Let's Play Golden Sun: Dark Dawn - My writing cannot defeat the dead.

[Kalir]

I'm also going to start the next page of this off with the commercial in question, so you can all join me in going "what does this have to do with Golden Sun".

 

[Kalir]

Oh yeah, one last thing before we leave Border Town. One of the musicians that left Belinsk for inspiration is up here.

She wanted to see a warfront to bring some real emotion to her performances, but at our request, she goes back to Belinsk to await our request of the Arangoa Prelude. Her piano playing opens up a new song for request in Belinsk, Lake Bycal Moonlight. It's a considerably more somber and thoughtful piece.

Before I get on with the Port Rago bits; this is the return route from after we get to the mountain roc.

Kolima Junction's currently blocked off, but it does tell us that somewhere in the Kolima Forest bit we'll finally get that rock-crushing move we want.

Speaking of Lake Bycal, do you want a second featureless peninsula that has a Venus Djinni on it in Morgal?

Too bad, here's this horrid thing.

Moving on, let's go deal with Port Rago.

Port Rago has even less definition than most places in Morgal: it's the coastal dock for all your coastal dock needs. Everyone here talks about how they've been shipwrights since the Exathi ages, how they can make ships capable of surviving the pernicious Otka Sea, and right now they're doing work on a top-secret ship project. It's Briggs' ship, of course, and we're going to need to sneak in.

Piers has made the eastern coast of Angara his second home, and spends a lot of time around here sailing, helping the shipwrights, and generally proving himself king of the ocean. Now, will he be appearing in this game? No, of course not. But he's around.

Anyway, we can't get into the shipwright docks normally, so sneaking in will have to do.

Bit of a roundabout way through the canals, but eh!

We're going left first for a treasure box.

Another for the pile. Still not using these.

While I'm back out here, I ALSO haven't been using the shops to buy much in terms of upgraded weapons and armor. The reasoning for that is simple: we're getting showered with so many artifacts in those categories that the latest shop offerings are simply outclassed by the stuff we found beforehand.

The canals are extremely bland as dungeons, even if they make complete sense as dock setpieces.

As you can see.

We'll need to get that guy, huh.

And we're in! Now we just gotta find Briggs, I guess.

It's not exactly straightforward, but moving around and climbing on the scaffolding is fun enough that I don't mind taking a little more time.

Yeah you see what I mean?

Briggs' ship. It's been described as many things, but the common thread between them is "decrepit".

And there he is. Naturally, Briggs didn't benefit at all from the Golden Sun event, so he's aged all of those thirty years the normal way. He was... I wanna say around mid-to-late-twenties in TLA? I don't know if he had a listed age, but he did have a wife and kid and was plenty fit physically, so youngish adult feels right.

Oh hey do you remember that plot point about how non-Adepts can't perceive Psynergy usage? Do you? I don't.

This is the first time Jenna has gotten an encyclopedia entry. We are at approximately the halfway point in the game. To loosely paraphrase aturtledoesbite in our DMs, how have we gone this far without seeing hide nor hair of Isaac's wife and Matthew's mom. It's not like she was an unpopular character or anything! The fans love Jenna! And yet, something tells me that if Briggs had met Isaac at any point in his life, Isaac would instantly become the namedrop no matter what Jenna did.

Amiti, Tyrell, and Rief in sequence all remark on how damaged Briggs' ship is. Honestly I think the graphics need to sell this a little more than they are right now, though.

Anyway, let's address what we came here for.

Briggs' initial response is... a little reticent, all told. What's the deal here?

Yeah, that's evident enough.

Since the boat won't be ready for some time (and presumably he'd want us aboard it? I don't know) Briggs wants us to... pass along another message. Fine, whatever.

Said elder won't meet with Briggs for entirely understandable reasons.

So on the one hand, props to Briggs for actually bringing us back around to the main plot. On the other, the last time we were sent to meet an elder for aid on this quest, we had to detour through Ei-Jei.

That's... actually pretty sensible. Tret would know more about the region than almost anyone else, and more importantly, he can't faff off to random locations and disappear for days on end.

This didn't happen onscreen, Tret only made it to our Encyclopedia early by virtue of being a guy we shot in the face during the Psynergy Training Grounds. But Matthew, Tyrell, and Karis were almost certainly raised on stories of their parents' exploits, so this is fine.

Similarly, Briggs only got secondhand stories from Piers, who was not present for TBS where Tret appeared.

Amiti, however, retains his full suspicions about Briggs and wants to know what, exactly, Briggs needs to ask Tret.

No attempts to hide those suspicions, neither.

Briggs is forthcoming enough to explain what he wants. Since a naval assault on Belinsk is out of the question, Briggs wants to pivot to land assault instead. And since Tret knows lots about Belinsk as well, he seemed like the most reliable source he could ask for.

We could, theoretically, tell Briggs about Ryu Kou and Hou Zan here. Presumably the three of them could combine their resources, including the nations they hail from, and strike back at Belinsk to rescue their loved ones.

But no, he wants us on the hook for both of these things, for reasons.

The party deliberates on this a bit, contrasting the outlandishness of Briggs' requests with the insurmountable odds placed before him.

This feels like a good microcosm of how Golden Sun as a series handles plot shifts. Just kinda yells your new objective at you and hopes you don't question it.

Good question! Not one I can readily answer either, because if it were me, I would almost certainly not be in this situation to begin with. Were I Matthew, I would have gone straight to Kolima Forest upon departing Beilnsk, and would have ignored Port Rago entirely. Remember, Briggs' presence here wasn't even a guarantee by the pirates! The first thing they said about his whereabouts were "you probably won't find him" before suggesting Port Rago as where he might retreat to if he came back alive on his suicide mission. Suppose the likely scenario occurred and Briggs was sunk off the ports of Belinsk. Matthew's party STILL probably encounters Tret anyway, because the mountain roc is in Kolima.

But whatever. As to the mission presented before us, of asking Tret for advice and then saving Eoleo:

• I think we can at least request advice on your behalf.
• Aye aye, cap'n!
• Do you have anything else that could help us?
• No deal. Thanks for wasting our time.

No.

Needless to say, even though we are forced to agree, Briggs does not come with us. I didn't think he was going to in the first place.

Do you? Was the presented scenario before you somehow unexpected?

Shut the hell up. You're not clever.

Kraden wasn't with the party in TBS, but again, he's a learned sage. Even if Alchemy is his primary field of study, I don't doubt he'd know a lot about Tret himself. TOO BAD WE CAN'T ASK HIM FOR ADVICE.

Finally, pay. What do you got for us?

Interesting. The details of this will go in the Encyclopedia for now; peruse it at your leisure.

Of course, Briggs only half-remembers the stories Piers told to him, those being telephoned from Isaac, so he doesn't know the actual properties of Hermes' Water or anything. Why would he?

It's still useful if we're going to see Tret, he'd probably appreciate it as a gift, but honestly, I'm with Amiti here. This is beyond pointless.

Oh have we? Is this the full extent of our payment? I'd understand if it was just talking to Tret for you, but is this also the full payment for breaking your kid out of Belinsk's jails?

Again; why would we do that? This isn't a man desperate to do anything to save his kid, this is a slacker pawning off junk to us so we'll take care of his errands.

Can't even be arsed to let us out the front gate, we have to sneak back through the canals again. Thanks Briggs you're a pal.

Anyway, enough about him. To get the Djinni, we have to find a way to Arid Heat that basin, which will lower the water level.

Not hard to figure out, just cross the scaffold again then go under it.

I was gonna say I hope that doesn't impede the shipwrights' work, but then I realized I'm ambivalent to Briggs' fate.

The one ladder leads to this fight...

And this Djinni.

Meanwhile, if you enter the doorway opposite...

Another one. Forging is still not available until we're done with Morgal.

And that's about it for Port Rago. I'll come back later for exactly one optional thing but you don't have to.

We find the fifth musician for the band as we leave. Great cool. His violin unlocks another new request, Rainbow over Koba Desert. I... don't like it. Chorus is too grating.

Okay, let's actually hit Kolima Forest now.

Starting with its sister village, Saha Town. The general crux of what's going on here beyond that is that Kolima Village is directly north, but one of its four trees (both homes and guardian spirits alike) is cursing the town. Saha Town, not wanting to bother with that, has blocked off access to Kolima for now, and the old stories of Tret's curse sure aren't helping the relationship between the two.

If we had tried coming here first before anything else, we would quickly learn that the forests ahead have become impassable due to arcane garbage. These merchants have tried to get into the forest repeatedly but get Lost Woods'd back to the entrance. Even tried with a guard, who hasn't come back yet.

Sorry, compelling as your arguments of "pay" and "lignification" are, I'm doing this for free because Briggs said so.

Do you like this crate hiding its treasure chest behind line of sight? No? Me neither. You can't even use the 3d angles to see the chest properly. The only clue you get is that it's just the right height to be Movable.

Thanks I guess.

Don't think the northern country was destroyed, actually. Imil is clearly doing fine enough for Piers to get Hermes' Water, and Bilibin has become a major power in Angara.

Djinni in the well, but suffice it to say we can't get it until we get our boulder-breaker power. There's two wells, actually, both linked to this cistern.

I'm not a good boy or girl, lemme in.

While we can't get to the Djinni, getting to the Kolima side is easy.

Trivially so, in fact.

The current curse afflicting Kolima is some manner of malady to the tree responsible for their chief export, dream leaves. (I guess lumber isn't in as high of demand as it used to be.) As the name implies, eating those influences your dreams that night for the better under ideal circumstances. However, now the dream leaves bestow only nightmares.

We can also climb around the outer branches of the main trees for treasures and such.

To progress the plot, we need to talk to this woman in the dream leaf shop's upper floors. She's the one Isaac's party optionally saved in TBS, when she and her cohorts got lignified in a stack while getting up to mischief and fell into the river.

She'll show us to the Dream Tree and we'll fight whatever ghosts are haunting it or whatever. In a sec, lady, I've looting to do.

