Line #206 Headscratchers/GoldenSunDarkDawn


1	New entries on the bottom.
2
3	[[foldercontrol]]
4
5	[[folder:Weaknesses/resistances]]
6
7	* I don't really care about this game's difficulty (especially since I'm doing a blind run) but WHY everything legitimately difficult and intimidating in this game are only weak to Jupiter and resist Venus? All Jupiter-aligned monsters (sans Jupiter Djinn) also have the same issue. The fact that they ''really'' went their way to make Sveta as broken as possible doesn't help matters. There's the Sludge, Mountain Roc, [[spoiler:Chaos Chimera, Ancient Devil, '''Dullahan'''...]] and that's just the bosses.
8
9	[[/folder]]
10
11	[[folder:Beastmen timeline]]
12
13	* If the beastmen were created due to the Golden Sun (except for the werewolves at Garoh, which isn't even near Morgal), then how is it possible the Morgal beastmen built the Apollo Sanctum and why does the Umbra Gear can only be worn by beastmen?
14	** Beastmen existed in the period before alchemy was sealed, it's just that they can only "become" beastmen when alchemy is unsealed. Except for the people of Garoh of course, but I'm guessing that's because they had a source of psynergy nearby (air's rock).
15	** Air's Rock and the influence of Anemos (moonlight causes the transformation; Anemos is the moon). Personal {{Fanon}} here, Maha became permanently beastman because he mastered his powers to a point where he was generating his own alchemical influence.
16	** If this were true, you'd think that ''someone'' would have at least mentioned it--if not along the course of the main narrative, then discussed by NPC characters. It isn't. And if it were the case, what happened to the beastmen when alchemy got sealed? Did they all just spontaneously turn into humans or animals? What determined who turned into what? This seems way too much like an AssPull to sit right.
17	** Yes, they did turn into humans and animals. Who turned into what was determined by genetics or whatever, and their descendants carried those same genes, and so were still "beastmen" despite being humans and animals. Then alchemy was unsealed and their genes activated.
18	** Addendum to the above: If you talk to/mind read beastmen, some of them will mention that they used to be animals (or, for that matter, humans).
19
20	[[/folder]]
21
22	[[folder:Sol Blade in Lost Age]]
23
24	* If the Sol Blade is the key that activates Apollo Sanctum, then what was it doing at Mars Lighthouse in The Lost Age? Wasn't it hidden in the Apollo Sanctum the whole time?
25	** [[spoiler: Felix put it there?]]
26	** It's not the same Sol Blade. Putting aside the fact that Felix had no way of entering the Apollo Sanctum, the two swords are different colors and have different unleashes (barring Megiddo).
27	** Discounting the fact that they both have Megiddo is a pretty big thing to discount. Come to think of it, how did the Titan Blade get where it was? What, did Isaac just decide to throw the sword into a different thematically-appropriate dungeon? I know it's difficult to return it to the Venus Lighthouse at this point, but still.
28	** I'd like to think that any weapon found in a dungeon isn't canonical to the story. So in regards to the Sol Blade in TLA, we'll just have to go with the notion that Felix and co. never got it, and Matthew and co. were the only ones who did in DD. Well, if GS4 brings back the Sol Blade to be wielded by Takeru then all of this is quite absurd and inconsistent.
29
30	[[/folder]]
31
32	[[folder:Armor in Harapa]]
33
34	* The guy at the entrance to Harapa says he knows you are a warrior because your armor is dented. There is no metal armor at that point.
35	** Poor word use or bad translation. Perhaps what he meant was that he could tell your armor had been damaged in a fight.
36	** Despite there not being any metal armor game mechanics-wise, Tyrell is pretty clearly wearing a breastplate in his artwork.
37
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Sniffing versus mind reading]]
41
42	* Sveta finally identifies [[spoiler: the Chaos Hound as her brother]] by sniffing him after the fight. In the cutscenes ''before'' the fight, she was not only sniffing but also Mind Reading him, and didn't notice then...?
43	** I'm pretty certain she did notice, but had to suppress him from assaulting her companions. She knew he was inside, fighting what he had become. [[BrainwashedAndCrazy He]] ''[[BrainwashedAndCrazy almost]]'' [[BrainwashedAndCrazy makes it]] before Blados and Chalis take matters into their own hands.
44	** She also kind of thought he was [[LeftForDead dead]].
45
46	[[/folder]]
47
48	[[folder:Difficulty]]
49
50	* Why is it so easy? Optional bosses aside, holy balls, I barely needed to do more than mash A throughout the entire game. I didn't even bother manually distributing my Djinn until the final boss politely pointed out how strong he could be. Also, ''aaaaaaaaaaaagh'', missable Djinn. This should not be.
51	** Golden Sun never really was about challenging fights save for the {{Superboss}}. The GBA games weren't that much harder to begin with or maybe we just LevelGrind too much and make the game easier without realizing it.
52	** Yeah, with the exception of a handful of bonus bosses and the final boss of ''The Lost Age'', I never found the originals to be hard at all, at least not in terms of battles. (Some of the puzzles on the other hand...) Maybe the NostalgiaFilter has made the older games seem more difficult in hindsight, or you're just much better at games now than you were then?
53	** The growth of Psynergy/class options seems to help. Thanks to stuff like Healing Wind and Djinn distribution practically necessitating not placing the characters in their base classes, the normal monsters ''do'' seem to be less of a challenge than the previous games. Do note that it's mitigated by the eclipse monsters, though, which can catch you off-guard if you're not careful.
54	** I actually think Dark Dawn is a bit trickier than the first two, because the very clear plotline established in the Journal for you to follow means you're not being forced to go over areas with a fine comb, which in the first two games you were, making the missable Djinn and summons... [[ShapedLikeItself easier to miss]], until it's too late.
55	** Honestly, the battles were never the main focus of the games, all the work went into Psynergy puzzles.
