My writing can beat up Camelot's writing. Let's Play Golden Sun

As we were.



The enemies in this cave are actually pretty dangerous. Gnomes have a few low-tier Psynergy abilities and can run from fights, Ghouls are mean melee fighters...



And Isaac has a new Psynergy that should make single targets a little more manageable. Packs a bit more kick than Earthquake against single targets for less PP, although Earthquake is still the clear winner for widescale attacks.



The game REALLY doesn't want us going this way this early. Screw it.



Flare Wall! It's ever so slightly stronger than Fire for 1 PP more. Okay.



This is a group we might expect to find at the tail end of the Kolima Forest. So naturally, we'll beat the hell out of it here.



Trolls are the beefiest of the lot by far, so it gets a Spire to the face.



And Garet cleans up with a Flare Wall.



Bolt is... not a very good Psynergy. Half the strength of Spire for 1 PP less? Hell no.



Clearly getting colder as we move on.



Golden Sun takes the fact that water expands when frozen...



Very, very seriously.



Oh man this'll sell for SO MANY COINS



To the wintry wastelands near Imil, and more importantly, Mercury Lighthouse!



The encounters here are legit tough. These Oozes have a numbers advantage against us and hit plenty hard, and when they elect to use the weaker Sticky Goo attack, it can lower defense instead.



No question, breaking out my strongest Psynergy on Ivan and Garet while Isaac sticks to healing duty.



Even so, one of them hits Ivan for about a third of his HP at the wrong time, taking him down.



That's annoying, but not impossible to handle. We'll just have the other two finish the job.



While it's a little embarassing to use a Water of Life on the overworld, I AM going slightly out of order here, and I want Ivan getting as much XP as he can get, so I'm taking it.



Maulers are solo encounters here, and rapidly put into perspective exactly how mean they are. I'm really glad it didn't use its Slice-style attack or it might legit oneshot people.



I FIGHT BEARS



Mercury Lighthouse can wait while we rest up a bit.



Welcome to the frosty hamlet of Imil!

The main thing going wrong here is just a bout of colds and other illnesses, keeping the healers here very busy.



Think you know what we gotta do here.



To get into the icy cave, we have to slide around using the ice physics here. If we don't Move the snowman onto the ice, we can't make the last turn.



Inside is our second Mars Djinni! Fever here combines a solid Mars attack with the chance to cause delusion. Not great, but neither is it really bad.



More importantly, this lets Garet improve his class from Guard to Soldier, granting him stat boosts all across the board! This would do similar things if we gave them to Isaac or Ivan, reclassing them to Ruffian or Wanderer respectively. Occasionally, these class-ups will provide new Psynergy, but that's not the case this early.



TWO VIALS?!?!?!!! ITS LIKE CHRISTMAS



Talking to the innkeeper here confirms that we actually went the right way.



Unfortunately, the shopowners have all come down with illness, preventing us from buying their wares for now.



One couple frantically demands for us to fetch the healer Mia as we talk to them, when the old man starts showing serious signs of illness.



We steal his bottle. It is completely sanitary to do so.



Okay, let's find the healer.



Just missed her, just barely. Okay.



So we return and find the dude lying down, with his wife and Mia watching over him.



He can't even proper respond for how much he's coughing.



Can she do it? Is she a good fantasy doctor?



Of course she is, this isn't a plot death.



To little surprise, she's an Adept, and a Mercury one to boot. Guess who our fourth party member is going to be.



Ply doubles as both a field spell and a healing spell, which is a little strange, but not impossibly so.



In either event, it puts the old man right as rain.



The grandma thanks her, coughing a bit on her own.



And then Mia notices she has spectators. But before we can chime in...



Oh no. Oh hell. Oh we done screwed up.



STAND ON IT AGNES



And to make matters more interesting, Mia namedrops Alex before she sprints off.

Our party... doesn't say a single thing here, honestly. You'd think they'd at least hold a personal powwow here, but no, not a word. Did I seriously not have to rewrite ANYTHING?

...Well, I guess I could've written the bedside scene to involve the party more, or included more of its textboxes. But no, next update I can do more in that vein.

Next Time: Harry Potter and the Mercury Lighthouse

As I write this, I'll probably be posting the first update of this LP. Guess my backlog idea worked. Go me.



Mercury Lighthouse is the first of the four elemental lighthouses that the villains of the game plan to light.



It's... kind of in disrepair, as seen by the Fountain of Healing here having run completely dry.



Doesn't take long for us to catch up to Mia.





Well that's nice and subtle.



Out of my way. Her way. Our way. Whatever.



This is a surprise to no one.



Well, it's a surprise to Garet, but he doesn't count.





While that's going on, she uses Ply to heal the barrier behind the statue out of our way. Don't think too hard about it.



And off she goes.

Unfortunately, in the original game, Mia gets barely any dialogue at all: outside of the few scenes early on in the Mercury Lighthouse thing and the scenes at the top, all of her dialogue could be said by Ivan and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. That said, the few scenes she actually gets give her plenty of groundwork for a solid character. Right off the bat, we know she's part of a line of healers, up to and including Alex, and that her mind immediately jumps to him when the lighthouse shows sign of entry. She acts much the part of a doctor too, being cordial but frank with the people she's working with. And to the writers' rare credit, they never once try to make her into a romantic interest, even a little bit.



However, not a small step later on, she gets walled by a lizardman.



We elect to beat the hell out of it.



Blessings are breath weapons because localization is hard. And needless to say, most enemies here will have Mercury-aligned attacks.



We clown it in record time and Mia simply gives us a nod and continues onward. No textboxes this time. In fairness, her forbidding us from entering is an invention of mine that isn't in the text, which makes it weird that she's so concerned about who even got into the lighthouse in the first place.



Anyway, Mercury Lighthouse, despite being basically a ruin, is the second first real puzzle dungeon in the game, and it's pretty clever.



But to really get the puzzle aspect unlocked, we'll need to get to that statue, which we really can't right now.



They drag this on a bit, don't they? Last time, though, I promise.





Literally nobody is surprised by this!



Mia's base class of Water Seer (the Cleric line) is best suited to being a healer, and her stats are similar. She's fairly middle of the road in almost all aspects, with particularly high Luck, PP and Defense. The real edge she has over people here is her currently better equipment and level: she is currently our toughest party member by a significant margin.



Ply both serves as a field Psynergy (in Mercury Lighthouse only) and a healing Psynergy, slightly stronger than Cure in exchange for costing more PP. She can also Cure Poison (we haven't been poisoned yet) and use Frost, which will not be used here but will see plenty of use in the future.



