Long Sword (weapon)


 * This article is about the specific item. For the class of weapons this item belongs to, see List of Long Swords.

A Long Sword is the first Long Sword-class weapon available and is found throughout the Golden Sun series. In all games it is bought in the earliest towns the player's newly formed party can enter and explore; namely, the towns Vale, Vault, and Bilibin in Golden Sun, the towns Daila, Madra, and Alhafra in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, and the towns Patcher's Place, Carver's Camp, and Harapa in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Being a Long Sword-class weapon, an individual Long Sword can be equipped on Isaac, Garet, Felix, Piers, Matthew, and Tyrell. It increases the wielder's base Attack rating by 14 points. It can be bought for 200 coins and sold for 150 coins.

Analysis
In Golden Sun, after the prologue sequences, the player begins in present-day Vale with a level-1 party of Isaac and Garet each holding a Short Sword and Jenna as a guest character holding a Wooden Stick, and 307 coins in your inventory. The Long Sword is the strongest weapon available in the weapon shop at the town, and it is quite sound to buy one for one of your party members and spend the rest of the money on defensive equipment. As an alternative, if you sell one of your equipped Short Swords and your Wooden Stick to have 427 coins, you can buy two Long Swords for Isaac and Garet, and give Jenna the remaining Short Sword, which is an equipment setup that emphasizes attacking enemies in the upcoming Sol Sanctum dungeon over defending against the damage of their attacks. After Vale, the Long Sword will likely remain in your party's inventory until arriving at Bilibin.

In Golden Sun: The Lost Age, the Long Sword serves much the same role as a shop item in the first town of Daila. However, much of the game's focus is on completing puzzles in the dungeon-style locations that provide as rewards weapon artifacts far superior to commonly bought weapons and even weapon artifacts that can normally be bought in vendors, so at the beginning of the game you're much better off using the 200 coins you start out with on defensive equipment than any weapon, even a long sword.

In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, the Long Sword is first found at the shop at Patcher's Place. Due to the changes to the Unleash system, the Long Sword now has the Unleash Critical Strike, which causes damage equal to 1.5x the Adept's attack strength.

The Long Sword will be the strongest weapon available to Matthew and Tyrell when they first arrive at Patcher's Place. However, the Themis' Axe,which is acquired in a chest on Goma Highlands Road and the Battle Axe, bought at Carver's Camp, provide much better Attack bonuses. Thus, it may be better to spend coins upgrading defensive equipment. However, the extra attack power can be useful in the Boss Battle with the Dim Dragon, should the player fight it before going to Carver's Camp.