It’s a good thing we have to do the entirety of the lower levels of Venus Lighthouse and then the Venus Ruins again before the final confrontation with Saturos and Menardi because it gives us a chance to activate the other pathway within the latter dungeon. Stepping up to the statue again turns the nodes on the floor from blue to brown, and the puzzles change from ones involving freezing water to more time-consuming block-pushing and Carry puzzles. Like the other path’s Asura Armor, there is another secret treasure chest on this route that contains the Oracle Robe, which is exclusive to Mia and greatly boosts her Water affinity. After that we have to go through Venus Lighthouse again where oddly enough all the puzzles are reset so we have to trigger the sand waterfalls and whatnot all over again. I certainly don’t remember having to go through all of that again in the past, but then again it has been a very long time since I last played this game.
Once we get to the the final room of the lighthouse again I’m going to spend a moment taking stock of the party. At this point everyone is at Lv. 30. This does sound quite low given that the cap is Lv. 99 and the final Psynergy spells aren’t naturally learned until the mid-50s or so, but this game is fairly short for an RPG (roughly fifteen hours if you take it slowly) and that’s how the experience curve works out. I did a little bit of extra grinding this time around so that I could snag the Kikuichimonji, but in my normal runs in the past I’ve been at Lv. 28 at this point. I suppose it’s a relic from the time when the Golden Sun series was going to be only a single game before Camelot realized that what they had in mind wouldn’t fit on a GBA cartridge and split it up into two instead.
Anyway, normally I’ve taken on Saturos and Menardi with the party’s normal base class lines, but I feel like switching things up this time. Isaac’s going to remain in his normal state as a Lord, but everyone else’s Djinn are going to be jumbled up a little. Garet’s going to have one Mars Djinni and six Mercury Djinn to transform him into a Luminier, the strongest in the Swordsman line that he used way back on Mercury Lighthouse versus Saturos. Same idea as before: he gets access to Cutting Edge so that he can contribute some meaningful damage against the Fire Adepts, plus he can still buff Defense with the Protect spell and heal with both the Ply and Wish series. Additionally this class gives him a much bigger PP pool than he had in his base ones - even more than Isaac (171 vs. 136)! Next, Ivan gets six Mars Djinn and a single Jupiter one to access Fire Monk. Fire Monk has access to the full Slash line at this level as well as Shine Plasma and Resist from his base ones. Surprisingly enough in this form he actually has the second highest Defense of the group after Garet though his HP is still the lowest. Mia finally has one Mercury Djinni and the remaining six Jupiter Djinn in order to become a Sage. She now just barely edges out Ivan for the fastest party member, which is great because she still has Wish Well in addition to High Impact for buff support, Shine Plasma and Hail Prism, and Break, which is certainly nice. With that taken care of we save the game and hop down that little slope and onto the floating platform on the floor below. We are taken up and away, eventually being taken outside and up onto one of the elevator platforms of the lighthouse’s aerie.
Time to strap in and get comfy, for now it’s time for the JRPG standard end-of-game cutscene marathon. The camera pans over to the aerie’s Elemental Star well, still unlit, where Saturos and Menardi are standing alone with Sheba (if you didn’t explore Babi’s palace thoroughly it’s entirely possible that this is the very first time you might be seeing her in the flesh), gloating that once Venus Lighthouse is lit only Jupiter Lighthouse will remain, since apparently they view Mars Lighthouse as being a cinch to light compared to the others. Felix then walks up to the aerie and says that he’s sent the others of their group on to a place called Idejima where their ship is, but that’s not why he’s still here: he’s angry with the two warriors for breaking their promise to not involve innocent bystanders by still holding Sheba captive (…I guess Kraden and Jenna don’t count somehow?) even after they’ve reached the lighthouse. Saturos replies that they can’t let Sheba go because she’s special, and the three of them spell it out, on the off chance that the player “somehow” hasn’t figured out the obvious yet, that they need her to enter Jupiter Lighthouse since she’s the only Wind Adept in the group, willingly or no.
The confrontation starts getting kind of dumb from here; Felix says that he can’t leave Sheba up here because who knows what’ll happen when the beacon’s lit, and instead of simply taking her and leaving like Menardi suggests, he remains to insist that the two free her. When he could just…leave with her anyway. The two Fire Adepts say that they don’t trust him, never have, and that if he’s willing to stay he’s willing to fight the two of them, even though he has no hope of winning. Meanwhile the party’s still watching this from the elevator platform, and Garet says that this falling out is their chance. We’re given control to make any last minutes adjustments that’re needed, then we head on over to the aerie to join this rodeo. Upon seeing us and realizing that we’re after Sheba as well Saturos gets the idea to have her use her powers to divine whether the Shaman’s Rod is actually the “Rod of Hesperia” that’ll get them into Jupiter Lighthouse (wait, how did he know we have that at all? Is this supposed to be a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation where it’s Ivan’s “canonical” weapon instead of whatever else the player has equipped?) and proposes a trade: her safety for the Rod. Ivan says he’s okay with giving up Hammet’s treasure for Sheba’s sake, so Saturos has Felix take it, then acts puzzles when Sheba makes to leave. After all, he never said anything about letting her go in exchange for the Rod, only about not harming her. Our heroes aren’t necessarily the brightest of bulbs, are they?