56	** The other games were relatively easy as far as JRPG's go, yes, but nowhere near this easy. A few of the bosses (Karst/Agatio, Briggs, Kraken, etc.) in the previous games could at least focus fire hard enough to redzone someone in one turn and strain your healer a bit, and it was occasionally a good idea to have your friendly neighborhood Wind Adept loaded on items for an emergency bandaid. In Dark Dawn, every single boss ''up to and including Blados/Chalis/Hound'' did outright ScratchDamage, and your healer could actually spend most of the game on the offensive.
57
58	[[/folder]]
59
60	[[folder:Psynergy Vortex]]
61
62	* Is anyone else bugged by how the plot seems to just completely drop the Pysnergy Vortex issue until [[spoiler: in the ending where a massive one is shown in the area where you first started out in the game? On top of that, there's the whole issue about Dark Psynergy that gets thrown at your face in the final dungeon when it has never been mentioned anywhere else in the game. Who else also feel cheated that you don't even get to fight Alex at all in this?]]
63	** Anything else you want to get off your chest? In answer to all of those, they're clearly setting up for the next game, possibly more. A developer interview ''somewhere'' stated that the first two games were kind of like the prologue and now ''Dark Dawn'' is the first that will really start expanding on the Weyard mythos. So yeah, hopefully everything will be explained in due time.
64	** About that, [[spoiler: the Dark Psynergy? I believe it was Kraden who mentioned somewhere around the Eclipse Tower being turned on that after the ancient Alchemists mastered the four elements, they went on to experiment with Darkness and Light. Therefore, it isn't out of left field for their to be darkness Adepts out there. A surprise, sure, and a good one, but not an AssPull. They are COMPLETELY setting up for a sequel or two to deal with that.]]
65	** And even before that, Isaac mentions [[spoiler: the "negative energies" and how to counter them]] in Tanglewood, and Karis [[LampshadeHanging points out]] that we should "remember this, because you never know when it will be handy" or something like that. How's ''that'' for a BrickJoke, guys? ''They even lampshaded it!''
66	** Plus, there was Isaac's journal, where he seems ''certain'' that the Mourning Moon will reappear. The game initially looks like it will be a fairly quick trip to get the Feather, and then the rest of it will be you trying to stop the Mourning Moon's return. At the end, it appears that [[spoiler:that is ''exactly'' the case. It's just that the trip for the Feather got sidetracked like ''whoa'', such that the "rest of the game" needs to be is own game.]]
67
68	[[/folder]]
69
70	[[folder:Nowell]]
71
72	* The first and only time we see her is when her ''younger brother gets kidnapped.'' And her excuse for being written out of the plot? "Oooh, I'm in love with a man who is several decades my senior." Rief might be an adept and in a good group of them, but shouldn't Nowell at least be concerned enough about her brother to see for herself that he's okay? This and her somewhat haughty attitude made her come across as a {{Jerkass}} to me.
73	** It's not an unreasonable assumption to presume that the Card Soldiers also locked Kraden & Nowell out of the mountain, trapping them on the other side. [[SequelHook And obviously Nowell is going to be playable in the next game]].
74	** Nowell's attitude during her one canon appearance looked like stress-induced crankiness to me. Between being hauled off to go meet Matthew, which she was clearly unhappy about (maybe she had something else she was working on?), and the Vortex [[DontTouchItYouIdiot her brother nearly jumped into]]... And I sure can't blame her for chasing after Piers. Girl's got good taste.
75	** Personally it bugged me that Rief didn't bother to ask about her until you stopped by and then left Tonfon. Seriously, she was possibly being pursued by bad guys and she explicitly said she was going to meet up with you again, then you meet the guy she was last seen traveling with show up without her, and you don't ask? Sure there's a crisis going down, but I for one assumed that Nowell was nearby, shouldn't he have been worried about leaving her beind after the big bad Ju Ju in Belinsk went down?
76
77	[[/folder]]
78
79	[[folder:New Cultures]]
80
81	* Okay, so I realize that Camelot couldn't just recreate the Weyard from the previous games, but it bugs me just how there's suddenly a bunch of new nations and peoples and wars and ancestors and historic ruins where there weren't any before. I mean, taking the Endless Wall, for example, just how is it that it's designed to connect to the ancient Apollo Engine thingie, manage to remain invisible for the duration of the first game, AND survive the Golden Sun event? And the big ancient engines, for that matter? Given how much emphasis the game places on the events of the previous games, it seems that they overshot the mark on this one aspect.
82	** The alchemy forges and the Endless wall are inaccessible in the first game due to the mountains around Suhalla desert, so technically we shouldn't have known about them anyway (Walk through wall cheats obviously show that they weren't in the game, but that doesn't really matter). All the other places such as Belinsk are assumed to be old ruins that were rebuilt. How they survived? I don't know, although given their purpose and importance I wouldn't be surprised if they reinforced them with Psynergy somehow.
83	** Taking account of Konpa Ruins' encyclopedia entry in the game, it's possible they were somehow buried under the rocks when Alchemy was sealed and reappeared to the surface when the Golden Sun event caused massive earthquakes and such.
84	** Probably. Luna Tower was physically buried deep underground, after all.
85	** Conversely, the presence of the TLA summon tablets and certain equipment pieces seems a bit off. Granted, the equipment initially available at Artifact stores could be [[{{Handwave}} handwaved]] as having a similar situation to high-level items in ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl''[[note]]the previous generation sold off the less useful uniques and the shopkeepers are only authorized to sell them to those with enough power/skills to wield them[[/note]], [[spoiler:the Gaia Blade has a more substantial excuse]]; whereas for the Summons, this game is in areas covered by the first game, where multi-element summons did not exist then. Still, [[BonusDungeon with]] [[AwesomeBosses/VideoGames certain]] [[BraggingRightsReward exceptions]], you'd think that they'd actually replace most of the non-Angran content with new stuff. True, some of this stuff may have ({{Spoiler}}-intensive) justifications... A VoodooShark Appeared!![[note]]in the form of what certain items found in Angran dungeons were doing ''outside'' of Angara in TLA then?[[/note]] (Fight/Swap/Status/Flee?)
