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Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is a 2010 Eastern RPG developed by Camelot Software Planning for the Nintendo DS, a sequel to the Golden Sun duology that was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2001 and 2003. It was announced at Nintendo's E3 2009 conference as Golden Sun DS, then promptly disappeared off the radar for a year before resurfacing at next year's E3 as with the Dark Dawn subtitle and was confirmed for a release near the end of 2010.

A true sequel to the previous games (as opposed to the second half of the story), Dark Dawn takes place thirty years after the end of The Lost Age and the rise of the titular Golden Sun caused massive changes throughout the world. It stars Isaac's extremely-similar-looking son Matthew as he and his friends are sent on a journey to obtain the feather of a roc in order to fix a device that Matthew's friend Tyrell broke. As is typical of Eastern RPGs, the stakes get exponentially higher and soon Matthew and his friends are caught up in a new struggle to save Weyard once again.

For a list of characters in the game, refer to the original character sheet which has Dark Dawn characters too.


Dark Dawn contains examples of:

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    Tropes A-M 
  • Accidental Misnaming: "GRAMPS?! I'm an elder of Passaj! Call me that... or by my name, Bogho! Anything else is disrespectful!"
  • Actually, That's My Assistant: In the GBA games the Cybele summon is a seed-spitting frog. In Dark Dawn Cybele appears to be a woman in lush fields, the aforementioned frog being her pet or underling.
  • Aerith and Bob: The party members, as long as your frame of reference is the English language. We have Karis, Tyrell, Rief, Himi, Eoleo, Amiti, Sveta... and Matthew. Which one of those things is not like the others?
  • Age Without Youth:
    • Kraden is immortal due to the Golden Sun, but he still has a 70 year old's body. It's noted at least three times, twice in one conversation, that this sucks.
    • Perhaps not completely immortal; Isaac and Garet both look like they're in their late twenties compared to their appearance prior to the Golden Sun, and Ivan claims to have aged a little over the thirty years... though since he was fourteen or fifteen when Mars Lighthouse was lit, Karis must look almost as old as he does.
    • An NPC describes Piers as having aged only ten years out of thirty. So Ivan would probably appear to be in his early twenties; still older than Karis but young enough to look more like her brother than her father. Kraden, on the other hand, is repeatedly stated to have stopped aging completely.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Wise One is revealed to be a creation of the precursor to prevent Alchemy's release, so it allowing the Warriors of Vale, after a test of character, to light the final beacon makes him an example, thankfully of the "on the heroes side" subtype.
  • Alliterative Name:
    • Patcher's Place and Carver's Camp, which are settlements founded by refugees from Vale after the events of The Lost Age.
    • Champa Camp.
  • Alliterative Title: The title itself, Dark Dawn.
  • All Just a Dream: Played with at the end of the Phantasmal Bog. Also, the happy, peaceful Border Town.
  • Almighty Janitor: The encyclopedia states that if not for Meisa, the royal court of Kaocho would never get anything done. Meisa appears to be a mere scribe otherwise.
  • Always Save the Girl: If you try and save Eoleo first before Hou Ju while in Belinsk Castle, one of the maids, and then Ryu Kou, will force you to do this.
  • Amazing Technicolor Population:
    • Blados of Tuaparang has ashen skin and green hair.
    • The beastfolk come in a pretty variety of colors. In the Belinsk band alone, there's a bubblegum-pink Cat Girl pianist and a teal-green fox on violin.
  • Amphibian at Large: Sludge, a gigantic salamander-like creature living under Kolima who tries to drown the party as they explore the dungeon.
  • Anime Hair: As usual for the series, if you see Anime Hair, you're probably looking at an Adept.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: Unlike the previous games, the characters' main puzzle-solving psynergies (Growth, Fireball, Whirlwind and Douse) are always available regardless of their class, negating the need for setting and shuffling around Djinn that was present in those games.
  • Anyone Can Die: Quite a Mood Whiplash around the time of the Grave Eclipse.
  • Apocalyptic Log: Sveta's Psynergy lets you communicate with the souls of the deceased, who will talk about their last moments of life before The End of the World as We Know It. Most of them are annoyed at worst by the circumstances of their demise. A few are amused or even find the thought of being a ghost kind of cool.
  • Art Shift: Read the books, and see the Warriors of Vale in super deformed form release the Golden Sun event.
  • Assist Character: In the prologue of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, Isaac and Garet join the party and help out (although they are unplayable).
  • Badass Arm-Fold: Thor, while skysurfing his hammer. What?
  • Badass Longcoat: Isaac now wears one.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill:
    • To get into Kaocho Palace, you tell the guards that you're the Adepts the king was expecting. You are, you just didn't know that at the time.
    • Likewise, to get the generals out of the way so you can get into Ayuthay, you give them a note from the king, saying that he'd hired some Adepts to help sack the place. Subverted; the people of Ayuthay overhear this encounter and are understandably upset when you get into their sanctuary.
  • Beast Man: A race that evolved as a result of Alchemy's return, and have developed a nation of their own by chasing the locals out. Sveta, a party member, is one of them (and noted as the first playable nonhuman in the series). It is a bit of Continuity Nod when you think about The Lost Age's village of Garoh... Interestingly, beastmen arose not just by humans turning half-animal but animals turning half-human, so it also straddles the line between this and Funny Animal. One character mentions that "ever since [she] started walking upright and wearing clothes, [she's] lost her taste for raw meat... mostly."
  • BFS:
    • Isaac wields one during the game's tutorial dungeon.
    • Blados, though his is more notable for its length than its girth.To make note of just how long it is, his battle stance has it start from the end of his right arm to the end of his left leg. His sword is literally longer than he is tall. Keep in mind that this guy is already tall for the average character you see in the series (perhaps the tallest, but it's not easily measured). Sephiroth would be proud.
    • Many swords also qualify, especially the Sol Blade, which is a golden BFS which periodically explodes with fire, calls meteors, and opens doors.
    • The Chaos Chimera wields Blados's and Dullahan has a rather large blade too. The Lizard monsters get progressively larger ones, until the sword is the same size as its body.
    • Also, the Ragnarok and Odyssey Psynergies.
  • Bishie Sparkle: Briefly appears when you first talk to a certain old lady in Kolima.
  • Black Comedy:
  • Blessed with Suck:
    • Kraden ages very slowly thanks to the Golden Sun. Except he already is a fragile old geezer.
    • In The Lost Age, a major reason Champa had to sustain itself with piracy was because the land wasn't fertile enough to grow crops. After the Golden Sun appeared, the soil became fertile, but after so much time with barren land, nobody there knew how to make use of it, so the country still relied on piracy.
  • Block Puzzle: A few of these. Most are avoidable for bonus items, but there are a couple of mandatory ones.
  • Bonus Dungeon: The Lost Ship and Otka Island. Also, Crossbone Isle is back.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: Great Dragons in Crossbone Isle.
  • Bragging Rights Reward: Like The Lost Age, the optional summons have nothing to be used against. It is worse here, as the final boss must be defeated at least once to get the last two tablets, meaning even it isn't a useful thing to use it on).
  • Brainwashed and Crazy:
    • The superboss Ancient Devil will do this to one of your party members in battle.
    • Volechek, altough he nearly snaps out of it first.
  • Brick Joke:
  • Broken Bridge: So many. You're going to take MUCH longer getting to Kraden than you expected. Ironically, the one literal broken bridge is never repaired.
  • Brutal Bonus Level: The easiest game in the series has the most grueling Bonus Dungeon in the series. Every mook monster in Crossbone Isle is easily as difficult as most of the game's bosses (the Great Dragons even more so), and the actual Superboss is a souped-up Dullahan. As if to compensate, the puzzles in the dungeon are rather easy; they all entirely rely on the Move Psynergy, the most basic Utility Psynergy in the game that you've been using since the very beginning (though the Move puzzles are a little more complicated than what you've been used to throughout the game).
  • The Brute: Compared to the other Superbosses, the Ogre Titans are very straightforward. They don't have any special techniques like mind control or stealing your summons, but they do have a lot of bulknote , a Healing Factor, an area of effect axe swing, and friends: there are five of them in total.
  • Buffy Speak: The Djinni Pewter.
    Pewter: So, that ought to help with your quest thingy, right?
  • Burial at Sea: Briggs. Eoleo states it's what he would have wanted.
  • But Thou Must!:
    • In the same vein as the previous games' Yes/No questions, Matthew occasionally has the option of expressing which emotion he's feeling — happy, thrilled, sad, or angry. Like the Yes/No questions, though, they only change the next few lines of dialogue at the most.
    • Lampshaded while starting a rather bizarre quest in Kolima. When one of the party members asks how they got into that situation, the answer is, of course, "Matthew can be talked into anything, that's how."
    • Arguably justified; Isaac had a bit of Chronic Hero Syndrome in the first games, and clearly brought up Matthew to share his sense of responsibility.
    • Another hilarious example would be when entering Belinsk Castle to rescue Hou Ju and Eoleo. If you attempt to rescue Eoleo first, a random NPC will stop you and question whether or not it's customary to rescue the princess first in your culture. She will let you proceed if you answer in the negative. Then, right up the stairs, Ryu Kou stops you for the same reason. Even if you press on, he will claim that he "can't stop you" but continues to block your path every time you try to proceed.
  • Call-Back
    • The game's second dungeon is a Psynergy training ground with fake lighthouses at the end of each section where you set pictures of Saturos, Menardi, Agatio, and Karst on fire, and a wooden, mechanical Doom Dragon as the boss of the whole thing. However, the plot suffers in the retelling.
    • Some puzzles are very similar to the original ones (a pipe connecting one in the Mercury Lighthouse analogue, for example).
    • Four of the summons are redesigned to look like the statues on the top of the elemental lighthouses; Coatlicue for Mercury, Cybele for Venus, Atalanta for Jupiter and Tiamat for Mars.
    • The page image is probably one to this official art from the first game. Interestingly enough the short smart guy from both teams are nowhere to be seen in both images.
    • Like his mother in the first game, Isaac does not see Matthew off when he leaves to start his journey.