For example. This is the last book of the Sun Saga, so that's all five. Apparently, should you miss any, they get added to the item shop's artifacts section? But I'd rather just find them so I can get them done with.

Why would I ever want a second copy of this item that sucks?

Anyway, new guy.

I wonder how long it'll take for us to hit critical mass on Tyrell's horrible hodgepodge of Djinn. Will it happen before we get Sveta back?

Oh, and you can still sneak in through the perspective-hidden back of a tree to get a prize.

Anyway, here's the Dream Tree. That face it's making looks a little familiar.

We could heal this thing right now with Hermes' Water. That would put an end to its curse right away. Worked for Tret, no reason it wouldn't work for this. Except we can't actually reach the tree face because of the roots.

I do not mind roadblocks being a little arbitrary, in practice. If I can't go a specific way, I am more than happy to look for alternative paths and let the waist-high fence be. This isn't even waist-high though. This is ankle-high, in a 3D rendered space. We've walked over more egregious obstacles than this.

I'm highlighting that now so that it properly sets in how we DO get past that obstacle. Screenshot unrelated, where the last guy hoping to play the Arangoa Prelude refuses to leave until he sees a mountain roc, thus making Sveta's request even more of a waste of time.

I could try going to Kolima Forest right now, but I'd get a Lost Woods to the face. Not interested.

Anyway, here's the next step of the plot.

Being blamed by Tyrell for taking the literally most efficient route possible to mend his screwup.

Those of you that read my journal from the last time I played might recall that this line sent me into a furious rant directed at him. I stand by the opinions within it, but I have too many other things to be mad about to go ape about this right now. Let's leave it at "Tyrell is a terrible person who can never take responsibility for anything he does and will probably die alone and friendless after exhausting the goodwill of everyone around him".

The reason this is how we're doing things is so we can enter a dreamscape to confront the psychic infection of the Dream Tree directly. Far be it from me to question the experts on this, I guess!

We ate dream leaves beforehand, which don't just bring dreams, but sleep as well. Fine.

Hole.

The hole immediately scoops us all into it...

And drops us into the next dungeon, the Phantasmal Bog.

This update's long enough, and I know the denouement to the Phantasmal Bog will be text-heavy, so I'll end things here for now.

Next Time: oh, a wise guy, eh? if you're so smart, can you help me understand basic cause and effect?

 

[Reivier the Archer]

It's kinda amazing how Camelot keeps trying to make the one kind of RPG (Dragon Quest but with a twist!) and keeps falling short in more or less the same ways.

Also I really have to wonder how Camelot writes any of their scripts. They are so goddamn inconsistent, in tone, in characteristics, in everything!

 

[Kalir]

EY, IM QUESTIN 'ERE!

We're in a dreamscape so we have succubi. They're off the clock though and are just gonna kind of fight us ineffectually.

So that's one of the gimmicks for Phantasmal Bog. The area boss isn't just gonna wait at the end, but will instead pursue us and use Psynergy to strike weak points in the terrain.

Not like... aggressively or anything. It will only destroy terrain at specific points and will make no attempt to attack you beyond that. Hell, it doesn't even traverse between areas.

The other major gimmick is this giant dream leaf in the middle of this room.

We have to detour through these unremarkable side passages to reach it, but hey.

See if you can guess what the dream leaf does.

Basically, by using Douse, Arid Heat, and Cold Snap on it, we can influence the water state around it.

All gone.

Hey I think I'm going to ignore non-artifact treasures now.

It's the Kolima Forest log pushing puzzle again! Everyone's favorite! Surely you only need two actionable puzzle elements to be entertained!

Rainy

As before, you can heal people with this or just wear it.

Before I continue onward, a quick preview of this effect.

The slightly submerged platforms have frozen over as well, so ice physics prevent us from actually going anywhere in this state. Doh well.

We need to head this way next.

This Djinni puzzle is a little creative at least.

We can push the logs from below, and crossing is simple enough, but the Djinni itself will require Cold Snap to mess with the puddles.

Specifically, we need to park this log atop the puddle so the ice pillar will lift it into a crossable height.

YOUR TOO BRIGHT!!!

The upper level here doesn't have much for us now.

About all we can do up here before sliding back to the lower levels is drop this sucker into the pond.

NOW the Cold Snap level will let us progress.

Without it, we'd simply go into a divot that would force us right back where we came from.

Hey do you like hallway.

Another ice puzzle. Despite being able to spin around while sliding, we can't stop or grab that chest until we drive right into it.

To get Matthew's newest weapon, simply take the northmost path.

It's a very large axe.

I think we're about done?

Back to the upper path. Now with a conspicuous giant ice crystal in the way.

Go on, git.

I don't know why we're establishing return shortcuts in a dream sequence of a dungeon. Oh well.

This time, the weird swamp critter gets the jump on us, destroying the path before we can advance.

Now that we're face to face and can't progress further, Rief decides to channel his inner Cyberdwarf.

The bizarre lizard, the group theorizes, represents the ghosts of the marsh wildlife that ended up dying when the Golden Sun event transplanted Kolima Forest over Saha Marsh.

Unfortunate, but we still gotta dispel the curse for the people living here now.

The ghost, called Sludge, is actually a relatively unique fight as far as Dark Dawn bosses go. As you can see, it's actually accompanied by some other ghosts it can summon! Series vets could make a comparison to Star Magician; Sludge is a lot easier and the summons are considerably less overwhelming.

Sludge begins play with a Shield Skull that can apply a barrier to it for significant damage reduction that turn (about 50% or so)...

While Haunt Skulls can use Witchlight to attack and haunt at the same time.

Unlike the previous titles' field Psynergies like Force, Pound, Burst, etc, Crush CAN be used in combat. It's not an especially strong option, but it's there!

Sludge is also capable of summoning Curse Skulls, armed with Curse and Condemn, but this one dies before it does much of anything.

And it can self-heal. There's a lot here that could, in a harder game, make for an interesting tactical challenge.

Alas, it's still in Dark Dawn.

Sludge is defeated without much issue, waking us from the dream.

The roots and the rock blocking our way to the Dream Tree are gone, as well.

Sludge drops its tusk and the lady from earlier says a whole lot of nothing in thanks.

No, Karis, we are not leaving. We still have to actually heal the Dream Tree. Banishing Sludge was good and all but only part of the job.

Yay, Crush Tusk! This lets us use Crush as a field Psynergy, although its restricted to Mars Adepts like Tyrell. It conveniently folds the uses of TLA's Pound and Burst into a single Psynergy, letting us destroy rocks and pound posts alike.

Oh yes by all means come out and give me a line each about the tutorial function of Crush, thank you. It's not like we didn't see it firsthand in the Phantasmal Bog.

Now to actually do the job.

Sugar. In Water.

Th... thank you?

A Djinni squirms out of the newly healed tree!

This is Pewter, and their first instinct is to insult Tyrell on sight. I like them already.

Like they spend a solid chunk of this entire conversation just making fun of us for being hopeless rubes (i.e. protagonists in Dark Dawn).

The party doesn't like them but I do. Pewter is one of my favorites.

Seriously, whoever was writing this Djinni in particular must have had a blast.

Pewter's not hot on details, but they were specifically sent as an emissary of Laurel. Laurel, TBS players will recall, was another of the great sentient trees of Kolima, alongside Tret.

• Oh, I remember her from Dad's stories.
• Don't mind if we do!
• I wish you had remembered the details.
• Not someone else with demands for us!

Tell her what? I just hit the smiley button.

Pewter also confirms that Sludge's curse was what made Kolima Forest impassable, so we have an uncommonly straight path ahead!

Pewter doesn't join us here but that's fine, I can be patient.

Wait, nobody recognizes Laurel as someone connected to Kolima Forest?

Isaac did you forget to mention Laurel?

Either way, Karis claims that we may as well see why she extended the invite.

• She's on the way to the mountain roc, anyway.
• I wanna see Pewter again!
• What does she want with us?
• Do we have to?

Don't worry, Tyrell, your opinion didn't factor into my decision in the slightest.

Oh by the way, if you want to find something really annoying, buy a dream leaf before you go.

There's no meaningful changes to the towns beyond the gate opening up, so avail yourself of the shops and services before continuing on.

We can also go into the Roof Tree that forms the inn in Kolima and find a book about Mia. Theoretically it could be about her younger apprentice Megan, but I'm gonna assume "The Goddess of Imil" is Mia.

Still as good as it ever was.

Seriously, why would I ever go to a shop at this rate? Can't go five feet without tripping over a Wheat Sword.

Oh, and don't forget the cistern's secret prize.

Floral pattern!

Pewter welcomes us wordlessly but happily at the entrance to Kolima Forest.

You might think that the Lost Woods thing is in play right now and we have to follow Pewter around, but no. As they said, Sludge's curse was responsible for that.

There's a few foresty obstacle courses along the way.

Nothing out of the ordinary, but hey.

If we went north at the four-way intersection earlier, we'd be out of paths. It's a return route. I'll also show the west exit's contents later.

Yeah Kolima Forest really isn't too complex. Simple platforming accented by casts of Growth.

The scenery is cool though!

This opens up our return path nicely.

West path just has a lumberjack.

Without warning, the last branch in the forest hoists us skyward!

Hi again Pewter.

For some reason, Pewter's sudden reappearance despite leading us through the forest startles the entire party.

He continues in getting some entry-level jabs at Tyrell for a bit...

Before the fun police show up.

She got taller!

She also objects to Karis' description as a mere "talking tree".

Amiti is impressed right away.

He immediately bows in reverence.

This is regarded by the rest of the party as a pretty foolish thing to do in the face of someone readily described as a "holy tree", because they don't know you can have character facets.

Laurel ain't interested in being revered directly though. Way she sees it, the Waelda (that's the holy trees) are just extremely long-lived.

Amiti protests the point a bit, saying that living several times the lifespan of a human and gathering knowledge over that entire timespan is divinity enough.

Anyway, let's ignore that entire issue. It was fun having Amiti build a character while it lasted.