86
87	[[/folder]]
88
89	[[folder:Everyday Psynergy]]
90
91	* Given that the whole big thing about the first series was that Alchemy was released back into the world, it surprised me that there didn't seem to be many more people using psynergy around. You had the descendants of the original characters, a few outliers, and that's it.
92	** We're also exploring a smaller area of the world; presumably other areas with stronger influences are going to start spawning Adepts soon. And frankly, there was only one "outlier"-- Sveta. Eoleo became an Adept around the time of the first game, and everyone else is descended from Adepts who appeared in the first two games.
93	** Even Sveta's status as an outlier may be in debate. There's [[WildMassGuessing a theory in some circles]] that her late human-hating father was Master Maha of Garoh.
94	** But given that in the original Japanese, Maha and the people of Garoh are [[OurVampiresAreDifferent VAMPIRES]]...Yeah.
95	** And another theory has been suggested that Sveta's late mother was ''[[TheCassandra Feizhi]]'', since she uses a martial arts combat style and comes from near the China-analogue nation.
96	** Apparently you need to be a descendant of one of the Jenei tribes in order to be an Adept, plus contact with a Psynergy stone to release your potential? Maybe the Psynergy stones aren't needed anymore, what with Alchemy saturating the world again.
97	** I'd like to say that any place with high amounts of Alchemy and Psynergy power are where the Adepts are. With Alchemy released, perhaps the making of new Adepts are increased in a higher rate if they live in the villages near landmarks of Alchemy (ie. Mercury Lighthouse, Mt. Aleph). This can also possibly mean that psynergy vortexes would tend to appear more often in those landmarks as well to sap the power. So a correlation would be that psynergy vortexes will appear nearby any place that is filled with Adepts (ie. Most notably Imil, Vault, Lalivero, etc. which are all places the party wasn't gone in in DD). But Carver's Camp is one of the few places (and Mt. Aleph) where this happens. And of course, there are Adepts there.
98
99	[[/folder]]
100
101	[[folder:Length]]
102
103	* Is it just me, or does this game seem shorter than the previous two? I only vaguely remember Lost Age but this game barely took me 24 hours (combined) to beat, and Lost Age has a lot of time clocked in.
104	** ''TheLostAge'' had a ''[[ScrappyMechanic lot]]'' of sailing and tediously-overlong dungeons that padded out the game clock.
105
106	[[/folder]]
107
108	[[folder:Party usefulness]]
109
110	* Was anyone else bothered by the fact that the first 4 guys you get (Matthew, Tyrell, Karis, and Rief) ended up being the most useful? I didn't really bother using the other guys at all; I switched Rief and Amiti and Sveta and Karis briefly, but Rief and Karis get access to spells that fully heal the party, and Tyrell and Matthew seem like much better versions of Eoleo and Himi. Or am I wrong in saying that the latter 4 characters are less useful?
111	** Pretty much everyone else seems to prefer Amiti over Rief (though it's more like they hate Amiti less than Rief rather than liking him more). Sveta and Karis can't really be compared since they play differently, but Sveta is the most powerful character in the game IIRC. Eoleo and Tyrell are pretty much clones, so it's just personal preference. Himi and Matthew also play differently but given the game's bias towards warriors Matthew tends to be more useful.
112	** Hmm well I (the OP) figured that Tyrell's pretty much the same as Eoleo, so there's no reason to use Eoleo at all, and while I'd like to use Sveta more, I feel like I need Karis out for her healing spells. I beat the game at a fairly low level (around 43), so at that point, Rief knew the Wish series and Amiti didn't, and I figured that while Himi seems like a great, versatile caster, it'd be better to use Matthew because of his physical strength. I pretty much only used the characters in their main classes (no djinni outside of their respective elements), so in my next run through I'll swap around classes and see how that changes things. But I just felt like I had no incentive to use the later characters at all.
113	** There's your problem right there. You're only comparing them to their own counterpart, rather than everyone else in the party, and in their base classes no less. Tyrell may be better than Eoleo (that's actually debatable, but I'm just using it as an example) but that doesn't mean that both Tyrell and Eoleo aren't better than Rief. With the proper combination of Djinn, the Wish line can be placed on any character, which makes Karis and Rief much less valuable. This combined with the damage of most spells not scaling with level means that characters who rely on physical damage like Sveta and Eoleo will generally be superior to casters like Rief and Himi. Of course, in the end it all comes down to personal preference, with the right Djinn setup you can make any combination work.
114	** I for one happen to like the [[RuleOfCool sheer cool value]] of a [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot laser-shooting psychic fire pirate]]. Who can also fly.
115	** On the other hand, [[spoiler:the final boss]] can and will use Djinn Blast on one of your party members, resetting them to their base classes. Suddenly Rief with Pure Wish (can already be accessed in his base class) is actually viable...
116
117	[[/folder]]
118
119	[[folder:Kraden Aging]]
120
121	* How come Kraden looks EXACTLY the same while Isaac and Garet visibly aged? I suppose Kraden was already 70 when he was affected by the Golden Sun event, so he might not look that different, but I just find it weird that he did not change at all while Isaac and Garet look a lot older. Though to be fair, if Isaac didn't age and Matthew grew up looking exactly like Isaac despite the generation difference...that would be kinda squicky.
122	** Well, his hair looks a bit whiter, so I guess he did age somewhat. As for Isaac and Garet... female fanservice?
123	** Isaac and Garet didn't biologically age as much as it appears. They wore different hairstyles and grew facial hair to give the appearance of aging.
124	** While hair style is the main physical difference for Garet and Isaac, I'd point out the a larger difference could be contributed to the two of them being teens at the end of TLA. There is a much greater difference in appearance when the person aging is younger.
125	** Agreed. It's easier to notice aging in a 20-something than a guy who's seventy. Plus Isaac and Garet are apparently living active lifestyles (is it just me or does Garet have a beer belly?), so they've changed with the working out. Plus the facial hair helps a lot.