  • Canon Immigrant: Crystallux appeared in a commercial for the first Golden Sun. You can actually summon it this time around.
  • Casting a Shadow: The Psy Grenades that Tuaparang mooks use go off with this effect, to say nothing of the Grave Eclipse monsters unleashed half-way through the game. In fact, it turns out that Tuaparang is part of an "Umbra Clan", whose Adepts use a new type of darkness Psynergy.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: The game gets very dark (pun intended) after the Grave Eclipse.
  • Chaos Architecture: Justified by World Sundering (most places you visit are entirely new), averted when you visit Kolima which changed location but is still completely recognizable, but played straight in Kolima Forest and lampshaded as one NPC stating it's become even more confusing than before, somehow. Champa has a good deal of similarity with itself in The Lost Age (especially the cave portions), but it has some strange inaccuracies.
  • Chekhov's Gun
    • The Psynergy Vortexes disappear from the plot about two hours in... only to reappear just in time for The Stinger. Perceptive players might see it coming if they talk to a certain NPC in Yamata, who mentions Himi keeps having visions of someone named "Isaac" in terrible danger.
    • The Alchemy Forge and Alchemy Well. At first you're only fiddling with them so that the Forge can make you a way across the mountains to the north. Then, after the Grave Eclipse, it turns out that they're the power source for the Apollo Lens, the only thing that can stop the eclipse.
    • When you explore the Tanglewood, Isaac explains that the corrupted trees are creatures of shadow who shun light and heat. This makes Fireball the perfect weapon to use on them. The bit about creatures of darkness avoiding light comes back in a big way after the Grave Eclipse, and The Apollo Lens is basically your old Fireball strategy on an unbelievably grand scale.
  • The Chessmaster: Alex is definitely one of these. To make things worse, his ultimate plan remains a total mystery — as soon as he causes the Grave Eclipse, he apparently decides to help you stop it in his typical behind-the-scenes fashion, completely backstabbing the Tuaparang.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Actually subverted throughout the series. While Alex is The Chessmaster working to manipulate everyone to his own ends, he never actually uses force against the protagonists or antagonists until the very end of Dark Dawn. He more changes his mind on who to help.
  • Cliffhanger: Matthew, Karis, and Tyrell return home after destroying the Grave Eclipse only to find that an enormous Psynergy Vortex is hanging over Goma Plateau. Suffice it to say we're all back to hoping endlessly for another sequel.
  • Commonplace Rare: Blados and Chalis' first bossfight yields a Spark Shuriken and Illusion Perfume, which are standard consumable items... but those are the only ones you'll ever see in the game.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Lots, including several Brick Jokes. Remember how someone once thought Isaac and his friends were muscular, bearded warriors? It happened (at least for Isaac and Garet).
    • Remember the baby pirate, the mute monk, the girl you rescued as a tree, the Sun/Moon symbols in Sol Sanctum, Kraden's offhand reference to the Philosopher's Stone, the werewolves, the dancing doll, the talking trees, and a girl you helped promising to have a son who would help you? They're all plot points in Dark Dawn.
    • Remember how excited Garet was to see the ocean in the first game, only to be told that the Karagol Sea is landlocked? According to Dark Dawn's map, the Karagol is now part of the Eastern Sea.
  • Crapsaccharine World:
    • In the thirty years since the first two games, the landscape of the world has transformed drastically, the friendly gimmicky mayors have become kings and emperors bent on conquest, and your buddies in Champa are still being driven to piracy for a living. Morgal in particular is a bright, cheery kingdom where peace is maintained by boiling people alive. And then it gets worse.
    • Talking with NPCs and filling out the encyclopedia reveals that the so-called Golden Age of Man was not as golden if you were a non-Adept or a beastman.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Volechek's plan of execution of two prisoners is by boiling them alive in front of the whole city as part of the town festival. Avoided when the party prevents this from happening.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Sveta's a mind-reading Adept who feels A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read. She's a beastman who laments being the subject of Fantastic Racism, never mind the turning into a wolf and punching the shit out of just about everything. And she's the princess of Morgal, and thus involved in the manipulations of Tuaparang to bring about the Grave Eclipse, for which she feels responsible.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Among other changes, the settings and saving are now part of the same menu as all other menus, you no longer need to hold down B to run, and the menus went from the A to the X button. Especially annoying if you were used to playing the first two on a DS.
  • Darker and Edgier: In the original games Weyard was largely at peace, and the only characters who tended to kick the bucket were the villains. Now Angara, and very likely the other continents of Weyard, is full of budding countries who frequently war with each other, and once the Grave Eclipse is activated, townspeople start dropping like flies in the face of an overwhelming monster horde, with even a few named characters both good and bad getting Killed Off for Real.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Just about everyone. Even Matthew, depending on how you play the emotional responses.
  • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: You can acquire Water of Life as early as Patcher's Place if you're willing to grind the necessary cash to buy one or repeat the Psynergy Training Grounds after getting the Gate Pass. Certain Djinn are capable of reviving party members, and can be acquired early in the game (starting with Jolt in Konpa Ruins). Any settlement larger than a single house probably has a sanctum and a Great Healer nearby. And starting around Level 17-19, several advanced character classes can use Revive Psynergy.
  • Death Mountain: Talon Peak, atop which you finally get that damn roc feather which was the whole point of your quest to begin with. And the Apollo Ascent, the Final Dungeon where the Apollo Lens is just begging to be fired.
  • Defrosting Ice King: Ryu Kou comes off as very aggressive, a Jerkass, and is suspicious of your party's ambitions the several times they meet and he willingly activates the Lunar Tower to save his sister even after the party pleads with him not to do it. He does mellow out a lot near the end of the game and eventually thanks Matthew for all the help he gave him and his sister.
  • Defeat Means Friendship:
    • Some Djinn need to be defeated in combat before they join. I suppose friendship is optional for that, though.
    • The Sand Prince Gem actually requests that you prove your strength before it will grant you its power, though it seems pretty eager to do so anyway.
  • Demonic Possession: The Ancient Devil boss' gimmick is that it can possess the fastest team member and make it fight on its side (including summons, and including Djinn not set on them). Fortunately, it's relatively easy to Attack! Attack! Attack! the boss and not the possessee, who tends to waste turns by using healing items or spells that heal nowhere near the damage you're doing.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • Just as in the first two games, Camelot prepares for every possible contingency and every possible action that the player will take, and accounts for it in one way or another.
    • Although, there are a few noticeable holes when it comes to supplying alternative conversations after Sequence Breaking, something the first two games were very good at. The conversations in Tonfon, if you find Hou Ju and Ryu Kou before ever going there, come to mind. Also, if you go to Kaocho before Passaj, your party will have no idea what the Ouroboros is despite just having escaped from there.
    • All of the Kaocho soldiers milling around Ayuthay have the option of being shown King Wo's Letter, and they all react differently. All of the people in Passaj react to the Sol Mask if you have it in your inventory, you don't have to show it to them.
    • Averted in Port Rago. Using the Endless Wall glitch or a walk through walls code to return to Port Rago after triggering the Grave Eclipse reveals Briggs alive and well in spite of his Heroic Sacrifice in Belinsk, since you're not supposed to be able to return there after his death. Furthermore, the sun will still be shining in Port Rago, Te Rya Village, Kolima, Border Town, etc., despite the fact that they're all quite close to Belinsk, the source of the Grave Eclipse. Only Belinsk itself will be properly changed if you go back there, but you won't be able to explore more than a few steps in since the game required you to not be able to leave the town via land the last time you were there and as such there's an Insurmountable Waist-High Fence just a few steps away from the entrance to the world map.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: You bitchslap a bird god in the wattle, twice. And then kick his ass and take a short walk through his insides. Though to be fair, kicking its ass was only made necessary by Blados and Chalis, who had them sticking around longer than they needed to.
  • Disappeared Dad:
    • Amiti's father left before he was born. The game all but spells out that it's Alex.
    • Mia's husband is never identified, making this the case for Rief and Nowell.
  • Distracted by the Sexy:
    • Implied with the Sana Dress, wearing it lowers the enemies' attack stat.
    • Chalis calls the protagonists for this.
  • Divergent Character Evolution: Djinn of the same element used to have the exact same designs in the GBA titles. Here they are differentiated further to incorporate motifs tied to their Japanese names while four djinn retained their original designs.
  • Dual Boss: Versus the Kaocho generals Ku-Tsung and Ku-Embra. Also, the battles with Blados and Chalis.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?:
    • Many of the Muggles do not appreciate the efforts of the original heroes at unsealing Alchemy thanks to the World Sundering that occurred in the meantime.
    • See also Call-Back. The world could not have been saved without the Proxian quartet. Rather than being respected at least by the people who knew they were Good All Along, their likenesses are used for target practice. Then again, set off a trap that causes a boulder to crush the local village, assault the locals, kidnap a famous sage and another local, and then proceed to make enemies out of everyone you come across in your trek across the globe and see how they remember you thirty years later. In fact, the Proxians are not even named in the entire game. The Sun Saga books barely make note of them when telling of the Venus and Jupiter Lighthouses, and don't even mention the fight with Saturos on top of Mercury Lighthouse, instead focusing on Alex, which is... not how the player likely remembers it.
    • Also applicable for Felix. When the Golden Sun is seen as a bad thing, Felix is blamed, while the encyclopedia entries and signs you find make Isaac a more important figure, with Felix leading a second party which 'joined up with Isaac's', which probably isn't how Agatio, Karst or even Isaac would have viewed it. For that matter, Sheba isn't mentioned at all except in the Sun Sagas.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: In a Freeze-Frame Bonus, the Tuaparang airship shows up in the intro before you ever get control of anything. It doesn't show up again until you've started activating the Apollo Lens.
  • Early Game Hell: The part of the game where you face the Tuaparang soldiers for the first time. They can stun you and throw Psy Grenades at the point where Psynergy is still the best offense method and you only have three player characters in your party. This is probably a Call-Back to Briggs' party in The Lost Age, non-Adepts for bosses are huge threats especially in the early parts of the game.