Laurel expresses gratitude for banishing Sludge, and some regret. It's not like the forest had any say in being transposed over a marsh, y'know?

Ah, it's been a while since I posted Tyrell being a jerk for no reason. What, maybe one update?

But that tracks. The forest did take a lot of Blight from back when Lady McCoy wanted a palace built out of holy lumber.

Yes. Hell yes. Give us information. Info on the mountain roc primarily, but also details about Belinsk while we're here. Some jackass pirate placed a delivery order, you see.

I appreciate the thought Tyrell, but no, I kinda doubt the ability of a tree to hunt a bird.

Explaining that we're on the feather hunt to fix Isaac's stuff immediately gets both Laurel's attention...

And Tret's. Tyrell comment preserved for Tyrell reasons.

We catch Tret up on the Sludge situation real quick, and then back to what really doesn't matter.

Mia mention, by name, finally, for real. TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH.

Tyrell's outrage is incredibly funny because if there WAS a party member likely to be absent for a large part of the Tret storyline, it was Mia. But we need to keep provoking Tyrell. We have to.

And apparently Tret can detect lineages in peoples' auras? Weird, okay.

So, he calls his shots here. Matthew, Karis, and Rief all get ID'd accurately enough...

Silent protagonist joke. Laugh.

Hey, remember that plot thread about how Amiti has a mystery dad? Would you like a clue on that? Did you need a clue on that?

It wouldn't help this bozo anyway.

But yeah. Amiti takes some time to chew on this while Laurel pointedly gets us back on the actual subject of our visit.

No he didn't. Isaac gave us immediate directions but did not indicate anything about the mountain roc beyond "it's in the far side of Morgal". Neither Tret nor Kolima Forest were highlighted as objectives. The first mention of Kolima Forest in the main game script was in the Psynergy Training Grounds. The second was after meeting Sveta, where Rief somehow knew that Kolima was the habitat of the mountain roc. And we, of course, didn't even think of consulting Tret until we met Briggs, which shouldn't have realistically happened.

The Waelda seem hesitant and concerned when we get to the subject of the mountain roc.

Okay? And this complicates things how? Because at a glance, getting a feather from a sleeping bird seems far easier than an awake one.

But apparently, sleeping makes feather extraction harder. So all we need is...

...The Slap Psynergy.

So, if we had Sveta with us, this would be a non-issue, but because she instead decided to give us secret agent commands to meet with her later, which are in turn contingent on the mountain roc being awake, that would seem to completely t-bone our entire mission.

Oh, well, we can't have that kind of complication. Let's immediately highlight another answer.

You might recall that Sveta almost told us about the Slap Glove at the base of Craggy Peak, indicating that someone else was using it. Expect that to be answered never. Also, as a Belinsk treasure, we'd STILL have to sneak into the castle to get it. So is it or is it not an answer? What are you even DOING with your writing, Takahashi?

Yes, good, cool, let's go back to Briggs again. We did need to get to that eventually.

Wait, hold up, Rief. Why do you assume Eoleo is a prince? Champa doesn't have royalty, and Eoleo's reputation is all about being a pirate. Even setting aside that we only barely care about him, where is this coming from?

What do you mean by that. Is this a Harapa situation?

Yes? We're in a JRPG? We're in Golden Sun? We literally already saw this with Kaocho??? You aren't witty!

Great, fantastic, secret passage operated by Belinsk's dead energy source. So turn that on, and boom, passage.

All we have to do to power it on is... awaken the mountain roc are you SERIOUS. The mountain roc, when it awakens, will give us the power source we need. But we can't wake the mountain roc without either breaking into Belinsk (we need the mountain roc awake for that) or getting Sveta back (we need the mountain roc awake for that). WHAT.

"Hey everything you wanted to accomplish is impossible, good night."

I DUNNO, ARE WE?

• Looks like we don't have a choice.
• I think we can still wake up the mountain roc!
• How would we even begin?
• Nope. Briggs is on his own.

We don't have a choice. We have zero choices. Infiltrating Belinsk Castle is equally impossible as getting the mountain roc feather, and both objectives are locked behind each other.

Laurel leaves us with a final warning.

Do not, under any circumstances, activate the Alchemy Dynamo. Never mind that we need to power a secret door down there. Alchemy Dynamo, the thing that sounds like it will power a secret door? No touching.

And because any info on it would make it easier to activate it, Laurel tells us nothing more.

No! That is not how warnings work! Information about the danger involved, give it here, that way we do not turn on the dangerous thing!

Why the hell are you asking me?

• If Laurel says not to, then we won't.
• We'll see how dangerous it is when we get there!
• If we knew more about it, then we'd be certain not to.
• Yeah, sure, we're activating the deadly machine, why not.

The first time I chose this, I was kinda surprised by how the angry emotion actually got an answer that made me like the party ever so slightly more.

Laurel takes our sarcastic nod at face value, and Karis says this to us, which I cannot help but read as dripping with sarcasm after my choice.

I reject your wishes. You have helped us with nothing.

Taking the small wins, I guess.

Pewter, who zoned out for the entire thing, forsakes their ability to speak in order to join us as a class upgrade for Karis.

Great, I guess. Now what?

Next Time: i worship at the altar of ex machina

 

[Kalir]

One last thing to do in Kolima Forest and then we're done with it forever.

This side area has an apple tree, but it also has...

A comedic misunderstanding!

Yeah the guard the merchants hired didn't get cursed, he just got lost and fell down a hollow tree.

Rescue is a trivial ask.

The guard makes haste to leave, and rewards us with...

A new bow! I don't think it's strictly speaking an artifact, but it shoots real good and outclasses Amiti's shiny new Assassin Blade, so hey, no complaints here.

Anyway gimme this useless thing.

Just past Laurel and Tret is a convenient shortcut back to Belinsk, only accessible from this side due to the destroyed bridge. We'll fix it on our way out.

Dogg did you miss that entire last conversation? I don't know WHERE I'm going now.

Oh, it's Ryu Kou and Hou Zan. And they know all about Sveta's plan to contact us as well as the itinerant difficulties involved in it. Cool, awesome, when did they have a chance to learn this?

Don't remind me.

Ryu Kou pulls out the Slap Glove to make his point.

...Why?

Last I checked, you and Sveta are from opposing nations, and Sveta has gone out of her way to avoid notice from you. Furthermore, the Slap Glove is a treasure of Morgal. I don't doubt Sveta could access it, but A: given her reaction to our party wanting to hunt the mountain roc, why would she pass along a necessary weapon to do that, and B: if she is cool with us using Slap on the mountain roc, why isn't she here now?

Whatever. Ryu Kou and Tyrell constantly fighting each other aside, the Sanans have a suggestion: help them with the mountain roc, they'll give us the Slap Glove. Which we are, naturally, in no position to refuse.

Listening to conversations and acting according to their info? Hou Zan, are you... smart and reasonable?

There it is. There's some actual motivation to get into Belinsk Castle and save Hou Ju. By giving us the one thing we absolutely need, contrived circumstances aside, Hou Zan and Ryu Kou have immediately made themselves and their goals important to us in a way Briggs didn't even try to do.

Nah actually screw Eoleo, if you want help with Hou Ju and are willing to hand over the Slap Glove to get our help I'll take that deal.

Did she? Was this a planned outcome?

Because, again, if she wanted us to have access to Slap in order to wake the mountain roc, she could just stay in our party. That would be a lot easier than not staying and asking us to round up musicians who are temperamental to the degree of not going back until they see Bigfoot. She just embraced a bunch of points of failure for no reason!

Girl what are you talking about?

Ah, I see. She's deduced that Sveta is important enough to Belinsk to access the Slap Glove at all. Which... so? Who cares? She has Slap innately! Procuring a national treasure to do a thing she already does is pointless!

So yeah. Sveta is actually part of the Czamaral tribe that Volechek is also a member of, making her royalty. His sister, if we're being specific.

So wait, is this supposed to get us indebted to her to do what she wants or not? Legitimately having trouble following the planning here. And I've beaten this game twice.

For some reason, the party starts questioning what Ryu Kou and Hou Zan bring to the table. I don't know! I don't know why they're sticking their heads right into the gift lion's mouth!

Tyrell decides to be the reasonable one for a change and points out the exact thing I've been saying. But also: what does Sveta want? Is she trying to covertly free the prisoner(s) behind Volechek's back? Is this a power play so she can take the throne from him? Is this an even grander political ploy to negotiate extradition to Sana for when Volechek's military crumbles? Does she just hate mountain rocs all to hell? What is she trying to DO!?

• We have aligned goals, at least.
• I'm sure Ryu Kou and Hou Zan have their own talents!
• First those weird agents, now Sveta...
• Let's just get the feather and then get some answers from her.

I don't think it's a trap, Tyrell. A trap implies a hidden agenda that wishes us harm. Sveta is just trying to be helpful in an extremely roundabout way and asking for assistance that makes no sense in return.

I will also not stop yelling.

If you say no, you don't get the Slap Glove until you say yes. You need the Slap Glove to do anything.

Lemme open up the return path before I commit.

Real quick, do you see the Djinni in this screenshot? I didn't at first.

In addition to being fairly up-to-date arm gear, the Slap Glove grants whomever wields it the Slap Psynergy. It also has no element restrictions. Since Tyrell's currently the one out of date on arm gear, he gets it.

Sad water baby. Too bad you're also a revive.

Anyway, that's Kolima Forest sorted. On to Talon Peak!

Hopefully this is a relatively easy mountain to climb. You know how Golden Sun is with mountains.

Well, we're not starting out in the surrounding badlands. I'll take that as an opener.

First step is simple enough, use Cold Snap to get yourself a treetop pathway.

Move this out the way...

Another one.

Park this over here...

Make your own jokes about these gloves. You can use them to duplicate the Ward Psynergy if you want.

Never take the straightest path is what I'm learning.

Before long, we're up in the clouds and have a good example of the mountain roc's size.

Gotta configure these stones one way for the box and the other for progress.

