Golden Sun General

Golden Sun was one of the first RP Gs released for the Gameboy Advance. With it's impressive use of view, crafty puzzles, incredible soundtrack(one of the GBA's best no doubt), and splendid visual effects(though the battle sprites themselves leave something to be desired) it won the hearts of many fans and remains one of the more beloved new I Ps from the GBA era. Dark Dawn was released on the DS, and while it didn't fully live up to the hype, it's opened a lot of potential for a sequel, fleshed out the world a LOT more and has some very spectacular effects for a DS game, seriously some of the summons are absolutely jaw dropping. Plus, most fans still consider it a good game, just not the pinnacle of the series(though there are a fair number who do, it's still a good game after all).

So yeah, GS's characterization is kind of weak(I'll admit DD did improve on that some at least, it's not as bad as the previous games), but this does not stop fans from adoring the cast members and shipping them with everything under the sun. Which ones tickle your fancy? Seems like every player has more than one, so let's go by category:

• Favorite GS 1 party member(Jenna not counting)?
• Favorite Lost Age party member?
• Favorite Dark Dawn party member?
• Favorite Antagonist(any game)?
• Favorite Lighthouse?
• Favorite summon?

For me: Garet(only one with regular personality aside from Kraden, Ivan is close though), Felix(probably my favorite protag in the series, his story was pretty cool and I thought he was a better hero than isaac or matthew), Eoleo, Alex(originally it was Saturos but then I learned he fathered Amiti, which perhaps shows some hidden depths?), Mars Lighthouse which was a blast and favorite summon DEFINITELY without question is Catastrophe. Easily one of the most badass moments on a GBA game. His DD incarnation is awesome too and I love how they tied it to Judgement.

edited 15th Dec '12 11:33:25 PM by Vertigo_High

I played GS and Lost Age a while back and I don't remember as much about the games as I should. Haven't picked up Dark Dawn either.

Fave GS 1 part member was Isaac. I know he has barely any characterization but he was the character I felt most awesome controlling, even compared to Felix and his meteor-sword. Nostalgia maybe.

Fave Lost Age party member was Piers. All-around awesome and the only character in the first two games who didn't come across as a fresh teenager. Even Garet had that problem. His ice attacks were cool too.

Fave antagonist is a tie between Saturos and Menardi. Much more sympathetic than their successors and certainly much more likable than Alex.

Fave summon is Daedalus all the way, though Eclipse was the one I spammed endlessly. The early-game mixed element summons in Lost Age were cool too though they unfortunately became less and less useful.

• Ivan. We look somewhat similar and have similar demeanors
• Jenna. She had interesting classes.
• Eoleo. He was an adorably devious baby and then became a fire walking pirate. What's not to love?
• Karst. Despite similar goals to you, she's resentful of your group and then let's that go as she's dying.
• Mars. So expansive and neat puzzles.
• Iris, both. I worked through Dullahan the hard way, I feel entitled to love my reward.

edited 16th Dec '12 5:36:40 AM by nulldriver

I don't find Piers as awful as some players claim he is. In fact he's probably my favorite Mercury adept of the good guys.

What exactly does luck affect anyway? I never got what it did. I always thought it affected crits and unleashes but it doesn't seem that way in practice.

For those who have played Shining Force 2, ever notice how Sentinel resembles Talos?

edited 17th Dec '12 3:41:38 PM by Vertigo_High

Apparently, it affects the chance of having status effects inflicted on you. And...that's it, I guess.

Critical hits and unleashes are not affected by luck; they're a separate stat. Both can only be increased with certain equipment, and you can actually give a character a 99% chance of an unleash in TLA with the right setup.

As far as I know, status effects and stat lowering (like said) are the only things luck affects.

I believe it also ups your criticals, and chances of using a status effect successfully. Usual luck stuff.

edited 17th Dec '12 3:45:31 PM by Hydronix

Ah it doesn't seem all that fantastic then.

you know, never have I beaten the first game with party over level 40. In fact I think the highest level I ever got in it was level 33.

@Vertigo: Well, Sentinel is very similar to Deadbeard, and Deadbeard is supposed to be a cameo of Talos from the Shining series.

It's fairly helpful if you're fighting Dullahan the hard way, as Luck applies to more than status effect Psynergy, it also affects summons with added effects too. A class with very high Luck such as the Pure Mage and Angel is much less likely to be OHKO'd by Charon than a very low Luck class such as Chaos Lord.

On the flip side, summons like Flora and Haures are more likely to inflict Sleep and Venom respectively.

edited 17th Dec '12 10:25:45 PM by nulldriver

Heh Tyrell has some of the best lines in DD. When everyone else first meets Tret, his response? "Tret is ugly..."

