleep.)

The next room, at least, has a different gimmick.



The log on the left is blocking a vent, so the excess pressure is causing the other vent to blow wind. We can't run against it, so this path is blocked at the moment. To give you a better idea how it works, here's a before-and-after of another setup like this a bit down the path.



We finally make it around and I immediately groan when entering the next room.



Have I mentioned yet how much I dislike the slow tightrope-walking speed? Because I do. And five steps up, we can see my favorite gimmick, more Wind Stones!



Here, we use the whirlwind to turn the bridge here so we can hop across it. Then we circle around to another Wind Stone above and use it to turn the bridge back, so we can cross it from the top down this time.

The next room has more tightropes and Wind Stone bridges. Just scroll up a bit, reread the last room, and imagine it's a new one. Because, y'know, we didn't have enough repetition.

The next room has a bit of climbing to do. We also see a fancy door. Or whatever that is.


To the right: fancy door-thing.

The next room has a really big Psynergy Stone. This one doesn't disappear on use, so we can come to it at any time to refill our PP (and, thanks to healing psynergy, our HP). This is why the dungeon is merely tedious, not hard.



The path poops us out underneath the door-thing, and we see a really big face.



We circle around and find one of the huge Wind Stones from before.


But...how did lightning strike inside...?

The little face turned from grey to gold, and it's starting to spout whirlwinds. We ride it up, up, up, straight through the top of this room and to the next room, which goes directly to the large Wind Stone we saw when we entered the dungeon.



We can ride the whirlwinds from the statue to the right to a chest with a Vial (read: X-Potion). Aside from that, though...we're at the beginning of the dungeon. Where do we go from here?

Well, there was another door we passed by early on that we couldn't make progress in since the statues were off. But now that we've turned them back on...


RIOT must have some good Dizzy resistance.

Up above, there's a whirlwind statue we can push around, so we can control where the whirlwind takes us.



Pushing it all the way to the top and riding it brings us to a chest with a Clarity Circlet. It goes to WUSS (she really needs the Defense). To make progress, though, you want to push the statue 4-6 blocks down from there (it doesn't look it, but pushable blocks are on an invisible grid of sorts).

From there, we have a short hopscotch puzzle to open up a vent so we can press forward. Then another Wind Stone/Sandwall and an actually interesting use of the puzzle concepts.



What you can (barely) see there is me using a Wind Stone whirlwind to pick up a whirlwind statue and carry it somewhere else. I thought that was a neat extension of the mechanics we've seen, at least. It's unnecessary, though, as it only opens a path to a chest with 666 coins (chests tend to have arbitrary coin counts).

RIOT hits level 13 at this point, which will be important for the next update, but doesn't help us right yet.

In the next room, a whirlwind statue keeps shooting whirlwinds down a narrow passageway, so we can't go through it. We have to go the long way around and push the statue out of the way, then go all the way back around and through the passageway.


Bah.

Now we're back in the room with the door-thing. The activated whirlwind statues cart us across the room, and we can climb up to some floating platforms, which we hop across to the door.

As you can see, the next room is...kind of weird. Platforms fade behind us as we hop across. But at the other end...



That looks important. And if there's anything I know about Golden Sun and important things, we're about to have a cutscene.



This scene: 4.

Woo! What does that do?



It makes platforms appear!

It does more than that, actually. Any time you see six things arranged in a circle like that, Reveal will make something show up in the center, such as a platform, a door, a chest, or what-have-you.

This is why we came to Air's Rock. There was a small scene in Garoh we could have seen had we gone there (it's still there, don't worry) that would have clued us into coming here, but other than that, you had to stumble your way through this hell on your own.

Anyway, with our new Reveal psynergy, we easily make it out of the room. And we're finally done with this place! ...mostly. There's one treasure left, now that the whirlwinds are open.



Remember this room? Of course you do. It's not like the place has fifty different rooms. (kill me)

Anyway, that log there seems kinda pointless, doesn't it? Just sitting there, blocking nothing? Well, if you were to push it one right, then go up and let a whirlwind statue carry you to a Wind Stone, then shoot a whirlwind downward with it...



You could carry that log all the way down there. But why would you do that?



For the Flora summon! A better question: How would you know to do that? Other than "a guide" (how I learned of it), I still can't answer that.

Now, I can finally put the best psynergy ever to use.



Retreat is always known by all Venus Adepts, such as RIOT and ANIME. It brings you straight to the dungeon's entrance, so you don't have to walk all the way back. But even then, Air's Rock gets the last laugh.



Using it inside Air's Rock only brings you to here. You've got to leave Air's Rock and then use it again to actually escape.