126
127	[[/folder]]
128
129	[[folder:Obaba]]
130
131	* Why is it that Obaba is still alive in Dark Dawn? I'm figuring that she's at least Kraden's age, if not older. Also, considering that she didn't get exposed directly to the Golden Sun like Kraden and all of the Warriors of Vale, it would make more sense for her to be dead, or at least much older looking than she was in Lost Age.
132	** Even in olden times, it wasn't unheard of to have people living into their eighties, but then that would mean [[FridgeHorror that she's not long for the world]].
133	** She's 30-year-old Eoleo's ''great-grand-mother'' and she already looked older than sin in TLA. She's just the contrary of TooCoolToLive - ''too badass to die''.
134
135	[[/folder]]
136
137	[[folder:Mercury Lighthouse]]
138
139	* In the fourth quarter of the game, the adepts go on a rescue mission at sea to retrieve two important [=NPCs=]. Because of all of the shoals and ice in the region, the path to get to where these [=NPCs=] are has plenty of bottlenecks. One of those bottlenecks passes right by the Mercury Lighthouse. One of the party members is Mia's son. Why doesn't he make a mention of how he can see home and wonder about his mother? [[spoiler:Especially since said bottleneck, like most of the shoal/floe area, ''is within the Eclipse Zone'' and the Lighthouse is '''dark'''! You'd think he would express ''some'' sort of concern.]]
140	** Does he ever actually say he lives in Imil? Who's to say Mia ever returned home?
141	** Can't check right now, but isn't this mentioned in an encyclopedia article? If not hers, her children's?
142	** There's definitely a reference to Mia in one of the books in Kolima:
143	---> The Goddess of Imil: A priestess in the village near Mercury Lighthouse is truly holy. Thanks to her tireless devotions, the old and sick of Imil never suffer from their ailments.
144	** Remember, this is Rief, the same kid who didn't even remember to ask about his own sister when she mysteriously didn't turn up with Kraden.
145	** I'm going with "Big permanent light thing is keeping the monsters away"
146	** You apparently missed the part about [[spoiler: the Lighthouse being dark while it was in the shadow of the eclipse.]]
147	** [[spoiler: Do Harapa and Pasaaj also look dark on the World Map despite the Alchemy Machines powering their devices? If so, then the same logic can be applied to the Lighthouse, since it's also an Alchemy Machine. And even if not, being one of the Ligthhouses, it's bound to be more powerful than the Forge and Well, so it would be weird to see it succumb to the Eclipse while the other Machines were able to keep running and protecting their areas.]]
148	** I'm more inclined to believe it's the epic-level Mercury Adept and her two apprentices.
149	** Rief was belowdecks reading and nobody else registered it as important at the time?
150	** Rief is well aware of how badass his mother can be (remember, even Agatio [[ElementalRockPaperScissors didn't want to mess with Mia]]), and isn't worried?
151
152	[[/folder]]
153
154	[[folder:Anemos]]
155
156	* What exactly would [[spoiler:the Grave Eclipse]] mean for the Anemos, since we know that there are still people up there thanks to Sheba's existence? Do they just put on extra-strength sunblock, or something?
157	** One assumes they have buildings they can retreat into.
158	** Or worse, ''[[spoiler:[[KillItWithFire they all burned to death from the moon absorbing so much light]]]]''.
159	** [[spoiler: It's the Tower absorbing light, not the moon. Though we don't know how the moon plays into this, really--did it just follow the sun around? Then why didn't the shadow move? Was the moon even needed for starting/ maintaining the Eclipse? Was there a moon before Anemos flew off? I think they just call it an Eclipse because it looks like one, what this the giant circular shadow. In reality, (I think) the giant circle of shadow is just thearea that the Eclipse Tower is sucking light from.]]
160	** Or perhaps nothing at all happens to them, since just because the moon is in a position to block out the sun when viewed from the ground doesn't mean that it's receiving any more light than it normally would. What bugs me about this is that the entire landmass of the moon is apparently the size of a city large by medieval standards.
161	** Perhaps it's closer to Weyard's main mass. One imagines the Anemos people would still need to breathe, so leaving the atmosphere is unlikely.
162	** Maybe they just moved their city TO the moon, instead of becoming it?
163
164	[[/folder]]
165
166	[[folder:Information]]
167
168	* Why do we never get any exposition on what is happening ''presently'' until it's ridiculously late into the story? Okay, yes, we all guessed that [[spoiler:Arcanus was Alex]] but the heroes didn't know that. Neither did they know that [[spoiler:the Umbra Clan]] existed until the last twenty minutes. Seems to me like we could've gotten this information earlier.
169	** Related to that, why the hell didn't Kraden answer any of the party's questions about what was going on? He'd just go "Oh, I'll tell you later", and it turns out that "later" meant "two minutes before fighting the final boss". Screw you Kraden.
170	** Let's give him credit: possibly, he had more of an idea of what Arcanus' plans were and it's a case of WeWouldHaveToldYouBut... ... ... Or not.
171	** SequelHook!
172	** Unfortunately, ''Dark Dawn'''s sales kind of sucked, probably because of how they handled the plot, so now it's not likely any of those {{Sequel Hook}}s are ever going to get resolved. [[RunningGag Again.]]
173	** You don't know that. You're just being insufferably pessimistic.
174	** Half a million is still pretty good for an [[EasternRPG Eastern]], non-''Franchise/FinalFantasy'', non-Pokemon turn-based RPG, so unless Camelot is stupid and take those numbers at face value, the franchise won't die any time soon. Plus, while I won't say that word of mouth on the plot didn't damper some sales, you're acting as if that's the ''only'' it didn't sell as much as the previous two. The genre itself is dying out in popularity, and the [=DS=] itself has a compounded problem of being a slowly dying handheld (yes, even at the time of ''Dark Dawn'''s release) that people pirate ''the hell'' out of.
