Beginner's Guide (Golden Sun)

At first glance, Golden Sun appears to be quite a complex game, especially for a handheld RPG. Actually that applies to the second game, too! A beginner may be easily overwhelmed by all the stuff many a time. But don't worry, as this site's going to give you some brief introductions to the various aspects of the games!

The World of Golden Sun

A bit of Geography: Golden Sun takes place in the world of Weyard, which is indeed flat, contrary to a popular belief. If one wants to dividee the world further there'll be seven continents, namely Angara, Gondowan, Indra, Osenia, Atteka, Hesperia and Tundaria, as well as some islands (see Weyard for those). There are several civilisations in Weyard, with most of them living together in peace and harmony. Your journey in 'Golden Sun' will start in the town of Vale in the continent of Angara. It will lead you to all possible and impossible places in Angara and Gondowan!

Adepts

Some people in Weyard possess magical abilities. Those are also known as "Adepts", their magic's called "psynergy". Normally the magic-using civilisations let their abilities remain a secret amongst themselves, and it' not uncommon that a non-adept will be struck in awe when he sees the power of psynergy for the first time. In accordance with the theory that the world consists of four elements there are also four types of adepts as the wielders of the elements: Venus Adepts of nature, Mars Adepts of fire, Jupiter Adepts of the winds and Mercury Adepts of the waters.

Psynergy

Psynergy's the name for magic in Golden Sun. Every adept's got psynergy of his own elemental class at command, and as you're controlling adepts in the games you'll have acess to these astonishing abilities as well! You can do the most diverso things with them, be it for attacking, moving things or reading the minds of other people... there are barely any limitations! Your mental abilities aren't endless, but they'll recover automatically after being used by walking around on the World Map or using a Psy Crystal. Through training (=higher levels) you'll even learn new or stronger versions of already existing spells!

The first use for them (and, by the by, the one which you're going to need the most) is the use as a weapon. You'll be able to well knock your enemies into shape with flames, bolts, ice crystals and more spells. In many a fight psynergy will be a helpful, if not even essential component on the way to victory!

The second use for psynergy is to influence your environment through its powers. You're going to need this often to head new paths or passages that'd be impassable otherwise – e.g. because of rocks in the way. But powers such as reading minds showing hidden things are also included! To access the psynergy outside of battles. Simply press "Select" or "A" and choose the "Psynergy" submenu afterwards.

Djinn

The djinn are the elementals spirits. In compliance to the four elements there exist four types of djinn as well, each one representing their nature: there are Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Mercury djinn. They're the "keepers" of the elemental stars, and since those have been taken away from the Sol Sanctum you'll find them scattered over all of Weyard, escaped from their old resting place!

But you'll be able to find them during your journey and even convince them to accompany you! Some apparently do only wait for their discovery, others however are very hotheaded and will only start to view you as their master when you defeat them in a battle! There's a total of 72 djinn, 18 of each element, but during your journey in Golden Sun you'll only be able to get the first 28.

Each of the djinn possesses its very own power that you can use for yourself. In battle you can use them to attack the enemies with the djinn's might and damage them this way, but others may be able to unfold even more exceptional powers, such as to let your opponent fall asleep. Others again may let you become temporarily stronger, heal a person or the whole group, and yet others do have further, even more outstanding abilities! They'll be of much help to you in the fights. Their powers are like an inexhaustible psynergy, only in a much more special way.

Furthermore all djinn have the ability to work together to summon mighty creatures against your foes! Mighty creatures will then come to your aid and heavily damage the enemies. Occasionally they're so strong that the whole opposite row gets defeated in a single blow!

The last use of the djinn is to change your classes. We'll take a closer look to them in the next section.

If you want to change anything in your current djinn setup the djinn menu will be of use for you outside of the battles, in it you'll be able to manage the djinn you've already found. For this, press "Select" or "A" and choose "Djinn" then. Here you might want to move the djinn back and forth as well as change their status. That's especially important for classes.

Classes

Every adept is given a class into which they're born, which decides how physically strong they'll get or what psynergy they'll learn. For example, Isaac is a Squire whilst Ivan is a Wind Seer.

However, with the help of djinn powers you'll be able to come out of such standard classes. Once you put one or more djinn on set it may happen that your class changes! You'll then learn new psynergy or become stronger, perhaps even both! Your psynergy pretty much depends on the type of djinn set. That way Isaac may be a Venus Adept, but when given a Jupiter djinn he'll become an "Apprentice", which will allow him to learn Jupiter psynergy as well.

A djinn can have two different types of status within your group: it can be set, be on Standby or currently recovering. Only set djinn have an effect on your class. In battle you can use set djinn to unleash their individual powers. By doing so they'll switch to Standby. Now they can be set again or be summoned. If you decide to summon them they'll have to recover for a while afterwards, during that time they're not usable. The right combination of all these points make up a good battle strategy!

You can freely choose your classes in the djinn menu.

Battle System

Let's leave the theory, on to the practical side! All the points brought up are only there to be used wisely in battle by you. As soon as you're encontering an enemy or monster the game switches to the battle scenery. Cool 3D effects included – woo hoo! At the top you'll see the characters' HP and PP as well as the djinn on Standby. At the bottom there's the battle menu.

