Now that we’re free to exit Idejima (after which it becomes just another chunk of the world map) it doesn’t hurt to view the world map to see where we are. Right away the scope of the game becomes clear, for the map no longer shows just the continent of Angara, it shows the entirety of Weyard. We can see the entirety of the Gondowan continent now, and you can see that it has the general rough shape of Africa, and of course Angara kinda looks like a squashed version of the Eurasian landmass. Felix and co. washed up on a more southern continent by the name of Indra that’s currently sandwiched between southern Gondowan and another continent, so the whole thing strongly resembles the prehistoric supercontinent of Pangaea. As Kraden hinted, there are two other continents to the west, but while they’re obviously supposed to ape North and South America, they’re pretty small and don’t look anything like them really. There are a couple small islands dotted around here and there that we’ll be visiting during the course of our journey, including a chain east of Angara that’s very obviously supposed to be standing in for Japan.
As for our new party, everyone happens to currently be at Lv. 5, so they have a slight leg-up on Isaac’s in that regard. In the opening stages of the game, new random encounter monsters are noticeably a bit tougher and drop more EXP and coins than the ones in the encounter pool from the first game since the level curve is different. Felix, like Isaac, belongs to the Squire class line, with all the same Psynergy spells that he had, and he wields the same weapons (long swords, light blades, axes, and maces). He’s physically stronger and sturdier with more HP (though not as much as Garet had), but his Luck is quite low, so he tends to get hit by ailments when they crop up. Ironic given that his name is Latin for “lucky”. There are two mandatory items in his possession, a Mythril Bag that contains the last of the Elemental Stars that Saturos’s group were able to steal, the Jupiter Star, and per the events of the first game’s climax the Shaman’s Rod, sticking around to clog up inventory space for another game.
Jenna’s sort of like the Red Mage of the group, with the Flame User line providing some decent single-and-multi-target Fire damage in the Fume line and the Beam line that she learns later in addition to some healing, but she doesn’t have Garet’s buffing ability. She’s the physically strongest of the spellcasters and can equip staves and light blades, the latter of which ensures she can still keep up once Psynergy starts to fall off a bit since there are some pretty strong light blades out there. Sheba meanwhile, is basically an Ivan clone, sharing class (Wind Seer) and most of his stats and weapon selection (save for light blades).
Just south of where Idejima landed is the first town of the game: Daila. Daila has less plot importance than Vault, but it has more character to it because instead of being your typical dime-a-dozen European-style village it’s actually an Indian fishing community, though all their boats have been destroyed by the tidal wave. In fact, there’s a lot of standing water around, and the villagers say that if it wasn’t for the mountain range nearby they would’ve been washed away. There are three points of interest in Indra that the villagers mention: the first is a shrine they’ve built to a generic sea god to the east, Kandorean Temple to the southwest, and the town of Madra on the continent’s southern shore. As is, there’s not much to do here in Daila other than update our gear a bit. When we enter back onto the world map by exiting south, we see a sparkle of light that calls out to Felix. It is in fact the first new Venus Djinni of the game, Echo, and he basically just reintroduces the Djinn, class change, and summoning mechanics. Nothing’s changed there since the first game. Echo’s effect is that it deal Earth damage to a single target at about twice the power of a regular physical attack, and it’s supposed to be a counterpart to Flint, for their Japanese names were Solo and Duo respectively.
Of those three points of interest, we’re going to be heading to the Kandorean Temple first. It’s a bit of a winding route, but we basically have to head southwest from Daila, travel along Indra’s western coast, then hook back northeast to find the temple enclosed by mountains. The monks at the front gate refuse to let us in since the head monk, Master Poi, has forbidden outsiders from entering, so in order to get in we have to follow the perimeter of the temple’s outer wall until Kraden points out a small opening in the rock wall that’s covered in the kind of vines we use Whirlwind on to clear. Basically the temple serves as a tutorial on utility Psynergy. Heading through the cave lets us enter the temple’s courtyard via an underground well, and inside the temple we see Poi himself on a balcony overlooking a trio of meditating acolytes. The three demonstrate their proficiency in doing that thing where you levitate while in meditation, and Poi allows the most skilled of them to enter the temple’s caves in order to undergo the trials within. Once this scene is over and Poi leaves, we’re free to follow.
The Kandorean Temple cave is a pretty basic dungeon all things considered. Most of it is simply a matter of navigating your way both through and across mazes of limestone rock posts (the acolyte’s seen lying on the ground here, not having gotten very far), but there is a puzzle that is a little more complicated. It involves two small platforms that will occasionally be lifted into the air by a geyser of water. By pushing a stone post atop one of them, the stopped-up water pressure will lift the other even higher, high enough for anyone standing on top of it (like Felix of course) to reach alternate paths on the floor above. Plus, doing this can also allow us to reach a chest containing a Mysterious Card. The Mysterious Card is one of three unique items exclusive to The Lost Age that changes a character’s class when equipped. This one gives access to the Pierrot class line (you need at least three different elements of Djinn on a character to promote) which is kind of unique since it has at least one AOE spell for all four elements, and a better Impact in the form of Sabre Dance. I’ve never seriously used the class-changing items, but they’re there for those interested.