  • Early Installment Character-Design Difference: If the first promotional art (the page image) is of any indication. Matthew looks a little bit younger, Karis has blue hair and looks like Mia while Tyrell looks too old. The designers are probably still working on the designs, and this shows later on with the updated concept art for those three.
  • Elemental Tiers: Carried over from the previous games, the strongest weapon is Venus-aligned and the strongest summon is Mars-aligned (though it is impractical) but subverted because the majority of the enemies are weak against Jupiter and resists Venus, including the Superboss. This makes Venus ironically the weakest element overall despite its versatility.
  • Element No. 5: The big twist at the end of the game is that there is a tribe of adepts controlling a fifth element, Darkness. This setting's element system being based on balance, the party then awakens the sixth element, Light.
  • Emoticon: Like the games before it, Dark Dawn uses emoticons to express a character's feelings and some scenes have characters communicate with only emoticons for several seconds! You can make Matthew express his feelings when the scene calls for it, but like with most of the Yes/No questions, it doesn't change anything other than how people react to him in that scene.
  • The Empire: Under Emperor Ko's rule, Sana was this. After Unan became emperor, Sana ceased being this, but Wo founded Kaocho with the intent of continuing Ko's work. Due to Kaocho's intent on ruling all of the Ei-Jei region, it ended up being this (despite not literally referring to itself as an empire due to its monarch having the title of king, which interestingly contrasts with the literal empire ceasing to be an example of this trope) when Matthew and friends visited the region. Of course, when the Grave Eclipse occurs, it gets hit the hardest out of all the other parts of Ei-Jei (since Passaj and Ayuthay were protected by their Alchemy machines, Harapa is bright enough 24/7 that it repels the darkness-dwelling creatures, and Champa and Sana had parts of the country outside the eclipse, while Kaocho had none of those traits, and what little army they did have was neither home nor sheltered), so it's unlikely that it will have this role if there's a sequel.
  • "End Is Nigh" Ending: The game ends with the biggest Psynergy vortex ever seen ready to engulf Matthew's house.
  • Enigmatic Minion: Alex was one in the first two games, and he keeps his title here. It isn't until his last appearance that the characters realize it's all according to his plan anyway.
  • Failed a Spot Check:
    • During the Grave Eclipse at Belinsk, you can wake up a sleeping old couple upstairs in one of the houses. One of them heads downstairs, you hear an Offscreen Crash and a scream, and the old man comes back unharmed muttering about spilling his tea. He goes right back to sleep amid the screams of his city being ravaged by terrifying monsters from the abyss. Hey, it nets you a Djinni...
    • If you've triggered the Eclipse, you've also added Eoleo to your party. An internationally-renowned violent criminal who's supposed to be facing a horrible death before morning. No comment. In fact, all of Weyard pretty much misses or ignores Eoleo unless you're in Champa. Have you figured out the secret of Weirdness Censor Psynergy, Eoleo?
  • Fainting Seer:
    • You can visit a pair of fortune-telling sisters and have them read your future. One of them goes into a screaming fit and collapses upon seeing a vision of the party bringing disaster upon the world, and can't even bear to look at you afterward. Try not to feel awkward when you revisit her home town after the Grave Eclipse.
    • Himi is first seen in a coma, apparently from a Poke in the Third Eye (metaphorical) when the Grave Eclipse began. An artifact called the Third Eye wakes her and enables her to control her clairvoyant powers. An NPC mentions that Himi's symptoms had been seen before— Lady Uzume died from the same problem shortly after evacuating the people of Izumo from that island to Nihan when the former was destroyed.
  • Fantastic Drug: Dream Leaf. Not only does your party trip on some (twice, if you want the Haures summon), you have to save the tree it's harvested from.
  • Fantastic Racism: With humans and the beastmen, though the human population of the beastmen's homeland of Morgal tends to tolerate beastmen better than the humans elsewhere (with Saha Town being populated by both and having a statue commemorating the unity of Morgal's humans and beastmen). However, a version of this combined with regular racism still occurs within Morgal towards humans who are ethnically Sanan due to the conflict with Sana in the (recent) past, with this pretty much being the reason for the imprisonment of a member of Sana's nobility (as opposed to how the son of the closest thing Champa has to a ruler was imprisoned for crimes committed in Morgal's territory; specifically, piracy).
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
    • Angara's role as Weyard's equivalent of Eurasia is more obvious than it was in the previous games; for example the eastern part is known as Ei-Jei, which sounds similar to Asia and contains Sana (equivalent to China, to the point where the China Dress from the first game is now named Sanan Dress), Champa (named after an ancient Vietnamese kingdom), and Ayuthay (based on Siamese kingdom Ayutthaya). Nihan is east of Angara and isn't even trying to sound different from Nihon (the Japanese name for, well, Japan). In addition, Kolima's new position on the world map makes it easier to make the connection with the Real Life Kolyma region of Russia, which is in the northeasternmost part of Siberia. Between the architecture, clothing influences, Sanan imperial occupation, and Volechek being based on Borte Chino, an ancestor of Genghis Khan (he's explicitly named after Chino in the Japanese localization), Morgal appears to be a mixed-basket analogue of Russia, Tibet and Mongolia.
    • Port Rago appears to be an exception... but only in English, the Japanese name is a take on (the Japanese name for) Vladivostok.
  • Fantasy Keepsake: A Guide Dang It! moment where a town with strict border control is only accessible via a dream of when it was still open, allowing you to pick up an otherwise Permanently Missable Djinn.
  • Fetch Quest: Matthew's first ever quest is simple: Go to Morgal and get a feather from the Mountain Roc. Then it gets derailed. Hard.
  • Food Porn: Just like in the first two games, you can check out the stoves and see what's for dinner. Complete with commentary on more exotic fare, such as a plate of sashimi in Yamatai. This actually adds another layer of Player Punch to the Grave Eclipse, when most of the ovens of trashed-out homes are covered in filth and described along the lines of "it doesn't look like it will cook much again."
  • Forced Tutorial: The first two or three hours of the game, easily, and all of it unskippable. Tutorials for moving around, tutorials for using equipment, tutorials for using Psynergy, and Flint offers you the option of skipping the Djinn tutorial only to take it back when you try to take it. And then, when you finally think you're done with tutorials? Patcher's Place has a tutorial for buying equipment. That's right, this game has to teach you how to go shopping.
  • Foreshadowing: Through two-plus games, the only time it's ever been "nighttime" is in the first game's prologue and in at least one particular town in each game (Lunpa in the first and Garoh and Lemuria in the second; all are somewhat justified as the first is a town of thieves and you're essentially trying to break someone out of a prison, the second is a town of werewolves, and the last is hidden inside a giant fog bank and essentially exists outside of the realm of time), so night falling while you're battling the Ice Queen in Harapa seems a bit random, especially since nothing happens when you're forced to stay the night due to Harapa's defense system walling off the city when it's dark out. Harapa is located within the radius of the Grave Eclipse. That defense system itself is the significant event—you can't get into the city when you return there (though there's an item outside the walls that you can't get until after returning during the Grave Eclipse), but presumably the city's residents were spared the fate of most other cities within the Grave Eclipse's radius.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: If observed carefully three summons have their swords modeled similarly to the Infinity Minus One Swords of the GBA games; Judgment wields a sword that looks like Gaia Blade's unleash, one of Megaera's swords resemble the Tisiphone Edge while Catastrophe carries Excalibur on his giant left claw.
  • Fusion Dance: The final boss is the fusion of Chalis, Blados, and Volechek. Not too surprising since Camelot pulled the exact same shtick in the first two games, although they don't fuse into a dragon into this time. Blados and Chalis weren't even expecting to get pulled into the Chaos Chimera—it was supposed to be just a bunch of fell spirits under their command.
  • Future Badass: Eoleo, Briggs' infant son from The Lost Age, is now a mighty pirate, who is older (30 years on top of whatever he was in The Lost Age) than any non-Piers party member so far. Isaac has joined the fun as well, boasting both a beard and a Badass Longcoat.
  • Generation Xerox: A young blond Earth Adept with a yellow scarf, his Hot-Blooded and redheaded Fire Adept friend, a short tempered Wind Adept, and a blue-robed Water Adept go on a journey to save the world...and they're the children of the heroes who exactly fit those descriptions previously...although Garet was supposed to be and finally is a brunet.
  • Giant Hands of Doom: The giant disembodied Psynergy hands used to manipulate field obstacles can now be used to attack enemies in battle.
  • Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: This is how the battle with Saturos and Menardi atop Venus Lighthouse is portrayed in the Sun Saga books, as they portray Felix and Alex as the primary antagonists of the original game, despite the fact that it was the other way around in actuality.
  • Girlish Pigtails: Nowell, Sveta, and Himi all have pairs, along with little-girl NPCs in most towns. Hou Ju's Odango Hair might also qualify.
  • A God Am I: The Wise One has godlike power — as confirmed by it encyclopaedia entry — but it's not actually a god as it is a construct created by the ancients called a "Philosopher's Stone". This raises some very interesting ideas about just how powerful the ancients actually were.
  • Gone Horribly Right: The Eclipse Tower was designed to absorb light as a new Alchemical power source. It did its job very well... to the point that it drained away so much light that the severely light-phobic inhabitants of the netherworld saw a prime opportunity to invade Weyard. The Jenei, at least, didn't realize until activation that the Tower was too effective. The Tuaparang, however, restored it because for them, the flaw was the main attraction.
  • Go Out with a Smile: Volechek dies smiling as he sacrifices himself to save his sister and the world.
  • Graphics-Induced Super-Deformed: Matthew and the rest of the party look very chibi-esque while on the overworld screen, which make them appear to be 12 or 13 instead of 16 years old. In a battle scene however, the party is rendered in more polygons and details, resembling their artwork designs more closely.
  • Guest-Star Party Member: Isaac and Garet in the game's opening tutorial dungeon, controlled by the AI.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • In addition to some things capable of being Permanently Missable, there's no way of knowing to get the very well-hidden Venus Djinni Brick in Harapa before leaving on the cloud (all the more annoying as it is the only thing lost forever at this point, so it gets left out of lists of Point of No Return), how to get the Venus Djinni at Passaj after the Grave Eclipse, or how to navigate the maze at Otka without consulting a guide first.
