Flower


 * This Djinni appears as an enemy that can be battled.

Flower (フラウ Frau) is a Venus Djinni found in Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.

Flower is the fifth Venus Djinni in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. The separate Djinn list viewable with the Select button from the status screen lists Flower and all other Venus Djinn introduced in The Lost Age before the seven Venus Djinn from the original Golden Sun, most likely because all the Djinn from the original game can be gotten all at once late in The Lost Age. However, the original Djinn are ordered before all of the Djinn introduced in The Lost Age in the Djinn inventory screen while they are allocated to characters. By this order, Flower is the twelfth Venus Djinni in the GBA series, rather than the fifth.

Flower is the second Venus Djinni in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.

Basic description
When Set, Flower increases base HP by 12 and base Psynergy Points by 4.

When Flower is unleashed in battle, all non-downed Adepts in the current battling party are cured by 30% of their maximum HP meters.

In The Lost Age, Flower's unleash animation visually resembles an orange image of a Venus Djinni floating above the party while orange energy orbs gather into each Adept from underneath. In Dark Dawn, the 3D model of Flower appears above the user briefly, then a swirling array of lavender, vaguely star-shaped eight-pointed circles enters into each Adept's mid-section horizontally.

Locations
Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Flower is located in Taopo Swamp, and is pretty much the "main reward of interest" of the quadrant of the swamp's caves it is located in (whereas a piece of Star Dust is the main reward of interest in the other main quadrant of the caves). When you see it, it is standing unreachable at the edge of an abyss with an air spout on the cave wall above it. On either side of it is an earth pillar that can be pushed in front of an air spout. When both earth pillars are covering an air spout each, Flower will be blown off the edge and fall to the floor below. To properly follow it, slide down the second cliff slide to the right of Flower's position. It must be battled to be obtained, though definitely save before trying to get it. See here for enemy statistics.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Flower is located in Konpa Gate, in between Carver's Camp and Konpa Ruins. It visibly wanders the elevated flower field south of the gatekeeper's house. Once you ring the bell, show the Gate Card, pass through the wooden gate, and go up the stairs behind the house, hop to the tree to the left of the house and climb down. Flower will hide itself inside one of the flowers. Cast Whirlwind on the flower it is hiding under to obtain it. As Konpa Gate is one of the locations within the first region of the game, which gets locked off the moment you enter the Ei-Jei region, Flower can be permanently missed if not collected before then.

Analysis
General: There are very few healing effects in any of the games that restore HP based on a percentage, and such effects that heal the whole group are rarer. What primarily causes Flower to fall into obscurity is the presence of group healing Psynergies, the Wish Psynergy series being the foremost example. Not only are the Psynergies easier to perform, reliably strong, and oftentimes distributed on multiple Adepts because of how many classes they are on, they do not put a Djinni on Standby and potentially lower the user's class. This generally means that Flower distinguishes itself from other group healing effects by being a group heal that also partially sets up for a Venus summon, so this is probably the best use of the Djinni in battle.

By game
Golden Sun: The Lost Age: For much of the game, Flower is the one Djinni that is a party-healing effect akin to the Aura Psynergy series. It would seem to be very useful for this purpose, and only gets better at restoring HP as the party levels up. However, Flower is not often used because of how reliable the spells in the Aura series is, let alone the strength and availability of the Wish Psynergy series, as well as how those can be used both outside and inside battle. When Isaac's party joins Felix's party along with their returning Djinn, they bring along an identical Mercury equivalent, Spritz. An endgame Djinni, Crystal, outperforms both of these by healing all current battling Adepts by 50% of their respective maximum HP meters. It is up to the player how useful even that effect is, though.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Flower is essentially the same in this game as in the last. It is found early in the game, but interestingly enough its Mercury equivalent in this game, Surge, is found not all that long later, in Barai Temple. These Djinn may be used as minor group heals that set up for summons, but like in The Lost Age, they have a superior 50%-healing counterpart that basically obsoletes them, the Mercury Djinni Coral, though this Djinni can be found roughly in the middle of the game, at Port Rago. The one point in the game where Flower merits further study is when it is present for the boss battle against the dangerous trio of Stealthy Scouts in Konpa Cave. Flower can be an effective and vital group heal, even though the healing values involved would be low, and setting up for the Ramses summon can be a very sound approach. On the other hand, you would probably want Flower and the Venus Djinni Flint to remain Set on the same Adept so that they will be in a superior class stage, which is also vital.

Name Origin
Although the Venus element revolves around earth (rocks, ground, metal, etc.), it also focuses somewhat on plant life, making Flower a fairly simple name for a Venus Djinni. Many flowers are known to have medicinal effects.

Frau is the initial sound of Flower in Japanese.