Moving along. These waterfalls are common here, and quite a few can have hidden rooms behind them, which means Isaac will be faceplanting into every single one.



There's two main categories of puzzle here. The first is these water pipes.

Once connected, the nozzles at the end spray lots of water, enough to shove people or statues around.



Like so. We want to head past that nozzle, but we can't get down there without activating it first.



There's a few treasures here, all of which I'll be getting, none of which are critical.



This one's easy though, just shove the pipe away and the flow stops.



The treasure in question is a full PP restore that I will be selling for lods of emone.



Anyway, Mia's combat capabilities. She starts with Frost and its upgraded form Tundra, and the Ice Psynergy for single targets. By their targeting and PP costs, you already know exactly how effective they are in any given situation.



But hey, still important to showcase lizards getting punked by falling icicles.



Her equipped armor or something also grants her PP regeneration in combat, so that's nice.



This is not a puzzle. This is busywork.



Tundra, go!



That SUCKED. Show us a real move, Garet.



I am the BEST at capturing weapon unleash effects on camera.



In any event, we land loudly right where we need to be.



We honor the heart of the goddess or something like that.



And things start a-glowin'.



From now on, these tiles in the water will grant us a limited water-walking ability.



Each tile we touch lets us land on the water with a jump up to three times.



But we'll get to that later. This mechanic is sadly a little under-utilized here, which is doubly shameful because it only ever shows up in Mercury Lighthouse.



Oh no it is a Mimic.



The Mimic has solid physical attacks and a few status moves, like Sheep Rain here.



They're... pretty unreliable.



The physical attacks, though, pack a kick.



Debilitate lowers the defense of everyone it affects, but like Sleep, it's not a sure thing.



Mia begins play with the artifact Witch's Wand, which does exactly what you see here. The stun effect is rare, but potent.



Mimics can also drain Psynergy. There's more Mimics than this one but they scale up with area.

I finish it off with Ivan's weak physical attack just to prove I can.



Good news is, he gets another really good Psynergy attack.



Garet also picks up his own single-target Psynergy, but we'll get much better options for him and Isaac in that vein later on.



Oh, this isn't bad. Strong armor that recharges Psynergy for the wearer.



Isaac's defense is currently criminally low, so he gets it.



Also go around shuffling everyone's weapons to ensure everyone has at least a passable physical attack. Mia can wield maces in addition to staffs, so she gets Isaac's old Heavy Mace...



While her Witch's Wand goes to Ivan, replacing his now-obsolete Magic Rod.



Isaac takes the Bandit's Sword back up once again. Garet keeps his Elven Rapier, it's by far our strongest weapon.



This room is the main point where the water-skipping mechanic sees play.



You lose all water-skips when you touch land, so you have to navigate the area based on how far you can extend water-skips given the terrain around you.



If you head left from that previous screenshot, you get a thing you'll never use.



But any other route from there...



Basically is a dead end.



Take the long road, hugging the south wall, to get through here.



Bonk! Take that, with me and my moderately effective physical attack!



Oh no, a nap!



Sirens also get a flying kung fu kick. Best demon.



This stone doubles as both a shortcut to the earlier area you won't need and a pointless time extender as you get your three water-skips you won't use.



Man, how awkward would this be to exit into?



Water-skip tiles don't function without water. This isn't Jupiter Lighthouse, NERD.



Can YOU see the solution to this puzzle??????



WELL I'M NOT SHOWING IT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA



Anyway. Plasma is just one strong lightning bolt rather than a constant stream like Ray. It packs more of a kick and costs more PP, because thats how Golden Sun handles progression.



Can't get into door, switch is one of THOSE switches.



So we do this thing.

Horizontal pipe doesn't have anywhere to fit, it's just there to control where the vertical one goes.



Each of the three legal positions for the vertical pipe cause a new nozzle to spray.



As is becoming the startling norm, we can only progress by damaging priceless ancient statuary.



Why would you put these statues here and not expect us to push all of them?



Oh man, I thought we were doomed when we sold that other Nut, but now we have a backup Nut. We are truly saved.



Anyway, once we find the actual entrance to this room, we push the pipe for the nozzle...



And it punches the wall out of the way. If we get hit by the spray, it pushes us downwards, so we have to push the pipe away, which causes the wall to block off the door again. This raises so many questions that will never be answered.



Monsters getting tougher.



Like the bats earlier, I have no idea if Harpy shrieks can stun or not. I know later ones can.



In this long hallway of waterfalls, go into this one. Which one? I forget. Just mash your face against every waterfall. Life advice, that.



Inside is a Mercury Djinni that is quite happy being here and doesn't feel like coming with us.



YOU NEVER HAD A CHOICE IN THE MATTER.



KA-THOOM.



It only takes two rounds complete with Volcano casting to bring down the Djinni.



And that makes our second Mercury Djinni, since Mia comes with one. Her starting Djinni, Fizz, heals someone...



While Sleet here attacks with a chance to lower the target's attack.



This also upgrades Mia's class to Scribe and reminds me that I have yet to actually see what Mercury Djinn do for my class composition, or what the other Djinn types do for Mia.



Like Ivan, Mia becomes a Wanderer by getting Mars Djinn...



And also like Ivan, it's currently a pretty useless idea to do so, the base stats are great but the Psynergy is basically a downgrade. Better idea for her than Ivan, at least.



Garet and Isaac both gain access to the Defender class, which among other things gives us a defense-boosting Psynergy and the Avoid Psynergy, lowering the number of encounters we get. I'll definitely have one of them as Defender once we get a few more Djinn.



Actually, no, Isaac doesn't get Guard. But he makes up for it later down the road, trust me.



Again, like Ivan, Mia gets the Seer class from Venus Djinn. In both this and future entries, most Mars and Venus (Sol) characters get physically-focused classes, while Mercury and Jupiter (Luna) classes get ones with wider Psynergy selections, particularly support and healing.



And lastly, if Ivan and Mia swap Djinn, they get the Hermit, or with two, Elder class.

Mostly notable here is the fact that these grant access to the Impact Psynergy to boost attack.



But enough of that for now.



Wonder how many times we'll have to do this.



Ah, last time. We end up in this room, where something something honor the goddess use Ply.



Okay.



This reverses the waterfall, letting us ascend to the heavens or something.



Please demonstrate for us, Mia.



And away she goes!



You're next, Isaac.



And he fumbles and flies up flailing like a fool.



Neither of the other two screw up this way, although Garet internally exults at a rare instance of Isaac screwing up more than he does.



But unfortunately, we're too late.



Mercury Lighthouse is now lit.



And we've only just arrived in time to fail.