With the party seething over being tricked, Menardi drops one last little tidbit: even if they let her go, Sheba would never be able to get back to Lalivero by herself…since they’re going to kill us here!
Saturos and Menardi
HP
- 3000 (Saturos), 2600 (Menardi)
- Weak to Water; Resists Fire
- Heat Flash - Deals moderate Fire damage to one enemy and may delude.
- Inferno - Deals heavy Fire damage to all enemies.
- Pyroclasm - Deals heavy Fire damage to all enemies.
- Haunt - Attempts to haunt two/three enemies with evil spirits.
- Potent Cure - Restores 300 HP.
- Protect - Raises allied party’s Defense.
- Break - Removes enemy party’s buffs.
- Death Scythe - Deals moderate Earth damage to one enemy; may instantly kill.
- Flare Storm - Deals moderate Fire damage to two/three enemies.
- Fiery Blast - Deals heavy Fire damage to all enemies.
- Supernova - Deals heavy Fire damage to all enemies.
- Wish - Restores 80 HP to allied party.
- Impact - Raises Attack.
- Resist - Raises allied party’s Resistance.
A revenge match three years in the making! Offensively these two are about what you’d expect - wielding all the same or better Fire spells that they had in the prologue. Their support abilities are, well, a little bit weird. Potent Cure? Wish? Haunt?! It wasn’t until The Lost Age that Camelot stopped being so allergic to giving enemies unique skills, and the kind of hodgepodge nature of our villains’ movesets reflects that.
Full-power Saturos is the stronger of the two in terms of damage output and Break is annoying, but Menardi is arguably the more dangerous of the two given that she has a move that can potentially insta-kill and can raise both of their Attacks. Luckily with my class setup both Garet and Mia have Break themselves to shut down their buffs in kind, and I was also lucky in that Death Scythe’s insta-kill effect didn’t proc once and the two spent more turns simply attacking normally than they probably should’ve. I don’t really have a huge amount of stuff to say about this battle: it’s a fun, it’s a back and forth, has good music, and once one of them goes down the other should not be far behind.
Winning earns us 6000 EXP and 7800 coins.
Saturos and Menardi are down on the floor in disbelief that they actually lost, but Felix says that even now he still won’t give Sheba over to us. The party insists that Felix doesn’t have to cape for the two any more but he insists that he’ll still light all the lighthouses regardless, and he needs Sheba for it. There’s a reason for this of course that is eventually revealed, but stripped of context in the here and now it just makes him look…I dunno, more villainous than was probably intended. Saturos and Menardi are still conscious however, but Ivan doesn’t think they’re threats any more now that they can no longer move. Saturos disagrees, and surprises everyone by chucking the Venus Star into the aerie’s well, which launches a massive pillar of light.
Once the brightness fades a little the two are back on their feet, Menardi offering the explanation that since Earth and Fire share a symbiotic relationship the light of the beacon recharged their Psynergy. Which makes sense I guess, even if it is a little contrived. We prep for round 2 but it seems they have another plan in mind, for Saturos shouts at Felix to once again take Sheba and rendezvous with the others. Given that the sky’s darkened and that the whole lighthouse is trembling Felix offers no resistance and books it out of camera with the girl in tow. Saturos claims that we’re about to see the true strength of the northern “Fire Clan” as he and his partner begin to glow, their Psynergy overflowing as they seem to start to merge together…
Fusion Dragon
HP
- 5000
- Weak to Water; Resists Fire
- Drain Fang - May absorb a moderate amount of Earth damage from one enemy.
- Severe Blow - Deals heavy Earth damage to one enemy; may reduce HP to 1.
- Deadly Gas - Deals Earth damage to and may poison two/three enemies.
- Evil Breath - Deals moderate Fire damage to and may haunt two/three enemies.
- Dragon Driver - Deals heavy Fire damage to all enemies.
- Outer Space - Deals heavy Fire damage to all enemies.
- Break - Removes enemy party’s buffs.