Other notes for this dungeon include a Mimic being placed right at the start (spammed Psy Drain which is a pain this early one; only contains a Game Ticket), and a Mercury Djinni on a little ledge that we can’t get to yet, though note the length of rope coiled at its base. At the end of the dungeon we see a pot of boiling water blocking the way, and according to a sign we’re supposed to do a “mind over matter” thing to get past it. We’ll just cheat and have Felix use Move on the cauldron. Past it, however, are a trio of three angry gorillas…
Chestbeater x3
HP
- 155 each
- Weak to Fire; Resists Wind
- Claw Attack - Deals damage to one enemy.
- Herb - Restores 50 HP to one ally.
- Beat Dance - Raises Attack.
Like the Vault thieves, these guys are obviously warm ups. Slight problem in that two-thirds of are party are just a bit on the squishy side. To that end, it’s just best to go all-out with AOE spells like Earthquake and Flare Wall which Jenna learned upon hitting Lv. 6. I decided to make Sheba a Pierrot for this battle so she could hit for effective damage with its unique Juggle spell. Doesn’t matter much regardless though since the Chestbeaters don’t have much HP individually, and we have a nice stockpile of Herbs for healing when it becomes necessary. They went down like chumps.
Winning earns us 120 EXP, 84 coins, and a Nut.
After defeating the three gorillas a ladder drops down from above and after walking down a short passageway we come out in a room with an elevated altar where Poi is waiting. He greets Felix warmly before realizing that we’re not one of his students, but while Kraden thinks the old monk is rather perturbed at our presence Poi says that while we are outsiders, he’ll teach us the secret of the temple since we passed the trial all the same. Sweet. Said secret is called “Lash”, and he demonstrates it by conjuring up one of those giant ethereal Psynergy hands to grab a coiled length of rope like the one we saw just now and tying it to a post on the altar. Imagine some Adept scholar sitting down one day and spending hours, days, or even years of his life just to produce a spell that moves a piece of rope around. I can have its uses, but compared to Move and Retreat Lash just seems very, very niche. Anyway, ascending to the altar by climbing the strung rope lets us snag the Lash Pebble so that someone can learn the spell, and then before we leave by returning to the main entrance of the temple via a slope we backtrack a bit so that we can use Lash to reach and defeat that Mercury Djinni. That one’s name is Fog and it deals Water damage to one enemy with a chance of deluding them on top of that.
Now that that’s one Indran dungeon out of the way, next up is the Shrine of the Sea God. Unlike the Kandorean Temple which is a bit of a hike, you can’t miss the shrine as it’s directly out in the open east of Daila with a cave entrance on the ground and a little red tower sticking out of the mountains behind. As far as caves go it’s pretty waterlogged since it’s right on the coast, and the tidal wave rushing in didn’t do it any favors. Also we hear voices and the camera pans to show that two boys from Daila, named Riki and Tavi, are in trouble. They were apparently goofing around in the shrine when the tidal wave hit and Tavi was washed up onto a ledge with no way down, and while Riki has a rope, he can’t throw it far enough. Once Riki runs off into a dead end room looking for something that can help, we can have Felix move up and just use our new utility Psynergy spell on the rope to help the boy down. Neither of the boys are very thankful, being more concerned about food and the “flying creature” that they were trying to catch, but I can’t really say that that’s unrealistic for some little kids. Once they’re gone we can cross the rope ourselves to delve a little deeper into the shrine, where we indeed encounter a Jupiter Djinni that wants to play hard to get. We have to pursue it deeper into the shrine until it flies up onto a wall where we can block its path by pushing a lit pedestal into a gap allowing us to fight it. Breeze is a priority Djinni that restores some HP to one character. There actually is a bit more to the shrine, but since there are some telltale small water puddles situated nearby and no one knows Frost on our team we’re going to have to take a raincheck on further exploration.
Finally we return to Daila where there’s a short story scene to trigger by trying to enter the mayor’s home. By trying to do that we encounter Alex again, and Jenna’s justifiably not happy at how he ditched the group while they were all unconscious on Idejima. Alex says that he’s been doing exactly what Kraden had guessed he was: looking for a boat, and he’s heard from the mayor himself that there’s not a one in town to be had. So he’s going to travel south to Madra to see what the state of things are there, but when it’s suggested that everyone should travel together he gets very reluctant, claiming that he’d prefer to work alone on this one. Whatever floats your non-existent boat, I guess. He’d probably break the game in half anyway if he’d been a Guest-Star Party Member. He says that perhaps we’ll see him in Madra and walks off, leaving Jenna to stew at his nerve. Sheba adds that now she wants to find a boat before he does, and we’re on the road once more.
Soundtrack
- Battle! Felix ver.
- The main battle theme of the game is a much more serious affair than that of the first's. I admittedly don't find it as "fun" as Isaac's.
- Drums of Daila
- I like how this game uses a wider variety of town music than the first one did.
- Kandorean Temple Entrance
- Nothing mindblowing, but again I'd like to point out how I like that Golden Sun has a lot of low-key atmospheric tracks in between the bombastic ones that everyone remembers.
- Kandorean Temple Labyrinth
- Just the Daila theme with some cave-appropriate accompaniment.
- Cavernous Shadows
- The first of the two generic cave themes from this game. Again, nice atmosphere when coupled with the Shrine of the Sea God's waterlogged interior.