I'm gonna take a break here, because the next update will have plenty of rewriting to do.



It'll also have a boss encounter, obviously.

Next Time: Harry Potter and the Mars Swordsman

COMING UP NEXT: The hardest fight in Golden Sun!

...mainly because kalir is sequence breaking, and the fight won't even be that hard, you just have to play a little bit defensively

So we're gonna do a boss fight despite that we've already lost this objective, and also due to a mild case of technical sequence breaking we're starkly underleveled. What could go wrong?





Most of the conversation that would've happened in the above screenshots I've already shunted to the start of the lighthouse, where you basically tell Mia nothing and she is assumed to be 100% in the dark about everything except healing, except when she isn't. So I'm gonna have to invent a bit more than usual here.



Anyway, the crew's all ready to leave on the elevator over there that doesn't work until the lighthouse is lit.





Oh man, time to fight Menardi and Felix?



Nope.



Saturos walks out from behind the lighthouse orb, that being the only place to hide for a halfway dramatic reveal.











And down they go.



Garet's first instinct is to rush after them.



But just a glance from Saturos...



Forces him to back up.



As he advances, he staggers and turns to face the lighthouse.



Hello, opening!



BRING IT ON



Saturos is the boss fight for Mercury Lighthouse, and even with the lighthouse messing with his Psynergy he's still a major contender.



He has a few Mars attacks, one of them being Heat Flash, which works like weapon unleashes in that it's physical but also Mars typed. It can also inflict delusion, which matters precisely not at all.



This also means that Mercury attacks pack the most kick, making Mia our most reliable damage dealer.



Saturos' Psynergy is even more dangerous, though. Fireball, the upgraded version of Fire, can hit our entire team for serious damage.



And if the center of the effect hits a fragile character, they're almost certainly biting the dust.



We have one Water of Life, which means one revive, for the whole fight.

Needless to say, Mia gets that revive if at all possible.



Ivan's damage output is decent, and he's the only guy who can outspeed Saturos, but his inability to take a hit means he's not worth the trouble to revive.



Isaac's going to be on healing duty probably, since he has Cure and enough health to take a beating, but again, Saturos outspeeds everyone except Ivan.



Oh yeah, he has the upgraded form of Volcano, too.



Healing items are pretty handy for a few of our teammates since their HP is getting high enough that a single Cure or two won't cut it.



But looks like this run isn't going to end well.



Yep, down. Well, we are underleveled and underequipped.



You wind up in the nearest Sanctum whenever defeated, with everyone but Isaac downed and him at 1 HP. Which means we have to climb Mercury Lighthouse all over again unless we reload our save.



Guess what I did. I also give Garet some of our items, including the Water of Life, since his damage output isn't great but he's by far the hardiest of the lot.



Literally not a surprise at all.



I could also have Garet actively use his Djinn, since his attack Psynergy loses a bit of effectiveness against Saturos.



Bye, Ivan.



Well, the rest of us can enjoy Forge's benefit.



Such potential!



Follow up with a Fever dunk...



Solid damage. Probably not worth expending a Djinni for.



Ah, but with two Mars Djinn on standby, we get access to a new summon!



Needless to say, summons involving two or more Djinn get ridiculous animations.



Kirin's basically a Flare Wall cranked up to 11.



The damage is decent, but the summon also gives Garet a much-needed elemental boost. This is what helps you use dual-element classes early on.



That said, this run isn't winning either.



Okay, need a new plan.



HNNNNGH. Can't buy armor because armor salesman is sick.



FINE WE'RE BACKTRACKING TO BILIBIN FOR SHOPPING.



Mia's apprentice Justin here can revive people that have fallen in combat, as can any priest at a sanctum. They also offer other services: namely, curing Poison, Haunt, and unequipping cursed items (of course cursed items are in the game). Curing poison is pointless since Mia can do that without trying. Haunt persists through fights and has no curing method outside of sanctums, so that's welcome. And cursed items are a terrible mechanic and you can already tell if an item is cursed by checking its description.

Glow for victory!



Now that Mia's on my team and we have Mercury Djinn, I wrongly assume I can do something about this area by using Douse on this flame.



We CAN use Douse on it, but I'm pretty sure we can't get anywhere useful with it. I'll double check once we bring down Saturos though.



Anyway, back in Bilibin, we buy up loads of armor.



I sell off the Psy Crystal to cover the extra expenses and to buy a fourth weapon for the team, namely a Broad Sword.



Ivan gets the Elven Rapier now, which means Mia gets the Witch's Wand, Garet gets the Heavy Mace, and Isaac the Broad Sword. We sell the Bandit's Sword off.



On the way back, I briefly reclass Garet to cast Avoid a few times.



It's incredibly efficient at keeping monsters off of our collective backs.



Anyway, back here, one more fight.



Freshly equipped and ready to roll, get Flinted at!



New armor helps against physical attacks but does nothing against his formidable Psynergy.



Bye Ivan.



As you can see, Djinn in recovery will come back one per turn midfight. If you're looking for certain unleash effects, you can check the Djinn list to see what's coming back sooner.



Well, that didn't work either. New plan time.



We'll start off with all our Djinn on standby, since we don't really need the class boosts and Saturos can kill us just fine at full power than at not. This way, we can do a summoning alpha strike to start that also boosts our elemental power, letting us claim an early lead and hold it.



Additionally, this lets Mia pull off our deadliest weapon against him.



Ivan also wants to land the Jupiter summon, since even the Elven Rapier has an innate Jupiter element on its physical attacks.



Heat Flash still packs a kick but as an opener is 100% acceptable.



Nereid time!

...I really like how they made the summons in Dark Dawn significantly less anime.



Anime or not, Saturos doesn't like getting punked by a massive geyser.



That is some unreal damage, right there, and Mia's going to enjoy a 30 point Water boost for the rest of the fight.



Fireball remains incredibly dangerous for its ability to hit the field, of course.



Sadly, Volcano does more damage than Garet's physical attack right now. The Heavy Mace just doesn't pack as much of a kick as I thought it would.



STILL STANDING, SCREW YOU



Isaac's down, and we kinda need him for healing, but we've also done a lot of damage.

One last Flint unleash does the trick.



Ivan doesn't get the XP for defeating Saturos, which is a shame but acceptable. Isaac gets even better at healing than Mia for now.





Oh man, guess where he was hiding.



Yep, they were both sharing a hiding spot behind the lighthouse orb for DRAMATIC REVEALS. Were they just casually chatting back there?





This is wrong, by the way. Mia's innate PP regen is most likely tied to her equipment, and her Psynergy doesn't experience any more of a boost in power than usual. But for the sake of the story, let's say it's right.