Nevertheless, even that doesn't stop us from finally emerging victorious from the worst dungeon in the game. This update isn't over yet, though. We're going to Garoh.

Garoh starts with ascending a cliff. As we climb, it goes from day, to evening, to night.



This is solely for plot purposes. If you try to descend the cliff, the sun will "rise" again. Anyway, we don't descend, and press onward. /cutscene



This scene: 33. Total: 37.

We find a werewolf that runs away when it notices us, and FOSIL gets a scholar boner about it.

Everyone in town is hooded and denies that werewolves exist. NOPE NO WEREWOLVES HERE ESPECIALLY NOT ME

Going up to a rock, another cutscene.



The werewolf runs back inside his rock. This is your clue that you need Reveal. A couple people in town mention a "power" in Air's Rock, which is your clue to go there. But other than that, have fun wandering around aimlessly!

Anyway, we have Reveal already, so we pop inside.



This scene: 4. Total: 41.

Chase the werewolf down the hallway...



(Since this is basically only half a cutscene, no textbox count yet.)

Big werewolf guy there is named Maha. We explain that we're Adepts and what that means. Maha tells us that people used to kill werewolves on sight, which is why they were in hiding. Most of the werewolves in town become human at day, but Maha here's stuck as a werewolf now that he knows Reveal. (He also pays for our inn bill, so woo!)

Also:



I'm counting it. Not-Psynergy Psynergy: 1.

Anyway, we go back to his cave for Cutscene, Part 2. (It's also daytime outside.)

...Actually, screw this, I'm not giving any summary pictures. None of it is important to anything at all. FOSIL and Maha discuss philosophy (no really) and ancient legends, then WUSS makes them look like idiots. However, one good thing does come.



Maha gives us a Jupiter Djinni because ???. Also, the following quote was a strong contender for the Title Quote:



In any case, what you're probably wondering.

This scene: One hundred and sixty-one. Total: 202.

Almost done. In the caves of Garoh, there's a Reveal spot that brings you to a chest with the Hypnos' Sword. It's a light sword that's an upgrade for BOSS. And after a quick stop by the weapon and armor store for more mundane upgrades, that's it for Garoh! Next time, Yampi Desert!

I kind of love the philosophy discussion here, about how werewolves aren't so different from butterflies, hedgehogs, pill bugs, or humans wearing armor and carrying weapons. It's almost like the devs were trying to bring the harebrained madness of old-timey alchemy into the lore.

Saturos and Menardi


BEATNAME: FOR20, BLZIT
Class: Champion, Fire Master
Psynergy: Mars (Fire)
Weapons: Heavy blades, scythes
Advantages: Unstoppable combatants, capable of Fusion Dance (HAH!), occasionally capable of mercy
Drawbacks: Suicidally overconfident, terrible communicators

Hailing from the icy northern village of Prox, Saturos FOR20 and Menardi BLZIT are the primary antagonists and final bosses of the first game. Due to their homeland's unforgiving icy climate, the pair struck out to Sol Sanctum in order to retrieve the Elemental Stars sealed within, light the four lighthouses, and return Alchemy to the world, securing a brighter future for Prox.

As literally every single bio prior to this point has indicated, FOR20 and BLZIT are absolutely terrible at their jobs. No amount of good intentions makes up for the destruction they brought down on Vale, in particular the families of Isaac and Jenna ANIME and BOSS, OR their tendency to kidnap anyone remotely useful to them. BLZIT in particular seems to have a cruel streak, delighting in the fear of those who dare to oppose her. Credit for enthusiasm though, as they managed to light Mercury Lighthouse before ANIME and co. caught up with them.

FOR20 confidently engaged the group there to buy time for BLZIT and Felix RIOT while they headed for Venus Lighthouse, but underestimated the sheer force of the lighthouse, and found his strong Mars Psynergy diluted, while Mia NOONE found her Mercury Psynergy boosted. Garet WEABU either suffered no major disability or was too stupid to notice, and FOR20 had to be bailed out by Alex TOOL.

Venus Lighthouse was even worse for the duo, as they not only nearly had to kill RIOT for insubordination over Sheba WUSS, but were mortally wounded by ANIME and co. shortly before lighting the lighthouses. Trusting TOOL and RIOT to finish the job, the two used the lighthouse's energy to fuse into a giant dragon for a dramatic, but fatal, second round. ANIME and co. won by sheer protagonism, and the two fell into the lighthouse, undoubtedly to their demise.

TRU FAX: After FOSIL's profile went up, I pm'd Kalir to ask him for a list of the characters he was gonna break down, so that i might give him proper BEATNAMES. Kalir immediately sent me a full list, with brief descriptions and wiki links.

