History VideoGame / GoldenSun

* FriendlyFireproof: Many summons and a couple of weapon unleashes only affect enemies. Often times your party appears to be spirited to safety but as for the general environment? This becomes ridiculous in the first game when fighting the Kraken on the Tolbi-bound ship. You can use the [[ColonyDrop Meteor]] and [[KillSat Judgment]] summons against it and said ship [[UpToEleven will not be damaged in any way.]]

* MundaneUtility:Getting apples down from trees, tying ropes to protrusions across a gap...Utility psynergies in Weyard seem to be extremely specialised. Taken UpToEleven once you realise there's separate Psynergy for ''shaking things left-and-right'' and ''shaking things up-and-down'', both of which are distinct from the combat Earthquake psynergy.

* TitleDrop: [[spoiler:The Golden Sun is a mass of energy that rises above Mt. Aleph in the second game indicating the restoration of Alchemy to the world. The Lost Age is dropped a few times, as well, being the 'age' that was 'lost' when Psynergy was weakened by the dimming of the lighthouses.]]

''VideoGame/GoldenSun1'' tells the story of Isaac, a teenager from the [[HiddenElfVillage village of Vale]], gifted with the power of [[ElementalPowers Psynergy]], and his journey to stop a dangerous group of antagonists from releasing the ancient power of [[AlchemyIsMagic Alchemy]] and to rescue his friend Jenna. The resulting journey takes him and three companions through many lands and cultures to the Elemental Lighthouses, the seals preventing Alchemy's release.

** Jupiter/Wind is [[TechnicolorWind a strange case]], since it's also the typical element PsychicPowers are associated with. As a result, Jupiter is predominantly [[SupernaturalIsPurple purple]], but sometimes paired with [[WindIsGreen green]]. Jupiter Djinn are lavender.

* PersonalityPowers: Mostly averted, as the characters' personalities are fairly distinct from their elements (Sheba the [[ShockAndAwe Jupiter Adept]] is plenty hotheaded while [[AnIcePerson Mia]] is a FriendToAllLivingThings, for example). Both Garet and Jenna play to their [[PlayingWithFire Mars Adept]] stereotypes, but the Mars clan from Prox avert it almost entirely.

** ''The Lost Age'' has a sprite sheet for [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Link]] [[http://kprs.laronmi.net/taow/miscellaneous/link/link.htm in game but unused]].

* ElementalHairColors: [[DishingOutDirt Venus Adepts]] have brown hair, [[PlayingWithFire Mars Adepts]] have bright red hair (unless from the [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation Mars Clan of Prox]]), and [[MakingASplash Mercury Adepts]] have [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair blue hair]]. Jupiter Adepts tend toward blonde (with overlap for light-haired Venus Adepts) or purple, but ''Dark Dawn'' gives them more variety.

* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Lemuria in particular is dedicated to the color blue, but other examples appear here and there (not limited to just blue at that!) while The Fire Clan is as wild in hair colors as they are in skin colors.

''Golden Sun'' is a series of {{Eastern RPG}}s from Creator/{{Nintendo}} and Camelot Software Planning, who you may recall also made ''VideoGame/MarioGolf'' and ''VideoGame/MarioTennis'' as well as Sega's ''Shining'' series.

** Due to Camelot's (then Sonic! Software Planning) involvement with the ''[[Franchise/ShiningSeries Shining Force]]'' series there are a number of nods to it. Beyond the the easily noticed graphical similarities in the interface, one injured person in the 2nd game thinks "Eyes... Shining in the Darkness... No! Go away!!!" and the final boss has an attack called "Darksol Gasp".

** The Franchise/IncredibleHulk is referenced with a random castle guard, who is thinking "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" when you mind read him.

** Jupiter/Wind is [[TecnhicolorWind a strange case]], since it's also the typical element PsychicPowers are associated with. As a result, Jupiter is predominantly [[SupernaturalIsPurple purple]], but sometimes paired with [[WindIsGreen green]]. Jupiter Djinn are lavender.

** Mars/Fire is red, orange, or yellow-- the "warm" colors. The main exception is the [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation Mars Clan]], though they do all have red eyes. Mars Djinn are orange with blue eyes.

** Jupiter/Wind is a strange case, since it's also the typical element PsychicPowers are associated with. As a result, Jupiter is predominantly [[SupernaturalIsPurple purple]], but sometimes paired with [[WindIsGreen green]]. Jupiter Djinn are lavender.

* LeastCommonSkinTone: Averted amongst the {{NPC}}s at least - with its liberal use of FantasyCounterpartCulture, the player will meet Africans, Middle Eastern people, Asians, Native Americans, and even Pacific Islanders(though the sprites are recycled from one edge of the world to another). The party members, however, all share the same ethnicity. Justified in that the majority of them literally came from the same hometown and general area.