175	** On a personal note, I absolutely hated Dark Dawn. I was always a fan of the originals, still herald them as my favorite games despite barebones mechanics (the story and concept earned that), and I do not desire another game. Chalk it up to the DS falling out of favor, but I'll continue to chalk it up to poor execution and a story with few redeeming qualities. Not to mention its painful and effortless easiness. Couple that with several handwaved inconsistencies and it just doesn't establish itself well. To this day, I prefer to think of the events of the game as non-canonical solely because of the way it chose to handle the entire concept. Definitely not insufferably pessimistic.
176
177	[[/folder]]
178
179	[[folder:Magma orb]]
180
181	* How did Ryu Kou know that the energy inside the Magma Orb would destroy them all? He'd never even seen it before. Even if it's true, he has no reason to know that.
182	** My guess is that he didn't and was bluffing. Matthew's group didn't know about the Magma Orb until Blados and Chalis told them, and even then they gave little info, only referring it as being a power source for the Alchemy Dynamo. With that little knowledge about the orb, it's probably a safe bet they allowed Ryu Kou to run off with it and stop him later than spook him and risk getting nuked.
183	** The Magma Orb is basically a tiny battery for a huge friggin machine. That's a lot of power in a tiny package. You don't want to suddenly let that much densely packed energy loose.
184
185	[[/folder]]
186
187	[[folder:Reveal psynergy]]
188
189	* Why doesn't Karis know Reveal? She's Ivan's daughter, and Ivan himself learned it from another Jupiter Adept. I mean, at least Mind Read got handwaved, but come on. There's no excuse other than Gameplay and Story Segregation.
190	** ... because considering how Ivan and Sheba mastered Mind Read on their own but had to be taught Reveal, it is ''higher level'' Psynergy than Mind Read?
191	** Reveal is kind of a Zen power, and Karis apparently didn't get that kind of training. Okay, so Ivan didn't either, but I think his temperment is more Zen than his daughter, so he was able to pick it up more quickly. I guess.
192
193	[[/folder]]
194
195	[[folder:Konpa Ruins]]
196
197	* Konpa Ruins have a way for Kraden, Nowell, and Rief to inside (With with the water puddles and vines), I can understand that they used Cold Snap to get there, BUT don't you need the Ice Queen's Gem to use Cold Snap?
198	** Kraden mentions specifically that it was Nowell's Psynergy that got them into the ruins, so presumably Nowell knows Frost/Cold Snap/equivalent.
199	** Alright. Also, What happened to Frost's Utility? In fact Why did Frost got replaced by Douse?
200	** Maybe it's a gender thing? All the playable Water guys have had Douse by default; Mia didn't, but she's the only playable Water girl in the series to date, so maybe Water girls get Frost/Snap/equivalent as their default utility spell and have to learn Douse...
201	** The Psynergies got changed a bit in an effort to balance stuff. For one, you don't need to give Matthew a Fire Djinn to get Growth, which makes way more sense since Growth is such a basic sort of Venus Psynergy, plus it gets used a lot.
202
203	[[/folder]]
204
205	[[folder:Himi and samurai]]
206
207	* Himi can't be a Samurai, why is that?
208	** Because she's a girl?
209	** [[FridgeBrilliance That actually has some merit.]] A quick glance on Website/TheOtherWiki shows that samurai-equivalent lady warriors (onna-bugeisha) did exist in feudal Japan, but trained in different weapons and combat styles from their male counterparts, and were usually the ones to keep the home front while men traveled to war. Himi's inability to access the Samurai class just might be a reference to the gender differences of the warrior-nobility.
210	** Another possibility: Himi is [[GoodIsNotNice good, but not nice]] [[ChaoticGood or honorable]]. Her base class is a holy {{shrine maiden}}, but her other unique class is a ''poison-using necromancer''. Not really samurai material, that.
211
212	[[/folder]]
213
214	[[folder:Psynergy names]]
215
216	* This may have been covered before, but why did they feel the need to change the name of Frost, Parch and Pound?
217	** They're the battle-useable versions?
218	** Because all the cool kids name their own Psynergy.
219
220	[[/folder]]
221
222	[[folder:Boreas]]
223
224	* [[SadlyMythtaken Boreas. Giant iron horsetrain. What.]]
225	** RuleOfCool? Frankly, the one in the first two games was a giant snow-cone maker. And Thor got a dye job and a new hammer. And Coatlicue is still a healing MagicalGirl, who in fact seems to have ''lost'' the snake motifs in her design...
226	** Snake motif? What snake motif....All I see is that GS Coatlicue has undergone a transition from a [[ShrineMaiden Japanese shrine maiden]] who resides underwater to water-bearing Aquarius.
227
228	[[/folder]]
229
230	[[folder:Parents]]
231
232	* Who are everyone's other parents? Seriously, these people were awesome enough to marry and bone the Warriors of Vale, surely you can run with that?
233	** And why doesn't Jenna live with her damn husband and son? Unless theres some Brokeback Goma going on....
234	** The parents are probably people we never even heard of, for one thing. For another, the relationships (most of them) may not be very happy or even meaningful, when you take into account the slower aging process of the Warriors of Vale - for all we know, considering it's been 30 years and the kids aren't even 17, our heroes (exempting Issac and Jenna) married people considerably younger (say, 10 years?) than them to try and mitigate the process. Being demi- or quasi-immortal has a habit of rending apart 'normal' relationships after all.
235	** Not to mention the part where Jenna's brother [[HeroWithBadPublicity seems to have gone down in history as a villain]], while Isaac is universally admired. That ''could'' put some stress on a marriage.
236	** Perhaps after sinking so many ships, Camelot's waiting to see what the fandom decides on this front so they can {{Troll}} us again?
237
238	[[/folder]]
239
240	[[folder:Eclipse Dawn]]
241
242	* Okay, how the HELL does the Eclipse Tower work? [[spoiler: Okay, so it starts at dawn, except the Eclipse shadow is a circular shadow, as though the noon sun was being eclipsed, instead of a big ol' black bar across the world, like it would be if the dawn/ morning sun was being blocked. Or possibly an elipse, but no, it's a circle that doesn't move.]]