He described Saturos and Menardi as "shitwrecking fire adepts".

It was poetry. Pure, simple, poetry.

I approve of everything BEAT and Kalir have done.

---

Episode 7: At Least This Isn't Lamakan

I haven't shown off the continent recently, so let's do that.



The yellow dots are Mikasalla and Garoh, the blue dot is Air's Rock, and the pink line is the path I have to take from where we are to our next destination, Yampi Desert.

*a bit of fast-forwarding later*



Here we are, Yampi Desert! Through here is Alhafra, our primary destination. In case you've forgotten, Alhafra is a port town, which means that if any place is gonna have a ship, this is it.

Instead of Whirlwind, this place makes heavy use of the Pound psynergy. And that's good! Since Pound is taught by an item, I don't need to have a specific class for it. Early on, we make use of it to get to the Guardian Ring, which is a slight boost in defense and HP that anyone can equip. *shrug*

Random encounters here are the same as the ones on the world map outside; that is to say, they're weaker than Air's Rock. spoilers the game wants you to come here first

On the second screen, we run into a group of people. Luckily, there's no cutscene, so there are no skipped textboxes.



If you talk to them (because you're not sane), you learn that this is the elder of Madra and his entourage, looking for a way to Alhafra to apprehend Briggs. They suggest that there's no way to Alhafra from the desert, but of course, they are merely mortals. We have psynergy which allows us to...pound stakes.



THAT IS NOT SUSPICIOUS AT ALL NO SIR

Reveal doesn't do anything, though, since it's only four stones and not six.

The next screen is tricky.



You see a stake here that we can Pound. However, the slides on the ledges above suggest that we can climb up there. If we Pound this stake, that prevents us from jumping across it once we find a way above. But why would we want to get up there?



As is the standard reward for all puzzles, there's a Djinni up there. If you make a mistake, you can simply leave the screen to reset the stakes.



Back here, we find a stake that was hiding a climbing point we can use to get to the upper level. Climb up, play some hopscotch...



...strong-arm some wildlife.

Notably, I put RIOT back into his base class for this fight. Why?


the sword kind of exploded whoops

This is why. If you remember, last update I noted that RIOT reached level 13. That's because, in his base class, he gains Ragnarok at level 13. Ragnarok is basically just like a psynergy weapon's Unleash, which means it runs off of your attack power instead of some arbitrary base power. That alone makes it one of the best spells in the game.

(Fun fact: The Djinni tried to run that turn. Apparently even enemies can fail.)

I was actually lucky here. One of the databases on GameFAQs tells me that this particular Jupiter Djinni had an Attack of 276, which is kind of insane. But, regardless.



That's my third Jupiter Djinn when I still only have one Mars Djinni, so my elements are slightly unbalanced here. I can still manage, though.

The next screen has a Psynergy Stone I use to heal up. Then the next screen has this guy.



That little blur above me is moving. It keeps going forward until it hits a pounded stake, then it turns clockwise. I pound in the exposed stake to change his movement path and send him to the next screen. It has to hop out of the sand, though.



It's a scorpion of some sort! Being the BRAVE ADVENTURERS that we are, we obviously have to kill it for reasons, or something!

On the next screen, its movement path is more complicated, passing the stake to pound from two different directions. What we want to do is catch it when it's moving west so we can force it northward, toward the next screen. The last screen is the trickiest, with two stakes.



You want to pound the lower stake before it gets to where you see it there. That forces it into the rock, which forces it north to a dead-end. When we catch up to it, it disappears and we (automatically) move forward to investigate.



Ain't 'e a stinker?

We fall, it comes in after us, BATTLE START.



It's weakest to Fire and "strongest" against Wind (though really you'll probably still come out ahead). Just bash on it with attacks like Ragnarok, Astral Blast, and Cutting Edge (or just forget Psynergy and straight-up attack), and you'll be done before you even need to heal.


Note the health bars. Like I said, no healing.

Our reward is the Scoop Gem, which lets us do that psynergy he used to trap us in here.

Inventory MacGuffins: 1.

We use it to dig up a geyser that shoots us out of the hole. Now we can go back to the OBVIOUSLY NOT SUSPICIOUS area and dig up that ground.

For what it's worth, you can dig in random areas and turn up prizes. ...Prizes such as an Herb, a single-digit number of coins, or an Antidote. So, um.


I knew there was something funny here!

Going through the short cave, we come out on the other side, near an oasis. As we go, though, we pass right by the group of people from before, and they notice us and start a cutscene.



This scene: 6.