At around this time, Saturos staggers to his feet.







And with that, the two vanish.





Elevator returns in time for them to warp to it.





Another warp to the elevator, and some cordial taunting.



So.

Alex gets a bit of characterization as someone with a very high opinion of himself and a very low willingness to get his hands directly dirty. In fact, all he usually does in the games, instead of fighting, is either just healing or talking. His motives aren't very hard to guess, he wants the lighthouses lit for himself. His relationship to Mia, though, is only barely touched on, mostly due to Mia herself getting no real screentime.

Given that the lighthouse being lit has an immediately beneficial effect (the Fountain of Hermes) which is also necessary to advance the plot, it's evident that Alex is at least partially telling the truth here... except he says even less of actual use in the cutscene here, instead just going over bland-ass standard stuff that anyone with half a brain could infer on accident (Mia is a Mercury Adept, Saturos is a Mars Adept, FIRE AND WATER ARE OPPOSITES). So I tried to play up the teacher angle here, as someone who's learned some new truths and wants to spread them, to a student who can see he has a point but knows he's not doing it for the right reasons.



Meanwhile, the team comes to grips with the fact that we've basically completely failed.



Mia takes the loss pretty badly.



And in normal Golden Sun, that's all the characterization Mia ever gets, and even then not that much. Her curiosity and need to discover the truth are basically inventions of mine, but she still has definition in her duty to her homeland and her harsh self-blame when things go wrong. But again, outside of this area, she's basically a blank slate.



Anyway yeah, fountain's in working condition.



We'll need some for ourselves.



It can be used to fullheal one character's HP, but we won't use it for that.



And before we go, Mia can go say goodbye to Megan and Justin.

These guys don't have portraits or even unique sprites, but they're still more important than Garet's unique-sprited family who don't have names. Golden Sun's priorities are weird.



Anyway nothing here really says anything of use and I don't feel like rewriting it.



Anyway they're going to stay here and uphold Mercury Clan traditions and whatever. Okay cool, loose end that didn't matter wrapped up.



Get Ivan back on his feet.



And now these two are well enough to sell new armor and weapons. The Adept's Clothes, in particular, are very strong universal armor sets that give the wearer innate PP regen, but they're awfully pricey right now.



And the shop has a Blessed Ankh. Ankhs have a unique sprite as a weapon but are otherwise identical to staffs. There's also not very many in the game, which I personally think is a bit disappointing.

Next Time: Harry Potter and the Forest of Hatred

you had to fight that like three or four times

loser

Back in Bilibin. Rather than the last two times I visited a non-essential town that is secretly essential, I'm not going to fast forward ahead this time to the block. Instead I'll just explain the things going down.



As Ivan mentioned way back when, Bilibin does trade with Kolima, a village of lumberjacks. Recently, Lord McCoy of Bilibin requested a lot of lumber, particularly the lumber from the holy tree, to complete a new palace for his wife (who is awful and will receive no further mention). This happened right around the time of the Mt. Aleph eruption, and was followed shortly after by a curse hitting Kolima, turning its people into trees. One Koliman made it to Bilibin and managed to tell everyone there before turning into a tree. So now Lord McCoy is sending any warriors brave enough to Kolima to dispel the curse.



This basically has everyone in Bilibin scared and unwilling to investigate because no word has been heard from the warriors that HAVE been sent, leading them to think the curse got them too.



The whole reason we are forced to deal with this rather than taking the direct route is because the drawbridge leading to Fuchin Temple and Mogall Forest is currently up, and staffed by a Koliman. Why they'd station a drawbridge there when there are no hostile forces that would travel between the two regions is to force you to do this non-sidequest a mystery and likely the cause of bureaucracy.



The theoretical reason we can't get into Kolima, much less the Kolima Drawbridge, is because Lord McCoy ordered a barricade to contain the spread of the curse and prevent travelers going to Kolima without his permission.



So we're gonna fistfight a curse. This'll be EZ.



Anyway, this here's Lord McCoy.



He has his text written as though in a Scottish accent. Nobody else in Bilibin demonstrates this accent. I will not bother with copying all the -ae stuff into my text for him, but I will try to preserve that kind of cadence, since hey, it's distinctive.





McCoy puts the key on the table, but doesn't hand it over yet.





With that, McCoy snatches up the key again.





So, you can, of course, do the bulk of this non-sidequest without Mia in the party. Having her makes her present and involves her in the group emotes, but she doesn't... say any lines. And you'd think being a healer with supernatural powers faced with a curse, she'd want to throw herself into it headlong to save whoever she could.



Anyway, back out here, the captain catches up to us. He apologizes for his lord's harsh but fair command...



And then drops a major clue to let the children traipse off into the cursed forest.



Needless to say, we use this information instantly. (You can also just head to the barricade yourself or get info from the workers around town that the barricade was built in a rush and had to cut some corners.)



Didn't even bother with the sign saying the area was off-limits or a non-glowy screenshot of the barricade and just shoved a tall crate out of the way.



If you head here first before the Mercury Lighthouse, these three trees are stacked on top of each other on the far side. Now, they're scattered around haphazardly. Mind-reading them indicates that they're worried about the tree in the river, in danger of being swept away.



So we grab it with Move to pull it closer to shore...



And physically haul it the rest of the way.



This is a legit, if minor, sidequest, with a legit, if minor, reward. To get it, we'll come back after breaking the curse (which we intend to do anyway to taunt Lord McCoy).



The culprits are none other than Saturos and Menardi, who elected to ignore the barricade in favor of just crossing the river.



Kolima!

BUT THEN, EVIL FORCES STRIKE BACK



Under the incredible psychic assault, everyone quickly collapses.

Also, Mia DOES get lines here, but they're usually repetitive chasers to the lines anyone else says.



Shortly after, the sparkling stuff from before descends from the sky, gradually approaching us.





However, just before the tide of glitter reaches us, mystical barriers?



The dust gets harmlessly dissipated upon contacting the barrier.



As the wave passes us, the barriers fade away.





Garet protests this point so vehemently that he stands up to do it.



This is, thankfully, not lost on him.





I'm not actually adding this line to the discussion at hand. I'm just posting it here because what.



In fact most of the rest of this isn't actually worth using, since this scene doesn't grant you a new power and the barrier in question only works against this specific effect.



Anyway, sparkles happen again.



And the barrier works as before, but this time we get someone commenting on our efforts.



These two are Tret and Laurel, the holy trees of Kolima.



Tret is just a little bit miffed that people tried cutting him down.



Also the forest is dying for reasons unknown.