243	** [[spoiler: The explanation I came up with is that there is no actual eclipse going on, it just looks like there is. Basically, the sun is shining normally but the Eclipse Tower is absorbing all the sunlight in a certain radius (Kraden sort of says this). This has the side effect of making it possible to look directly at the sun, as per a real eclipse (a child NPC mentions that he can look straight at it). It's also important to note that the Eclipse Tower is apparently only absorbing sunlight, or else Harapa and Champa would be screwed out of their magic light and fire.]]
244	** Also, what happened when natural night fell? Did the Tower absorb starlight too, which would somehow be enough to keep those monsters at bay otherwise? But why didn't they show up on cloudy nights?
245
246	[[/folder]]
247
248	[[folder:Eclipse Moon]]
249
250	* Another thing--was the moon even necessary for starting or maintaining [[spoiler: the Eclipse? It was a full moon the night before, but the sun and moon weren't in the correct positions for an ecipse when it happened at dawn. I can't remember if the cinematic showed the moon moving into position in front of the sun....]]
251	** My thought was that there was a magnetic field of some sort holding [[spoiler: the sun and moon in place, shrouding some areas in darkness while others were in perpetual daylight.]] Yeah, I'm suggesting some sort of giant Alchemy-powered tractor beam.
252
253	[[/folder]]
254
255	[[folder:Anemos as moon]]
256
257	* If the flying city of Anemos is the moon, and Anemos didn't disappear until the Lighthouses were extinguished, why the hell is there moon symbology everywhere? Maybe the Sol Sanctum was modified afterwards to house the Elemental Stars, hence the moon stuff, but the Alchemy Well used the Luna Mask and was definitely built DURING the golden age, while Anemos was still on Weyard. They didn't HAVE a moon back then!
258	** Also, I need to look at this stuff again, but I'm pretty sure Kraden said some interesting stuff about the sun and moon rooms in the Sol Sanctum somehow being important, but not really knowing how. Oh my god they thought of everything.
259	** Mentioned above on this page is the possibility that the moon already existed, the Anemos simply moved their city ''to'' it instead of actually becoming it. Also, Dark Dawn has already proved that [[UnreliableNarrator stories can change a bit in the retelling]], so there's that to consider as well.
260
261	[[/folder]]
262
263	[[folder:Venus culture]]
264
265	* Why is there specific cultures and settlements for Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter Adepts, but none for Venus? And why is Venus ALWAYS paired with Mars? (Okay, maybe because Venus is for women and Mars is for men, but still...) Seriously, Prox is all Mars Adepts, but Vale has Venus and Mars Adepts. (And POSSIBLY Mercury Adepts, though I guess they're rare there? But probably no Jupiter Adepts.)
266	** The Ankhol doesn't really count. Obaba, and by extension her grandson Briggs and great-grandson Eoleo, are (the last?) descendants of the Ankhol. Obaba is a smith, which could be Venus related (metal=earth) or Mars (forge=fire), so that could be either way. But Eoleo is a Mars Adept, not a Venus Adept, so it looks like the Ankhol was a blending of Venus and Mars Adepts as well. Considering that the main protagonists are all Venus Adepts, it seems rather strange to have Venus be the only one NOT associated with its own special ancient civilization like everyone else.
267	** Obaba has a line specifically indicating her affinity is for "fire and the forge", so she's Mars.
268	** Wouldn't the Izumo island place in The Lost Age be the Venus specific settlement because it has Mt. Mikage/Gaia Rock? Plus, you get Sand psynergy in there, and Lady Uzume and Susa are Venus Adepts as far as I remember.
269	** Izumo is more aligned to the likes of Garoh, both being near one of the elemental giant rocks that some residents have gained the corresponding Psynergy. On the other hand, a closer guess could probably be the ruins underneath Babi Lighthouse. I think at some point they're even referred to as the ruins of the Venus civilization, so they're more likely to have been the Venus-aligned place.
270	** Venus & Mars are closely related, and Mercury and Jupiter are closely related. Remember how Kraden identified the first two as "warm" elements and the latter two as "cold" elements in ''The Lost Age''? Remember how Venus Lighthouse gave a boost to Saturos & Menardi in ''The Broken Seal''? Even in the game mechanics, class-changing an Adept of one element with Djinn of their partner element results in stronger classes, usually with a whole extra tier of development, compared to doing so with Djinn of an opposing element. There's no real explanation yet, though someone around here suggested [[spoiler: it may have to do with Darkness and Light Psynergy now that we know about them, since Darkness is also established as "cold" and Light as "warm"]].
271	** Nah, Venus is associated with death and darkness as well IIRC. Death Curse? Haunt? Condemn? Annihilate? Call Demon? Charon's shadow attack? The Venus summons tablets (except Crystallux) are demons/underworld creatures too. Probably the original Venus Clan were banished into the underworld by the ancients or something...
272	** Regarding the OP, don't forget that this issue comes from the same game that makes almost ''nothing'' weak to Venus-based offenses.
273
274	[[/folder]]
275
276	[[folder:Power collecting]]
277
278	* [[spoiler: The Grave Eclipse was how the Tower collected its power. What was it collecting it for?! This is the key to everything! Like what the hell Alex is up to! It has to do more than making Beastmen blond!]]
279	** [[spoiler: Speaking if, where did Alex run off to? I think his last few lines, as you're trying to climb the Apollo Lense, are transmitted telepathically, based on the text boxes. I might be wrong. But yeah, after he delayed Blados and Chalice we don't see him again. Did he pull of another Mount Aleph and run off somehwhere to collect the power we were transmitting? Dammit, I need to go over to the WMG now...]]
280	** [[spoiler:Yeah. Ten to One he flew off and dove right into the heart of Eclipse Tower right before all the light got dispersed.]]