If you wanted to, you could go back to the oasis and talk to them, but why?

The next screen has a few red herrings of scoop points, but one of them holds 315 coins, which ain't bad. Then we progress to the next gimmick of Yampi Desert.

Moving sandflows. They move just fast enough that running against them locks you in place.



Up there, you see a stake. The only way to pound it is to get in that small crevice to its left. The sand flows toward the right. Good luck with that.

The reward is a Blow Mace, which is shop fodder at this point.

Anyway, the sandflows only last for one screen, and that's about all they've got down here. Though, we aren't done with the sand quite yet.



These sandfalls can be annoying, and will drag you down to lower levels if you let them.



This arrangement in particular is actually impossible to cross from the left side, since you can't gain ground. You just have to let it take you down. South of there, we find a group of rocks.



This "sign" of sorts is useless to us right now, but you will want to keep it in mind later (far, faaaaar later).

Using Reveal on another group of nine rocks turns the center rock into a chest with a Lucky Medal. We find a place to climb back up and cross a few sandfalls to a Lashable rope, which we use to climb a level.



From here, we let the sandfall carry us down to the area directly below us for treasure.



The Trainer's Whip is probably the weirdest item in the game. It, along with two other items, will forcibly change your class when equipped, but even among them, the class you get from this is weird. I'll show it off later.

Anyway, thanks to this detour, we've got to go all the way back around. In the top-right corner of the map is the exit.



Alhafra is in sight! But we'll take care of that nonsense next time.

I'm guessing you're waiting on that discussion until Akafubu you're a dumbass.

Isaac

BEATNAME: ANIME
Class: Lord
Psynergy: Venus (earth)
Weapons: Heavy blades, axes, light blades, maces
Advantages: Can recognize when he's mistaken, godly favorite, probably the single best (human) fighter in Weyard
Drawbacks: Doesn't say much, and when he does, you wish he hadn't

Isaac ANIME is the main and silent protagonist of the first Golden Sun game, but in this game, he will have speaking lines once he shows up. As you all know by now, he started his quest after Saturos and Menardi FOR20 and BLZIT raided Sol Sanctum for the second time in a row. There, ANIME and his pal Garet WEABU were forced to bring them the Elemental Stars, because of the hostage situation with Jenna and Kraden BOSS and FOSIL.

Once they snagged the fourth Elemental Star, the plan changed. To absolutely nobody's surprise, Mt. Aleph began to erupt, and FOR20 and BLZIT had to make an emergency escape, leaving ANIME and WEABU with the Mars Star to die. However, at this time, a guardian spirit of Sol Sanctum appeared to keep the lava flow at bay. The Wise One, as it is known, used this time to tell ANIME and WEABU just what the Elemental Stars do: maintain the seal on Alchemy. If FOR20 and BLZIT were to light all four lighthouses, using each star on the respective lighthouse, Alchemy would be unleashed, which could be pretty hairy.

Between the Wise One's urging and the wishes of the rest of his hometown of Vale, ANIME and WEABU set off on an adventure to stop FOR20 and BLZIT from lighting the lighthouses. While they did both recruit Ivan and Mia POCKY and NOONE to their cause AND defeat the warriors of Prox just after they lit their second lighthouse, they didn't technically complete their quest, as Felix RIOT still holds the Jupiter Star. This makes ANIME as overt an antagonist as we've got right now (assuming you don't count Alex TOOL). Never mind that we imported our save data from the game prior.

Episode 8: Twice the Text, Half the Plot

Today we come to Alhafra, the only port town for two continents.



See, we can even see a ship from the World Map! There's no way our plan could fail! The mast is...um...resting, probably, or something. Or maybe it's just graphical issues. That's probably it for sure.

Of course, we had the Cutscene Brigade right on our tails.



This scene: 27.

What? No. Madran dude, you have it all wrong. We saw the boat from the world map. Alhafra obviously has a boat. Don't toy with us like that.

(The elder figures that, since there are no working boats here (LIES!), Briggs and the Champa are still trying to steal a ship, which means that they're still here somewhere.)

Come on, we'll go look at the ship. Maybe someone there will let us buy it.

Aside: If you use Reveal when there's a pot/barrel/whatnot around with an item, it will shine.


...Can we go back to getting 3 coins?

Boarding the ship causes another cutscene.



This scene: 10. Total: 37.

But...but...the mast...

D:

Talking around tells us that the mast was broken by the tidal wave, which has been and will continue to be a deus ex machina to explain away basically the reason for this entire cross-continent trek.

Anyway, I want to complain, and the mayor sounds like a good person to complain to!