So there's how we break the curse. Go heal Tret and maybe make him slightly less berserk in the process.



So here's the reason why we'd have to backtrack here. Ordinarily, you'd get into the forest, make it all the way to Tret, and still have nothing that could help the curse. But since we got the Water of Hermes, we can heal Tret no problem.



Most of the villagers are just a bit annoyed about the whole thing. Some despondent, but on the whole they're taking it pretty well.



Anyway, time for our next Venus Djinni, and this one's stupid.



You have to enter the backside of this house, which leads to a cellar.



The cellar, in turn, leads to this guy.

The only clue you'd get is that entering the house normally only shows about half of it, but that doesn't excuse it being a case of the secret entrance being painfully obvious from the protagonist's point of view. Bonus points for the barrier being a fence we could probably clear on accident.

Granite is one of the two Djinn mentioned that basically doubles as a Defend action for everyone on your team. True doom Alchemyheads are known for using this Djinn as an Unleash, then setting it manually on the same turn as you unleash its partner, and alternating between the two. This renders your party effectively invincible at the cost of two of their turns and a lot of pointless menu futzing. Me, I say that if you're really going to that length to make Golden Sun easier, you really need to reconsider your priorities.

It also upgrades Isaac from Squire to Knight (as well as Garet from Brute to Ruffian, and the other two from Seer to Diviner).



Let's hit the forest, then.



If you go here first, you get the same barrier cutscene and intro to Tret and Laurel.



Given our over-leveling and high-end gear from Mercury Lighthouse, we can walk through the encounters here effortlessly.



This area has some logs, which work much like the pipes from Mercury Lighthouse, save that we push them into water rather than funneling it through.



I like that the Drone Bees have... either spears or knives, hard to tell.



For a lot of these, the crux of the puzzle is just shoving the logs such that you can let one or two of them into key positions. A log in motion stays in motion et cetera.



All we gotta do is clear a path and we can throw this one across no problem.



Hop!



This area here has the biggest puzzle for Kolima Forest. Getting to the exit isn't hard, but we want that treasure. Sort of. Not really. It's there.



First, we open the floodgate, letting water through and letting us push the logs.



This log here is the only one that actually needs to move, but cleaning up after it does is a bit trickier. Doubly so since the logs are two tiles below where they actually end up once floating.



Our reward for all of this is a Fur Coat, which isn't actually that useful to us now that we've cleared Mercury Lighthouse. Going from here to there, though, it helps quite a bit.



Literally nobody here wants it.



If you don't care about the Fur Coat, the puzzle is easily solved by tapping this log.



And just past there is Laurel!



Laurel is extremely pessimist and we will pay her no mind.



Tret give us no reply whatsoever...



Except for how he does. That's probably not normal.



Anyway, time for the intro dungeon of Ocarina of Time.



The Tret tree is mostly annoying for its high encounter rate, a problem easily fixed with our high levels and easy access to Mercury Djinn.



The puzzle element here is these leaves. You can jump on one once, but a second time breaks it, causing you to fall down a floor.



You can also head out onto the branches. Visibility's a bit poor, but there's also not much in the way of treasures out here, either.



The encounters continue to not be a threat at all. Some of the enemies have unique capabilities, I think Spiders can lower agility and poison, but against our party they rarely last.



Anyway, it's not much work to get through here. Just tedious from the encounter rate is all.

Occasionally, we have to use vines in the branches to ascend.



If you jump on the spiders, not only do you drop a floor, but you get into an encounter on the way. Protip: don't do that.



Getting this Healing Ring is a much bigger detour than it looks at first, but it also teaches you that the leaves and falling aren't too dangerous.



I don't think you have to equip it to use it, but may as well. Rings are exceptionally rare, and this one is... okay. Healing 70 without spending Psynergy is nice, especially on fast characters without healing (Ivan), but the fact that it can break at random is annoying. You can repair it at shops, no problem.



Down we go.



Trolls here have Brute Force to deal higher damage, and innate end-of-turn regeneration. Ordinarily pretty dangerous, but not to us. In true fantasy tradition, they dislike smoke and therefore die easily to Mars Psynergy.



One thing that's worth noting is the Jupiter Djinni up here. It likes its perch and attacks if you approach it.



Ivan can't personally do much to it...



But Isaac more than picks up the slack.



Breeze boosts party-wide elemental resistances, which is nice, but what's nicer is it being the second Jupiter Djinni.



This upgrades Ivan to Magician, granting the Impact Psynergy to boost attack, but at this point I also feel 100% okay with swapping around our Djinn. It could also upgrade Isaac or Garet to Illusionist, but that would require using Illusionist.



Here's the new order of things. Mia as Elder takes over Ivan's old role as wide-scale fast Psynergy spammer (and newer one as attack booster). Ivan as Wanderer is a generalist attacker, and he'll later pick up some strong anti-Psynergy options. Garet's Ruffian class suits him well for all-out offense, and Isaac takes over Mia's old role as team healer with his slow, bulky Defender class, arguably the best healer in the game. I could do a lot of things, really, but this setup is the one I like most.



In any event, I definitely wanted someone with the Avoid Psynergy to minimize the time wasted in trivial encounters.



New Psynergy. Mia's Prism Psynergy is an industrial strength hailstorm.



Ivan's Slash series of Psynergy already has Wind Slash, which is good because normal Slash sucks.



It's hard to screenshot, but Garet's Blast Psynergy is just an explosion, which I am 100% in favor of.



And Isaac has the Thorn Psynergy. In practicality, these are all more or less as effective as you thought they were in the first place.



And Isaac picks up a new, incredibly powerful Psynergy immediately. Cutting Edge is one of a handful of Psynergy that also relies on the user's Attack stat. They are all monstrously powerful for handling single targets and incredibly efficient in PP usage. Cutting Edge is the Mercury typed one, for what it matters (it doesn't).



Anyway, once we reach the top of the tree, we can't go any further and have no sign of a Tret to heal (or a Hyde-Tret to beat up). So the trick is to notice the hole in each floor of the tree, the lack of a hole here, and the fact that you can fall through using the leaf here.



Down we go!



Right, we've landed. Now to fight Gohma.



Another face of Tret resides down here...



But it notices the hell out of us.

Guess who the boss fight for this area is.



Something something we're in the heart of his power SHUT UP AND HIT ME



Tret basically appears as a larger version of the Lost Soul enemies we've yet to encounter. If you're fighting him before Mercury Lighthouse he's a decent, but still non-critical, threat.



He's not gonna last for a second here. Mia starts off by using Impact on Isaac, because he's not hitting hard enough yet.



Shing!