    • The encyclopedia entry for the Dream Leaf can only be obtained by talking to one of the villagers after defeating the monster that's afflicting the Dream Tree but before you use Hermes's Water on the tree.
    • As usual, Djinn are scattered around the world map for you to discover. Good luck.
    • The one that takes the cake is Haures' summon tablet. You have a very small window of time to obtain before it's Lost Forever, and the way to get it is not intuitive in any way. At least a lady at an inn will mention what to do for that one, but it's still the worst offender of the bunch.
    • Anyone who says they found the Djinni Ivy without a guide is a liar. You have to double back to Passaj when there is no plot reason to do so, grab a random item and use it on a seemingly unimportant NPC, watch a cutscene, talk to another seemingly unimportant NPC twice, and inspect a seemingly unimportant piece of the environment.
  • Hair Color Spoiler: Blados and Chalis turn out to be Adepts, but Amiti takes the cake for having basically his entire subplot given away by the fact that he's a blue-haired Adept in an area otherwise exclusive to brown- and black-haired non-Adepts. And he turns out to be the son of the only other character with that shade of blue. Who'd have thunk it?
  • Healing Winds: The Jupiter Adepts (wind/electricity users) now have a minor healing spell line called Fresh Breeze, which is the weakest in the game but heals everybody and doesn't require Djinn to use.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: In Belinsk, after the Apollo Lens goes off, an NPC claims to have gained the power to calculate compound interest.
    "It's remarkably handy, actually."
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Alex can seem this at times, often working with and against the heroes at the same time, throughout the entire series. However, this is more then likely just the fallout from being an amazing example of the Hidden Agenda Villain and/or The Chessmaster.
  • Heroic Mime: Matthew. The closest thing he has to a line of dialogue is Q*Bert-style Symbol Swearing, and even that only in the American translation. This also doubles as a Funny Moment.
    • The game allows the player to convey the emotion that Matthew feels at certain points — happy, thrilled, sad, or angry — in the vein of the original games' nigh-endless (and equally superficial) Yes/No questions.
    • Also lampshaded when Tret asks for Matthew's name and Karis has to answer for him.
    • And played with again when Sveta loses control of her Psynergy. Kraden screams her name out to snap her out of it while Matthew just screams "!!" at her.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Three of them, no less, and all having some connection with the Grave Eclipse.
    • Briggs keeps his ship docked despite the Eclipse to get his son out. Eoleo, and the party, are saved at the cost of Briggs' life.
    • Hou Zan, Hou Ju, and Ryu Kou make their way to an iceberg outpost — unintentionally — and wind up stranded on the rocks. Hou Zan, the elder of the trio, staves off the demons for a time, but ultimately pays with his life.
    • With the Chaos Chimera destroyed, the Apollo Cannon is ready to overload Eclipse Tower. Matthew is knocked down multiple times by searing light, and Sveta prepares to sacrifice herself to do the deed, seeing as she's the only one with any protection from all that light. The game also implies that Matthew, who was lending her his strength, might very well have died as well. But Volechek, in his corrupted state, knocks her down and fires the cannon, dying in her (and possibly Matthew's) place. It was stated that the end of the Grave Eclipse was going to be his end anyway, as a result of his transfiguration.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Isaac and Garet. They live in their own cabin away from any settlements, their wives are nowhere to be found, they raised their sons together, and they spend the entire opening sequence acting Like an Old Married Couple.
  • Identical Grandson:
    • Matthew and Tyrell look nearly identical to their fathers, Isaac and Garet. They even behave as such, to the chagrin of Garet, who's mellowed out with age. In Garet's defense, Tyrell has managed to be even more boneheaded and quick-tempered than he ever was.
    • Subverted with Amiti, who dresses and acts quite differently, but is still mistaken for... someone with a mask... by an NPC in Tonfon Palace.
  • I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: In-Universe with Kraden, who reveals that the old name of Luna Tower is Eclipse Tower... and its other name, "the hungering place".
  • Improbable Infant Survival: Subverted after the Grave Eclipse starts up, one of the (offscreen) victims is the kid in Harapa who tried to use Psynergy, and one NPC in Belinsk can't find her kids... Played straight in Kaocho, where... conversing... with NPCs reveals they managed to get the kids inside the palace before shutting the door.
  • Infinity -1 Sword
    • The Levatine is the fifth strongest longsword in the game in terms of base attack power, but the changes to the unleash system have made it second only to the Sol Blade. The Levatine is one of the few weapons to have the Centurion unleash, which increases damage by one hundred-forty percent. Because the Levatine only has three unleashes, Centurion has a thirty-three percent chance to activate; to compare, the Excalibur has four unleashes, and the Legend unleash itself only has a sixty percent chance to triple the damage, leaving the total chance of tripling damage at fifteen percent. Levatine's other two unleashes are also respectable, one increasing damage by forty percent and the other hitting multiple enemies while possibly ignoring half their defense stat. Since Matthew will have the Sol Blade, this makes the Levatine ideal for Tyrell.
    • The Verdant Sword is the second strongest light blade, but not only can it be obtained prior to the final battle unlike the Tisiphone Edge, its damage is directly boosted by the wielder's Jupiter power, which Karis has plenty of. With the right equipment set-up, Karis can double the Verdant Sword's damage output before unleashes are factored in.
    • Clotho's Distaff is the third strongest staff in the game, but a one-in-three chance of restoring the user's PP that runs off the user's Mercury power when an unleash activates makes it a good choice for Rief, who isn't meant to be dealing physical damage anyway.
    • The Masamune is the third strongest light blade, but its iconic Rising Dragon unleash synergizes well with Amiti's high Mercury power in addition to having a one-in-three chance to activate. Its other two unleashes are also respectable, making it a reliable option since the only weapon with an even stronger water-elemental unleash is only available after the final boss is defeated.
  • Innocent Innuendo:
    • Mundane items no longer have their names capitalized. Fandom had already jumped on "(x) got a Hard Nut! (x) gave a Hard Nut to (y)" in previous games, so removing the capital letters made such innuendos even more hilarious ((x) got 2 nuts).
    • Additionally, "Karis mastered the (staff weapon)" has become something of a meme.
  • Innocuously Important Episode:
    • Tanglewood Forest. That stuff Isaac's saying about dispelling dark energies with light? Yeah, that'll be on the final exam.
    • Harapa, too. After getting the item you need, it's suddenly nighttime and you're forced to stay overnight because the city has a barrier that automatically goes up when it's dark out. Which is quite useful when half the world is covered in a supernatural eclipse within which deadly shadow monsters roam freely.
  • Inn Security: Subverted at one point, where you're trapped in a city because of a barrier that automatically comes up at night. Anybody who has ever been in this situation KNOWS that something bad is going to happen. It doesn't, and the stay at the inn lowers the barrier the next morning, wherein you can leave without incident. It's actually foreshadowing the Grave Eclipse; you can return to the city while it's active and the barrier will be keeping you out.
  • Irony: Tyrell complains to Paithos about the common perception of Adepts being control freaks who run everything behind the scenes. Three guesses how the bad guys operate.
  • Item Crafting: It works the same as in The Lost Age: give the smith your materials, leave town, come back for a randomly-crafted item, lather rinse repeat. Luckily, unlike in The Lost Age, Obaba doesn't charge you money for the items. However, there's now only four materials that can be used.
  • Jerkass: Ryu Kou, initially. The Djinni Pewter may also count, although this is more due to its way of speaking, very casual and heavy on the insults.
  • Keep It Foreign: Sveta's name in Japan was Stella, which is reminiscent of Tina becoming Terra in Final Fantasy VI.
  • Killed Off for Real: Briggs, the leader of Champa, in bringing his ship in to save his son in Belinsk. And many, many more characters you've met.
  • Lamarck Was Right: Again, Matthew, Karis, Tyrell, and Rief are essentially carbon copies of their fathers and mother in terms of stats, classes, and Psynergy.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: The game begins in a cottage that is overlooking the ruins of Mt. Aleph, where the Golden Sun rose. This happened in the ending of The Lost Age.
  • Leaked Experience: Just as in The Lost Age, non-active party members receive only half as much experience from battles.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
    • Once the Grave Eclipse activates, Volechek and his soldiers chase some monsters into the Belinsk Opera House. When they reach the theater, horror music starts playing, and the soldiers start commenting on it, saying that the monsters are playing musical instruments behind the curtain on the stage. One even mentions that the monsters are quite good.
    • A NPC outside of the fortune tellers' tent outright tells you, "If the world just happens to fall into a horrific apocalyptic darkness as a direct result of your actions, don't blame yourself. Some things are just fated to happen."
    • In Belinsk Ruins, Karis and Sveta briefly wonder if someone is guiding the party's actions. When Tyrell points out that obviously the villains are, they reply that it seems like someone else is involved, too. This could be alluding to the player, or Foreshadowing that Arcanus is not one of the Tuaparang, as he spells out in his next appearance.
  • Legacy Boss Battle: there are two optional fights against the Star Magician and the Dullahan, two of the strongest Superbosses of the previous game, now even stronger.
  • Light Is Not Good: In Apollo Sanctum, the light at the top of the mountain is so strong that Sveta has to wear the Umbra Gear to keep the party protected from being burned to death before they reach the Apollo Lens. The Apollo Lens focuses light in such a deadly concentration that not even the Umbra Gear provides adequate protection on the firing platform. Someone has to die just to turn the thing on, even if it does dispel the eclipse.
  • Light 'em Up: All four elements can do this to an extent, but besides those one NPC in Belinsk in the epilogue claims to have been given Light-elemental Psynergy powers by the beam from the Apollo Lens.