BAH! Screw it. We have psynergy, we don't need no stinkin' sail. Let's hop in the ship and take off.

...another cutscene, bah.


For someone without psynergy, FOSIL sure likes getting into dangerous situations.

This scene: 33. Total: 70.

We run into Briggs, find out he's stealing because his hometown's starving and his pirating strategy is to just shave a little off the top of each town's wealth. BOSS, like an idiot, opens her big mouth and they find us. We try to tell him to come with us to get NERD acquitted, but he's having none of it.



Briggs starts the battle with a Sea Fighter lackey, and can summon up to 3 more as the battle progresses. They're kind of pointless, though, so if you want to leave them alive, that's fine.

Other than that, like all non-Adepts, Briggs and his crew are weak to every element, so go nuts. Briggs falls before too long, and his men die shortly thereafter.

There's a long cutscene afterward, and it's hard to summarize with three pictures alone (for once). So I'll just describe it.

Briggs surrenders, both mayors come in and arrest him, NERD is cleared, the boat that Briggs bought is given to the Madrans (since he used the gold he stole from them).

Champa is way north, on Angara (the continent where everything started in the first game), and they're also a port town whose livelihood was fishing. But fish are dying, they have no food and can't grow any, so Briggs went out and looked for food, eventually becoming a pirate. He couldn't steal near Champa since he'd be recognized. (This part is actually more important than the one above.)

also briggs has a wife and a kid or something

That about sums it up.

This scene: 129. Total: 199.

Outside, now that all of the pirates aren't around, we can use our psynergy to fix up parts of the ship. A small cutscene first, of course (204).

Step 1: Move this thing off the bottom.

(After the first Move, you can hop over and push it physically, conserving the psynergy.)

Step 2: Rolling the log down.


Step 3: Pushing this thing down.


Step 4: Moving the weird crate into the water.


Step 5: Lashing this rope to the cliffside.


Step 6: Pounding this stake.


Step 7: Moving this crate into the water.

After this Move, you have to go all the way back around to the top side to Move it again.

Step 8: ...um.


You may have forgotten this thanks to all of the combat psynergy, but we don't actually have any "blow stuff up" psynergy. So there's nothing we can do about this rock. BOSS even walks out of us to point this out (206).

Leaving prompts another strategy meeting (214), where FOSIL's inner pirate reveals itself (he wanted to "borrow" the Madran ship).

In the town proper, I managed to stumble upon a cutscene I hadn't seen before. A woman finds 5 coins in a jar in a broken house (and holds it up with a jingle, proving she's secretly a PC at heart), and her husband and children are overjoyed about it. That's great.

Anyway, the mayors promised a reward, so to the mayor's house we go!

Now, you have to actually talk with the Alhafran mayor to initiate this little cutscene, so I'm not counting it in the textboxes. It's not important anyway. But there's no reward around! D:

There is an optional cutscene in the jail cell, however. And it is probably the most critically plot-important cutscene in Alhafra.



This scene: 22. Total: 236.

The kid (whose name is Eoleo) is an Adept! He tries to Catch the cell key, probably in a relatively intelligent attempt to open Briggs' cell. This doesn't become important until much, much, MUCH later, though.

Anyway, other than that, there's nothing to do in Alhafra. That's right, this whole thing was a waste of time. Was anyone surprised?

*shrug* Maybe NERD's out of jail by now. We could go chat him up or something. Which means it's back through Yampi Desert.

Or...not quite. You see, Yampi Desert actually has two exits. One leads to Alhafra, and the other is a one-way trip to a cave right outside Air's Rock. Just enter Yampi Desert from the Alhafra side and go south to a sandfall.

Normally, this would be about the same as just going back through Yampi Desert, but if you recall, I mentioned a Mars Djinni in Mikasalla that we couldn't get yet. Well, now that we have the Scoop Gem, we can!

You have basically no clue where to use it, though. Mind Reading a chicken has it mention that the ground is soft, which is your only indication Scoop is worthwhile. Then you have to find the right spot to Scoop.


Before and after.

The path leads straight to the Djinni, and since we're in a town, he joins us without a fight. At this point, everyone has three Djinn. 2 of Mercury, Mars, and Venus, and 3 of Jupiter. That's about as good as we can expect. There are, unfortunately, not many tricky classes we can become quite yet. Those will have to wait until later.

If you scroll up to Update...5, I think? you'll also see that there was a cave we couldn't do anything in yet. Not so with Scoop!


HMM I WONDER IF THERE'S TREASURE HERE

Open up a ladder, takes us to the other ladder, yada yada...



Woo.

With that, we've looted basically everything on this side of Osenia. Next time, we return to Madra, talk to NERD, and absolutely nothing will interfere with our plan at all.

