Gargoyle enemy line

The Gargoyle, Clay Gargoyle, and Ice Gargoyle are enemies that are battled in Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age. These monsters, resembling demons in the classic image of gargoyles but in flesh-and-blood and holding small scimitars and ellipsoid shields with "three-eyed face" designs on them, are palette swaps of each other that have differing levels of power and defense and are fought in different locations in the games.

Gargoyle
A Gargoyle is a light-blue-skinned level 16 variant with reddish eyes and a shield. In Golden Sun it is battled only throughout the optional Vault Cave location.

Making the Gargoyle notable among the other monsters in Vault Cave is the rather startling difference between its Defense rating and that of the other monsters it is fought alongside. It has almost literally twice as much defense as the Ravager's 47 Defense. Though the Gargoyle doesn't have quite the highest HP rating, it will take more physical hits to fell, but of course this could be considered incentive to only use offensive Psynergy against it to bypass the Defense.

A Gargoyle's statistics are as follows:

A Gargoyle uses these battle commands:

Clay Gargoyle
A Clay Gargoyle is a beige-skinned variant with purplish eyes and a shield. It is level 18 in Golden Sun and level 25 in The Lost Age. In Golden Sun it is fought throughout Altmiller Cave. In The Lost Age it is fought throughout Gaia Rock, and subsequently in Izumo Ruins.

In Altmiller Cave, the Clay Gargoyle continues its highly defensive tradition, beating out the then recently introduced Armored Rat in defense and having much more HP than that rat. Compared even to its earlier predecessor, however, it is less of a damage-dealing threat, with a relatively strong Quake Sphere replaced with a weak single-target Spire attack. At Gaia Rock, particularly in the interior, the Clay Gargoyle ranks about average among the other monsters, but since equipment in that game is generally much more powerful than in the previous games, it is not considered as much as the Wood Walker.

A Clay Gargoyle uses these battle commands:

A Clay Gargoyle uses these battle commands:

Ice Gargoyle
An Ice Gargoyle is a light-purple-skinned level 26 variant with greenish eyes and a shield. In Golden Sun it is fought at Babi Lighthouse, and subsequently throughout Tunnel Ruins and the true "dungeon" portion of Venus Lighthouse.

The Ice Gargoyle technically has the highest Defense rating of all random monsters in the original Golden Sun. However, the second highest Defense Rating is held by the Grand Golem at an effectively identical 149 points, and that monster has much more HP and is much more powerful, and is fought alongside the Ice Gargoyle as well in Venus Lighthouse. So, it is only really worth paying special attention to the Ice Gargoyle when it is first fought in Babi Lighthouse, where compared among the earlier lesser monsters there it proves that it takes comparatively low damage from normal weapon attacks. Like the old Gargoyle, it should be felled with offensive Psynergy spells while normal physical attacks are used on the other monsters alongside it.

The Ice Gargoyle uses these battle commands:

A Clay Gargoyle uses these battle commands: