Hydra enemy line

The Hydra, Aqua Hydra, and Pyrodra are enemies that are encountered throughout Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. These monsters, resembling large three-headed sea serpents, are palette swaps of each other that have differing levels of power and defense and are fought in different locations in the games. This enemy line includes one boss in The Lost Age.

Aqua Hydra
The Aqua Hydra (アクアヒドラ) is a giant-sized level 26 variant with light blue scales and a light green underbelly. In Golden Sun: The Lost Age, it is a mandatory boss encounter in the beached Lemurian Ship located at the East Indra Shore. After Piers has joined the party, players are to eventually return to the ship and explore it, fighting Aqua Jellies along the way. In a room with a bunch of crates and six Aqua Jellies around them, interacting with the Jelly standing on one of the crates in the center causes the other five Jellies to suddenly, simultaneously jump into the first. The six Aqua Jellies then merge and metamorphose into the single Aqua Hydra, which then immediately engages the party as a scripted boss encounter.

This can be quite a challenging boss due to both its powerful full-party offenses and its large amount of HP. The Aqua Hydra is vulnerable to Mars-based attacks, so the most obvious tactic is to have Jenna pound away with Djinn, Summons, and/or her strongest Psynergies, such as Fume and Beam. On the other hand, the Aqua Hydra's Raging Flood technique can make short work of an unprepared party, so a more defensive strategy may be preferable. At this point in the game, Jenna is the only party member who learns group-healing Psynergies in her default class, and even then she can only use them if she has at least four Mars Djinn set. Fortunately, there are exactly four Mars Djinn available at this point (Cannon, Spark, Kindle, and Char), granting Jenna access to the Aura Psynergy series. If she is at least level 16, her Healing Aura will prove invaluable for keeping the party alive. Alternatively, if you would rather or are willing to use a non-default class setup, assigning another character to a class with the Wish Psynergy series would free Jenna up for offense. On that note, summoning Meteor (which would require all four Mars Djinn) will deal around 800 points of damage to the Aqua Hydra in a single blow. Also, this battle would be a good opportunity to use up any Oil Drops you may possess, since they are essentially free Flare Storms that can be used by any character (it is advisable to let these be used by characters other than Jenna to give them strong Mars attacks, since neither Jenna's naturally higher Mars elemental power nor any of the other Adepts' naturally lower Mars power will apply to item-based effects such as Oil Drop).

The Aqua Hydra's statistics are as follows:

The Aqua Hydra uses these battle commands:

Hydra
A Hydra (ヒドラ) is a normal-sized level 30 variant with purplish-pink scales and a light orange underbelly. In Golden Sun: The Lost Age, they are among the "stock" monsters fought all throughout the Great Western Sea while sailing, as well as when sailing in the Northern Reaches.

Hydras are the slowest monsters in the regions they are found in, and are moderately sturdy but far outperformed in this field by Turtle Dragons. In other words, Hydras are not a very threatening enemy, statistically speaking. The only thing to really worry about is the occasional Triple Chomp for massive damage.

A Hydra's statistics are as follows:

A Hydra uses these battle commands:

Pyrodra
A Pyrodra (パイロヒドラ Pyrohydra) is a normal-sized level 36 variant with pink scales and a light blue underbelly. In Golden Sun: The Lost Age, Pyrodras are among the randomly-encountered enemies fought throughout the deeper, tougher portion of Treasure Isle.

Pyrodras tie with Puppet Warriors as the slowest monsters in the lower areas of Treasure Isle. The two are not interchangeable, however, as Puppet Warriors have the Power Crush skill, which might automatically lower the target's Hit Points to 1. While Power Crush may appear to make Puppet Warriors the more dangerous of the two, it's worth remembering that the skills available to Pyrodras make them more consistently powerful: Triple Chomp, as always, can cause a lot of damage individually, and Rising Venom, while not as powerful, may Poison someone, which can be even more dangerous if left unchecked (although, at this point of the game, Poison is more of an annoyance than a proper threat).

Pyrodras are the only renewable source of Salamander Tails in The Lost Age. This forgeable item can be made into a variety of strong Mars-based equipment at Yallam. Therefore, Pyrodras are likely to be "farmed" often, or become the targets of Random Number Generator manipulation for guaranteed item drops.

A Pyrodra's statistics are as follows:

A Pyrodra uses these battle commands:

Hydra
A Hydra (ヒドラ) is a level 13 variant with brown scales and a green underbelly. In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, they are fought in Barai Temple.

Once again, Hydras are slower than any other enemy in the region they inhabit. They are also among the least durable, although they make up for this with decent Attack. Ironically, they also give out the most experience points for that area, suggesting that their skills compensate for their lackluster statistics.

A Hydra's statistics are as follows:

A Hydra uses these battle commands:

Aqua Hydra
An Aqua Hydra (アクアヒドラ) is a level 28 variant with blue scales and a light blue underbelly. In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, they are fought in the Belinsk Ruins.

Unsurprisingly, Aqua Hydras are much slower than any other enemies that may fight alongside them. They aren't the most durable enemies around, either, although they are among the strongest. Because of this, players should be ready to heal as soon as an Aqua Hydra uses Triple Chomp. Incidentally, Aqua Hydras are the only monsters in Belinsk Ruins that are weak to fire; all the other enemies are vulnerable to wind.

An Aqua Hydra's statistics are as follows:

An Aqua Hydra uses these battle commands:

Pyrodra
A Pyrodra (パイロヒドラ Pyrohydra) is a level 40 variant with wine-colored scales and a bluish underbelly. In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, they are fought in Burning Island Cave.

Pyrodras are generally inferior to Brutal Trolls, the only other type of monster found in the Burning Island Cave, though Pyrodras are faster than Brutal Trolls and also give out more experience points. It has a rare chance to drop the unique Fire Brand weapon. On a trivial note, unlike its previous appearance in The Lost Age, the Pyrodra now actually has a different set of elemental resistance and power ratings that are Mars-aligned, in contrast to the Mercury slant of the other Hydra variations.

A Pyrodra's statistics are as follows:

A Pyrodra have access to the following battle commands:

Cultural References
Origin: Greece

The Hydra (also known as the Lernaean Hydra) in Greek mythology was an ancient, serpent-like water beast that had multiple heads and toxic breath. The Hydra of Lerna, which was slain by Hercules for his Twelve Labors, lived in the Spring of Amymone. Its blood was then used by Hercules to make poisoned arrows for future tasks.