So, that fight with Briggs.

Assuming you went to Air's Rock first, as we did, Briggs and his crew are pushovers.

Assuming you instead went to Alhafra first, as the SA LP did, they're probably the toughest boss that isn't a bonus boss. They outlevel your party sharply, Briggs can summon more Sea Fighters as his turn, and even a single Sea Fighter can do severe damage before he drops even with their universal Psynergy weakness.

The weird part is that there isn't really a provided reason to tackle Air's Rock over Alhafra first. In fact, the townsfolk dialog in Alhafra kind of heads in the vein of leading the player towards Air's Rock (along with a healthy dose of werewolf racism to get the player nice and interested in Garoh, assuming they ever bother to read it).

I'm not really sure what to make of it. Like, maybe the devs expected players to go to Alhafra because OMG BOTE, reach the boat, get their teeth kicked in by Briggs, and then traipse off to somewhere else to grind like mad explore the rest of Osenia and discover just why the Alhafrans are worried about the southern portion. But no, what actually happens is MAYBE YOU'LL JUST SEQUENCE BREAK.

I think you need Reveal to make it into southern Gondowan though, which is where we'll be headed after this debacle.

Briggs can only summon three extra Sea Fighters with the one he starts with, so chances are, you're actually meant to focus-fire those guys down, then just deal with Briggs himself.

Their primary way of killing you is via Oil Drops, so if you've got some way to boost Resist, such as the Ward psynergy, that'll be handy.

I wonder if the rest of the game had been as difficult as an early Briggs fight would the combat have been more interesting? Well, that and actually balancing magic and djinn so things like Geo and Ragnarok/Odyssey wouldn't be so much more powerful than most other things. (or in Geo's case, more powerful than anything else you don't have to commit to.)

Geo?

*looks it up*

Oh, I think you mean Geode. Trust me, Geode is perfectly balanced compared to some things you can do. Just wait until the game really decides to break apart at around...level 47. Maybe earlier if I end up underleveled.

Oh I know, Geode is nothing compared to a lot of things, but it's strongest djinn, and that was what I wished was more prevalent in the end game. I really wish the game gave you incentive to choose between keeping your class and all the stats and magic that entailed, or using a very powerful or useful djinn.

And from what I can tell, nothing you can do is stronger a chaos lord Felix/Issac with a 99% chance to use Megiddo. Or at least, that was my experience.

99%?

Might as well go the whole way.

(Also, while there is nothing stronger, there is something just as strong, without the Sol Blade.)

I'm pretty sure 99% is the highest you can get with all 4 of the unleash boosting gear. It only even get's that high because the Sol Blade itself has a 35% base chance to unleash.

Fake edit: Yeah I just checked it out, 99% is the highest you can go.

Real edit: Also I think every weapon that has an unleash instead of just a crit has a base 35% chance.

...Okay, half-right. 99% is the highest a Sol Blade wielder can go.

(Also, most everything has a base 35% unleash chance. Four weapons have 40%.)

Episode 9: "Golden Sun" Is An Antonym Of "Simple"

With Alhafra lacking any type of usable seafaring vessel, we get to trudge all the way back to Madra because we have nothing else to do and NERD is probably bored now. Number of updates since any main character has even thought of the lighthouses that are, ostensibly, the focus of the journey: 6 or so.

Of course, nothing could ever be complete without a little complication once we get to Madra!



This scene: 14.

no we are busy get someone else

They mention that all the Kibombo stole was a black orb. Sounds like it's pointless and does nothing. Hey, let's go see NERD!



why can nothing be simple

I guess we're going to the Mayor's house. Maybe he told someone there where he went.



The only saving grace about this is that NPC chatter is actually fairly concise when it's not in a cutscene.

Can anyone guess what we're about to do? If you said "go find NERD and the Kibombo", you are absolutely wrong!



That's right, we're coming back here! If you remember, last time we came here for a Tremor Bit that we never knew to get. If you bothered to explore the other branch of the path, you would've found this closed door and a sign.



As you would expect now, this means to use Reveal and it'll magically psynergetically turn into a switch. Of course, not that you'd know that the first time you got here.

What can we get from coming through this second entrance? An Apple and a Lucky Medal. woo

In any case, now we head to the Kibombo. Asking around town tells us they're situated over in Gondowan.

...wait, what? Gondowan was the continent we came from with the Venus Lighthouse and all that. How are we supposed to get over there?



Pretty easily, apparently. It's times like these when FOSIL's cries of "a new continent" sound absolutely stupid.