The mountain roc's footprints destabilize the cliff face, and attempting to climb there probably should have killed us.

I wonder what the Sanans make of this.

What's that? Widespread destruction of a mountain?

DON'T MIND IF I DO

Hey, Djinni. I think we can't get it from this side, but we'll see.

Finally remembered to go get this extremely good weapon for where we are. This was a forgeable in TLA!

All right, I can take a hint.

And there it is. The mountain roc, in the flesh-to-stone. Only the wattle is still interactable; this must have been what they meant when the Waelda said Slap would be needed.

Sure enough, it doesn't budge in the slightest from having seven people walk on it.

Git up!

Oh hey skin runes that's cool!

The mountain roc, now slightly more awake, looks around in confusion as to what just hit its wattle.

PAY ATTENTION IN CLASS!

And that's it. That, right there? Main goal of the game. Lesketit!

Woooooo!

Now all we gotta do is pay Ryu Kou and Hou Zan back and we're golden like the sun, right?

Realizing that we are about to go complete the game without any meaningful resistance from here on out, the main antagonists decide they should probably actually do something to impede us, if they have to.

Hi again Blados. Been a while since Konpa Ruins, what have you been up to?

Quick, something dramatic happened, everyone react!

Especially you, Amiti, you sweet summer child.

But that's not all! We also have everyone's least favorite temptress who doesn't know Karis exists...

In the pink corner...

Stoooop.

...You may continue.

They then proceed to waste an entire cutscene's worth of our time acting smugly and saying literally nothing useful.

This isn't hyperbole, mind you. Referencing the game script I'm using, the cutscene here, starting from Blados' line, takes SEVENTY-NINE lines of dialogue for this duo to actually explain what they're doing here. During which you get lines of dialogue such as...

This...

This...

And this. Incidentally, what the hell are you talking about, Hou Zan? Why would Volechek mastermind a plan where his sister enables enemies of the state to escape, on top of supplying them with a weapon to take on the national bird? What does he get out of this?

This is the tone the villains will take for the rest of the game, mind you. Forget Blados' high-aggro first appearance, he's fallen into the group of smug plans-within-plans bozos whose only personality trait is talking about how smart they are.

Captives? Which tend to be useful when doing negotiations?

The actual reason they're not going to tell us a single thing for this entire scene is really simple actually, it's a trick the villains love to pull in this series. Can you guess what it might be?

Hey, it's the thing that powers the Alchemy Dynamo and which we need to get through the secret door in Belinsk. Wacky! We would need that to uphold our bargain with Ryu Kou, that's true.

Hey, the mountain roc recovered, cool.

And there we go, seventy-nine lines of dialogue later in which I have already provided all relevant details and character development. In order to get the requisite Magma Orb, we have to kill the mountain roc.

Laurel and Tret did not mention this in any way because they were afraid of activating the Alchemy Dynamo, an entirely reasonable concern! But they did say we'd need a power source from the mountain roc when it awakened. They just neglected to mention we'd have to kill it first, because they are phenomenally useless. Our main antagonists just spent seventy-nine lines of dialogue to clear up an omission from the sages who were legitimately just trying to help us.

This is the vaunted writing of the Golden Sun series.

Presumably, the reason they actually wasted that time was so the mountain roc would actually be able to fight us rather than being stunned enough for a quick coup-de-grace. Which, considering their devious villainous plans hinge on us being able to actually kill the damn thing, seems like an absolutely terrible idea. Thanks for making things worse for everyone including yourselves because you're too busy self-aggrandizing!

Incidentally, the Sanans do not fight here or anywhere else while in our party. Only stands to reason, seeing that they can't invoke elemental destruction at will.

Anyway, mountain roc fight.

The rules for this fight are a little different.

See, ordinarily the mountain roc isn't that unusual as far as giant monsters go.

However, it is capable of using Stone Molt, giving it significant damage reduction and improving its regen.

With this plus its ability to cast Potent Cure, it actually has significantly more effective HP than a boss at this stage would normally have.

The fight itself is otherwise unremarkable; the mountain roc's flashiest move is Upward Blast, in which they pull one of your party members into the sky...

So they can slam them back into the mountaintop for beeg damage.

You might have noticed I'm actually running low on resources at this point, because I straight up did not think you had a way to break Stone Molt and have fought this boss twice before without it using Stone Molt until far later in the encounter.

The answer to Stone Molt is, as you might have guessed, Slap, which unfortunately means Tyrell must plague my frontline one last time.

Slap does minor damage, but it does also clear Stone Molt.

With that out of the way, the mountain roc is trivial.

Great, mountain roc down. Now where's that Magma Orb?

The slain mountain roc appears to have coughed up a macaroni.

Hm. That's a magma SHARD, which helps, but isn't enough on its own. So let's try something else...

We'll climb into the rune-lined interior of the mountain roc. That's actually really cool! Gives it a feel that it might have been an ancient Alchemical construct, technology so far lost that it's revered as a divine beast! Oh, and plenty more magma macaronis in here, too. We pocket them as we go, obviously.

And there it is.

Great. We're not giving it to them, obviously.

Yeah, but it's also what we would need to rescue Hou Ju, by following the instructions they provided. Assuming we can operate the secret door without powering the Alchemy Dynamo (something that we would know if SHE TOLD US ANYTHING), she has nothing to worry about.

At this point I can't even blame Tyrell for being checked out on the story.

Ryu Kou notices that our party is a little hesitant to go along with the thing we all agreed we need to do.

Okay.

Tyrell, because a thing happened, immediately tries to start a fight.

Seems drastic considering we are all supposed to be allies, but sure, if you want the Magma Orb, I won't stop you.

No, dude, I get it. Our hesitation to do this is cause enough for you to break ties with us, and you heard the same warnings we did about not activating the Alchemy Dynamo. If you want to fly solo in rescuing Hou Ju, I'm a little confused as to the "why" of it, but you already fulfilled your end of our bargain with the Slap Glove, so it's fine honestly. Want it back?

Yeah? He's been pretty upfront about that.

Actually can I play as Ryu Kou? He's had a consistent drive and a real personality and I would much rather be following his story than that of Matthew's pack of bozos.

Tyrell isn't a fast learner.

Sure, we got four, knock yourselves out.

I... don't want to?

Again, our goal is the feather, which we have. Our current objective is should be to go back through Bilibin and reach the Goma Plateau. Ryu Kou clearly doesn't want our help with Hou Ju, we have no good reason to help Briggs with Eoleo, and I literally have no idea what Sveta's plans are and they frankly sound dangerous for us.

Like, with Karst and Agatio's sudden but inevitable kind of betrayal in TLA, that made sense. Despite having the same overall goals as them, our parties were fundamentally incompatible, and we had a vested interest in pursuing them as backup given our intel. Here though, we have basically nothing incentivizing us to break into Belinsk Castle now.

Good luck with that! I hope your mission goes off without a hitch!

And yet, for some reason, Ryu Kou breaking ties with us for a thing that's far more important to him than us is seen as a horrible insult and attack on us that must be avenged.

Why?

We got everything we wanted out of this arrangement! We're squared! Everything looks great for us and we can just leave!

It really, really doesn't!

• We do have the feather, at least.
• Good luck, Ryu Kou!
• What are we going to tell Briggs now?
• Sveta REALLY has some explaining to do.

Why is that the assumption for where to go next? Let's assume Vande was actually watching the skies during our fight rather than trying to convince moss to climb into his lap or something, and we can go request Arangoa Prelude at our leisure. What's the plan after that? What, exactly, in your own words, do you think Sveta is trying to accomplish here?

Doesn't matter that's what we're doing now I guess.

By exiting through the mountain roc's butt, we can access this ledge again, which took some damage in the fight.

This takes us to the Djinni...

Which seems to be highly specialized.

Next Time: ive pioneered a new kind of railway system that goes in every direction except the destination

 

[Reivier the Archer]

Kinda shocked that the game actually let you get to your goal before its very end. Too bad you can't just go back home, because Camelot.

 

[Kalir]

Because the actual route we must progress to complete the game makes no damn sense and is a point of no return, I am now going to take care of every loose end in Morgal. We're starting with the only thing we can actually do in Border Town.

See, remember that clue about how people with dream leaves that stay at the inn on the Morgal side of town dream of when the town wasn't under blockade?

Yeah I didn't think so.

Seeing the town not in ruins is fine and all but there's one major thing you can get here. It's not a Djinni because I think doing this is orders of magnitude more obscure than random encounter overworld Djinn.

Yup. Can just cross the bridge like it's no big deal. Can't do this outside of a dream world though, that would simply be unreasonable.

Alas, the dream's phantom borders end with the town's. Really wish I could go to Bilibin now.

To get the thing, go to this cave on the Bilibin side.

And this is right in there. Missed this on both prior playthroughs because who would even DO this. This is, to my knowledge, the only inn where dream leaves take any effect.

The other things are in Port Rago and Teppe Ruins. I'm also going back for this bit of dialogue I forgor, just in case you wanted to be rewarded for trying to sell the mountain roc feather to the merchants. They just say you're trying to pull a fast one on them, because "being called out incorrectly as a poor-quality scammer" is what rewards look like.

Of course we have to sneak back into the docks during the revisit what do you take us for.

This is entirely optional. Not just coming back to Port Rago at all, but also talking to Briggs while there. The useful thing is completely separate from him.

Long story short: the ship is FUBAR. Briggs should've retired this thing years ago, but something something nostalgia.

But we can go inside it now!!!

Briggs is sleeping in the captain's quarters. You have the option of going over to him and giving him the info he asked for. Let's do that, shalt we?

Hard at work, or hardly working?

Don't answer that.

Still in jail. Why would you expect anything else?

Here's the actual info you "paid" us for.

That info is "dick-all" thanks for playing.

Hey, speaking of. Would you like to try teaming up with a firebrand Sanan who has the same goals as you?

Briggs knows who he is in some detail; specifically, the whole "leader of the Sanan colony that would become Belinsk" thing.

