I first played this wayyyy back in maybe 2003? 2004? Apparently it released in Europe in early 2002 but I don't think I got a Game Boy Advance until Christmas 2002 or 2003. So anyway, it's been about 20 years since I first played it. I used the Nintendo Offical Magazine 'guide' to find my way through most of the game and most of the secrets. Some were omitted and the 'guide' was not exactly thorough hence my use of ''. But I cleared it anyway, so added it to my short list of cleared JRPGs in the early 2000's alongside the Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.
I would go on to complete it a few more times here and there from about 2003 - 2013 and then I stopped playing the Game Boy Advance on a whim from then on. At some stage around 2011 onward I discovered emulators and mainly used them to play Pokémon games at 1000% speed by holding down the space bar. Very handy for a quick fix of old nostalgia games. Around 2021 or so on my desktop PC I had acquired the Golden Sun ROM and played as far as Sol Sanctum. I must have gotten bored and wandered off but RETURNED in early 2023 and blitzed through the old favourite.
I remembered to take some screenshots. I miss having Dropbox on all the time to take screenshots of whatever and save them. Anyway, here I am at level 23 and with most of the Djinni. As numerous sources and videos will tell you, having the Djinn is almost essential to playing Golden Sun. Take Isaac's 7 Earth Djinn away and he loses like half his HP.
One of my fave mute protagonists. But he's not really mute. I must have accidentally cut the 'c' off the end of his name at character creation, oh well. 'Isaa' is the best character, highest attack, good solid spells and stats all-round and great versatility - he can heal, revive, attack and be useful in dungeons. As a fellow Earth Adept, I appreciate him greatly.
The Overworld is so pretty, I always liked it. Even still looks good 20 years later on a 32 inch curved monitor, full screen. That overworld theme is a bop as well, the composer also did Star Ocean and whatnot so no wonder I like it.
Garet, the fiery best friend. I used to use the code at the start to rename him 'Andy' at least once due to character limits. 'Royce' would fit the character limits now ;) I would usually give Garet the cursed equipment and Cleric Ring as recommended. My last playthrough which I still have on the GBA saved I experimented with mixing Djinn; I had made Isaac and Garet Ninja's I think by giving them mixtures of Djinn because the stats were insane. This time in 2023, I stuck with the vanilla setups.
Ivan, the Air Adept. As above, I kept him vanilla so he just mainly casted spells like Storm Ray and Whirlwind to help out the gang. Some Impacts as well as I experimented more with making Isaac attack more instead of constant Earth psynergy. Ivan is the speedster but is frail, he will be downed at some point in the playthrough but nothing some Water of Life or Revive can't fix.
Good old Mia. I think I renamed her 'Aghna' in an old playthrough. As usual I just had her cast 'Wish' over and over to heal everybody but in this playthrough she contributed quite a bit with spells like Tundra and Glacier to kill enemies faster. Often combat can be resolved throughout the game by just having the 4 adepts spam spells for one round maybe two and win.
Mia's selection of Water psynergy for the field. She can cure individuals and the group, remove poison (almost never used) freeze puddles, create puddles and lift rocks.
Ivan's Psynergy is probably the most useful. Whirlwind comes up a few critical times, never an optional spell. Cloak is apparently an optional, missable spell but so handy for the optional dungeons and some sections. Halt is possibly also optional but useful for a few situations. I gave him the spare Frost gem, he has the most Power Points so no harm in him casting instead of Mia. Mind Read and Reveal are great spells: you can assign Mind Read to a shoulder button - A and S on the keyboard - and read almost every NPCs mind. Cool way to double the amount of dialogue of some NPCs, helps worldbuilding and reveals secrets. Reveal is one of the best spells and reveals hidden stuff all over the world.
Garet starts with Move but I gave him the Force Gem as well which you use a lot about halfway into the game and in some select puzzles. He has the least magic so it doesn't matter really.
The great Isaac has a couple of Cure spells and Revive, which is great. Saves you from using expensive items to revive people. I gave Isaac the Catch beads which are handy for some puzzles and collectibles. He starts with Move and Retreat, handy for getting out of dungeons quickly rather than trekking back.
A sample of Isaac's Psynergy. Ragnorok is single target but relatively cheap and does over 100 damage usually so is a nice one. I like Quake Sphere because it targets loads of enemies but the rest are good too. Mother Gaia is the top spell in my book.
I fought Deadbeard at a fairly low level I think. He's the resident superboss of this game and completely optional. With the help of the Djinni who give you raised Resistance and protections his spells did very little damage. Just use them, then a big summon for a few hundred damage and repeat.
After you beat Deadbeard you get the Cursed Mail and can then get out of the optional dungeon. It's mainly comprised of fixed bosses and no battles otherwise, plus a puzzle on every level bar the last one with Deadbeard. As with most of the puzzles in this game, they are laughably easy.
The world map. I always liked how mountainouse and riverine it is. I stole the name 'Gondowan' from the southern continent here. 'Angara' too became 'Ankhara'. It influenced some of my early Age of Wonders maps which I would have been making around this time, 2002-2008.
I recorded me fighting the final bosses but something happened and the recording went black. I'll include it as bonus material below but it's just the audio for 90% of it.
Isaac's only 'words' in the game. Apparently he talks a lot in the sequels.
The final screen. After the 'point of no return' pictured above there is a short sequence and a lot of shti goes down setting up the next game but other than an extremely brief look at it at some point I have yet to play. Hopefully I cna follow up at some stage with me playing GS2 and Dark Dawn. Have to finish the story, 20 years later!