281
282	[[/folder]]
283
284	[[folder:Light on the wall]]
285
286	* Okay, from the end of the game, this is REALLY bugging me. [[spoiler: So you have to collect the Umbra Gear to access the Apollo Sanctum (Apollo Sanctum, Sol Sanctum... ??? Nevermind, later.). You need it because the Apollo Sanctum is so blindingly bright that being exposed to so much light will injure and eventually KILL you, especially on the firing platform. This Sanctum is located on the Endless Wall... which is entirely in the Eclipse's shadow. How the hell is it so bright here? Shouldn't the Tower be sucking up this light? There's a ton of it, it's the right kind of light to feed the tower since the laser does shut the tower off, and it's just sitting there, not a hundred miles away (I think, ugh, I need to check). How is there any light there to focus at all? Weyard is a flat world, they could fire the laser from anywhere and hit the tower as long as there's no mountains in the way.]]
287	** [[spoiler: Well, maybe that's why it's so friggin CLOSE to the damn thing, considering the changes in geography that Alchemy has caused at the end of every damn game so far. It's how they ensure that the friggin laser beam will be in range of the Eclipse Tower even after Alchemy is violently restored.]]
288	** [[spoiler: Maybe because it was so high up. The Eclipse has a certain radius laterally. Perhaps the Apollo Sanctum mountain is ''so'' high up that it escapes the Eclipse's range vertically. Note how the Apollo Approach is in the Eclipse, but once you reach the gate, there is no more darkness. Alternatively, perhaps all this light is being fueled by the Alchemy Forge and Alchemy Well. The thing ''appears'' to be solar powered, but there has to be a reason the Forge and Well are necessary]].
289	** [[spoiler: Heck, maybe the light ''is'' being sucked up, and the Apollo Sanctum is just so powerful that it produces light far faster than the Eclipse can absorb it.]]
290
291	[[/folder]]
292
293	[[folder:Surviving the Golden Sun]]
294
295	* How the hell did [[spoiler: Alex survive the Golden Sun? Mt. Aleph COLLAPSED WITH HIM ON IT. Is he a god or something? How did that not kill him?]]
296	** Here's a thought. [[spoiler: [[FridgeBrilliance Remember that emergency force-field Psynergy Isaac & Co. used in Kolima?]] ]]
297	** Also, regarding your second-to-last question... yes, ''almost''.
298	** He can also fly and teleport.
299	** At this point he basically ''is'' a minor god. I mean sure the Wise One still handed him his ass, but I'm just assuming mountain-dropping isn't high enough on the power scale to kill either of them.
300	** Remember the very first cutscene of the game? Maybe that giant airship was sent to [[spoiler: save him]].
301	** He couldn't move so that rules out warping and floating [[spoiler: but that did not stop the force field psynergergy, so that could still save him. However you're all overlooking one crucial fact. Mt. Aleph did not collapse on top of Alex, that's just what the main characters think happened. The mountain collapsed with Alex on top of it. With a little luck on his part, his survival is not ''that'' surprising. He might have just rolled in a way that prevented him from being crushed. Notice Arcanus still does not show the ability to do more than push other Adepts around, just like with Alex vs The Wise One, and runs from all fights, just like Alex]].
302
303	[[/folder]]
304
305	[[folder:Villain knowledge]]
306
307	* It is rather obvious that the Party was manipulated from the very beginning into powering up the various Psynergy structures. However, how did the villains know that the party/ Kraden's group were traveling, and how did they know where they were?
308	** [[spoiler: [[RunningGag Alex warping]]]], applied to espionage. And being [[spoiler: Darkness Adepts]], [[FridgeBrilliance Cloak Psynergy]] is probably also a good bet. And they appear to have much more advanced [[{{Magitek}} Alchetek]] than the rest of Weyard...
309	** Cloak is a Mercury Psynergy. Also, with all that Magitek, couldn't Alex have placed a tracking device on Rief when he was tied up?
310
311	[[/folder]]
312
313	[[folder:Eoleo's escape]]
314
315	* Eoleo was kept in a wooden cage. And he apparently could not escape. Why?
316	** One of the guards mentions being strung up takes the fight out of you.
317	** Also, he doesn't show any signs of being equipped or battle-ready until you leave Belinsk and he joins the party.
318	** In addition, the cage is also kinda right next to the castle and all the royal guards.
319	** I think the OP's point was a that a ''wooden'' cage shouldn't be able to hold a ''fire'' adept. But I'm with the guy above me, in that there were guards.
320
321	[[/folder]]
322
323	[[folder:Healer]]
324
325	* [[spoiler: Briggs is mortally wounded and dies.]] [[ReedRichardsIsUseless YOU HAVE A HEALER, RIGHT THERE.]]
326	** You likely have no less than ''five'' healers (one of them presumably professionally trained by his mother), and at least one who can outright Revive. Tyrell is the only one in the party thus far whose default class can't heal.
327	** I guess you can assume this character (and the others who get killed during that event) couldn't be healed because they were so wounded as to have...[[{{Squick}} bits]] [[NightmareFuel missing]].
328
329	[[/folder]]
330
331	[[folder:Evacuation]]
332
333	* Speaking of the various death spoilers during that segment, was I the only one bugged by how Kraden plays it up as this desperate, frenzied evacuation, but the monsters attacking were only slightly more difficult than the ones you were already fighting, and really [[ItsEasySoItSucks only about as difficult as regular monsters in the other games]]? Not to mention you [[TakeYourTime hold three burials, dig two graves, construct a coffin, and mess around with a klutzy old man and his spilled tea]] before bothering to pack up.
334	** Actually, I usually do the teatime bit before recovering the hostages and triggering the... you know.
335	** Well yeah, but doing it during turns it from a standard funny-old-man moment to a positively epic FailedASpotCheck.
336	** The comment (from Amiti, I think) about the party being jumped by monsters every few steps kind of bugged me, every time I've played through that bit I've got into exactly ''one'' shadow-monster fight (the scripted one in the opera house) between the start of the eclipse and reaching the boat.
337	** That is the beauty of random encounters. The first two games had a ludicrous rate to ensure you would be fighting monsters but this game's is [[GameplayAndStorySegregation low enough you can theoretically go through the whole thing and never fight anything but a scripted encounter unless you manually raise the encounter rate.]]