"But wait! If it was right there, couldn't you have gone this way before you even went to Madra the first time?"



No. Also, welcome to Gondowan Cliffs, the area that conjoins Gondowan and Indra.

Anyway, the next place of note here is this fork.



First off, Djinni! The Mars Djinni sitting there is blocked off by a couple of knee-high rocks.

But also, a fork in the path! Which slide do we take?



The middle one. Always take the middle one.

We go up to push a stump into the water, then slide down for some seaside hopscotch.


Pictured: rofltightrope; our primary antagonist.

If you keep climbing instead of taking the tightrope, you run into the Djinni from earlier, which you fight and then kill and then recruit. I forget to heal before the battle, and BOSS is at half health. Djinn are known for being pretty strong (in a glass cannon sense). Things could go bad.



Oh who am I kidding, this is Golden Sun. Nothing ever goes bad.

Exploring a bit more has us find a "Laughing Fungus". This item is entirely useless, but we can get rid of it at the next store, at least. There's also a shortcut to the entrance if we wanted to go that way, but we don't, so back to the tightrope we go. It leads directly to the exit, and now we're on our third continent! ...with still no boat.

Already, we can find a secret world map Djinni in the southern tip.



Amusingly, it tries and fails to escape.

Pretty soon, RIOT learns Ply Well, which is almost a full heal at my level. Kind of pointless with WUSS on healing duty (as useless as that is already), but at least I'm overprepared for bosses.

Shortly afterward, we find the town of Naribwe. There's not all that much we can do here, but some stuff is available. The weapon shop features the Psynergy Rod, which is an upgrade for either BOSS or WUSS. I give it to WUSS since its unleash drains PP, for her heals. In a chest is the Thorn Crown, which is a strong armor that also raises attack.

On the useless side, Reveal gets us access to the Unicorn Ring, which casts Cure Poison when used as an item. It has no stats aside from that, and usable items in this game have a chance of breaking on use anyway. Don't forget that Cure Poison costs 2 PP and is easily learned by like fifty trillion classes.

What makes Naribwe stand out is the fortune teller. Give him 20 coins and let him look at one of your items, and he'll point you toward a place you'll have to go to eventually. Notable right now is that if you show him a piece of armor, he'll tell you that NERD is indeed up north in Kibombo (with vague words, of course) and if you show him a weapon, he'll all but tell you that the next place you go to is going to be a stealth minigame.

oh whoops spoilers

Anyway. There are other messages, but none of them are important for the moment. I'm gonna cut the update here, though. Next time, stealth minigame woooooooo.

(Pictures of Naribwe will come eventually, just not any time soon.)

Gondowan was actually one of the two continents ANIME and co. were able to visit in the first Golden Sun game. They started out on Angara (read: Eurasia) and most of the game took place there, but once they started working with Babi, they ventured into the northern part of Gondowan, fittingly flavored like the Middle East.

RIOT and co. are entering southern Gondowan, so instead of that, we're getting more of what you'd expect a game to have in Off-Brand Africa. Straw huts, spears, face paint, witch doctors and voodoo, that sort of thing. Spoilering it because I don't know.

Because we're like two updates away or so!

In the interest of keeping the pace: a profile about a character who does not matter for the rest of the game!

Eoleo

BEATNAME: YOLO
Class: Corsair
Psynergy: Mars (fire)
Weapons: Axes, light blades, maces
Advantages: Is a pirate, has a remarkably fleshed out character by Golden Sun standards
Drawbacks: Is an asshole

Eoleo YOLO appears in this game as the baby son of Briggs and Chaucha. While he doesn't say things because baby, he displays signs of Psynergy when the party checks up on Briggs in jail, attempting to swipe a key from behind the guard's back. He's also got a loving grandmother named Obaba, who will eventually be relevant, but not right now. As far as The Lost Age is concerned, YOLO is as bit as you can character.

The important part is that YOLO is actually the only character in this game who appears as playable in Dark Dawn, the DS sequel. Since we haven't got a finished LP of that and I don't see anyone leaping at trying it, I'll spoil a bit of what happens. YOLO takes up the family business like a pro, and soon the nation of Champa is renowned for its piracy. This, understandably, ends up with YOLO captured by the city of Belinsk, which will not be making an appearance in this game. Just call it Furry Tsar Moscow and you're about there.

Briggs asks the party (largely consisting of the kids of the characters from this game) to bust YOLO out before he is executed. Long story short, this succeeds, but everything else that can go wrong does, and YOLO's freedom is tempered by Briggs' death. Furious and despairing, YOLO resolves to give his father a proper burial at sea, avenge his death, and also help the party because hey, may as well.