Garet doesn't have his version of Cutting Edge yet, so he demonstrates his Growth Psynergy to non-useful effect.



Isaac shows him how it's done with Cutting Edge, dealing a little over 70 damage. And Tret's strongest resistance is Mercury.



Despite this, Tret's Psynergy is all Venus-aligned, of course. Sleep Star is something Wild Mushrooms can use sometimes, but here it fails to do anything.



Mia keeps up the stat boosting on the rest of the team, letting Ivan keep the pace with ease.



Garet has Mars Psynergy here, which is Tret's weakness, so he's best off just casting like a maniac, poor PP reserves notwithstanding.



Unsurprisingly, Tret favors Psynergy like Thorn and Growth. Thorn is decently threatening, but not anywhere near Saturos' stuff.



Continued pressure can take its toll, however.



Everyone here is faster than Tret, so we'll all heal up before continuing our offensive.



The Healing Ring breaks on the first use, greatly disappointing me.



But Tret doesn't live long enough to capitalize on it. No axes required SUCKER



Having detected its boss being slain, the dungeon relinquishes an exit.



Normal mode Tret also wakes up.



And then we beat up your rage with swords and explosions, like true healers.



No you don't, we need you to fix the curse, nerd!



I'm not gonna give this scene a rewriting because it's a one-track road anyway.



Tret attempts to undo his curse...



No dice.



He asks their forgiveness...



And fades away.

...Yeah we can still fix this don't even worry.

Next Time: Harry Potter and the Monk's Challenge

It's useful for the final boss and bonus dungeon bosses, at least!

Let's clean up the last odds and ends of this sidequest line.



We got a Potion somewhere that fully heals whoever you use it on, just like Hermes' Water, but it doesn't help us here.



No biggie. Drink up.



All around us, the forest almost immediately turns a much more vibrant color.



And Tret is saved, without being a murderous vengeance spirit!



And by saving Tret, we have also saved everything else in the forest!



Yeah, fix the problem, dude.



This time, it kicks in proper.



Sidequests complete! Now we can actually go progress in saving the world collect rewards!





Laurel takes a break from the conversation to use her own powers.



That's our next roadblock. Not goal. Roadblock.





So that's that done.

Instances like these are meant to highlight exactly how dangerous the revival of Alchemy that Saturos, Menardi, and now clearly Alex are all working towards is. But I feel like they're not very good at carrying the impact of it across, or at least they don't effectively contrast it with the clear good that came of lighting Mercury Lighthouse. I mean, if we hadn't lit it, we couldn't have fixed the problem the eruption caused. This is one instance where the party could've stood to repeat themselves, ironically, about the dangers of Alchemy and the lighthouses being lit.



We'll get to the evil forest in good time. First, rewards.



On our way back to Bilibin...



We saved that girl who was a tree! Good for us.



No good deed goes unrewarded, unless it does.



Isaac gave a Hard Nut to Mia.

This is one of the game's stat boosting items, in this case defense. It's hard to calculate exactly how much it raises defense by, everyone has their own base stat values and each class has modifiers to each stat, but I'll probably give this to a person. Maybe Mia, now that she's going to be our wizard.



Barricade door is opened. Yay.



The curse has been broken as far as Bilibin.



Okay now this is just lazy. YOU HAVE TO HAVE MIA ON HAND TO COMPLETE THIS QUEST YOU LIZARDPEOPLE OF LOW MORAL FIBER.



Reward time reward time reward time



...reward time?



REWARD TIME

Fun fact: in Dark Dawn, this guy becomes a bloody warmonger off-camera. So that's neat.



Think you all know what we gotta do here.



Y'know what'd be really nice? Is if they made it so using Mind Read on the guards here would tell you which treasure chest has the best item in it.



But no. Your results are all consumables anyway so who cares. (The other options are a Psy Crystal and Water of Life, which is what I went with.)



You have learned nothing and are a waste of everyone's time. McCoy doesn't even MENTION his wife if you talk to him.



Stopping in the shop at Kolima on our way through. We've got more than enough dosh to buy the Blessed Ankh now.



We also fix up Ivan's Healing Ring, since it's actually pretty decent at this stage in the game.



Soon we'll get basically a constant stream of artifact weapons for the team, but for now, Garet gets a mundane weapon.



I don't have enough to buy armor for everyone, though. Oh well!



So, the drawbridge.



As mentioned, this is your roadblock if you haven't cleared the Kolima stuff yet. Dude can't lower the bridge if he's a tree.



Never mind that there's no real reason to install a drawbridge here in the first place.



The Blessed Ankh can potentially seal a target's Psynergy. Note that this does nothing if it's an innate ability that doesn't use Psynergy, like the Bandit's Slice or a Ghoul's Cannibal Fang.



Not much further on, we see the Mogall Forest down south and Fuchin Temple to the north.



Fuchin Temple is technically optional, but there's a Jupiter Djinni here that I want, so I'm going to do its minidungeon anyway. I'll explain how it's optional once we clear the update.



The talk of Fuchin Temple is the monks' master, Nyunpa, attempting to become enlightened by fasting. They're all concerned for him and for the state of Weyard.



The dude himself is sitting in quiet contemplation in the temple, and does not respond to our talking.



But he detects our Mind Reading.



Since he only talks to Isaac here, I really don't care enough about trying to rewrite his scenes.



Anyway, he basically says that if we want to follow the villains we have to go through Mogall Forest WHICH WE ALREADY KNEW



And in order to pass through we need to prove ourselves in the trial thing.



So, the Mogall Forest is the Lost Woods, effectively. In order to navigate it, we need the Psynergy from the temple.

However, the forest itself is not really that lost and winding, the routes are the same every time. If you remember them, or brute force them, you can skip this area completely, including the Psynergy here.

The game is also trying to pass this off as not actually Psynergy but instead a power that is similar and yet completely different from Psynergy but actually it's Psynergy. Don't care.



That much, though, is good advice.



In we go!



The main gimmick of Fuchin Falls Cave is an entirely new type of log.



They work like this.



I knew this was coming. Didn't care. Fight me loser.



This Mimic is pretty dangerous though, having the upgraded version of Isaac's Thorn Psynergy in its repertoire. We still kill it and claim the Game Ticket for ourselves.



So let's see... If we go to the left first...



We end up in this upper path here.



Which leads to this dark room with spikes here.

I could just clear the dungeon now, but no. Still want that Djinni.



As always, a log in motion stays in motion, so we can't stop here.



Hey, new artifact weapon.



Since this one uses Mercury stuff, we're giving it to Isaac, where his Mercury Djinn give him an edge over Garet.