  • Long Song, Short Scene: At the beginning we have the music that plays in Isaac and Garet's cabin on Goma Plateau, which is a calmer remix of the series's theme song, and shortly after that there's Patcher's Place's music, the latter of which is one of two updated versions of Vale's music from the first game (the other is used for the file select screen and thus can be heard anytime, so it isn't an example). It only plays there and since it doesn't take long to reach the first Point of No Return from there, it can't be heard again without exploiting a glitch or hacking. On the other hand, despite the fact that it plays in a town in the same part of the world as Patcher's Place, Carver's Camp's music gets a better amount of use, though, as players can hear it at any point in the game.*
  • Lost in Translation:
    • The Djinn now all have unique designs, the problem is that a number are punning off their Japanese name. For example, Rescue (English: Breath) looks like a knight's helmet and Kiss (English: Steel) now has a pair of puckered lips. *.
    • Tyrell instantly realizes a connection between Chalis and Blados explicitly because of their names (which is reinforced by using the same mooks). A very easy (and within character) observation to make about the names "Heart" and "Spade," not so blatant or in character with the subtler names based on historical/tarot suits.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Amiti is Alex's son. Nobody explicitly puts two and two together within the game, although more than enough hints are given to the player.
    • First, the player is told that Amiti's father was a powerful Adept, and you can see that his hair is blue, which narrows it down to Piers and Alex. Camelot actually throws a curveball here in saying that the Adept helped them start the Alchemy Well, so most players would jump straight to Piers rather than Evil Genius Alex. However, take into account that Amiti's father disappeared as soon as he came, which is something that Piers is too honorable to ever do, and Paithos mentions that he never actually saw the man's face. So, either he was just very elusive... or he wore a mask, as we've seen Alex doing.
    • Later, upon meeting Laurel and Tret, Tret specifically indicates that Amiti is somehow related to Mia, initially mistaking him for Rief's brother, much to the alarm of both boys. Piers is completely unrelated, but Alex is Mia's cousin. Tret lampshades the possibility of "dark family secrets" at this point.
    • Also, in Tonfon, if you talk to the old man by Emperor Unan's throne after you save Hou Ju and Ryu Kou, he asks the party "Didn't you come by before? Where's your mask?". Alex had just been there. We can assume that the old man is not going senile and is actually confused by a case of Strong Family Resemblance.
    • What, you thought Amiti just had generic anime features? Nope! He's got similar facial structure to Rief, Mia, and Alex. Compare and contrast with the other ethnically diverse characters.
    • Also, if you read Amiti's mind at the very end when you get control of Sveta right after the final battle, it reveals that for some reason Amiti is thinking of Alex and he doesn't know why.
    • There is also a conversation (in the Tonfon palace, IIRC) that seems to imply Kraden and Karis have worked it out, and deliberately don't wish to let the kid know until after everything is resolved. It's never brought up again though.
    • Rief figures it out too. His own relationship to Alex (first cousins once removed) is used as a Red Herring for Amiti's relationship to them, before it turns out that Rief knows exactly who Alex is and hates him for betraying his mother and the rest of the Mercury Clan.
    • A released character chart showing everybody's ancestry verifies the matter.
  • Lumberjack Bridge: A lumberjack thinks he may be able to do this to deal with an impassable chasm.
  • The Man Behind the Man: The High Empyror, Tuaparang's unseen leader. The Tuaparang we see first betray the country and then get Hijacked by Alex.
  • MacGuffin: The Roc Feather, needed to fix the soarwing that Isaac needs to investigate Mt. Aleph. The Insight Glass, ostensibly needed to navigate the Ouroboros Labyrinth, but really just gets Amiti to join your party. The Magma Orb (which activates the Alchemy Dynamo in Belinsk) and the Third Eye (which awakens Himi from her slumber) also fulfill this function as well.
  • MacGuffin Delivery Service: Literally the entire game. Yes, even beating the final boss and activating the Apollo Lens are part of the plan.
  • Magic Skirt: Karis has the "nothing modeled above the thigh" variety (can be seen on the stats screen if wielding a sword/staff).
  • Meaningful Name:
    • "Matthew," the main character's name, means "gift of God." This is interesting considering the Wise One, who may very well be Weyard's God, attempted to kill Isaac using his own father as a tool in a Secret Test of Character... but also in terms of Isaac having been imbued with the power of the Mars Star. His Japanese name "Mut" can be seen as a play on mute, as he takes after his dad.
    • Sveta means "light," and she's the only one who can wear the Umbra Gear that protects from the light at Apollo Sanctum. Her name in Japanese, "Stella," means "star," playing on both light and darkness themes.
  • Mechanically Unusual Class: Sveta's base class has some useful abilities, but what you really want is her Beastform ability, which allows her to attack every single enemy at once every turn. No one else can do this.
  • The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body:
    • Happens a bit with the beastmen, who get very short-tempered around a full moon (strangely, the ex-human ones are worse about this than the ex-animals). Volechek started the disturbing tradition of public execution as festival entertainment to direct the civilians' aggressions away from each other during this time.
    • The ex-humans being more aggressive under the full moon is likely a Continuity Nod to the werewolves of Garoh in The Lost Age.
  • A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Sveta considers her mind-reading power a curse rather than a blessing, and indicates that reading minds full of hate for him is what caused her father to come to despise humans. Karis notes that Ivan has also come to detest his mind-reading powers in the years since the games where he spammed them with glee, and that she's relieved she didn't inherit them.
  • Mind Screw: Also Phantasmal Bog. The party falls asleep in order to confront the nightmares, dreams that they're sucked into a hole where they traverse a dungeon and slay a lizard, then wake up — right next to the dead lizard.
  • Missing Mom: Karis' and Tyrell's mothers are never even mentioned. Eoleo, whose mother, Chaucha, players met in The Lost Age, is oddly absent from this installment (especially since we are specifically asked to make sure she's okay). While Matthew's mother, Jenna, is never seen, the characters know exactly where she is: living in Kalay along with other refugees from Vale.
  • Mood Whiplash: An interesting variation, in that the mood goes from dramatic to humorous. Immediately after you fire the Apollo Lens and end the Grave Eclipse, the game shifts back to Belinsk for the epilogue, and it's playing the jazzy music from when you first arrived there.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Prince Amiti is mentioned in-universe to be very popular with the girls of his homeland. Considering he's a sweet, polite, occasionally vulnerable, frequently-shirtless Bishōnen Warrior Prince (with the body that implies) who's also the heir to the kingdom? They're not the only ones.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Chalis. Multifunctional navel and boob window (depending on whether you are looking at her character art/battle model or overworld model), fur collar, Too Many Belts, and thigh-high boots paired with a skirt for which "Psynergy" is the only feasible explanation.
  • Mukokuseki: Subverted and justified with regards to Amiti.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: Non-artifact weapons now have their own unleashed effects. They're not quite as flashy as the more unique artifact unleashes, but they're pretty cool nonetheless.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Volechek, the king of Morgal, decides to remain in Belinsk after the Grave Eclipse activates.

    Tropes N-Z 
  • Neglectful Precursors: The previous installments' various Magitek can be argued as a failsafe against the things that went wrong in the previous installments, but the fact that Luna Tower was merely powered down and locked up instead of being destroyed, despite apparently having no beneficial values (save to the Umbra Clan, who seem to be bad news anyway), massive negative effects, and no safe way of neutralizing once activated, really raises some questions about the ancients and their priorities.
  • Never Mess with Granny: Obaba* is easily around the same age as Kraden without the lifespan-extending effects of the Golden Sun, yet death seems to be a concept completely alien to her, and she can forge as easily as she could in The Lost Age (even being able to produce what party members other than the Sol Blade-wielding Matthew can use as an Infinity +1 Sword). This is mostly obvious because she doesn't seem to be bothered at all by the fact that her hometown is engulfed in the monster-producing darkness of the Grave Eclipse, and is so unwilling to relocate to part of the country outside the eclipse's range like most other townspeople that the townspeople that didn't relocate (specifically because of her reluctance to leave town, not for their own reasons) ended up burning the buildings to produce light to repel the monsters the eclipse attracts, since Champa doesn't have any mechanism to repel them like Harapa's perpetual light or Passaj and Ayuthay's Alchemy machines.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It was a Sadistic Choice, to be fair, but Ryu Kou steals the Magma Orb and activates the Alchemy Dynamo and the Eclipse Tower in order to save his sister. Also applies to the party as well; after all, they did kill the Mountain Roc, in whose belly the orb resided.
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: Isaac and Garet when they join your party for a while. Because of how strong they were when they saved the world 30 years earlier, they still retain their high defenses, high HP, and ass kicking Djinn. They can be hurt, but since everything thrown at them is pretty much Scratch Damage, nothing can really touch them.
  • The Night That Never Ends: The Grave Eclipse. At least until it absorbs enough light energy.
  • Nominal Importance: Anything with a name probably has an encyclopedia entry, and is frequently a plot point. Most characters treated this way tend to have portraits as well. Oddly, this includes one member of the Belinsk band, Vande, who doesn't otherwise seem any more important than the rest of the musicians. Speculation ensues.
  • Nonindicative Name: The "Warriors of Vale" apparently includes Ivan, Mia, Sheba and Piers. This name was created by the general populace, though, who wouldn't have all the details straight.
  • Noob Cave: The Goma Plateau, Tanglewood, and Abandoned Mineshaft. Most of the monsters you fight are easily defeated in one strike with Karis' area of effect wind Psynergy and the first boss fight is easily won due to its weakness to fire and the fact that Isaac and Garet's Djinn is shared with yours, allowing you to use high tier summons. Things start to kick up in difficulty a bit once you head out to the overworld map.
  • Noodle Incident: Tyrell is not welcome at Patcher's Place. Subverted, you pretty quickly find out he was banned for... well, being a Mars Adept who can't keep his Fireballs under control.
  • Nostalgia Level: The Psynergy Training Grounds, a very condensed version of the plot and more memorable moments of the first two games, with a ramshackle wooden facsimile of the second game's Final Boss serving as the boss battle.
  • Not Completely Useless: Status Effects can be used to hobble allies under the Ancient Devil's thrall, making that fight a bit easier. And Insight Psynergy maps a possible solution to the infamous Capricorn puzzle, instead of pointing out that you can Move the statues.
  • Older and Wiser:
    • While Isaac has always been thoughtful and intelligent, Garet plays this trope straight; his son, Tyrell, behaves much like Garet did in the first two games, and Garet doesn't hesitate to berate him for his behavior.