So after defeating the antagonists of the game it turns out that they can actually fuse together to form a gigantic two-headed quadrupedal dragon so that the game can fulfill the “monstrous final boss” fantasy RPG quota. Kinda random but okay. The Fusion Dragon does make an entrance though: instead of a Fight Whoosh the battle opens with the screen cracking and shattering into pieces and to properly represent its size the battle sprites of the party are scaled down.
Naturally it attacks two times a turn. The good news is that compared to other final bosses of the genre the Fusion Dragon doesn’t have all that large a movepool. Half of its attacks aren’t very damaging, and being poisoned or haunted isn’t much of an issue since you can cure both of those just by unleashing the Mercury Djinni Tonic. Its two strongest moves, Dragon Driver and Outer Space, are actually essentially palette swaps of the Tiamat and Meteor summons respectively, with the flames turned purple and the Fusion Dragon standing in for Tiamat/the giant meteorite. The bad news is that Outer Space is its strongest attack and it’s the move that it’s programmed to use most often, so as with the Deadbeard fight it’s a good idea to have Granite and Flash available as often as possible. If you build up some Lv. 4 summons, that’s great too, for Boreas will dish out about 1000 damage itself. Just uh, don’t get too attached to any buffs you apply.
Oh yeah, and that bit Menardi said about how the Venus beacon restored their power? That’s actually something that carries over into gameplay, for both Isaac and Garet get a PP refill in between rounds. Sadly the Fusion Dragon has a pretty lame death animation; despite its size it simply turns gray and fades away with a cry like every other enemy in the game. Something that is fortunately rectified in future titles.
Saturos and Menardi don’t have to say for themselves after losing a second time, merely quietly muttering the usual sour grapes of disbelief at their defeat before both fall backwards into the beacon well and presumably to their deaths. The party comments on their adversaries’ demise then turn to Felix and Sheba, who’re still on the aerie over by the opposite elevator. Felix says that if we destroyed Saturos and Menardi than he knows he has no shot at beating us, but still insists that he’ll use the remaining Elemental Stars to light the last two lighthouses himself. He has a reason, he claims, but since we’d never understand it apparently there’s no use telling. Of course.
He makes to leave with Sheba, when suddenly with a violent crash the aeries suddenly splits up into four pieces to make room for the glowing green Venus beacon to rise up out of the depths of the lighthouse. The party’s knocked off their feet and hear Felix cry out Sheba’s name, and the camera pans to show that Sheba is now dangling off the edge of the aerie. She notes that the ground around the lighthouse’s base is crumbling (with us briefly switching to world map view to confirm this), and as her grip weakens she thanks Felix for standing up for her and then falls from the lighthouse. Felix’s reaction is to say that he won’t let her die and then dives off the thing after her!!!
This…”foolhardy” let’s call it, act from Felix is the first thing all game to get an unprompted reaction from Isaac (“!!!”) and the others get to their feet to remark on it as well, though in typical Golden Sun fashion their reactions are somewhat muted. More like “Well that was a thing.” instead of something like, “Holy shit, goddamn!! Did you see what he just did?! He’s freakin’ insane!” Isaac at least has the excuse of seeming to be in either a Heroic B.S.O.D. or a state of Stunned Silence judging from some stuff Garet says, only snapping out of it once Garet reminds him that they still need to head over to that Idejima place to collect Jenna. Fortunately just as the party is starting to wonder how they’re going to get back down the aerie snaps back into one piece allowing them to reach the elevator platforms once again.
Cue cut to black with narration stating that the party found no sign of Idejima or Jenna anywhere. Welp.
And so the epilogue of the game takes us back to Faran’s house back in Lalivero, where the party report their (lack of) findings and Iodem apologizes deeply to Faran for what happened to Sheba. Ivan and Mia think that Idejima was washed away by the violent waves that were churned up by the earthquake that heralded the lighting of Venus Lighthouse, but there’s a possibility that their kidnapped friends could’ve survived since they supposedly had a ship. As for Sheba, Faran believes that she survived as well, since this apparently isn’t the first time that she’s been in dangerous situations and lived. And this time, a miracle happened: the sea rose up to the lighthouse just as she wait, what?! While we don’t know exactly how tall the lighthouses are, they have to at least be the size of a modest skyscraper, at least. Are you telling me that a tidal wave rose up to “cushion” her fall?! I cannot even begin to list the problems with that, least of which being that if Venus Lighthouse got hit with something like that, Lalivero and a good chunk of Gondowan would be more than a bit waterlogged right now! Not to mention that Sheba and Felix would’ve certainly been drowned in that scenario.