If we wanted, we could just clear this room by taking the spiky hallway. But going to the bottom brings us to another logpond, so we don't.



Hi there entrance hall, how's it going?



There's the Djinn. Getting it is simple enough: just move the log on our left a bit further left, take the one we're on up...



And then we can jump over.



This Jupiter Djinn is as hostile as any other and opens up with the second in the Bolt line of Psynergy. It's really not much more dangerous than its predecessor.



Neither is this guy.



Zephyr can be used in fights to give the team an Agility boost, one of the few ways to boost it in combat. Not that Agility is something you usually care about amping up, but hey, it's there.



Right, we got the Arctic Blade and the Djinni, let's get this over with.



Just like the entire temple and Mogall Forest, you can skip this puzzle by knowing the answer beforehand.



To get the answer, we go in this hideyhole place.



And we get the Dragon's Eye, a priceless artifact we are not going to steal and put in a museum because museums don't exist.

As soon as you take it, you get in a fight with a Skeleton, which is exactly as threatening as it sounds at this stage.



Putting the gem in the statue's eye does the expected result.

If you know the path exists, you can just take it early and skip the temple.



Just down here is the prize...



A hot helping of Ki.



Despite being arguably an offensive Psynergy, Force cannot be used in combat and sees precious little use as a puzzle solver. Its main thing is striking objects at long range, which isn't even what it's used for in Mogall Forest honestly. It's just... really weird.



The Arctic Blade's Blizzard unleash can also lower the target's Attack score, so that's nice I guess.



Okay we're done can we go now.



Oh. Okay.



Yeah dude reads your mind as much as you read his. (Does not mention Ivan or your entire rest of your party at all.)



So, the thing Camelot tried to do with Psynergy and the like is develop it across different cultures, with different names and traits, but ultimately having it all stem from the same sources (and therefore arguably be usable by the party). The curious thing is that most Psynergy granted this way is tied to items, while the monks here basically say they get it by honing mind and body through training and meditation.



In practice, this results in the same conversation being had on average about three times per game and the player learning nothing of merit from it. One could argue the items in question are like Psynergy Stones and just take longer to work on non-Adepts but that's justification I think the writers didn't seriously think through that much.



Anyway how does Force grant us the ability to pass through Mogall Forest?



Well, we could annoy monsters with it.



That doesn't really help us, though.



So rather than getting ourselves into even more fights...



We're meant to scare monsters off...



And follow the path they take.



That's it.

We're done with Fuchin Temple.

This isn't even the most afterthought-y place in the series, not by a long shot, but it's pretty obvious that it's meant as an afterthought. I mean, credit where it's due, they don't stretch the conversations with Nyunpa any more than they have to, but that also means there's not even table scraps to turn into a full conversation here. This area is just dull. Sorry about that.

Next Time: Harry Potter and the Land of Chi and Silk

BEGIN APE QUEST



So, hi. Welcome to Mogall Forest. Prairie. Psynergy Stones did it.



To progress in here, we need to use the Force Psynergy we gained in Fuchin Temple on the stumps here.



This scares out the ape inside and makes it run away. The direction it runs is the direction we progress. But again, this is a static path that doesn't vary between games. Force isn't required once you know what's up.



You have to be fairly close to the stump to have Force connect with it. Hit detection's a little wonky.



New enemies, which we are now appropriately leveled for, rather than over or under.



Sometimes the stumps hold hostile apes, usually if they're not in your path of progression.



Just realized: Golden Sun does this a lot: hide enemies in puzzle paths.

The Ape is kind of dangerous but not enough to dissuade me from fighting it.



This is... probably the last time we'll have to push logs for a while.



Spirits and Death Heads, you say?



Everything is weak to explosions.



I like that the whole justification Nyunpa gives for these monsters not fighting is that VIOLENCE IS WRONG and yet you're still scaring them from their homes with force.



The Spirits here act in death as they did in life, by flaunting their wealth.



Occasionally we'll find multiple stumps to use Force on. It's not a matter of guessing wrong, at least not this time.



Instead, one of the stumps will have an ape flee in another direction.



Just like in real life, Apples let you kill things more effectively.



Don't forget, Move works at a distance! But it doesn't work on logs, for reasons.



Garet gets a finally-usable Venus attack in the form of Mad Growth.



And it's about to become even stronger. I think Blast is overall more effective at this stage, but I'm not discounting Mad Growth either.



Ivan's inability to not attack with Jupiter makes him incredibly effective at taking down the Venus Djinni.



In a true throwback to Dragon Quest, Quartz here can revive allies it's used on. At 50% health. Sometimes.

OR WE COULD JUST WAIT UNTIL ISAAC AND GARET GET THE REVIVE PSYNERGY WHICH DOESN'T HAVE A FAILURE RATE



Anyway, we need to roll the log into the water to get just enough reach to Force the stump.



This doesn't actually scare it off down a path, just into another stump. It doesn't retreat into the first stump when you force the second because reasons.



Hey look it's Ply used in combat. Asema tells me that in the original it was likely meant to be Pray instead, but I kind of like it as Ply, and it still works like that.



Also Mia manages to seal one of the Bone Fighters' Psynergy. Never mind that they don't have any Psynergy TO seal.

Three stumps here. The first one contains a hostile Ape.



Other two flee left and down respectively.



Left leads to a minor puzzle...



Resulting in the Elven Shirt.



The innate Agility boost of the Elven Shirt is incredibly high, higher than anything else in the game that boosts Agility. But defense-wise, it gets outpaced incredibly fast. If it's more important for a character to be fast than alive, then it's great (and one of the rare few items worth importing to the Lost Age) but that's not actually the case, is it? Yeah didn't think so.



We got the Djinni, we got the shirt, this area has overstayed its welcome. Let's speed it up.



COMPLEX PUZZLES



TERRIFIED APES



COOL FIGHT ANIMATIONS



AND THEN A BOSS BATTLE



Killer Ape is the boss of the area and is about as hard as Tret was supposed to be.



A crit on Ivan deals about half his health so that's fun for starters.



Again, everything is weak to explosions.



The Killer Ape has a few weak Psynergy effects but is mostly reliant on hitting dudes really hard with physical attacks.



Should it actually bother casting Douse or whatever, it has wasted its time and yours.



Ditto Bind. Garet might be our best caster here, but we've basically progressed past the point where we need offensive Psynergy in boss battles.



Turns out with Impact on him, Garet doesn't even care about Psynergy use.



Ransack is the Killer Ape's deadliest attack, but again, it only hits one target and we're all basically fine.