** Weapon unleashes are this by default. They get increasingly more dramatic and powerful as the game goes on but are random, making them increasingly unreliable to use against boss level enemies also. They're main purpose is to end random encounter battles more quickly without using up the psynergy, dijinn and items better spent on more unique foes. However, if a player knows how to use and gets enough unleash rate boosting equipment, they instead become BoringButPractical, making everything else almost pointless.
** Iris, the game's ultimate summon, simultaneously completely heals your ''entire'' party (all eight, including dead party members) AND deals an insane amount of damage, more than three times as much as a level four summon. The drawback? It requires 13 standby djinn (9 Mars and 4 Mercury) to unleash. If you don't set them to standby outside of battle, you'll need a minimum of three turns dedicated solely to setting up for this summon. And don't forget that setting djinn to standby temporarily gimps your characters stats. Also factor in three turns of recovery after doing the summon before your stats return to normal, and you've got an incredibly high cost summon that, while nice, isn't nearly worth the effort when you could accomplish the same thing with mundane but effective healing skills. Adding to that, the only way to earn Iris is to defeat the secret bonus boss. There's nothing else to use the summon on except the final story boss, who has a slight resistance against it. \\\

** The Wings of Anemos on your ship. While you do indeed need it in order to bypass a few obstacles on the overworld, it's other use is to move around the world quicker and avoid random sea battles. However, doing so ''drains the PP of your entire party in order to stay aloft''. Useful, but only if you're impatient.

** Kalay, Lalivero, Alhafra, and Champa. The latter is not a typical example, as it's known to raid the others rather than for it's own attractive commerce.

* DummiedOut:
** [[http://goldensunwiki.net/List_of_unacquirable_Psynergy Various Psynergy]] that have no effect outside of the debug room can be obtained via cheating. After beating the FinalBoss in the second game, there is a brief sequence where you walk around the final town, Prox; normally, you don't have access to the Mind Read Psynergy at this point (as the two party members with it aren't in the party at this point), but if you hack to obtain it, there are major {{Sequel Hook}}s in the Mind Read "conversations" seen [[http://kprs.laronmi.net/taow/miscellaneous/mindread/mindread.htm here]] (obviously spoilers are contained within).
** [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Link]] is among the unused sprites.

* RuleOfThree: [[UndergroundMonkey Monster lines]] come in three variants. Though some only appear to have two, the third is present but DummiedOut.

* AwesomeButImpractical

* TakeYourTime: It's going to take a few years before the end of the world, yes, but take all the time you need to reach the next lighthouse before those other guys racing towards it. The order in which you arrive will always be the same

* SpeakingSimlish: Females get higher-pitched squeaks than males.

* HeroicMime: Isaac and Felix. Possibly the most ridiculous example of silent protagonists in any RPG, seeing as both talk like anything at times when they're not playable (Felix in the first game; Isaac in the second game). In fact, [[spoiler:Felix gives up the idea in ''The Lost Age'''s ending and talks to Isaac, Garet, and Kyle to reassure them.]] Although at some point in both games, when they are assigned the silent protagonist role, they do make some form of expression. Isaac goes "!!!" at the end of the events in the Venus Lighthouse and Felix pulls the classic "..." on Piers after Jenna and Sheba harass Piers about his age. At one point, Felix breaks the mute hero rule and blurts out "Why?" when someone was explaining the rules to a competition he was in. This is a slight mistranslation when the Japanese version text is just "???".

** The water element healing spell series, Ply, which includes the strongest single-target healing, and Wish, which includes the strongest multi-target healing. Water is also the only element to provide status recovery spells.

** In general, Mercury (Water) Adept characters are slanted towards healing and support. Best exemplified by Mia, a water user who works as a healer and acts as the WhiteMagicianGirl. Her son Rief shares her abilities.
** The Water of Hermes is obtained after igniting the Mercury lighthouse, and is used to restore Tret after his insane evil personality has been defeated and keep Imil's inhabitants safe from any disease. If reobtained, it can be used to fully heal a party member.

* HealingWinds: The Jupiter (wind) djinni Breath is one of the first ones found in both ''The Lost Age'' and ''Dark Dawn'', who heals 40% of a character's HP, making the early game easier to survive. Note that this association is absent in Japanese, where its name is Rescue because the healing always occurs at the start of the party's turn.

''Golden Sun'' is a series of {{Eastern RPG}}s from Creator/{{Nintendo}} and Camelot Software Planning, who you may recall also made ''[[Videogame/SuperMarioBros Mario]] Golf'' and ''Tennis'' as well as Sega's ''Shining'' series.

* InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons: Dragons serve as a penultimate boss in the second and final bosses in both. [[spoiler:Actually, they're just people turned into dragons.]]

* MoleMonster: The King Scorpion boss spends most of his time under the sand, you have to force him out to fight him.

* ElementalHair: [[DishingOutDirt Venus Adepts]] have brown hair, [[PlayingWithFire Mars Adepts]] have bright red hair (unless from the [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation Mars Clan of Prox]]), and [[MakingASplash Mercury Adepts]] have [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair blue hair]]. Jupiter Adepts tend toward blonde (with overlap for light-haired Venus Adepts) or purple, but ''Dark Dawn'' gives them more variety.