Sigh, I know, I know, MST3K Mantra, I know. Anyway, Ivan says that they’re going to continue their search for Jenna and the others while Iodem tries to give Faran the cliff notes explanation on what Adepts are. Our heroes haven’t really been all that successful on their quest so far have they? As of this moment they’ve killed the masterminds behind the plot to unleash Alchemy, but the seal has already been halfway broken, they’ve lost track of the remaining Elemental Stars as well as the kidnapped people they were trying to rescue who may or may not be dead, and the masterminds’ subordinate is missing too but has vowed to finish what they started. Good thing there’s a readily-available sequel, can you imagine just ending this game on a cliffhanger with no sign of future reso- oh.
Iodem follows us out of Faran’s house so that he can speak with us one last time about Lemuria before we depart. Specifically, he gives us the Black Orb key item, that crystal he tried to use on that ship we came across before. This, he says, is the key to operating Babi’s Lemurian ship, which has apparently been docked right here in Lalivero all along. Huh, that’s convenient. With this we can sail the seas and investigate whether that mysterious foggy patch of ocean was Lemuria after all and of course expand our search for Jenna and Felix et al. After he wishes us good luck and farewell we’re free to wanted around Lalivero one last time. We can learn that the earthquake collapsed Babi Lighthouse (cuz Tower of Babel, geddit?) and many of the Laliverans are almost gleeful at the fact taking it as a sign that Babi’s about to get a comeuppance. Iodem, it’s noted by the townspeople, isn’t really bummed by its destruction either. Others view the lighting of the Venus beacon to be a general sign of there being good fortune on the horizon (Remember when we were told that lighting the lighthouses would be bad? Seems suspicious.) As for Sheba it’s about an even split between those who share in Faran’s optimism that she’s alive and those who are more dubious. Everyone though is grateful for our part in the recent proceedings, and many wish us luck in our further travels out at sea and to be wary of a seafaring people known as the Champa.
So, Babi’s boat. There’s actually a building in town that’s been blocked off by a soldier who only now will let us by. Inside is an enclosed dock that has a submerged vessel at the end of it, and using the Black Orb raises the dragon-headed Lemurian ship, meaning that the one we saw on the world map was Lemurian too…huh… The party disgorge themselves from Isaac one last time to comment on how long their adventure has felt like and how a new one is just around the corner, with Garet expressing his excitement at finally getting to see the ocean that Kraden told him about. They all hop on board, saying that Jenna and Lemuria await, and the main theme of the series starts up as they finally set sail.
The credit sequence plays atop a montage of the background scenery that were used in battles, which were really quite lovely (props to…checks…Hiroto Nakahara). Then, after being given the option of making a clear save file we get one last stinger scene. Idejima, it turns out, was that peninsula with the ship after all, and when the characters say that it was washed away, what they really mean is that it is currently adrift in the middle of the ocean. Yes, (what is now) an island, made up of bedrock, soil, what-have-you, is currently floating on the surface of the ocean as if it were a giant raft. ##%&%!@#!!! Also, Saturos and Menardi were apparently the proud owners of a Lemurian ship of their own the whole time, who knew?
ANYWAY, Jenna and Kraden are seen here, lying listlessly on their backs staring up at the sky and grumbling and exchanging barbs over their current predicament. Jenna eventually admits that she’s just worried about what happened to Felix and that she misses both Isaac and her brother, then Alex (remember him?) walks over to the two to say that there’s something that he wishes to show them. He leads the teenager and elderly scholar over to the island’s little beach where they find, much to their surprise, that Felix and Sheba have washed up on the sand.
So that is Golden Sun. For a game that's relatively short it sure took a while for me to get through it -_- Well, life happens. Anyway, I suppose that "quaint" is a good word to describe it. The plot and gameplay are both pretty basic, characterization is mostly two-dimensional, it's fairly easy overall...but man do the music and graphical presentation work overtime to carry the product or what? I think it's a good gateway game to the JRPG genre, and said graphics and music still hold up pretty well in my opinion for a sixteen-year-old GBA launch game (oh hey, happy birthday Golden Sun!). Better than Megaman Battle Network 1, if you ask me.
I am going to strike while the liveblogging bug is still hot and move on to cover The Lost Age in the near future because it's a much more interesting game to play and talk about, plus I don't like leaving stories hanging. I don't know if I'm going to also cover Dark Dawn yet, but knowing my track record I probably will. That's all for now, and as the game itself says after The Stinger, "to be continued"...
Soundtrack
- Battle! Saturos and Menardi ver.
- If you want an intense piece of music for a climactic showdown against a Dual Boss on top of a giant, plot-important tower, you can't go wrong with something like this.
- Battle! Fusion Dragon ver.
- This track hasn't really stuck with me over the years like other final boss themes like Alpha's from Megaman Battle Network 3 or Vaati's from The Minish Cap but it's certainly not bad though.
- The Golden Sun Sets
- I appreciate a series that sticks with having a really memorable main musical theme and sticks with it, I really do.
