Video Game / Golden Sun

aka: Golden Sun 2001

Golden Sun (known as Golden Sun: The Broken Seal in Japan) is a 2001 RPG from Nintendo and Camelot Software Planning for the Game Boy Advance. It is the first game in the series of the same name.

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

The sequel, Golden Sun: The Lost Age, was released in 2003.

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Golden Sun provides examples of:

• Amphibian at Large: Dodonpa's pet monstrosity (and Optional Boss) Toadonpa, a surprisingly tough giant toad with poisonous attacks. When defeated, it lands on Dodonpa as he sneaks up on the party to backstab them. Recolored variants appear in another Bonus Dungeon as Devil Toads.
• All Just a Dream: If Isaac loses during the first two rounds of Colosso, he'll wake up in the infirmary and be told that he was actually having a dream about the competition the night before and that he should get ready for the real thing, essentially giving the player another chance at it.
• And I Must Scream:
  • The entire population of a town called Kolima gets turned into trees as punishment for trying to cut down their forest's guardian spirit. And while the spirit's still rampaging, anyone else who tries to so much as even ENTER the forest gets turned into one too. Reading the minds of these "trees" reveals that they are fully conscious, and well aware of their inability to speak or even move. Unusually for the trope, the victim's reactions vary - some are about as horrified with the situation as you'd expect, but others are relatively cool with it and feel no need to scream even if they could. Regardless, almost everyone would much rather be turned back. Good thing you can turn them back.
  • This is also somewhat subverted, as the point of the glamour was not to trap the townsfolk as trees forever. Rather, while the experience could count for this trope, the whole point was actually an attempt by Tret to invoke Karmic Death because when Tret dies, so does the forest... including all of the transformed townsfolk.
  • Of the trees that are horrified, by far the ones that have it the worst are the three trees that you meet along the way to Kolima. When you first see them, they're all stacked on top of one another - with the bottom tree thinking about how heavy the others are. You have to leave them there to bear the weight for days. And then they get knocked over and one of them falls into the river, to be washed away and most likely killed if you don't tow it back to shore!
  • The "cool with it" side of the spectrum, on the other hand, includes... A child who happily realized that her mother can't send her to bed if she's unable to move. And another that was upset with being turned human again because he enjoyed how good all the water he was planted in tasted while he was a tree. These villager's mileages sure do vary.
    Child: If we were all trees, there'd be no more wars. 'Cause we'd be trees.
• Anti-Grinding: The first dungeon turns off Random Encounters when all three party members reach a high-enough level. This can be avoided by killing off Jenna.
• Anti-Hero: Babi's role in the first game is to assist the protagonists, but his methods and ends are ruthless and selfish. He kidnapped a young woman from Lalivero to force her people to build a lighthouse for him, and the reason why he wanted that lighthouse built was so that he could find Lemuria and replenish his Elixir of Immortality.
• Antlion Monster: In the Lamakan desert, one can use Reveal on circles of rocks to see if they contain life-restoring oases. Sometimes they are revealed to be traps where an antlion's pincers are waiting; if it is, the party is forced to enter battle (sometimes Isaac is seen running as he is dragged backwards while the antlion Says It With Hearts). The antlion monster itself is a Big Creepy Crawly the size of a car.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: The Mercury (water) Adepts look like they couldn't be anything else than Mercury Adepts. Garet is also pretty obviously Fire-elemental, complete with an explosive personality. Subverted with Ivan, however. When he first appears, he's quite the Creepy Child; not exactly what you'd expect your wind-user to be.
• Badass Normal: The Colosso gladiators lack any form of Psynergy, but are capable fighters stronger enough to challenge and defeat Isaac. Fighting them makes one realize how much your adepts rely on their special clothing, acessories and weapons, which Isaac had to forfeit in Colosso, in addition to their physical attributes, psynergy and djinni, which Isaac must fall back on.
• Bonus Dungeon: Crossbone Isle. You never need to visit it for story completion, and it holds the most powerful enemy encounters in the game.