    • Isaac meanwhile subverts the trope; he seems rather careless about the safety of others, bordering on outright Cloud Cuckoo Lander. Tyrell's in life-threatening danger? Perfect time to put Matthew and Karis on an obstacle course to test their skills to rescue Tyrell. What the hell, Isaac?
  • Older Than They Look:
    • Isaac and Garet do not look to be in their late 40s; mid-30s is more like it. In fact, Ivan's found that those directly exposed to the power of the Golden Sun (i.e. the Warriors of Vale and Kraden) age much more slowly than normal. Karis is a little worried that the parents will sharply outlive their children.
    • This is much more apparent with Kraden, who looks exactly the same as he did in the first two games, despite already being roughly 70 back then. Repeatedly lampshaded when everybody who knew Kraden back in The Lost Age is bewildered that he hasn't aged a day since then.
  • One-Hit Kill: The Ice Queen's Icy Kiss and Blados' Punish, certain weapon unleash techniques and Djinn, the Charon summon, and Skorpna enemies' "Drag Down" attack all deal damage and have some chance of a one-hit kill. In addition, the Condemn powers, which effectively sic the Grim Reaper on someone, return, but they're still Useless Useful Spells in your hands.
  • One-Time Dungeon: This happens three times in the game. The first is early in the game and prevents you from revisiting the first two towns, but only contains a single Point of No Return, at the end. The second contains two Points of No Return, one when you enter and one when you exit, but it's fairly generous in that it warns you that you won't be able to turn back once you enter and the only items in it are easily obtainable from any shop. The third, however, is quite brutal. There's a Point of No Return when you unlock it, and this isn't in any way foreshadowed. Once you beat the dungeon, it triggers the Wham Episode and you can't return to the dungeon. And then there's a third Point of No Return when you finally leave the area surrounding said dungeon, by a different method than you entered, keeping you from ever returning there again. (On the plus side, almost everything that was cut off after the second One-Time Dungeon becomes available again and there are a couple of events that actually require you to revisit those areas.)
  • Our Ancestors Are Superheroes: It makes a recurring plot point out of the ancestral Adepts known as Jenei, whereas earlier games in the series pretty much hand-waved Adept-hood as the result of Psynergy Stones. How this affects the Adepts who emerged from non-Adept communities in said previous games isn't shown.
  • Our Dark Matter Is Mysterious: Dark matter is a super-rare crafting material found only on Crossbone Isle. The gear crafted from it is among the best there is, but it's all cursed (can't be unequipped without a priest, and occasionally stuns the wielder without a specific one-of-a-kind item).
  • Outside-Context Problem: Tuaparang easily fits the bill. They're outright stated not to be from any of Weyard's known nations or peoples, and have access to extremely advanced technology and Psynergy that doesn't follow the four classical elements.
  • Papa Wolf:
    • Hou Zan, who managed to protect Ryu Kou and Hou Ju from the eclipse monsters until Matthew came to rescue them, at the cost of his own life. This is also the same guy who shares with Tyrell the distinction of actually trying to hurt Alex!
      Masked Man: How many times must I prove that you little insects can't hurt me?
      Hou Zan: Once more, apparently.
    • Briggs, who singlehandedly tries to storm the most fortified city on Angara with a busted ship in the effort to rescue his imprisoned son. Twice. The sheer insanity of this is lampshaded. He also stays in port during the onset of the Grave Eclipse so you can get Eoleo out of there, even though the monsters mortally wound him.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Once you reach a certain point in Konpa Ruins, you meet a masked man (which, by the way, doesn't even cover half his face) with blue hair that's helping the bad guys, and who Kraden apparently knows from the past. Nice try, Alex. Justified since nobody in this group except Kraden ever met him, and according to Karis's commentary in the final dungeon, everyone else who had presumed him dead. He had no reason to put any real effort into disguising himself.
  • Peninsula of Power Leveling:
    • Southeast of Kaocho, between a river and a lone tree and west of a cliff, there's a small forest where Rat Warriors often appear. These enemies are normally found outside the city of Tonfon, which players don't have access to at this point, so as with the trope namer, this is caused by the game generating a random encounter for the wrong part of the world. They hit hard (so make sure you've got money in case you need to revive someone) and take a while to take down, but they give over 900 experience points apiece, which is a lot at that point in the game.
    • Summons and Psynergy work well on said Rat Warriors, due to the way elemental damage is calculated. They're weakest to Mars damage and resist Mercury.
    • Later in the game, right before the final boss, Tua Warriors appear on every random encounter and drop Waters of Life and give tons of experience (i.e. five-digit amounts), making power-leveling very easy (and making it easy to level up for the post-game Superbosses). You can easily make it to level 99 within two or three hours.
  • Permanently Missable Content: In a major change from the first two games, about a third of the Djinn, six summon tablets, and three Encyclopedia entries can end up as this if you're not careful, due to a great majority of the locations becoming unreachable after the turning point of the plot. Make sure you have explored everything you can before activating Blados's trap at the end of Konpa Ruins, battling Blados and Chalis in the Belinsk ruins, and leaving Belinsk after the Grave Eclipse activates. Note that two of these come in almost immediate succession. Special mention to the Djinni Brick, who is the only thing missed at leaving on the cloud climb—in fact, there's a sidequest left outstanding at this point that actually requires you to return to this area after the Grave Eclipse has already activated.
  • Persecution Flip: In The Lost Age, Garoh's werewolves hid themselves to avoid the prejudice of outsiders. Morgal's beastmen now cheerfully boil outsiders alive.
  • Philosopher's Stone: The Wise One is apparently Weyard's version, though it's a bit different from the usual definition.
  • Please Put Some Clothes On: This is the condition the party makes for Amiti when he wants to join them on their travels. Justified, since said travels include snowy mountain terrain (sure enough, Amiti complains about the cold later).
  • Point of No Return:
    • There are five major points in the game that will cut off most content before that point if you cross it without collecting everything. In order, they are: Blados collapsing the Konpa Ruins and Rief joining the party, jumping on the cloud at Passaj to go to Craggy Peak, asking the band to play Arangoa Prelude to enter the Belinsk Ruins, raising Luna Tower and starting the Grave Eclipse, and getting on Briggs' and Eoleo's ship at Belinsk after the Luna Tower rises and the Grave Eclipse begins. The proximity of points three and four to each other essentially turns the Belinsk Ruins into a One-Time Dungeon, while the fourth and fifth are in even closer proximity to one another.
    • Most of the content between the first and second points becomes available again after the fifth one, and there's actually one Djinni that can only be obtained by returning there at a later time, but there is also one Djinni that can only be obtained before that point.
    • Technically, there's another one almost immediately after the second one as the Cloud Passage can't be revisited once you've reached the end of it, but it contains no Djinn and the only treasure chests in that area contain common items that can be bought at any item shop so failing to clean it out on your lone visit isn't really any great loss.
  • Precursors: A few of them are named, the main ones being the Jenei, ancient Adepts, the Exathi, master craftsmen responsible for building most of the sanctums and dungeons seen throughout the games... and the Fori, ancestral Muggles.
  • Precision F-Strike:
    • By way of Symbol Swearing: When Alex shows up at Apollo Sanctum, Matthew breaks his silence to say "#$%^!" This is only in the US version however. In the original Japanese and European versions, he goes "?!" like every other time he speaks.
    • When the Magma Orb is stolen, Karis will ask your opinion of the situation. If you select the "angry" option, her response: "Wow... graphic!" Is there such a thing as a stealth F-bomb?
  • Precursor Heroes: The Warriors of Vale.
  • Previous Player-Character Cameo: Isaac and Garet make an appearance in Dark Dawn's prologue, though they cannot be directly controlled by the player. The other party members are mentioned at least once each, but none of them appear in the game.
  • Proactive Boss: On entering the Phantasmal Bog, the first thing you'll notice is the giant purple-aura'ed salamander glaring at you from the water. The second is when it tries to drown you by crushing the part of the stepping stone you're standing on. The entire point of the dungeon is to get to a different area in the same room where there's enough space to fight it on land.
  • Progressive Instrumentation: Done during the start of the Grave Eclipse, where the soldiers inside the opera house notice that the music from the orchestra pit is getting more and more instruments included, getting ambushed by monsters at the end.
  • Punny Name: Plenty: For locations there's Passaj (which was lampshaded accordingly), and for people there's Amiti, whose mother was Veriti...
  • Put on a Bus:
    • All of the Warriors of Vale aside from Isaac and Garet, unfortunately. Mianote  and Sheba's locations are not stated (Ivan and Jenna, at least, are said to be in Kalay, which doesn't appear in Dark Dawn); Felix is said to have left on a journey, and no one has seen him since; Piers is apparently sailing around Angara during the course of the game, but you never cross paths with him, despite the fact that the country of Sana has been trading with an unnamed Lemurian strongly implied to be him, or that he apparently dropped into Port Rago to help Briggs fix up his ship.
    • After one scene, Rief's sister Nowell is never seen again. Eventually Rief remembers to ask Kraden about that, and Kraden says she took a fancy to Piers and went on a joyride with him.
    • Himi's brother Takeru is mentioned to have departed on a journey because of a vision Himi had that Felix's friend Isaac was in danger, invoking their mother's aid-in-distress promise to Felix from The Lost Age. Further NPC gossip states that Takeru left on a "really cool ship". Fans presume that it's a reference to Piers's ship and he's hitching a ride with Piers and Nowell, making Takeru and Nowell likely heroes for a future installment.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits:
    • Lampshaded and subverted briefly. The Kaocho Generals don't like being upstaged by a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, and try to get you out of the way with a Snipe Hunt.
    • During the Grave Eclipse, Obaba figures a "ragtag group of scrappy heroes" has the best chance of stopping the Eclipse, and gives her blessing.
  • Rainbow Speak: Phrases coloured in bright red are new or updated entries that haven't been added to the encyclopedia yet. Dark red phrases means the entry hasn't changed since you last saw it.
  • Recap Episode: The Psynergy Training Grounds double as a rough retelling of the story of the original duology.