The hell you snapping at us for?! Are you or are you not desperate to save your son? Ryu Kou and Hou Zan are doing everything in their power to break into Belinsk Castle, you have literally nothing to lose and everything to gain by helping them. And your response to this suggestion is to get pissed at us for helping.

Oh, and of course his boat isn't fixed yet (it will not ever be fixed) so he can't actually do anything.

Your supposed desperation is the entire reason we know each other.

So you can offer us nothing but some water that was only incidentally useful and will take no action on your own beyond that.

For some reason, at this point the party all agrees that hey, this useless guy is kinda useless!

He promises to meet us in Belinsk as soon as his deathtrap of a ship that everyone else has written off gets fixed and goes right the hell back to sleep.

Spot on, Amiti. Let's piss off.

Do we? If we have no reason to help Briggs (i.e. save Eoleo) and no reason to save Hou Ju because Ryu Kou's already doing that, why do we need to go there? Because Sveta said so?

Oh, there's no further lines of dialogue and we're all in agreement and that point doesn't need to be elaborated on any further. Got it.

Anyway, like I said, that entire conversation was optional. This is optional too, but at least it has tangible value in letting you see new animations sometimes.

And one more sneaking out segment because Briggs is a waste of everyone's time.

Last thing we need is in Teppe Ruins. Armed with Crush, we can get into this back room here.

One more forgeable item.

Back in Belinsk, where the full moon festival, and Eoleo's execution, approaches.

I assume you mean Sveta? Genuinely not sure though, for all I know you could mean Kraden.

The band launches into Arangoa on request. It's a very tranquil song, a little too smooth to be jazz, if that makes sense.

Most of our party listens appreciatively, but Tyrell is simply flailing around dancing without any rhythm whatsoever, and Matthew is staring into neutral space.

Without warning, the musicians' instruments launch out of their hands, the song continuing unbroken!

In addition to adding that obnoxious blur filter over everything, it seems to have dazed everyone in Belinsk.

While that happens, the equestrian statue in the center rises, revealing a secret passage.

Sveta takes this time to communicate with us telepathically because she can do that during the song for some reason.

Yeah we know you're of the Czamaral clan shut up don't care get to the point.

Why would that be an issue? No, my current distrust of you is because you haven't told us anything about what you're trying to do, and what few things we've seen you do make no sense.

Do we have to?

We've been in Belinsk Ruins before to recover a Djinni, but since we're giving it a full tour this go around, I'm actually going to post the map.

Right lemme go sell all my assorted garbage to get this resistant cloak.

Anyway, like Ryu Kou said, we'll need the magma shards to enter the ruins.

Place a macaroni on the pedestal to open the path.

Dooooor!

Belinsk Ruins is a pretty big dungeon. Not as long as the biggest offerings of TLA, but it's lengthy enough.

Another macaroni to progress and make the chest attainable. It's not important enough to screenshot, though.

Weird lookin' intersection. We are required to go north here.

Oooh, this is a cool view.

That's three macaronis spent!

This one also closes off our return path, which one might think means we've already hit the point of no return for Morgal. Nah. You can still Retreat out, ez. The path will reopen for you if you do.

You're welcome, now can we PLEASE have information on what the hell you are trying to do?

I mean we can start with this if you want, sure.

Plenty of things escape him. I wouldn't bother correcting you, but somehow I doubt the writers intended you to be sarcastic here.

I assume you mean the blunder twins?

Yep! Or as their group has finally been named, the commanders of the army of Tuaparang. They were the ones with the airship we saw in the intro cutscene which has not appeared anywhere else.

There they are.

To hear Sveta tell it, Tuaparang as a nation is almost entirely consumed by its military, citizenry be damned. So despite the naming, it's ACTUALLY inspired by the US!

Okay, so Sveta's game WAS to covertly jailbreak Hou Ju out. Interesting. What that has to do with our party I don't really know; while we were necessary to vanquish the mountain roc, using the magma orb to sneak into the ruins seems like overkill when you could just do something like tell the guards to take a walk and smuggle Hou Ju out a window.

What?

No, that didn't answer anything. What?

What?

What?

Like, slow down, Maurice. I have a bevy of questions to this revelation.

• Why would Blados (and Chalis, I dunno why they're naming Blados specifically here wait yes I do) have anything to do with Sveta taking pity on Hou Ju?
• Why would Sveta taking pity on Hou Ju be an opportunity for the Tuaparang commanders?
• How does Sveta scheming to help Hou Ju (without communicating anything to a key group under her watch and making their role in her plan actively harder) fall under the actions of the Tuaparang commanders?
• If Volechek is working with Tuaparang, what exactly does he get out of freeing a noble from an enemy nation?
• What proof do you have that Volechek IS collaborating with Tuaparang on a plan to manipulate his own sister?
• Why do you need us here if Ryu Kou is already here? Hou Ju is clearly the main focus of your plan; we're just a pack of randos you met along the way.
• Have you accounted for the fact that if this plan fails, you will have invited a bunch of foreign Adepts into your capital castle to jailbreak Public Enemy Number Two (and maybe Public Enemy Number One if we feel up for it)? Because I feel like Volechek wouldn't like that!
• How, exactly, would Rief or anyone else in our party deduce that the Tuaparang were the masterminds behind this?

Like with a lot of the broad story elements of the first two games, I can see the outline of what they were trying for here and how it could, on paper, work. But they're just making up the steps in the middle and then blaming the player for not willing to swallow everything whole. Our villains' grand machinations thus far amount to them bragging about how smart and Machiavellian they are as they constantly sabotage themselves to make our lives anywhere from moderately to not-at-all inconvenienced. Our party goals effectively get reinvented with every scene. Character allegiances barely make any sense and will be formed or obliterated at the drop of a hat.

Really, the most painful thing of all about all of this is that these problems with the writing existed well before Dark Dawn. Golden Sun as a series is just like this, but since it struck lightning in terms of being a portable RPG that competes in length with the SNES greats and had excellent graphics, people, myself included, would fall over themselves to forgive any number of sins it commits. Dark Dawn had only one of those advantages, the graphics, and any teeth the gameplay may have had from the first two is lost here. It's still WORSE outside of lacking those traits, but the frustrating part is that it could have been so much better.

Sure, sudden telepathy to skip actually explaining anything.

Wait, hold up. Did you not know about the magma orb? How does every line anyone says make every prior thing that's ever happened in the game make LESS SENSE?!

Y'know what, sure, I would love to divert from the rapidly disintegrating antimatter plot to talk about Sveta's telepathy. That sounds like a refreshing change of pace.

I could see that, sure.

And I could see Karis and Sveta bonding over the double edged sword of telepathy, sure. It probably caused Karis a lot of trouble growing up!

Actual character building? Screw that, says Tyrell. The only character archetype that can exist is "loud abrasive screwup nobody likes". Let's get back to the main plot that's more hole than narrative.

Forgiving you would require you to tell me the whole story, which still hasn't happened.

• It's fine.
• Sure, you're our friend!
• Why would you lie to us?
• We almost died to the mountain roc because of this!

Oh we didn't actually say anything, we just sat there going until Sveta decided that was okay? Incidentally, all of these count as forgiveness, with the more negative ones being interpreted as being upset with Volechek. Cool.

Anyway she said she's sorry and that was enough for her biggest hater I guess.

She'll join us even if she doesn't know much about the ruins, but if we're trying to save Hou Ju, I don't think we... need to go into the ruins? We could just go the way she came from, right?

Like I said.

She's not leaving anymore, Sveta is in our party for good. Well, unless we Retreat out of the ruins. Which we're allowed to do. But for the sake of progressing the story she's staying.

If you're curious about the side paths, don't be: they're return paths that also have treasures.

Oh, did you think you could just go back the way Sveta came to do a jailbreak? Screw you!

It was literally the bulk of the bridge you had to cross to get here. How did you not notice it vanishing? I can assume that this or that device cut the bridge behind you, one that either we or Ryu Kou or the Tuaparang commanders operated.

But yeah. If we want to save Hou Ju, all we have to do is find a way across this gap.

Another machine, eh. Think we could wait for one of them to re-enable the path? Or maybe find a way to set up a spire opposite we could Grip onto?

The party takes this time to explain to Sveta that we use magma shards to activate the doors. (Which would, I think, disqualify the Tuaparang from activating them; they have no magma shards.)

First of all, we don't know for sure whether they actually activated the Alchemy Dynamo or not yet. Second, so far the Waelda's intel about Belinsk Ruins seems to have been basically for nothing; the secret door has been activated only to leave us with a chasm we can't try to cross. Third, I don't actually have a third thing to say I'm just mad at everyone in the story at all times now.

Did you try to contact him at all? It would be the logical thing to do, since he is the central figure in your plan and he is working with you to achieve the same goal. Or did you hang out behind a fake wall while he went a completely different way from the prisons and started plugging the Magma Orb into every receptacle he could find?

Or, and hear me out: let's not do that! Let's find a way to replace or circumvent the missing bridge, get Hou Ju freed, and leave. Hell, skip the Hou Ju part and just go back to Bilibin so we can go home and deliver the feather. Even if we assume Retreat doesn't actually exist save as a debug tool, our primary goal should be to get back to the castle, NOT to play around in the ruins. At most, we should go into the ruins to find Ryu Kou, reunite him with his inside woman, and THEN go back to the castle.

You say that but I know you're going to launch into another massive text dump the second we find a new room.

Stairs.

Stairs again.

And I called it. Tyrell's the first out of the party hammerspace to say a banal thing.

Is this the secret door you mentioned, Tret? Your instructions were incredibly vague, but this one doesn't really look, uh, secret.

Cool. Let's not go that way.

Oh no are we being deceived and bamboozled? Oh those Tuaparang, how devious and smart they are!

This is supposed to, I think, be a hint from Karis that it's actually Alex ER I MEAN the mysterious masked man doing this. Her reasoning is that there isn't any.

Sveta knows nothing about the gate. Awesome, cool. why are we here.

No.

Where the hell did you come from?!

And Sveta sensed this a while ago and... said nothing about it to us? WHY?!