• But Thou Must!: The player can reject the Venus Djinn Flint from joining the team. The Player can keep rejecting him, until he forces himself onto the team. This gives the player the much-needed tutorial on the Djinn, and shows the need for party members.
• Cassandra Truth: Feizhi has a bad case of this after developing the power of precognition.
• Cave Behind the Falls: There is one in Fuchin Temple, where the Orb of Force resides.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • Subverted: When the party first enters an area cursed by Tret, they are protected from being turned into trees by some kind of subconscious force-field psynergy. This is never mentioned again, though one character uses this as the in-story explanation for weapon unleashes and critical hits, and Fanon uses it for all sorts of things.
  • Played straight: At one point, Master Hama speculates that Saturos and Menardi were able to pass through the Lamakan Desert without Reveal ^note the spell that the heroes use to pass through the desert, and the Proxians do not possess because their Fire Clan Psynergy shields them from extreme temperatures. In the sequel, Agatio and Karst, who are also members of the Fire Clan, freeze to death in Mars Lighthouse because the Forced Transformation and subsequent battle with the heroes they had been subjected to left them too weak to maintain this ability.
• Cliffhanger: The game's ending, which occurs at a point where you'd assume you were halfway through the game.
• Combat Tentacles: One of the bosses you fight is a Kraken, and it has two attacks where it swings its tentacles at the party.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Inverted in the first boss fight with Saturos atop Mercury Lighthouse. The ambient Mercury Psynergy severely weakens Saturos, who is a Mars Adept... but your Mars Adept Garet suffers no such effects.
• Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: Returning to Vale after a certain point in the game (necessary if you want 100% Completion) gets you yelled at by Isaac's mom for backtracking instead of continuing to look for the others.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus:
  • Worshippers at the church in Kalay make reference to a shepherd and the people as a flock. One NPC seems to describe the God of Abraham, but doesn't actually know what it is.
  • Sheba is worshiped in her village as a god-child, due to having fallen from the sky and possessing mysterious powers.
• Dirty Old Man: The mayor of Vault when you read his mind after Ivan joins your party.
  "Hey! That tickles... Being tickled by a boy isn't so fun."
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: The Venus Lighthouse is... technically this. Your party has pretty lavish gear at this point and the lighthouse's background music practically screams Final Dungeon (which is technically true since this is the end of the game), but you discover that after the boss fight, Felix still plans to ignite the remaining lighthouses, Isaac still has to keep his promise to Babi to find more mythical water to keep him alive and Isaac also promised to rescue Sheba. These issues are addressed in The Lost Age.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: At some point, you can choose to pull a tree from a riverbank, so it doesn't float away. It turns out to be a transformed woman who wants to give you a "Special Gift" for saving her. Isaac got a Hard Nut!
• Dramatic Unmask: Felix during the visit to Sol Sanctum as a guarantee that Kraden and Jenna will be safe in Saturos' and Menardi's hands.
• Duel Boss: Only Isaac is allowed to enter Colosso. Although his friends can help out with the obstacle courses while they're cheering him on, he has to fight the three gladiators alone in a series of one-on-one fights.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: If you lose Colosso before making it to the final round, it will turn out Isaac was simply having a nightmare.
• Dying to Wake Up: During the Colosseo sequence: if you die in one of the battles, you wake up in bed and it turns out to have been a dream. Lose three times and the event is skipped.
• Egopolis: The city of Lunpa, named after its founder. Also combined with Sublime Rhyme for some cases, a number of location names sound similar with their leaders'-either due to coincidence, translator's choice, or plain laziness in the original names. Examples include Hama of Lama Temple (she's actually from Contigo), Tolbi's tyrant ruler Babi, and Uzume the elder of Izumo.
• Forced Transformation: The Kolima incident, which involves the village of Kolima getting transformed into trees.