Yaaaaaaaaaay



Isaac picks up Restore, letting him cure Sleep, Stun, Delude, Bind, and all sorts of other things midfight. None of the ailments it heals are persistent out of combat.



The ape also relinquishes the Douse Drop it was using in the fight.



As we've seen before, Douse is usable outside of combat to put out fires and fill water. Isaac's getting it because he could actually use a multi-target Mercury attack and doesn't have one, but I don't expect him to actually use it in fights.



Right, next town.



But not really. The encounters in the wild here are stronger than ever, with hostile Apes being common and Moles joining the fray, bringing their own version of Delude in. Ironically, Delude is actually a halfway annoying status effect now.



We're going up to this island with zero defining features. Guess why. Guess guess guess.

RANDOM DJINNI ENCOUNTER.



There are a few overworld spots where Djinn like to hang out. These spots are in no way marked and can frequently not field the Djinni you want, instead giving you a normal encounter, unless you find the exact right hitbox for the encounter. I'm slightly less annoyed about this since GameFAQs exists, but it's still dumb.



ICE TO MEET YOU



Garet picks up his answer to Isaac's Cutting Edge. Planet Diver costs more PP, hits harder, and is Mars typed, and it's what he'll be using in every boss fight from now on.



Meanwhile, Ivan adds Corona to his roster, which can boost party defenses or something.



Okay, NOW we go to the town of Xian.



The exports of Xian are silk, kung fu, and stilted dialogue. If you were charitable, you could pretend it emulates the translation of dubbed kung fu films Bruce Lee and the like pioneered. I'm not charitable and just think it makes already slow conversations take even longer.



Much like Fuchin Temple, Xian is basically optional as well. I could stop in the weapon and armor store here but completely forgot and/or don't feel like it.



At least we won't lack for entertainment.



The little girl strikes at blinding speed, sending the log flying.



Pretty cool, pretty cool.



We'll just throw it with our minds no big deal but yeah your kung fu is impressive too.



Shut up and let me reach that Djinni!



So, the trick here is that this bloke here is basically fetching water from the spring here. If we annoy them at the right time...



They'll create a puddle for us. What a friendly helper!



This is where Mia's Frost Psynergy comes in.



As you recall from Bilibin Cave, Golden Sun takes the fact that water expands when frozen to ridiculous...



HEIGHTS! Haha I kill me.



Anyway Mist is here. Good for you, Mist.



To do the pseudo-sort-of-sidequest here we have to go into the kung fu school.



Can't go in here yet, not that anything is in here.



Let's show off our badass extremely situational psychic powers.



Nyunpa said it was ki, these guys say it's chi... what next, qi?



Don't I wish.



The guy goes to fetch Master Feh to show him our skills, but is interrupted by an angry purple-haired girl.

Master Feh is this guy. Okay.



And this is Feizhi, worried about Hsu. Considering their entire conversation is between the two of them and has very little impact on anything whatsoever, I'm not going to bother editing it.



This is the only really relevant bit of info here. The eruption of Mt. Aleph didn't just give creatures and plants powers, but it can also do the same to humans.



Of course, clairvoyance doesn't mean a whole lot when suddenly developed in a culture with no recognition of it.



Still, her accuracy is sound.



Hey look, the indicator for where we're ACTUALLY supposed to go.



Note to anyone planning to play SMT1 in the future: name your law hero Feh.



Speeding it up. Since she's worried about Hsu, and Master Feh didn't even bother to send people out to find him given that he's late, Feizhi's just gonna up and find the dude himself.



Master Feh doesn't really care that much.



But he also either has very little faith in his... daughter? Niece? Protege? I don't even know. Either that, or he has written Hsu off as dead and isn't willing to send people after him. PERHAPS HE IS THE MURDERER



Anyway, he notices we punched a tree over with our minds and demands a demonstration.



It's not chi, guys. But okay.



This gets the attention of everyone in the dojo because WOW WE ARE SUCH SKILLED MASTERS OF CHI. Except it's not chi. This is amazing and I have entered slash and burn mode with my screenshots at this point.



We will be going here, and it will have actually relevant information for character backstory. Kind of.



Anyway, chi is physically-based, using the body, and both ki and Psynergy use the power of the mind instead, and THIS IS ALL SO DULL AND INCONSEQUENTIAL AND CHI LITERALLY NEVER COMES UP IN THE STORY AFTER THIS



No. Bye.

It might seem like I'm being awfully dismissive and lazy about this whole segment, but there really is no reason for it to exist at all. We never actually need to return to Xian for any reason, chi is not mentioned in the plot of any of the three games or even in side material, ki is about the same in terms of usefulness, and Xian shows basically no sign that Saturos or Menardi passed through at all. Vault and Bilibin might've held detours that felt inconsequential but at least led to new characters or information about the world that actually mattered, or failing both conditions, loot. Xian offers none of this. Screw you, Xian.



Back in the field, where I can at least show off Planet Diver. It works exactly how it looks and sounds.



Anyway, over here is Silk Road.



Road out of service, please seek detour.



So, Silk Road being blocked off is basically the doing of Saturos and Menardi. Which makes sense, if they want to delay us until they light as many lighthouses as they can. Doubly so since our party has proven they're quick studies at combat and have even beaten Saturos in a fight, albeit with a homefield advantage. The fact that it's wrecked a major travel route for everyone else is, of course, collateral damage they've been demonstrated as more than willing to accept.



She'll ask this question each time you talk to her but basically always decides to stick around and look for Hsu. Spoilers: he's just off camera to the left and we'll be saving him once we clear the mess at Altin.



First, let's get what we can here.



Using Growth and Frost together gets us a helping of Power Bread, which increases max HP for whoever eats it.



North it is, then.



Tiny overworld area for no clearly defined reason!

Altin is, true to Feizhi's words, completely flooded. The cause is rooted in the Psynergy Stones once again.



Needless to say, with the shops all flooded, we can't buy anything.



So how this works is pretty simple. Basically, there's a bunch of these nerds in the mines.



As we find them, they'll ponderously hop away, and we want to catch them. The more we kill, the lower the water level drops, which in turn gets us access to more shops.



But I don't feel like tackling that until next time.

Yeah I'm slacking off on rewriting things for this update, and probably for all of the Altin Mine update too. I don't care. Xian is still stupid.

Next Time: Harry Potter and the Flooded Mine

I have never played any of the games from this series. Is the gameplay good and/or fun? As I understand from this LP and others the presentation is pointlessly verbose - so does the gameplay make up for it? It does seem to have some interesting mechanics. However, the different classes and skills from the different djinn setups seems like something that would be tedious to figure out without a guide.

Don't you mean with Force?