And him calling out Amiti was pretty funny too.

edited 19th Dec '12 8:12:47 AM by Vertigo_High

I really like Moloch for the slow effect.

edited 19th Dec '12 8:41:15 AM by Enlong

Not a huge fan of him since his original animation was basically the same as tiamat's, with different entry effects(snow instead of fire). Plus I'd rather buff my speed with a djinn and then use them for better summons.

The hate for piers is despressing, I thought he was badass. And useless? I found him a lot more useful than the jupiter adepts Ivan and shebs, who I found the worst by far, particularly sheba. Plus diamond berg rocked.

Mia is a bit overrated as well. Yeah she heals well but her offense is among the worst in the game. She's too specialized.

edited 20th Dec '12 7:27:08 AM by Vertigo_High

Piers was pretty cool, though outside of my first playthrough, I almost never used his base class. I love class mixing way too much, especially when it can get off-the-wall results like Ninja.

Or, in Dark Dawn, Curse Mage.

Yeah I tend to mix classes more as well, first playthrough of the first game I just stuck with the defaults but now I'm always mixing classes; every so often I just change each member's class to keep things fresh. The ninja line is one of my faves. I like Sveta's brawler line as well(I have a fondness for women who punch hard). I miss the gimmick classes from Lost Age though. Beast tamer was neat and call dullahan was siiiiick.

edited 20th Dec '12 7:50:51 AM by Vertigo_High

The Tomagehricon classes appear to have remained, in the form of the Curse Mage line, though now it's relegated to only one character.

And yeah, I like Sveta's brawler classes, because A: I'm a sucker for unique classes, and B: I'm pretty sure it's the only class line, aside from Sveta's Mono Jupiter classes, that power up her beast mode further.

I wonder when we'll be getting a sequel to Dark Dawn. They certainly coulnd't have made a bigger sequel hook, and I'm interested to see if any new characters will be playable, like Nowell or Takeru.

I really want to know what happened to some of the older characters.

Isaac and Garet we already know about, Piers is apparently sailing around, Jenna, Ivan and Mia are still around somewhere, Sheba err where is she? And Felix disappeared which if you ask me hints that something happened to him. I almost want to believe he's in Tuaparang and in some sort of trouble. Jeez guy gets NO respect, especially considering all the work he did.

Nowell I would want to play different from Rief, and Takeru shouldn't be the archetypal venus style adept.

Yeah, it didn't even mention where Sheba is. I guess she's probably in Lalivero.

I would like it if Takeru were a more magey Venus adept. Maybe have more moves like Gaia which use some vague "power of the earth" stuff.

Or he could use swords (his ultimate weapon could be Cloudrender, somehow), but still have moves different than Isaac had.

So kinda like a more offensive Himi.

The Cloud Brand would be a great signature weapon.

I always use the base classes for everyone. I didn't seem really worth it until you had every Djinn anyway.

I never really used Piers at all at the end of the game. I don't dislike him, but I never had a use for him. He was decent in everything, which to me means he's a watered down version of Isaac and Felix, who are good at everything. Since I'm already using Felix and/or Isaac, it felt like I should use a more specialized character instead. So Ivan or Sheba since they're fast and do decent damage, and Mia or Jenna as the healer. Similarly, I never used Garet at the end. He has good attack and defense/HP, but the Venus adepts have that and healing spells.

I always used the same team in Dark Dawn. Matthew, Sveta, Karis, and Rief.

I do hope they eventually come out with a sequel to Dark Dawn.

I am kinda annoyed that they left so many open threads in Dark Dawn, as if they were just expecting that they were definitely going to get a sequel. Especially considering you'd think they'd have learned their lesson after Lost Age.

Funny I actually find that karis loses a lot of usefulness later on. I'm not a big fan of the jupiter adepts, as you probably noticed.

Which is sort of funny considering my personality IRL is a bit like one.

Also I theorize that Ivan's wife is the xian girl from the first game. Feng zhi was it?

edited 20th Dec '12 5:18:27 PM by Vertigo_High

My problem is that I would oftentimes spend more time class mixing than I would playing the damn game.

It made it rather hard to make it through, let me tell ya.

Sometimes I spent a lot of time mixing my classes, especially earlier in the game when Djinn choice was quite limited, and I was trying to figure out the best way to mix my limited choices.

I hope the next game is a little more difficult than Dark Dawn, or at least has difficulty settings.

I wonder what, exactly, caused the Mourning Moon.