  • Red Herring: When first arriving in Tonfon, everybody mentions Piers visiting. Are you finally going to meet one of the other original PCs? Of course not.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni:
    • Ku-Embra is Red, while his much more reasonable brother Ku-Tsung is Blue. They're both antagonists, true to the original myth.
    • The helpful, outgoing Sand Prince Gem and the self-centered, arrogant Snow Queen Gem. Or the Hot-Blooded Boisterous Bruiser Tyrell and the quiet, bookish Rief (clearest in the scene in Harapa where they show some kids their respective Psynergy). If you're looking for it, this trope is all over the place.
  • Red Right Hand: Blados has blue skin and Chalis has horns.
  • Remembered I Could Fly:
    • When confronted by Chaos Hound, Tyrell has to remind Sveta about her power before she uses Slap on it.
      Tyrell: Are you an Adept or not? Use some Psynergy on it!
    • Sveta also seemingly has to remember that, as a beastman, she can smell the identity of the Chaos Hound.
  • Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Although players returning to the franchise will know all about Alex and expect his involvement in the finale, the player characters themselves do not. Half of them have only ever heard of his assumed death from their parents; the other half never heard of him in the first place. Even Kraden needs a good look at him to be sure.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Morgal is in the late stages or aftermath of a bloody revolution against Sana and budding hostilities with Bilibin. Both of which Morgal's king wants to settle via Superweapon Surprise. A little girl is captured and condemned to Cruel and Unusual Death in Belinsk, just for being Sanan nobility.
  • Roc Birds: The Mountain Roc is large enough to carry off human prey when Amiti recalls indirectly encountering it as a child, to be worshiped as a god the nation of Morgal, to force the camera to zoom out during your boss fight against it (and you still don't get the whole thing on your screen) and that its gizzard acts as a Womb Level, albeit a short one.
  • Rocket Punch: Courtesy of the Ramses summon.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: The entire second party.
    • Amiti is mentioned to have a politically-advantageous friendship with Baghi of Passaj, may or may not have been directly involved in the war between Ayuthay and Kaocho prior to your arrival, and then joins our heroes on their quest.
    • Sveta is seemingly involved in Morgal's sticky political situation up to her ears... and not getting out of it any time soon.
    • Eoleo is, of course, looting and pillaging for his country. This is actually a Call-Back to a very minor plot point in The Lost Age, in which the elders of Champa were considering ennobling Briggs and his family as thanks for doing what they could to support the people, even if it was criminal.
    • Not only is Himi making prophecies to guide and protect her people, she apparently inherited this from her aunt Uzume, who evacuated them to Nihan when Izumo sank in a tidal wave. Then Himi hauls off with our heroes to go save the world.
  • Ruins for Ruins' Sake: The Konpa Ruins were ostensibly a meeting place for the greatest minds of Alchemy in pre-sealing times, but the architects seemed more interested in powering the structure through solving puzzles and other impractical means, and the entire complex doesn't appear to have any areas explicitly dedicated to holding a forum or discussion. The Teppe Ruins and the Lonely Island Ruins don't serve any apparent purpose at all. Eventually lampshaded nonetheless.
    Tret: You assume a castle built on ancient ruins MUST have a secret entrance infested with traps and monsters? Well, you're right... THIS time.
  • Rule of Cool:
    • There is no other explanation for the Thor summon changing from his zapping the enemy with lightning to flying through the sky on his giant hammer, skydiving off it, then turning it into a giant turbofan which he then throws on the enemy. None.
    • There is no other explanation for Boreas going from giant stationary icegrinder to bigger-than-mountains train-horse causing avalanches by slamming its hooves in the ground.
  • Running Gag: Everybody Kraden ever met in The Lost Age is surprised to see that he hasn't aged a day since then. Everybody.
    Kraden: It isn't polite to stare at the elderly, you know.
  • Sacred Hospitality: After you break into the Ayuthay sanctuary, Amiti extends it to you. His people think he's nuts for this, since they're presently under siege by that army you've been associating with...
  • Sacrificial Lion: Briggs.
  • Sadly Mythtaken: Same as in the previous games in regards to the elements/gods association... yet there are a couple of notable details added to the summons from the previous games, such as Procne now showing a nightingale and swallow in flight as well as the old gigantic monster-bird, and Zagan getting a design makeover and being shown sitting in Hell when summoned. They also remade Thor as a redhead — Norse mythology buffs rejoiced. Though summoning Tiamat now apparently involves a Tron Lines-filled tower, Boreas is now a literal Iron Horse (a locomotive bigger than mountains with hooves), and Coatlicue is still a kind and loving goddess.
  • Scarf of Asskicking: Matthew inherited it from Isaac.
  • Scenery Porn: Sometimes the camera tilts just so you can appreciate the view.
  • Sequel Hook:
    • The Stinger at the end. Hey, it wouldn't be a Golden Sun game without one.
    • One of the endgame conversations imply that two new types of Psynergy have surfaced. Darkness and Light. Interesting...
    • Takeru apparently left Yamatai on a really cool flying ship. The same really cool flying ship whose captain Nowell was allegedly crushing on, perhaps? The implication that they're teaming up and have a mission (find Isaac) is part of the reason fans presume these two will be the next player characters.
    • Don't even try to keep track of all the hanging plot threads you'll see before that. Camelot is fond of these...
    • Granted, The Stinger is pretty much just a Call-Back to what appeared to be the original plot.
  • Sheltered Aristocrat: Pretty much Amiti's defining trait, though he realizes it, and decides to travel with Matthew and friends in hopes of overcoming it.
  • Ship Sinking: Inevitable due to the premise and unlikely to end well due to the series extensive Shipping.
    • Sorry, Mudshippers and Flameshippers: Isaac picked Jenna. The scene in which this is off-handedly revealed even takes place in a shipyard.
    • Mia*Piers is also obliquely sunk when Kraden reveals that Nowell—Mia's daughter—has a crush on Piers.
    • There's nothing indicating that Garet's son and Mia's two children are related. Poor Steamshippers.
  • Ship Tease:
    • Matthew and Sveta in the ending.
    • And at the beginning of the game, Karis and Matthew during the equipment tutorial.
  • Shown Their Work: Golden Sun games love geography and history, and this one is no exception. Nearly all of the Fantasy Counterpart Cultures are elaborately detailed based on their real-world counterparts, from costume design to architecture to local cuisine to economic activities. Even some of the Summon Magic sequences have been revised since the previous games to better reflect their original mythology (though many are still Sadly Mythtaken).
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Snowdrift Shrine. And to a lesser degree, Harapa Ruins while the Ice Queen was in control.
  • Smug Super: Some NPCs in Passaj, and certain encyclopedia entries, mention that the Adept Precursors were this to the ancestral Muggles during the so-called Golden Age of Man.
  • So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: Sveta pulls this after your initial meeting, but thankfully she comes back. Fortunately, she wasn't likely to have taken much anyway since her armor is already top of the line and she can't use anyone else's weapons. Heck, if you're strapped for gold and couldn't afford the last round of upgrades you can take her armor before she leaves.
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Played with in the fight with the Ogre Titans. You fight them two at a time, and each time you kill one a bigger, stronger one takes his place. The last is so big it's hard to see your player characters.
  • Spin-Offspring: Golden Sun: Dark Dawn takes place 30 years after the end of The Lost Age and follows the story of the previous heroes' children.
  • Spoiled by the Manual: ... Almost. Since the first two games had Feelies including relationship charts and world maps, similar items were made for Dark Dawn. The relationship chart was pulled at the last second (and leaked on the Internet) when someone finally realized it gave away not only Matthew's ancestry, but also Amiti's!
  • Strange Minds Think Alike:
    • Both Eoleo and his great-grandmother Obaba's first reaction to Kraden's immortality is that is that it must suck given he is still 70.
    • Tyrell made the same comment near the beginning of the game.
  • Superboss: It wouldn't be Golden Sun without difficult optional bosses. Just as in The Lost Age, bosses guard the more powerful summon tablets. And Star Magician and Dullahan make a return, guarding Azul and Iris, just like in The Lost Age. They're more powerful than in The Lost Age. Oh, Crap! indeed.
  • Supernatural Gold Eyes:
    • Matthew and Sveta gain these during the ending when Matthew's soul apparently joins with Sveta when she goes to fire the Apollo Lens. Since the player has likely grown accustomed to the usual profile images, and there's also a subtle and unearthly golden glow around the characters, this is seriously unnerving. What's worse is that the fusion between Sveta and Matthew seemingly served no real purpose since Volechek jumped in the way and sacrificed himself instead. This random scene just screams either Chekhov's Gun or Ship Tease.
    • At the end of the game, most of the citizens of Belinsk have golden eyes, fur and everything else due to the effects of the huge amount of Light Psynergy released by the Apollo Lens.
  • Superweapon Surprise: Volechek thinks the Luna Tower will be one he can use against Sana and Bilibin. He's... misinformed.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
    • Matthew, Tyrell, and Rief are pretty much Isaac, Garet, and Mia respectively, in terms of character design and stats. Karis is also a dead ringer for Ivan in terms of gameplay, but her design is actually unique.
    • Then we have the second group: A Bishōnen, a Ship Teased Action Girl, a Mysterious Waif who sees things normally unseen, and a notably-older sailor with a Cool Boat. Sound familiar, The Lost Age fans?
    • And the villains. A blue-skinned, cheerily card-carrying swordsman, and an elegant Lady of War with long hair. And Alex. Their operations include kidnapping people and raising general havoc, and they pursue the activation of long-lost Magitek. Now, am I talking about Saturos and Menardi, or Blados and Chalis? The only difference, a major difference at that, is motivation. Saturos and Menardi were out to save their hometown/the world. Blados and Chalis? Shits and giggles. And to betray their militaristic hometown for unknown reasons.
  • Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: In the last dungeon, Tuaparang mooks spawn which drop 5-digit numbers of EXP and Water of Life. Surprisingly enough, you will need them. Chaos Chimera, while no Doom Dragon, is surprisingly tough, and then comes Crossbone Isle and Dullahan, who has become even more badass than before!