• The Foreign Subtitle: An inversion; the first Golden Sun game lacked its "The Broken Seal" subtitle in the English release. Nowadays, said subtitle is utilized by English fans at times to differentiate the first Golden Sun game from the sequels, as well as the series as a whole. The other games kept their subtitles, though.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In the Playable Epilogue of this game, an NPC mentions Champa, a town of pirates on the continent of Angara. One such pirate causes problems early in The Lost Age, and his hometown is visited later.
  • One of the weirdest, seemingly most random parts of the beginning of this game goes toward defeating the Big Bad in the sequel, long after it's been forgotten. More specifically, The Wise One has Isaac take out the Mars Star for a moment, then put it back. This was apparently to take a small part of its power and give it directly to Isaac. This means that when Alex takes the power of the Golden Sun in the Epilogue, he doesn't have ALL of the power he's supposed to, and The Wise One is able to defeat Alex.
• Good Morning, Crono: In the middle of the night though, with the impetus being 'a giant rock is falling towards our village!'
• The Great Flood: Apparently, Weyard had one during Babi's youth. It was mentioned by Babi when he traveled to Lemuria with Lunpa, and then brought up again by an old man in the town of Lunpa, who related its times to the eruption of Mt. Aleph.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Jenna joins the party for the Sol Sanctum in the beginning of the game.
• Guide Dang It!: It's possible to visit Crossbone Isle before you enter Tolbi by selecting a very specific order of rowers for the Tolbi-bound Ship. The game never tells you that this is possible, and you likely won't even know that Crossbone Isle exists at this point if this is your first time playing the game.
• He Knows Too Much: During the prologue, Isaac and Garet overhear Saturos and Menardi. Even if you tell them you didn't hear much, they say that they will "Help you forget" and proceed to beat the tar out of you.
• Healing Hands: Mia, primarily a healer, is first seen healing a bedridden old man like this.
• Henpecked Husband: Lord McCoy spoils Lady McCoy in just about every way that he can. His intent is to make sure that she lives the highest quality of life possible, but the effects that his submissiveness has on her personality isn't pretty. After the events of the Kolima curse make him realize that he's become far too subservient to her, he finally puts his foot down and cancels construction of her palace. The NPCs in his manor are very pleased with him.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: In the dark and stormy prologue, the player fights Saturos and Menardi with the two having their endgame stats. While they can be defeated if you hack Isaac and Garet's stats, when the fight ends your characters are still the ones lying on the ground.
• How Much Did You Hear?:
  • In the prologue, said by Saturos and Menardi to Isaac and Garet. Doesn't go well for the latter two.
  • Echoed by the same two in the proper intro of the same game, only to decide it's not worth the effort to beat the kids up this time.
• Immortality Immorality: Babi is determined to replenish his stock of Lemurian elixir, even if he has to abduct a teenage girl and hold her for ransom to coerce slave labor out of her hometown to do so.
• Impassable Desert:
  • The Lamakan Desert will make you overheat and lose HP (represented by a bar which fills with every step you take, and the odd complaint from party members). You need to use Reveal to see hidden oases so you can cool yourself off.
  • The Suhalla Desert doesn't have a heat meter, but it does have tornadoes that will fling you back to the start unless you use the right spell to get rid of them.
• Inevitable Tournament: An annual tournament of gladiators held at Tolbi that just happens to be in effect when Isaac's party comes along. Isaac is automatically entered into it after he rescues Tolbi's ruler Babi from death in a nearby cave.
• Indy Escape: Sparked by Violation of Common Sense instead of grabbing a sacred relic - specifically, hitting a wall for no apparent reason besides seeing a sign that said not to hit the walls. Played entirely for funny, though, and the point of the sequence was so that the boulder could open the way to the Boss Room.
• Infinity -1 Sword:
  • The Kikuichimonji is a random drop from enemies, so the sufficiently patient player can get multiple copies. It's classed as a "light blade", meaning the only person in your party who CAN'T wield one is Mia.
  • Special mention goes to the Swift Sword, a light blade that can be bought in Lalivero. While slightly weaker than Kikuichimonji, its unleash can even overpower the Gaia Blade when it does triple damage. It is one of the best weapons for Ivan due to being a light blade and its Jupiter unleash. This weapon gets a successor in The Lost Age-Excalibur.