No, shut up, shut up. You're wrong and bad and I hate you and stop saying words.

Hou Zan, of course, has nothing to apologize for and was trying to talk Ryu Kou out of breaking his alliance with us back in the mountain roc's butt.

"How dare you try to save your sister more expediently? We must have our weregild!"

Yeah? Let's what?

Ah, yes, let's get back to doing the aura farming for our antagonists who can't be arsed to appear.

Because, you see, Ryu Kou and Hou Zan took a different route in (were I to guess, it would've been the Slap statue early on in the ruins) and then ended up here as well.

Great. We have Ryu Kou, who still has the Magma Orb. Now would be a great time to backtrack up to the chasm and try to cross it. The Tuaparang need that orb to power the Alchemy Dynamo, so all we have to do is not go down there. At worst, this would force them to actually do anything at all, something I expect to be completely beyond their grasp.

Trying to do literally anything to counter the nothing our antagonists have schemed up is also beyond our protagonists, who resign themselves to marching blithely towards a doomsday device. Yay.

That's also an excellent point! I have no doubt that Blados and Chalis could simply overpower Ryu Kou and Hou Zan with their soldiers and Alex. This is posed as a curious enigma as to their objectives rather than the obvious plothole it actually is.

How many times do we have to go over this?

Oh let's also bring up that the festival for the full moon is tonight, in case that's relevant at all. It's something important for the ruins I guess I dunno.

BUT WE MUST DO EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE ASSUMING THE VILLAINS WANT US TO DO, HOU JU AND EOLEO'S LIVES ARE COUNTING ON US GOING THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF THEM aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh

Look at all this agency you have, Matthew the player self-insert!

Yeah, gotta stop now. Even if this update wasn't long, my patience has shortened to nothing.

Next Time: okay but this time? that stovetop won't know what hit it

 

[Torzelbaum]

Matthew is staring into neutral space.

As befits a silent protagonist.

 

[BEAT]

I'm also going to start the next page of this off with the commercial in question, so you can all join me in going "what does this have to do with Golden Sun".

I mean I'm not gonna lie.

That would make me buy a GBA.

 

[Reivier the Archer]

Remind me, why are we bothering to save Eoleo again? Briggs sure is putting no effort into saving him, and wasn't our original quest to find one feather to repair the Soarwing?

I think this is almost the worst Camelot's quest design and tendency to force the player to do arbitrary bullshit to "progress" the plot has gotten. Only Beyond the Beyond does a worse job, and that game's specially bad lol.

 

[Kalir]

Sure, fine, into the ruins we go. Whatever.

Door puzzle is simple enough.

Still gonna get lots of ceremony about it though.

This takes us to the labyrinth the Tuaparang were taking a leisurely stroll around earlier. Place your bets on how they made it down here, those bets will never be cashed out.

Use Pound. I mean Crush.

Another Djinni in here. They really are all over the place in Dark Dawn.

First, Crush the left stake to prompt it to jump to the stairs.

Then the right one, to cut off its escape route. Y'know, assuming jumping to a single-tile post somehow makes it unattainable.

Okay but this horrid little thing looks kinda cool actually.

The routes to the return path are easy to access and mostly just for treasure reasons. The return path is also completely pointless; you have to use Retreat to leave the dungeon anyway, and once you clear the dungeon it's locked off for good while Plot happens. Also the treasure consists of some lucky pepper and some water of life: up to you if that's worth doing.

Actual progress just requires you to go right to hit this stake, then to cross it from above.

Gee, it sure is convenient that we can use Grip to cross this ten-foot gap. If only we could do that somewhere else.

If you have even a single foot on one of these paired stakes when you Crush its counterpart, you do not get to ride up and it stops entirely.

Another big gate, another full party cutscene where nothing of value is said.

At least this time we're shown a post-battle scene, where a bunch of Tuaparang agents and some statuary appear to have gotten into a skirmish.

Everyone stances up for an ambush, but none occur.

Once their nerves settle, one particular victim of the war stands out. That'd have to be some potent Adept's doing. Alex most immediately springs to mind: the Tuaparang haven't displayed any Psynergy prior to this point.

Shut the hell up. Just stop. This scene doesn't mean they're brilliant chessmasters who have foreseen our every move, it just means they were here earlier.

Great question. I have a guess, that being "they want us to start the Alchemy Dynamo", but beyond that, I got nothin. They presumably need both us and the Sanans down here to do that, and presumably "manipulating" everyone to come down here is their best bet, but mostly they've just been aura farming poorly.

Yup. So doing what they want us to do would be... bad, yes? Have we considered not doing that?

Well, I know what MY answer is, and I know that none of these four buttons will communicate that, but let's humor the game's bass-ackwards plotline.

• Let's figure out what their next move is and play around that.
• I'm not worried, all we have to do is beat the Tuaparang!
• Maybe we should retreat before things get out of control.
• If your brother's involved with this, Sveta, we need answers from him, now.

Lucky me, I chose the exact response that doesn't get interpreted as "keep going forward lol". Maybe I HAVE gotten better at understanding the game. Horrifying.

Yeah, actually kinda curious about that. I know Adepts are a few weight classes beyond you, but Hou Zan knows enough about combat to hold his own (this more gets shown after this dungeon but it holds true for sure), and I would assume you didn't decide to infiltrate the enemy capital to save your sister without knowing at a minimum how to hold a sword. How combat capable is Ryu Kou, anyway?

Oh, he's not an Adept so we don't care? Great, cool, awesome.

So this puzzle is basically an ice physics puzzle with extra steps.

Hang on let's clear the board real quick.

Perfect. What about the wounded-but-living Tuaparang soldiers, you might ask? You might very well ask that.

Anyway, we can redirect the white statue with Move, forcing it to march in a straight line until it hits a wall or another statue (which it destroys).

After it moves, the remaining black statues will attack the white statue if it's adjacent. You only have to vanquish the king statue to pass.

Get wrecked nerd.

Once the king falls, so too does their army.

Further in we go.

Oh this is a cool shot.

This is the main chamber of Belinsk Ruins, dominated in the center by a titanic clockwork orrery.

It's not presently in operation. Hope this isn't the Alchemy Dynamo we shouldn't be activating.

There's our last magmaroni.

Using it turns on the clockwork in full, which ought to be familiar to TLA players in how it operates. We can walk on gears that are going the same way we want to.

This starts the base cog only, and it turns incredibly slowly so I just have to sit here while it does a full 180 degree turn.

Finally. Next route.

Look, platforms! We can use these as platforms!

The higher up we go, the more orrery components we can activate.

Oh, DWOOOOOP stone, how I have missed you.

Eventually we'll be able to use this. Someday...

The chamber beyond tells us that we're in the wind themed zone, as if the zol wasn't enough of a clue.

The zol puzzle practically plays itself once you account for the gears as routes.

Anyway, we get to this big orb and hit it with a Whirlwind. Good thing I went the wrong way first to read the tablet, or I'd have to spend 1 whole PP on Insight.

Ourple.

This activates the Jupiter arm of the orrery.

weeeeeeeeeeeee

Fire themed area time.

Well, Crush IS Mars aligned, I guess. I'll take that.

You'll need different configurations for getting both the chest and the route ahead, of course.

Wooooooo spooky. This is the third best mace in the game: the next one is a rusted one found in shallows while sailing (spoilers there's sailing) and the best is a random drop, so in practice this is one of Rief's best weapons for the rest of the game. It is also exactly 6 points of attack better than his Zodiac Wand.

Trespassers will be burninated.

Okay so there is very much a planetary alignment theme going down. I assume that means Venus is next?

Yo what's the paycheck for the average sage in Weyard? I could be living large.

Unfortunately we haven't gotten a new Venus Psynergy for field use in years so this is just a maze that asks us to cast Crush once.

You can consider Growth part of the puzzle if you want I guess.

One more left.

Oh no its flooded we can't solve the puzzle everyone go home.

Arid Heat and then push stuff.

Not even that much stuff, honestly.

Douse to float the blocks again, push the pillar now that you can access it, Arid Heat again...

And that's it, all four of the funny planets active.

It's blue for an amazing reason.

Okay so now what?

Ah, I see. We have to align the planets for a big eclipse.

Yeah yeah one sec.

Can I ask why activating anything in here cuts off the return path? What's the goal there?

This influences the orrery outside, raising all the planets to the same level...

And letting us talk to the burnt out sun or something.

And then we slap the sun. It is somehow less satisfying than that should sound.

This reverses everything on the orrery and sends it downwards.

Deepest level, I suppose. Interesting floor design of a Weyard map you got there.

That sounds bad and preventable.

The left chamber reveals this room, indicating which of the four corners corresponds to which element.

You can push this torch around to reveal them, or turn off your map screen for a second to get a screensaver that also tells you. Or use Insight when relevant. Y'know.

The right side holds a massive Psynergy Stone. Good, I wasn't exhausted at all actually.

Approaching the big door provokes a Ward to appear before us, like the one in Barai Temple. Also defines the glowy wallfaces as Wards, that's nice. No relation to the Ward Psynergy.

And that's it, that's the villains' goals. That's why they bothered screwing around with Matthew's party at all, why Blados ensured we'd have Rief with us when we went south at Konpa Ruins (disregard that Alex could easily break that particular lock). We win if we just go the other way, or if not win, at least force the Tuaparang to make any kind of serious overtures at "manipulating" us.

Anyway hit the four crystals with the proper Psynergy to do the villains' jobs for them.

This is, of course, worlds beyond the reasoning of Tyrell in particular and our party as a whole.

Oh sure, they'll make token overtures of "maybe everything screaming warning signs at us and the sages warning us of disaster if we do this might be worth listening to".

Tyrell's ableist pass it on.

Ah, yes, the ol' thought-terminating cliché of "there are lives at stake". Classic.

I activate the four crystals because I need to document this story for the world.

And this charges up that central orb...

Creating an artificial eclipse that coats Weyard in shadow. Cool, foreboding, cool, let's not consider the implications because we're going the exact opposite direction from the people we don't know counting on us to save them.

