Rune Blade

A Rune Blade is a Long Sword-class weapon Artifact available in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. There is only a rare chance that a Rune Blade can be acquired as a dropped item when felling a Lesser Demon monster that appears randomly in the dungeon Magma Rock. Being a Long Sword-class weapon, the Rune Blade can be equipped on warrior-style Adepts, namely Felix, Piers, Isaac, Garet, Matthew, and Tyrell in Dark Dawn. Its buy value is 15000 coins and its sell value is 11250.

The Rune Blade increases the wielder's base Attack rating by 162 points. Its Unleash effect is Void Beam, with the standard base activation rate of 35%, which is a physical attack with an additional 57 points of damage added, and then the resulting damage is either increased or decreased based on how the user's Jupiter power measures against the target's Jupiter resistance. In addition, the effect may seal the target's Psynergy. The Void Beam visually resembles the wielder summoning a 3D hologram of a symbol that draws itself in front of him as the camera swirls around the battlefield, and the symbol generates a thick white-purple beam that pierces through the target.

In Dark Dawn the Rune Blade is forged from a Rusty Sword, found in the shallow patch south of Yamata. It gains 2 new unleashes: Life Nourish and Vorpal Slash. Since there are no other warrior Adepts, the player may decide to change the classes of Matthew or Tyrell to boost their Jupiter power to take advantage of Void Beam. It will remain in the party for a long time until stronger weapons will be available.

Analysis
The Rune Blade is technically identical to the Mythril Blade in every aspect save for the fact the Rune Blade's Unleash effect is based on the Jupiter element instead of the Mythril Blade's Mercury-based Unleash. However, while there is a Mercury Adept warrior like Piers to equip the Mythril Blade for easily enhanced damage, it is harder to optimize the Rune Blade's damage potential because there are no Jupiter Adept warriors that are able to equip Long Sword-class weapons; it is at its optimum only if wielded by a Venus or Mars Adept as a War Adept. It is a good upgrade to the previous Jupiter-based weapon you will most likely find, the Phaeton's Blade, and it might end up being in the party's inventory at the game's end if the player is not playing to collect all the strongest weapons, but it is not at all an ultimate weapon like the Jupiter-based Excalibur.