338
339	[[/folder]]
340
341	[[folder:Tret and Laural trees]]
342
343	* Why were our heroes shocked to learn that Tret and Laural are trees? Even if Isaac and Garet never told them about that part of their journey, they went through the Psynergy Training Grounds, where Tret was part of the obstacles. No way they could've missed that, so what gives?
344	** I chocked it up to "Wow, it wasn't ''complete'' bullshit", given how... inaccurate the training grounds were..
345	** Also, you're a 17-year-old kid who just met a pair of giant talking trees. You're going to be at least a little surprised.
346	** Especially if, like Amiti, [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments you've been raised to revere talking trees as gods]]...
347
348	[[/folder]]
349
350	[[folder:Generation Xerox]]
351
352	* Why are the first four characters such blatant [[GenerationXerox clones]] of their parents? I mean Karis and Tyrell have ''some'' changes but Mathew and Rief could be replaced with their parent's sprites and animations for all the difference it would have made. For the most part I can understand the weapon and armor, but Mathew has such a [[LamarckWasRight unique heritage]] that it's highly disappointing that his default class is the same "Slayer" as his father and uncle.
353	** Maybe they wanted to ensure the players had something familiar to work with? Or even encourage ClassAndLevelSystem tomfoolery?
354
355	[[/folder]]
356
357	[[folder:Umbra Gear and villains]]
358
359	* [[spoiler: Unless Darkness Psyenergy is all that and a bag of particularly overpowered chips, how exactly is it that the Apollo Sanctum's power being so intense even the Umbra Gear can't withstand it for long applies to your party and ONLY to your party? Alex whizzes around in the light like nobody's business, and the other bad guys can hang out and ambush you even in bright spots. It seems like unless darkness adepts are able to completely evade the human-destroying power of the sanctum's light, then the drawback of reaching the sanctum applies to you ''and only you''. Alex is a frigging Mercury Adept, and Golden Sun or no Golden Sun, he's not even getting sunburn waltzing around with no protective gear on! Secondly, why exactly would the ancients, who were presumably not Dark Adepts, build a gun that ''kills whoever fires it?!'' I could see the Grave Eclipse being a wayward piece of tech that needed power so great it requires HeroicSacrifice to use as a countermeasure, but considering that the Apollo Lens is horrendously inefficient compared to the other lost technology it's like the only alchemic device meant as a weapon was also the most AwesomeButImpractical device the ancients ever built!]]
360	** I'm starting to come up with explanations for this, but some of them might be reaching a little. However, [[spoiler: the Umbral Gear you're using was split up and hidden in a bunch of inaccessible dungeons for Wise-One-knows how long; it's probably in pretty terrible condition. The Tuaparang mooks are in that full-body armor, and the nation has much better tech than the rest of Weyard; their armor might be more modern/better maintained versions of Umbral Gear. B&C specifically say they were going to use Volechek to fire the laser, and I don't remember if they were walking around in the brighter parts of the Sanctum themselves. Alex is specifically stated to be NighInvulnerable from stealing the Golden Sun's power anyway-- not fully invulnerable, but close enough. As for Apollo Sanctum being ridiculous... yeah, I'll leave that for a sequel to explain.]]
361
362	[[/folder]]
363
364	[[folder:Belinsk museum]]
365
366	* The top floor of the [[spoiler:Eclipse Tower]] was accessible even before you raise it (though I believe it's locked if you actually try to get in there), and was apparently in regular use as a museum by the people of Belinsk. It has a stairway leading directly down to [[spoiler:the Alchemy Dynamo room. What was the point of all those security measures in the Belinsk Ruins, exactly? Was the stairwell sealed off until the tower was activated?]]
367
368	[[/folder]]
369
370	[[folder:Sveta leaving]]
371
372	* In character, why does Sveta leave the party if you decide to teleport out of the Belinsk Ruins and look for a different approach? Seriously, by that point, abandoning the stealth and [[FoeTossingCharge forcing your way through the front doors]] had become the obvious tactic.
373	** Maybe Arangoa Prelude affects her as well? I agree though, even without a FoeTossingCharge, couldn't she just ASK the guards to let her friends in? Or, just try and jump down that little ledge near Eoleo that leads into the palace and storm in that way...?
374
375	[[/folder]]
376
377	[[folder:Broken bridge]]
378
379	* I know there was a Psynergy Vortex right there in Carver's Camp, shrunken or not, but honestly how long does it take to fix a simple suspension bridge when there is a whole camp of woodcutters right there? Alternatively, why couldn't they just grab another nearby gondola and hook it up to the cables?
380
381	[[/folder]]
382
383	[[folder:Emotives]]
384
385	* Why does every reaction toward one of your emotive comments (when you can choose how you feel about something) seem so blown out of proportion? Like at the start, Isaac would be like "Matthew isn't fit enough to order around veterans like us" and then I'd choose the happy option (far left) because I'd interpret it as "Yes, I agree with you dad. It wouldn't make sense if a teenager like me was ordering around experienced adults like you two." but then Karis would be like, "Why are you acting so chipper? He just said you're not ready!" and I've noticed that every reaction toward an emotive response always seems to take it to its most extreme, as if like Matthew literally said nothing and just smiled.
386	[[/folder]]
387
388	[[folder:Apollo Sanctum Wall]]
389	* The eclipse started to the north of the Apollo Sanctum, so how is it shadows get projected onto the giant south-facing wall?
390	[[/folder]]
391
392	[[folder:Round Planets]]
393	* Why are planets in Belinsk depicted as spherical if the world is demonstrably flat?
394	** If you're willing to reach into unfounded speculative territory, it is possible that Weyard, which is now much more layered than before, will eventually become a round world as alchemy continues to seep into it. Alternatively, Weyard itself is a construct of alchemy created by people who used to live on a round world...perhaps specifically to escape from the eclipse monsters, who are said to come from underneath...
395	[[/folder]]
396

Context Headscratchers / GoldenSunDarkDawn