YOLO lacks the equipment options of the more traditional beefcake characters since he can't equip long blades, but he's still a beefcake himself because PIRATE. Why he has Mars Psynergy when everything that would grant Psynergy near Champa is Venus-aligned is not remotely explained left as a mystery.

NOT ON MY WATCH

PREVIEW OF NEXT UPDATE:



(that sticking when it gets to the top is the loop cutting weird, not part of the game)

Episode 10: You Spin Me Right 'Round, Baby

The next stop on our journey is the Kibombo Mountains, separating Kibombo from the rest of Gondowan. As we enter, there's a short cutscene.



This scene: 9.

Stranger is likely NERD, and there's some Akafubu guy who's apparently responsible for the lockdown. But of course, this lockdown is only instituted by mere mortals; what can they do against Adepts?



(Optional, so not counting textboxes.)

oh come on can't we just blow them up

please

As I mentioned before, the Kibombo Mountains works as a stealth minigame. We've got to take a convoluted path around the mountain so they don't see us. First off is pushing some crates so we can hop across them to the far path. At some points, we have to push crates while their backs are turned so they don't notice us. Near the top of the first screen, there's a chest.



This pizza cutter is a pretty neat weapon, and it's probably going to be RIOT's weapon for a while, at least.

The next screen has...alternative strategies.



We didn't actually need to do that to progress, though. We can hop along the trees to the left and climb down on the far end, but this lets us grab the chest with the Power Bread right there.



This dog is somewhat annoying. It keeps running up and down. If it sees you, it'll bark and alert the guards. If you want the chest, what you have to do is use the log to trap it at the top half and jump over and climb down. Then, if you want to get past it, use Tremor up near that crate with the bone to knock it down and give the dog something to chew on. If you don't want the chest (or if you didn't realize you could get the Tremor Bit), you have to trap it in the south half. Problem is, it moves pretty fast, and log-pushing animations aren't quick, so you still have to time it just right.


I actually didn't have the Bit equipped until just now.

Like so.

The cave is a red herring, having nothing of value and resetting the log, dog, and bone. Instead, you want to Whirlwind that bush over to the right, which takes us around the tree wall to the other side. After that, it's just a long path to the exit.

Only two screens, but the Kibombo Mountains feel like they drag on when you're playing.

In any case, we are past the mountains and there is, oddly, no more security until Kibombo itself!


Nope, nothing ominous here at all.

All the buildings in town have their entrances blocked by torches, and the NPCs don't notice we're strangers and will gladly talk to us. What we learn from them is that this Akafubu guy is doing some sort of cermony involving a "Great Gabomba" that's failed before. He's also mean now that some other guy died. They stole the black orb from Madra because they apparently needed a new jewel for the ceremony for something.

We can't approach the ceremony grounds due to a crowd of NPCs, so we'll use the same strategy as we did in the mountains: climb up and go over. Near the bottom corner, there's a Lashable rope for us to use. We use that and hop over the pillars of the town to get around.


Just like Batman!

On the next screen, a cutscene starts.



This scene: 3. Total: 12.

That's probably Akafubu, the big statue is likely the Great Gabomba, and the ceremony's about to begin. But oh...! Who's that over there?



This scene: 29. Total: 41.

NERD ain't having none of it (also Akafubu is an Adept or something who cares). Unfortunately for him, the only way onward is by using the Move psynergy, which only we have. After Moving the stump into place, NERD takes notice.

oh my gods so many words not going to bother with screenshots

This scene: 76. Total: 117.

In summation: NERD is from Lemuria, a mythical sea city. He wants the orb back because it's used to pilot his Lemurian ship through psynergy. People talk about Lord Babi (which you may remember from FOSIL's bio) for some asinine reason. But most importantly...



We have a full party!

He comes already with three Mercury Djinn, but we're going to reorganize that some. Here's what we end up with:



The most important part here is that RIOT has 4 Mercury Djinn now, which means he has access to Wish, a healing psynergy that targets the entire party.

Also of note is that NERD has another 15 inventory slots to donate to the party. He can wield heavy weapons, so he takes RIOT's old Storm Brand for now.

Anyway, we continue onward, behind the Great Gabomba. Cutscene time goooo!



This scene: 36. Total: 153.

If you've watched the movie National Treasure, you're probably familiar with the plot point. But that was a full two years after this game came out, so it's more original here.

Indeed, there's another x mark just south of here (in fact, you'd have to pass right by it to get to the cutscene). Scooping it up reveals a ladder to enter the Great Gabomba.

(Funfact: RIOT uses Scoop as part of the cutscene, no matter who actually has the Scoop Gem.)