The Sun Raises

The Golden Sun that is.

I don't think I've ever played Golden Sun. I say that because this opening segment feels familiar. The rest was brand new, though, so I either stopped playing after twenty minutes or am confusing it with another game. Mother 3, perhaps? Either way, Golden Sun is a Gameboy Advance game. It's a turned based RPG, and Issac, the main character, has a Mii costume for Smash Bros Ultimate. Besides that, I don't know anything about this franchise. I hear it's great, though!

Our journey begins on a stormy night. Our mother, Dora, wakes us up in a hurry because the sacred mountain, Aleph, is about to erupt. A boulder might crush our village, Vale, so we're all to head to the nearby sanctuary. Before we leave, our mother calls forth Mage Hand to make sure we have our jacket. We leave the house and see our dad, Kyle. He's trying to evacuate the rest of the town, and Dora joins him after realizing we're old enough to save ourselves. Our sprite looks like we're seven, but we're actually fourteen, so she's correct. Issac tries to head down the mountain, but small rocks fall from the sky whenever we try. We're being railroaded hard, so head up to get down! We'll see our friend, Garet, trying to haul his stuff to safety. Garet asks if he should leave his treasure, and I say he should. We get asked a lot of questions in GS, and they usually mean something. In the times I save scummed, the scene changed ever so slightly when I altered my response. It's not much, but it's something rad!

From here, the two of us head the long way around our giant village. We see four people doing their best to prevent the boulder from crushing us, and it looks like they're using psychic powers!

In the next area, we notice a dying man near a fence. He warns us that monsters now roam the town as a rock broke the wooden barrier. After we tell him he's not going to die, he jumps to his feet. We finally hear the first music track in the game, and I like it. It's pretty mellow, but there's something spooky about it. It's not a warning klaxon, but we sense the sheer, ominous terror in the notes, which works for the situation. It's like we're kids in a dangerous situation without knowing what's to come. As suggested, random battles begin to occur here. They're nothing to worry about, though. This is the tutorial, after all.

We make our way down the mountain until we reach a drowning kid, Felix. Our parents are there trying to save the brother of another friend, Jenna. No one has any Psyenergy left, so Dora and Jenna go find those who do. Sora tells us to help Jenna as she climbs back up. We meet up with Jen in the town square with a man who's finished restocking his Psyenergy on the rock in the middle of the pond. The four of us return to Felix, who's still drowning. As we approach, though... Via a sideshow, we see the boulder fall through the town. It lands right where everyone is, killing our dad, Jenna's parents, and Felix. Everyone is stunned, but our mom manages to calm down to tell us to go find help. Maybe they've just been dragged down the river? Issac heads back to the square, but Garet wants to be a man and joins us eventually. While we're alone, though, we overhear two people. They say things that don't mean anything to us, but I suspect they will be soon. Garet catches up, and the sketchy people notice they're being watched. Because they're evil, they beat us up to make sure we don't remember them. A battle happens, and I manage to do two HP to the man. The woman one shots us, and we cut to the title screen. I actually thought we died, so nice troll, Camelot.

Three years later, Jenna is watching Garet train his Psyenergy by pushing a rock. They have plans, along with Issac, to train with a village elder, Kraden. Both are still suffering from that night but in different ways. Garet is trying to explain what happened, while the orphaned Jenna is trying to move on. After an awkward moment, they go get Issac. He's fixing the holes in his house while Dora coaches him. Why is he using telekinesis to move straw? Either way, after a cute scene where Dora almost falls off the house and Garet makes more holes in our roof, we all head to Kradon.

En route, we bump into the two mysterious people. We learn they're named Saturos and Menardi, and they have ties to Kraden. We don't remember them, but they let us pass. Everyone, including Menardi, is shocked.

We overhear Kraden saying more of the proper nouns that our assailants said three years ago. Kraden thinks they've been in the sacred Mountain Aleph. Before we warn the village of them, we should confirm their story. The plan to sneak into Sol Sanctum begins! Wait for the guard to go behind the house, and you'll make it to the top without being caught.

I get Motoi Sakuraba vibes from the music, and I was correct to get that. He had a unique sound in the early aughts. The puzzles here involve jumping across platforms to find a jewel. Put that in the minotaur's face to open a new path. From here, use Psyenergys Move to push the statues out of the way. Only three of them can be moved, but one is pointless. Move the leftmost and place a gem in the eye to open another path. All the while, Kraden gives me the creeps. Is this a trap by him to get us to do the hard parts? From here, the real puzzle begins!
We enter a bright room with a sun relief on the floor. Adjacent to it is a dark room with a moon on it. Moving a statue in the room above will cause electricity to shake the rooms below it. Kraden tells us this is a trap, and we should find another way. To disarm the device, push the statutes in the Sol room into their pedestals. This'll cause a hole to open in the floor. Use Move to pull the giant statue into said hole. I didn't realize that was possible, so I was here for a while. This lets us move the four goddesses over Luna's room to create a light beam in the now dim Sol room.

The beam hits the wall, and it'll create a portal to a strange abyss when we get near it. Here's where we learn about our world! Everything on this planet is filled with one of four elements, earth (Venus), water (Mercury), wind (Jupiter), and fire (Mars). The essence of these elements are stored here in the form of Star Crystals. All of this is called Alchemy, which'll is something different than Psyenergy. Psyenergy is something unique to the citizens of Vale and should never be used outside of the village. We're a secret society protecting a secret magic! Kraden gets even creepier and seems overly eager to have us collect the stars. Start with Venus, and the path to Jupiter will rise from the strange abyss. As we get close to Mercury, we're joined by friends.

Saturos and Menardi have entered the abyss and demand we get the last two stars. We were gonna do that anyway, so it seems odd. I refuse to do so, and a deal needs to be struck for some reason. A third man enters wearing a mask and reiterates the plan. After some back and forth, it's revealed that the masked man is Felix, Jenna's brother. She's shocked he's alive, as he says that Saturn and Menards saved him. Felix promises to not harm us if we get the stars. Garet tries to hand over the stars, but a fourth man, Alex, teleports in. They want all four! We make the rounds to the fire star, and everything goes wrong!

The abyss turns into hell, and a giant floating rock guy appears. He does some magic stuff that makes me think he's going to blow up the room. The evil guys kidnap Jenna and Kraden as leverage to trade the fourth gem. Why couldn't Alex have just gotten the final gem? We have a magic bag, but that doesn't seem important. Regardless, things settle down a bit and the Wise One, as Kraden called it, tells us Aleph is a volcano about to explode. More importantly, the world might end. The statues that held the stars kept the balance in the world. Workout them, though, the world is in trouble. Should the stars interact with four lighthouses, then bad things will happen.

We're teleported back to Sol Sanctum, and I Retreat to Vale. There, all the adults are worried about us and the volcano threat. We have to explain what happened, and the village healer confirms it. The Wise One spoke to him in a vision. Issac gladly accepts his fate to save the world. Garet is leas thrilled but follows on his word to follow Issac. The only suggestion we have is about the djinns. In the morning, everyone sees us off except our sad, lonely mom. We see the shaky world map, and we'll explore...

... tomorrow!

Day one plot dumps! We'll probably explore those terms again through the game, so I'll skim it here. So far, I really like the battle sprites. They're stunning! I'm curious about how the game works with classes, spells, and how the elements work together. Word of advice, don't inspect every pot and box on Vale. There's nothing there...