Do you get it

A door opened somehow! Weird! Let's go through it!

And there it is. The one thing we definitely should not touch or interact with in any way, right before us. Let's kiss it.

Yeah hi where's the switch to destroy you permanently? Please and thank you.

Or, and hear me out: do not do that. Go the other way, leave this room, save Hou Ju (and Eoleo if you want) and return to your homes.

Oh, now you're aware of the ramifications of your actions? What about saving Hou Ju, don't you know that turning on the Alchemy Dynamo will uhhhhh open a secret door or something?

Yeah that's true. Provide a justification for how turning this machine on saves your sister, please?

Oh do you perhaps have the sense that the ten thousand security measures and warnings and the limp-wristed coercion of the villains to do this means it might be........ bad?????

• I don't see how this machine has anything to do with saving Hou Ju, anyway.
• We just got in the room, maybe we should look for another way through!
• This is too dangerous, let's get out while we still can.
• Hand over the orb or destroy it, Ryu Kou, but we're not letting you turn on the Alchemy Dynamo.

Good mechanic, good writing.

Oh, hey recurring antagonist. Feel like doing anything to actually facilitate your plans and hinder ours, or just stopping by?

All three of them show up through the door we unlocked for them.

As per usual, they spend a lot of time being smug and self-aggrandizing about how smart and smart they are, rather than actually doing their jobs of manipulating, threatening, coercing, or otherwise using us to further their own goals.

Everyone here gets a line about how they don't trust the Tuaparang, which... shouldn't be the declaration here. I don't know. I don't know why these are the motivations of everyone here.

Oh hey, a threat! Been a while since I've seen one of those, especially from you, Alex.

Tyrell, in a rare moment of sparkling wit, chooses to challenge Alex's threat that we won't like what happens if we refuse.

Blados and Chalis take that as a sign to teleport up close in preparation for the boss fight.

I know this is probably meant to be written as sarcastic, but I'm choosing to take it at face value. Blados is really bummed out about having to do the one thing he's been swearing up and down he wanted to do.

Anyway let's get to beating your asses real quick, yeah?

Blados and Chalis are fighting us head-on. Alex is not, he's got other stuff he's doing.

As with their agents beforehand, Blados and Chalis rely primarily on consumables like the spark shuriken and their signature techniques, and possess no Psynergy. Which is certainly cool and flavorful, but we're a long way away from the days where psy grenades could be game-defining threats.

Both characters are also able to use Shadow Shield, acting as a Defend for both enemies.

As far as signature attacks go, Chalis favors Scornful Caress, a fast-moving claw attack. She also gets a slight voice clip of a chuckle here. She's also carrying Vials because something something girls healers something, and illusion perfume that can inflict delusion.

Blados, for his part, shouts briefly during Punish, which has a chance to instakill. He has more Firecrackers than Chalis does, and his spark shuriken deal damage with a stun chance.

Take them out in whichever order you like; this fight is not appreciably unique beyond the identity of the characters involved.

Hey, want to see Sveta go beast mode? Yeah you do. Lookit.

She casually tosses Chalis across the room and the fight is over yay.

Good job Sveta!

Despite the fight, neither Tuaparang seems especially bothered by their loss.

See, while we were fighting them, that left the Sanans to deal with Alex. By which we mean, Hou Zan lost against Alex, who then spent an indeterminate amount of time telling Ryu Kou everything he wants to hear.

No? No, don't think we'll be doing that.

Once again to his rare credit, Tyrell doesn't hesitate for a second before rushing Alex down.

But alas, Alex is too cool and mysterious and clever and powerful and basically Tyrell instantly gets dunked on. We don't even get a flash to a battle screen like when Agatio beat the hell out of Isaac, it's just that we lose one party member and don't get to try anymore because reasons.

May as well check, yeah?

Ah the answer is that we don't get an answer because of course Alex isn't Tuaparang. Great, awesome, why did we bother asking.

Sudden column of light. That's not the Alchemy Dynamo activating, it's... I want to say the full moon's light? That's a prereq for this, by the way. The planets, Luna included, being in alignment? Necessary to activate Luna Tower. The villains' plans literally could have been foiled by taking slightly longer, which is impressive because our route was already slow and meandering, and the Tuaparang directly slowed us down further.

And it very nearly fails anyway, because our party's pleas to not activate the machine do cause Ryu Kou to hesitate until Alex utters the magic word.

Yumie forbidden lemon drop

And that's it. The villains' plans have succeeded, the Alchemy Dynamo has been powered on, this all could have been avoided so so so easily and we did nothing about it.

EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY

Oh you only activated the Alchemy Dynamo because the guy who beat the hell out of your mentor... promised. Great, cool.

Speaking of!

Yeah you did. You made several choices which make you directly culpable for what is currently happening. Saving your sister could have been easily accomplished without them. In the here and now, sure, you're in no position to refuse the strongest Adept you've ever seen (making this activation all his doing in practice and there is no reason to have Ryu Kou do it when he could just do it himself), but there were so many places where we could have found a different, better way to do things.

Alex, as usual, claims he had nothing to do with anything and he's the coolest.

Sometimes the writing can be good, in isolation, and presumably on accident.

I appreciate the attempt, at least.

Anyway, he's going to rescue his meatshields and give us his cool new codename.

In the Japanese text, the name he provides is instead Ace, but either way its intended to line up with the names provided by the Tuaparang. More on that later.

Oh, we need to evacuate immediately? Perfect time to explain our motivations!

I think there's a lot more differences than that but I get the feeling you aren't going to elaborate much.

Why is everyone like this. Why is Weyard like this. Why is Golden Sun as written by the Takahashi brothers like this.

Yo who left their car alarm on? Shut that off we're talking about nothing right now.

Just a quick obstacle course and then we're done with Belinsk Ruins, the Alchemy Dynamo, and also Luna Tower and we can go home and nothing will be wrong.

Objective complete, time to warp away in segments so you can keep monologuing at us.

Ughhhh do I have to?

The dungeon's basically over, but there is so much more yammering in our immediate future, and this update is already massive, so this will be our stopping point for now.

Next Time: you ever heard of someone missing their bus during a zombie apocalypse? no? yeah thats what i thought

 

[Reivier the Archer]

It's amazing how the mid-to-lategame climactic dungeon is basically Sol Sanctum but with worse writing. Tells me just how much of a downgrade Dark Dawn is compared to its own predecessors, which is rather telling, considering how flawed those were.

 

[BEAT]

HAWK TUAPARANG!!!!!

SPIT ON THAT THANGAPARANG!!!!!​

 

[Kalir]

Welcome back to our ongoing fiasco. Our escape route is briefly blocked by a few chunks of zol, nothing we can't get out of the way.

Once we get past those two blocks the escape sequence is basically done.

This deposits us just outside of the mysterious structure behind Belinsk Castle.

Said structure appears to have formed into a full tower. Cool, I guess?

The party has nothing to say about this for once, but I do. Don't just run off into Belinsk at large just yet.

If you go back in and climb the tower all the way to its pinnacle...

We get a summon with a little more ceremony than they usually do!

Also: this looks a lot like a lit lighthouse. Maybe a little Jupitery given the purple coloring.

And then we download the lit lighthouse for a summon we'll never use.

Oh I guess I could've got this particular treasure earlier had I bothered to go into the lake.

Not worth it.

In any case, despite it being the full moon, Eoleo's execution got called off well after the last second on account of "where did that big tower come from that's not normally there". Good news for Briggs, I guess.

Anyway now that we're on the surface and can't leave and had no way to actually even attempt to breach Belinsk Castle's impregnable defenses, what do you, the reader, suppose our play might be?

The answer, not of course, is "Alex/Arcanus told the castle guards to let Matthew's party in so they can free the two highest priority death row prisoners in Belinsk".

That's the full of it. Even with Mind Read Spirit Sense, it won't tell us anything new. Our jailbreak amounts to the main antagonist politely keeping his promise and having the castle guard for a nation he's not a member of stand aside.

No really. That's it. We can't get into anywhere in Belinsk Castle (without specifically doing Psynergy puzzles for extra toys only) except the two places we are railroaded towards, which are Hou Ju and Eoleo's cells, in that order. All of that skulduggery Sveta failed to do amounts to nothing. The status of anyone involved in here is irrelevant. Killing a mountain roc and getting the Slap Glove, who cares about those? We just get to walk right in.

I don't even know. This sucks. This is terrible. Why even bother with the jailbreak at this point when the villains could just give us our hostages for free whenever they wanted.

We should, in fact, heed this warning as well. Despite TLA players theoretically being interested in having Eoleo as a party member as soon as possible, Ryu Kou will not let his sister be saved at anything other than WR speeds.

Y'know suddenly I don't feel so bad about Belinsk's imminent demise. Spoilers I guess.

No, because that's never been a tradition about anything ever, and also even if it was that tradition sucks out loud. I hate you and go away.

Yes you can. You stop us from going non-Hou-Ju directions all the time. After this dialogue box we will be stopped and turned around. Also there will be no issue with rescuing both and I really don't know why the game so heavily questions choosing to save Eoleo first over Hou Ju, not when that is theoretically maybe I think??? supposed to be what the party is even here for.

Oh and yeah the stairs Sveta came from are a single flight under the castle ground floor. Just for context, y'know.

Fiiiiine let's rescue Hou Ju now.

Do we have a plan for the jail door, incidentally? Last I checked, Arcanus didn't leave a key with us. (I will, for the moment, humor Arcanus' new name even if it's goofy as hell.)

Oh okay, thanks King Volechek.

Of COURSE Volechek knows all about this and is happy to support it why WOULDN'T HE BE?!

Anyway Volechek is pleased as punch that we reactivated the tower despite never having seen us before, so he's happy to cede his the two highest priority enemies of the state in his jails to us, and also to not have Ryu Kou and Hou Zan executed on the spot. Really understanding of him honestly.

Yeah he politely opens the cell door and Hou Ju is free to go.