  • The Silver Blade is very easy to obtain — it's sold at the armory in Lalivero — and is the most powerful weapon Isaac can get his hands on before nabbing the Gaia Blade.
• Infinity +1 Sword:
  • The Gaia Blade is the most powerful weapon in The Broken Seal, and Isaac's best weapon if he's still using all Venus Djinn. It's located in the last story dungeon, Venus Lighthouse.
  • The Muramasa is another contender, being almost as powerful and Garet's best weapon if he's still using all Mars Djinn. It's located in the final puzzle room at Crossbone isle.
• Informed Flaw: Garet's gluttony, mentioned by his siblings when you're leaving Vale and never heard from again.
• Invisibility: The Cloak Psynergy allows Team Isaac to fade into the shadows and sneak past the Lunpa guards and sentry statues in Crossbone Isle.
• Irrelevant Importance: One of the items you can get in Vault is a bone that you give to a dog, who'll then move to a secret passageway and jump over it to mark its location then move out of the way. It's possible to keep getting bones that can't be thrown away or sold until your inventory is full (and adding insult to injury, you don't even need the dog to show you in the first place as the entrance is surrounded by six rocks in the same pattern as all the Reveal circles you've encountered so far).
• It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans: Tolbi's Colosso competition happens once a year, right when you happen to arrive. But you arrived just too late to sign up for it, oh well...
• It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The prologue. The only reason you're up and out is because something unrelated to the storm is going to smash your house, but the weather sure does reflect the mood, doesn't it?
• Kick the Dog: While they have very good reasons for doing what they are doing, the "enemies" nonetheless do some fairly dickish things, like shoving what is a transformed human in the water to drown if you don't save them for no reason, bringing a plague to Imil (never made clear if it was purposeful) and destroying a major shipping road to slow you down.
• Kill It with Water: One does not necessarily need to kill Tornado Lizards with water, but they are functionally invincible until they get wet.
• Knight, Knave, and Squire: At the beginning of the first game, Isaac is the Knight (based on his characterization in the subsequent games), Garet is the Knave (not underhanded, but he's quite impulsive and aggressive) and Ivan is the Squire (being younger than the other two and not as worldly). This dynamic lasts until Mia turns up.
• Kleptomaniac Hero Found Underwear: Isaac can find Lady McCoy's silk negligee in Bilbin if he roots through her closet.
• The Law of Power Proportionate to Effort: There's a psychic power that activates exactly once without any effort on the heroes' part and is never heard from again (in Kolima forest, the pollen that turns people into trees starts falling towards the heroes, when Psynergy bubbles grow around them and prevent the transformation).
• Little Professor Dialog: Some of the kids-turned-trees in Kolima are remarkably philosophical about their predicament, both during it and after they're cured.
• Machete Mayhem: Your weapon in the prologue/tutorial.
• Medium Awareness: In the scene displaying the forcefield power, Garet explicitly compares the forcefields to scoring critical hits in battle. Like the rest of the scene, this never comes up again.
• Mind over Manners: Averted by Ivan, who doesn't see problems with invading people's mental privacy. Garet objects, and it's implied that Isaac does, too.
• Mundane Utility: Isaac repairs his roof with Psynergy in the beginning of the game.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After Tret the Holy Tree is brought back to his senses by Isaac and his friends, he feels genuinely sorry for losing control of his anger and spreading the curse around, and undoes it as soon as Isaac heals him.
• Mysterious Waif: Sheba in this game, before getting more characterization in the sequel.
• Nonstandard Game Over: At the start of the first game when the bad guys make off with the Elemental Stars, you are asked (not told) by your village elder to go after the stars. Refuse twice and the screen fades to a sepia tone, accompanied with the text "And so, the world drifted towards its fated destruction." You are then given the option of continuing from the beginning of the conversation. This is ironic because the destruction it is describing is actually the slow erosion described in the second game, because alchemy would never be unlocked. The player at the time would assume the world ends because alchemy IS unlocked.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: In a fashion; Garet is by no means stupid, but is often assumed to be so due to his recklessness.