At first you can choose whether you want to fight the appeared enemies or to flee from them. You'll lose nothing in the case of escaping, but unfortunately it won't always work; trying to flee from the very strong enemies will often fail, against boss enemies it's not even possible at all. If you'd like to know your characters' state of health before deciding you can also simply choose the third selection to check their status here. And should you decide to fight a new menu will pop up!

Then you can choose between various commands here:

Attack
Choose this and you'll attack with the weapon you're wielding currently (or your fists when there's none to speak of...) Sometimes you might achieve a critical hit. And should your weapon also possess an unleash, then this one might probably unfold now when you're about to attack!

Psynergy
This selection allows you to use the character's learned psynergy. By definiton you can only use psynergy intended for battling, but virtually no psynergy usable on the overworld. Every psynergy has a certain range in which it hits. Use that one wisely to damage even large groups of enemies!

Djinn
Only appears when at least one djinn's set with the characters. Use the djinn's individual power here! The characters can only use the djinn that they're carrying themselves, though.

Call
Only appears when at least one djinn is on Standby. With this you can let the summons come into play! By the way, every character's able to summon, regardless of whether he or she's currently carrying the djinn or not.

Item
Lets you use an item from the character's inventory.

Defend
The character has to miss a turn and defends him or herself. He's basically not doing anything at all thereby, but every damage suffered in the current round will be halved. So only use this command when a character should really stay passive, this might come in handy for several strategies.

After you've chosen a command for every character the battling round will start. Whoever has the highest agility, be it from the own group or the enemy one's, strikes first. Afterwards everyone from quick to slow will properly have their turn until finally the slowest participant has done his action. The battling round has then ended and the next one starts, where you can choose your commands again. Some of the enemies (even you yourself with the Djinn "Kite"!) are able to attack more than once each turn. Those additional turns will only come into effect after the regular battling round has ended, though.

Status Ailments

In and outside of the battles it may happen that something troubles the well-being of your fellows. In the following those (excluding the rather self-explaining stat boosts) are going to be explained:

Icon Delusion
A deluded person will most likely miss the enemy when attacking in a battle. After some rounds your sight will go back to normal, though. A safe method during this time is to use psynergy, since spells do always hit in any case. After the battle the delusion will be away.
Cures: Elixir, 'Restore'

Icon Stun
When you characters get stunned they quite expectedly won't be able to move anymore. It's not possible to do any more actions with then as they'll lose their turn. After a few rounds Stun will resolve by itself, also it won't affect you anymore after a battle.
Cures: Elixir, 'Restore'

Icon Sleep
Instead of fighting your characters will have a happy snooze. As with Stun they won't be able to do anything anymore then, they pass. After a few rounds the victim will wake up by itself, though, and after a battle there's no time to sleep as well.
Cures: Elixir, 'Restore'

Icon Poison
When your character's poisoned the venom will devitalise him or her constanstly. The affected person will then lose a tenth of their HP each round. Poison keeps on damaging you outside of battles, too – you'll lose power with every step you make. Cures: Sanctum visit, Antidotes, 'Cure Poison'

Icon Severe Poison
Same thing as with the normal poison, only that you'll not only lose a tenth, but a whole quarter of your maximum HP after any action in a battle! So better cure it quickly before it's too late!
Cures: Sanctum visit, Antidotes, 'Cure Poison'

Icon Evil Spirit
Evil Spirits float around your presence! They cause that sometimes in a battle you'll damage yourself after attacking a monster. A quarter of the dealt damage will be returned to you then. Evil Spirits last permanently, even after a battle, usually the visit of a sanctum will be required then.
Cures: Sanctum visit

Icon Spirit of Death
If the Spirit of Death has befallen you, then seven rounds remain until it strikes and robs the vitality of you. Fortunately he can be chased away, though! After the battle it'll fly away. By the way, the remaining rounds are shown through the blazing red lights.
Cures: Elixir, 'Restore'

Icon Psynergy Seal
Your psynergy is sealed, you'll have to endure a few rounds without it. After the battle it'll be removed automatically, though.
Cures: Elixir, 'Restore'

Icon Curse
A curse presses on your shoulders as soon as you equip a cursed weapon or armour. It will cause than sometimes you'll be suddenly stunned in a battle and therefore won't able to do an action anymore. Since cursed equipment cannot be unequipped by yourself it has to be removed through a visit of any of the sanctums. Note: The Priest Ring may not remove the curse, but its negative effect, so always wear it when equipping cursed things.
Cures: Sanctum visit

Icon Down
The characters has become powerless, he or she's fallen. Which means he won't be usable anymore in a fight. After a battle the character may stay fallen, but you'll still be able to use psynergies on the overworld.
Cures: Sanctum visit, Water of Life, 'Revive', 'Phoenix', Iris Summon

All status ailments, except for curses and fallen characters, can be removed through the Djinn "Tonic"!

Suum cuique! I own nothing, except for the self-made contents and images here. Golden Sun™ is a registered trademark of Camelot Software Planning®.
No original content should be used for non-private purposes without my knowing and approval.

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