  • Swamps Are Evil: The Phantasmal Bog.
  • Sword of Plot Advancement:
    • The Sol Blade is stuck in a stone in Apollo Sanctum, which Matthew can use to open a few doors. This is in contrast to the role of the previous games' Infinity Plus One Swords (of which the Sol Blade used to be one), which were simply found in random chests, randomly dropped, or forged.
    • The Umbra Gear, which can only be wielded by Sveta, also counts (although not a sword), in that collecting them is necessary to survive the incredible light at Apollo Sanctum.
  • Take Your Time: Notable at a few points in the story, particularly at the end; while Alex is fighting Blados and Chalis at Apollo Sanctum, you can just up and leave the dungeon. The Apollo Lens will still be there, unfired, when you return.
  • Tarot Motifs: Blados and Chalis, based on the suits of Swords and Cups ("blade" and "chalice", respectively). Kraden explains it near the end (though doesn't mention the Tarot by name), in which he also calls out "Arcanus" as a sign of a massive ego: fits the theme but is much more impressive-sounding. The Japanese version is even more direct, calling them Spade, Heart and Ace while the EU translation mark's "Arcanus"'s character well by noting it refers to the entire deck, chosen because he is "holding all the cards".
  • A Taste of Power: During their stint as Guest Star Party Members at the beginning of the game, not only do Isaac and Garet hit far, far harder than Matthew and Karis, but you have access to their Djinn as well, and thus high level summons such as Judgement and Meteor. In addition, the only boss you fight alongside Isaac and Garet is weak to fire. You might be able to coax Garet into using one of his Djinn. If you unleash enough Mars Djinn, Isaac explicitly tells you to summon Tiamat or Meteor.
  • Technology Marches On: In-Universe: The ship Briggs stole thirty years prior (and was noted as being incredibly advanced for its time, what with having a sail and all) now has a dozen cannons (when putting one on Piers' ship was an achievement).
  • Tempting Fate: When Matthew's party meets with Tret and Laurel, she advises them that they must not activate a machine in Belinsk called the Alchemy Dynamo. Which, of course, means that it's going to happen. Immediately lampshaded when she immediately refuses to tell them how, for exactly that reason.
  • Theme Naming: The Tuaparang commanders are named Blados, Chalis, and Arcanus, after the Tarot Motifs of Swords, Cups, and the deck as a whole. In Japan, they're named Spade, Heart, and Ace (the high card) for the same reason. The point is raised in-game; while the former two just refer to card suites, "Arcanus" is more like a term for the entire deck. "Holding all the cards"...?
  • The Theme Park Version:
    • Literally, the Psynergy training grounds are a loosely adapted version of the plot from the first two games. The Kraken and Poseidon are much more important, the villains have nothing redeeming about them, Lemuria and Felix aren't mentioned, and the final boss is a mechanical wooden three-headed dragon. Instead of, y'know, the transformed parents of half the protagonists.
    • The Sun Saga books are a little better, though they leave out a lot (everything from Venus Lighthouse to the reunion takes up one book out of five).
  • This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman:
    • As typical for a Golden Sun game, if a party member gets a new utility power (or if the party gets a new member with a specific power), expect to see a dungeon or two built around using that power.
    • The only place Sveta's Track Psynergy is needed in the entire game is an extremely contrived puzzle to enter the final dungeon (the dungeon she demonstrates it in is pretty straightforward). Which is sad, because the idea of it is pretty cool.
    • In Craggy Peak's Zodiac-themed dungeon, there is a very confusing puzzle involving moving around statues of goats. The nearby stone tablet is cryptic ("The goat leaves no trace behind."). Looks like a job for Insight Psynergy!
  • Total Eclipse of the Plot: Everything goes to hell in a handbasket when Blados and Chalis trigger the Grave Eclipse, unleashing death and destruction all across Weyard.
  • Tragic Monster: Volechek, no thanks to Tuaparang's... ministrations.
  • The Unfought:
    • Mooks, Blados, and Chalis aside, you never get back at the Tuaparang — or the Umbra Clan — for all the grief they caused. On top of that, their leader, the High Empyror, is never seen, only mentioned. Maybe next time.
    • While not a fight per se, the game mentions the country of Bilibin many, many times (such as how it grew from the town Isaac and his friends visited during their journey to an entire country), and yet you never get to go there. Maybe next time?
    • And for all the trash talking between Ryu Kou and Tyrell, you never get a chance to beat the arrogance out of him. Justified since Ryu Kou and Tyrell both get an attitude adjustment by the end. Ryu Kou more visibly so.
  • The Unmasqued World:
    • In the first game(s), Adept communities kept their powers secret. Now, the whole world knows about Psynergy and there's an Adept arms race on.
    • Most obvious in Harapa, where several people can be found trying (and failing) to learn to use Psynergy and Alchemy.
  • True Companions: A certain NPC in Yamata views your party in this way. Including Eoleo.
  • Unnaturally Looping Location: Subverted; one maze looks like this trope, but is actually using Cut and Paste Environments.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Pretty much everybody, including the Tuaparang themselves, if Alex is any indication.
  • Unreliable Narrator:
    • The Sun Saga and Adept Training Grounds contain a few errors that are done in such a way (such as an unimportant giant monster fight being highlighted over more important plot elements like the Proxian's motivations, and Felix being called a number of insults in the beginning) to make it clear it is in-universe. There's also no mention of the The Lost Age stinger (Alex getting power from the Golden Sun when it rose), since no one in the game would know about that.
    • Garet claims he never did stupid things when he was his son's age. Huhu. (To be fair, Tyrell does a lot more stupid things than Garet ever did.)
  • Useless Useful Spell:
  • The Vamp: Chalis. She has horns, and "horned" archaically refers to an adulterer. She even resembles the Succubus monster line from the first 2 games, which becomes even more apparent when you start encountering Succubi who, in turn, look like her.
  • Victorious Childhood Friend: Valeshipping (Isaac/Jenna) confirmed to be canon.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential:
    • One of the Mars Djinn you can get is first seen hanging happily on a tree. So how do you get it down? Use "Slap" Psynergy on the poor critter. And until you actually go around to get it (there's a bit of walking involved), it looks like it's actually crying.
    • You can use Fireball on some Mercury Djinn to force them into the water. One of them actually fights back afterward.
    • Know who else you can knock down with Slap? Eoleo. Yeah, that's how you get him out of the bird cage. Small wonder he's so abrasive to the party at first.
    • Another appliance of Slap is banging a gong to signal a nonexistent attack on a peaceful town, sending everyone around into a panic. And place all the blame on the guard that already did it a couple times for fun. Yeah, Slap can be a pretty cruel Psynergy if used creatively.
    • You don't have to save the little boy in Carver's Camp that's dangling over a huge cliff by his backpack. You can just walk away...
  • Wake-Up Call Boss:
    • The trio of Tuaparang Scouts that you fight shortly after the party meets Kraden for the first time. You only have three party members at this point with not too impressive psynergy or summons and healing items will most likely be just herbs. On top of this, the scouts will spam Psy Grenades to damage your PP and use other abilities that either stuns a party member, making them lose turns, or lower your agility so that they may attack before you can.
    • Oddly enough, the final boss also counts, due to the fact that it has very powerful attacks and can haunt your party. Although it's generally tame compared to other final bosses, it's a major step up from the rest of the game, and serves as an indicator of what to expect from the Superbosses.
  • Weirdness Censor:
    • Using Psynergy in broad daylight gets no reaction from passersby. Including lowering the water level under a ship that's being worked on by five people by several feet.
    • Subverted when Briggs mentions that he identified Matthew's group by their use of Psynergy around said ship. But Briggs knows all about Adepts already and would know what to look for, so he's more of the exception that proves the rule.
  • Western Zodiac:
  • Wham Episode: The Grave Eclipse covers Angara starting with Belinsk, in which the monsters get much stronger, the body count starts climbing higher than it ever has in the entire series, the soundtrack gets really depressing/horrifying, and worst of all, Briggs, a classic character from the original games, dies in his son's arms. A clear sign that the stakes have been raised.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?:
    • "Where's the mouse" happens in-verse with Rief finally noticing his sister is absent.
    • CHAUCHA. Briggs specifically tells you to look for her, and then... nothing!
  • What's Up, King Dude?:
    • Lampshaded a couple of times (in Ayuthay, for instance), but overall it tends to be justified. In Kaocho, The Man Behind the Man makes it happen. In Yamatai, Kraden is able to make your excuses.
    • And in Ayuthay, King Paithos has a standing order that he wants to meet any Adepts who show up in case Amiti's Disappeared Dad is with them.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?:
    • The original eight player characters (and Kraden) barely age due to being exposed to so much elemental energy, but it's noted by their kids that the original eight might outlive their children by a significant margin. As for Kraden, he might be ageless... but he was already 70 at the time.
    • Alex would probably be this as well, except he'd think that Living Forever Is Awesome.
    • Obaba is upset to learn she's outlived her grandson.
  • World of Snark: Pretty much all the main characters get at least one or two snide remarks in throughout the game.
  • Wrong Context Magic: Light and Dark Psynergy break the classical-elements system established throughout the series.
  • Wutai: Ei-Jei, a region visited by the protagonists for a fair portion of the game, is Fantasy Counterpart Asia, with various analogues to China, Siam, Vietnam, and Japan, among others. As usual, Camelot did their geography and history homework; the architecture and, in some cases, clothing is reflective of the real-world cultures, and characters from these regions have different facial structures, indicating separate ethnicity from the "European" nations of northern or western Angara. The fact that one of your party members from this region has a face resembling Mia and others from the Imil area rather than his fellow people of Ei-Jei is a big, whopping hint regarding his ancestry.
  • You Shouldn't Know This Already: It is impossible to leave Ayuthay after obtaining the Sand Prince Gem (an item that is required to proceed) until you acquire the Insight Glass (an item that tells you what to do next). This is to prevent players from skipping the long and convoluted sequence of events leading up to getting the Insight Glass (and therefore miss out on recruiting Amiti) because for all of that trouble, it becomes entirely useless if you're on a second playthrough or are using a guide.


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