The Sanans have a heartfelt reunion at that, good for them.

No. No you don't get to do this. Absolutely not. You cut that trash out right now. I am so mad at you.

That's Kraden. Screw his attempt to walk in like a shaded mystery genius man, he doesn't get to do that. You have failed all of us and you don't get to pretend to be a clever at the eleventh hour of a fiasco you did nothing to prevent.

We haven't. You were initially slated to meet us at the third settlement in the game. We're at a little past the halfway point. Your absence has not been felt.

And, of course, Kraden visited Volechek's father before, presumably back when Belinsk and Morgal as a whole were a Sanan colony, to request advice on hunting the mountain roc during Isaac's adventures.

Like they just have this nice cordial conversation for a little bit like we aren't in the literal shadow of a recently activated doomsday device.

I mean if you have to?

Rather than actually introducing us, however, Kraden feels now is a good time to exposit on what the Tuaparang are hoping to get out of their dealings with Volechek, starting with, of course, the doomsday device.

Upon even the slightest hinting of danger about Eclipse Tower, Volechek loses what patience he had.

I mean I can theoretically see why Volechek, king of Morgal, might not want to lead a hunting party to take on the national bird of Morgal. That tracks, at least. Activating Eclipse Tower is still a terrible idea, but an alliance with the Tuaparang to facilitate that without incurring the people's wrath isn't the worst idea ever.

But why answer that when he can just pretend he's a failing president at a press conference?

Yes I get the idea it's a doomsday device the Tuaparang and Arcanus both want activated for whatever goofity-ass plans they have.

No it wouldn't, I literally just explained it. You're just in a Golden Sun game and will use ten thousand words to fail to explain what ten could do.

Oh yeah what are the Sanans' plans now? They saved Hou Ju, so back to Sana for them I guess? Dunno the route, presumably either through the Khiren Mountains or taking a boat out of Port Rago?

Reasonable enough.

A full explanation would take too long but let's take too long anyway.

Is that your explanation? The calamity is because it's like the lighthouses?

Ryu Kou After Not Surviving

That's nice of you, considering you were willing to suicide bomb us over not being enthusiastic about saving your sister.

Fortunately, Sveta has the unblockable.

Speaking of sisters, do you perhaps notice a character that is missing from this scene that should be here? Don't expect an answer for where they are, of course.

Catch you later, try not to die.

I'm not gonna question how you know about all of our plans because I don't trust you to provide a satisfactory answer.

Nice to know Kraden doesn't hold us directly culpable for activating Eclipse Tower despite being directly culpable for it.

This is also where Kraden first hears the name Arcanus and figures out the meaning behind it. He'll explain it later.

Let's hurry up and go get Eoleo since we're here I guess!!!

Our warnings to the people of Belinsk fall on deaf ears. That's fine I wasn't especially invested in them anyway.

BRB stealing Eoleo's execution method for later.

Again, we were offered no keys or aid to set Eoleo free.

So we Slap his cage down like heroes.

He'll live.

See he's fine!

He's a little irritable about being saved by getting crashed into the ground. Understandable, one wrong wiggle and his cage would've gone into the drink.

This doesn't endear him to the party but it does endear him to me because I think the party on the whole is bad.

They go on trading barbs for a bit because this is Dark Dawn and that's just how people are.

Eventually, Kraden cuts through to theoretically bring us back to the main point of fleeing Belinsk at some point.

Fortunately, recognizing Kraden puts Eoleo in a slightly more favorable mood.

Hurrying up? No, let's discuss how Kraden has a greatly extended lifespan again. That's a good use of our time.

As if to drive the point home, an eclipse begins occurring over Eclipse Tower. (Yes, this animation uniquely plays on the top screen only unlike everything else in the game. I tried changing my entire editing configuration to account for this and it seems like that didn't take, so I'm leaving it like this out of protest.)

But this ain't your ordinary eclipse, no sir!

This is what we in the business call the Grave Eclipse!

A wave of shadow envelops the whole of Belinsk in seconds.

Too bad we spent all that time talking about nothing forever, we could have been there by now. Hope this doesn't have any ramifications!

Oh those sound like ramifications.

As soon as we step outside the castle, Sveta is overcome with a powerful involuntary Spirit Sense.

Volechek has mobilized his soldiers to deal with some monsters inside the opera house, it seems.

So we have monster attacks spiraling up in otherwise fortified locations.

Volechek is appreciative of the soldiers' perimeter, but the total lack of sound within the opera house disturbs him, so he enters.

Once they do enter, an orchestra starts playing, section by section. First the strings...

Then the brass as the door slams shut behind them...

And then Volechek and his guys get in a fight.

What manner of monster resides within?

We don't get to see, hehe.

Back at the castle, Matthew and Kraden both try to snap Sveta out of her visions.

Advanced Spirit Sense that everyone can perceive, even non-Adepts! Cool! Is now really the time to get into that?

Oh we're saving Volechek too now? I mean if you insist.

So, back in Belinsk, the scene is a full-on slaughter. Bodies and wounded litter the streets and panic is in the air.

The flowerseller's cart blocks the exit out, with the flowerseller herself critically injured and unable to move it for us.

Here's why we can use Spirit Sense to talk to the dead, by the way!

Oh and yeah, new monsters appear. They're actually a cut above your average random encounter with enough health that mashing A will maybe take down one a turn.

I actually really like this as a way to highlight just how catastrophically BAD things are with the Alchemy Dynamo powered and Eclipse Tower activated. It's nothing fancy, but turning the big city into an instant necropolis complete with a spike in encounter difficulty is incredible for setting the tone.

We take the monsters down eventually, it's still not actually dangerous to us, but now attrition from multiple fights is theoretically a real factor.

Like, no joke, this is a really good setpiece.

Anyway let's wholly destroy that tension by waking up an old guy peacefully sleeping.

He blearily staggers out of bed to go make tea.

And now we can access a Djinni.

Put out the fire, freeze the puddle he left behind...

And we get a new guy. Cool.

Moving on to the opera house, Volechek's soldiers are all dead and blocking the fastest route to the stage.

We have to take the long way around to handle them.

The chandelier chooses this time to have an opinion on the matter.

It manifests as the dragon, Crystallux!

I think Crystallux could probably take these monsters on itself.

I am less optimistic for the conductor's odds.

Yeah that's about what I expected.

Welp, may as well intervene ourselves now that it's too late.

The Dark Devourer is not appreciably harder than the usual scuttlers. It is, at most, slightly bulkier.

Anyway the conductor is very dead at this point.

I guess? Dragons are pretty self-sufficient last I checked.

So now what?

That's right, a new extra-special summon!

Crystallux requires 3 Venus and 2 Mercury Djinn to summon, and cuts enemy Resistances in addition to doing the big stupid summon damage you're already used to. All else being equal, that's a really fun homage to the commercial.

Anyway let's real quick carve out tombstones for the opera house caretaker and conductor and bury them and see to their last rites. I don't think we're under any immediate time pressure at this point.

I should also go sound the alarm for the soldiers in the castle since nobody's bothering to do that right now.

This causes the soldier to investigate the bell, and if we talk to him again, he apparently decides the apocalypse outside isn't worth diving into and goes right the hell back to guarding Volechek's chambers.

May as well get Sveta a weapon upgrade!

Okay NOW we can flee Belinsk.

Now seems like a good idea to unpack exactly what just happened in full. Hopefully nothing time-critical is happening on the only boat docked here.

That's true enough. There are small sections of Belinsk not engulfed by the eclipse, and those don't spawn monsters.

This, according to Kraden, makes anywhere in the shadows eligible for spontaneous monster generation. We'll set aside that overworld encounters are common even during broad daylight.

So Belinsk as a city is doomed, as is anywhere else within the shadow of the Grave Eclipse.

Aptly put, Tyrell. Because we decided to ignore our sole objective and get caught up making up manipulations for the Tuaparang to do to us, we've doomed tens of thousands of lives across Angara.

And leave it to Kraden, who failed to be of any use during any of this time and especially not now, to punish Tyrell for one of his uncommon moments of common sense.

Anyway let's not elaborate on countermeasures, whose boat is this we were dialoguing next to?

Huh, guess the shipwrights did eventually get it in working order. How long until we notice Briggs' corpse, do you think?

Dang, exactly one line of dialogue later. We might be learning.

Eoleo boards the ship without hesitation, only for monsters to ambush him in turn!

Shut up and get out of my way you useless rambler!

YARRR!

Hey remember how I mentioned attrition as a risk factor in these Grave Eclipse fights? Ignore that actually.

We also win in sprints.

Anyway this was unavoidable because reasons.

It's the most useful thing he's done all game, that's for damn sure.

We are incapable of learning.

For what it's worth, the last exchange between Eoleo and Briggs is good.

If nothing else, Eoleo really looks up to his dad, enough to take up the family business, so to speak.

Would now be a bad time to mention that Chaucha isn't in the game? Oh well.

And that's it. Briggs dies in his son's arms.

Ah, tonal whiplash. Just how I'm used to.

One last thing before we set off: a burial at sea.

Eoleo's not great with words, but he doesn't have to be.

Yeah? Uh, can you be more specific? There's a LOT of culpability going around.

One final cannon salute, and Briggs is laid to rest.

I mean I won't knock it, I welcome you as A: someone with a clearcut goal to pursue, and B: a Mars Adept that isn't Tyrell, but like... we did let this happen, pretty overtly.

We do have a boat now, that's nice.

Seventh party member!

Eoleo joins with five Mars Djinn: Reflux, Wrath, Chili, Glow, and Stoke (depicted here). I'll save his class breakdowns for the next update because this one is already really long, we still have a little more Belinsk scene to go somehow, and this is a "only Matthew walks around and talks to the party" section so I can't view his stats here.

Next Time: who among you hasn't thrown your entire life away to help the person that gave you your piercings? be honest

 

[Reivier the Archer]

This is truly the game where stuff happens just because the writers say so.

 

[BEAT]

They really didn't even try.

Like not even a little bit.