• Optional Boss:
  • Toadonpa, who is only fought if player decided to rescue Master Hammet from Lunpa. Toadonpa isn't too difficult, but he counts for this trope because you have to backtrack a fair bit into the earlier areas to find Lunpa.
  • The Tempest Lizard is located out of the way of the exit to Suhalla Desert, requiring a detour to his location instead of continuing to Venus Lighthouse.
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: Ivan's staff is necessary to complete the quest and it was known long ago that it would be needed when Ivan came of age. So naturally it gets stolen.
• Palette Swap:
  • Isaac's and Garet's mothers look exactly alike barring hair colors to distinguish between the two of them.
  • Jenna's in-battle sprites during the brief time that she's in your party in the first game are nearly identical to Mia's. Subverted in that there are minor differences between the two sets of sprites, since even if their outfits are similar in basic design, they're still ultimately wearing different outfits. The sprite sets are nonetheless VERY close in appearance to one another, though, so it's obvious that one was made by editing the other. She even gains completely different battle sprites in The Lost Age, where she's a major playable character and would thus be expected to have more effort put into her sprites.
  • The Fusion Dragon's Outer Space and Dragon Driver attacks are recolored version of the Meteor and Tiamat summon sequence respectively.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: Just past the barricade there is small area just outside of the barricade where you can run against the mountains and fight much stronger monsters.
• Point of No Return:
  • Downplayed. Once you make your way through Mogall Forest, you can't double back and must continue onward. You only get the ability to return to previous areas once you loop around to Kalay.
  • Played straight once you jump down the hole that leads to the floating platform that takes you to the aerie of Venus Lighthouse. Retreat no longer works, and you can no longer do anything except fight the final boss and see the ending.
• Rate-Limited Perpetual Resource: The Water of Hermes fully heals a single character, but you can only carry one at a time. Using it requires returning to the Mercury Lighthouse to refill the bottle.
• Rich Bitch: Lady McCoy, in no small part due to her husband spoiling her. When one of the construction workers that she sent to manage construction of her palace starts to chop one of the forest's guardian spirits down and causes it to turn all the workers and everybody in Kolima into trees, her primary concern is that the incident has delayed construction on her palace. She's even more unhappy once Lord McCoy decides to outright cancel the project in favor of leaving the forest at peace.
• Schmuck Bait: There are at least two cases of a sign telling you not to do something necessary to advance in the game. Hilarity Ensues.
• Sequence Breaking:
  • You can easily choose to go straight to Imil before ever going to Kolima, and you don't really have to go to the Fuchin Temple to beat the first game (you can get through the Mogall Forest by Trial-and-Error Gameplay, and after that, all that Force is used for is getting one optional scene.) Unfortunately, if you fail to pick up the Orb of Force, you'll be unable to get 100% Completion in The Lost Age, as one of the Djinn in that game (and an Infinity -1 Sword) cannot be reached without the Force Psynergy. And of course, due to a glitch you can skip the portion of Mercury Lighthouse where Mia is recruited and thanks to the Frost Jewel obtainable in Mogall Forest, you can still advance.
  • Normally, you need the Orb of Force to get the Lift Psynergy, getting through the mines in Altin and ultimately progressing in the game - but if you failed to pick it up, the game will change a few things to let you keep going and prevent an Unintentionally Unwinnable situation.
• Sequential Boss: The final bosses of both games. In this game, Saturos and Menardi battle Isaac's party, revitalize themselves after the fight and fuse into the Fusion Dragon.
• Shady Scalper: When first arriving in Tolbi, the Colosseo games are about to start and there's a massive line of people waiting to get in. Unfortunately, by the time you get there, the seats have all been taken, and scalpers can be found near the line. You can't buy any, however, as the games can't start without the presence of the city's ruler, who needs to be rescued from a cave and thanks you by having you participate in the tournament.
• Shifting Sand Land: Lamakan Desert in particular DOES become too hot for the group and they start taking damage from heatstroke unless they rest at hidden oases.
• Skippable Boss: The Storm Lizard, provided the player is able to successfully run from it.
• Superboss: Deadbeard is the strongest boss in the game, and he's only fought at the bottom of Crossbone Isle, which itself is full of nasty critters, though the earlier ones aren't terribly challenging and would probably be better classified as Unique Enemies.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: One of the thieves in Vault starts accusing the party of accusing them of stealing "Master Hammet's Treasured Shaman's Rod" instantly upon talking to him possibly before you've even heard of it, and if you say no he'll claim he doesn't even know what was stolen after having just told you what it was.
• Take Your Time: Lampshaded when Layana scolds your party after you rescued Hammet.
• Teleportation Rescue: Alex uses his short-range Teleport Spam to rescue Saturos after his first boss fight goes wrong, preventing the heroes from finishing him off (whether they actually would kill him off is discussed by the villains, who escape just after).
• Transflormation: The Kolima incident, in which the entire village and many who follow after them are turned into trees.
• Tree Trunk Tour: The climax of the Kolima arc features climbing up the giant tree Tret (both inside and outside), then dropping down to the roots in order to vanquish his soul from the inside. Notable for being one of the main possible instances of Sequence Breaking: the player is supposed to get healing water from Imil to revive Tret, but it's possible to go to Imil and finish the entire arc before even finding out about Tret.
• Ungrateful Bitch: When you visit Kalay and meet Layana, you learn that her husband, Hammet, has been kidnapped and she forbids Isaac and company to rescue him because it's too dangerous (despite what they've already been through) and because it would distract them from their quest. There is a sidequest to rescue Hammet but even after returning him to Kalay, all Layana can think about is that you disobeyed her and put yourself at risk. While she is admittedly happy Isaac and friends rescued Hammet, she doesn't properly thank and/or reward them and just shoos them out without a compliment. You can use mind read on her to find she actually DOES thank them, but it still doesn't erase her harshness towards them.
• Unstoppable Rage: Tret the Holy Tree takes this to literal levels. He was rightfully pissed when lumberjacks from Kolima tried to cut him down, but then Psynergy Stones fell from the sky, amplifying his anger to the point that he didn't even have control over his own actions anymore.
• Walk on Water: The first section of Mercury Lighthouse involves reaching and activating a statue that lets you hop on water.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: During the Inevitable Tournament, dying in battle makes you wake up in the infirmary, surrounded by your friends, who will then inform you that you were just dreaming. Then you have to restart the tournament from the beginning. And if you win... you wake up in the infirmary, surrounded by your friends, who will then inform you that you won.
• A Way Out of a Cave-In: The Mogall Forest is a maze with multiple-door Wrap Around areas that can be cleared by trial and error or by acquiring the (optional) Force Orb: On entering the forest, an ape jumps into a hollow stump. Hitting the stump causes the ape to jump out and run away, identifying which exit is the correct one. This is repeated several times throughout the forest, until the final stump where the dungeon boss (a gigantic ape) is hiding.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Whatever you choose to answer when asked to hand over the Elemental Stars in Sol Sanctum, either Garet (who wants to Always Save the Girl) or Kraden (who is in the Hostage Situation but tells you to forget about him) is going to call you out about it. Garet even kicks you.
• When Trees Attack: Tret, a talking tree that has been given a violent split personality, is one of the earliest boss battles.
• You Said You Would Let Them Go: Played with at the end of the game, where the party trades the Shaman's Rod to Saturos for his hostage, Sheba, only to be tricked by crafty wording. (To be fair, Saturos only said he wouldn't hurt Sheba; her release was never mentioned.) Subverted with Jenna and Kraden at the beginning of the game, as Isaac and Garet are unable to hand over the Mars Star before Saturos and Menardi's party is forced to flee with the hostages.

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