Golden Sun (game)

''This article is about the first game in the series. For the full series, see Golden Sun series. For the eponymous object, see The Golden Sun.''

Golden Sun, released in Japan as 黄金の太陽 開かれし封印 Ōgon no Taiyō: Hirakareshi Fūin / Golden Sun: The Broken Seal, is the first installment of a series of role-playing video games developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Nintendo. It was released in November 2001 for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance, with a Game Boy Advance sequel, Golden Sun: The Lost Age, in 2003. The game is notable for certain unique game elements, such as the use of special "Djinn" that empower the player and can be used against enemies.

The story follows a band of magic-attuned "Adepts" who are sent from their home town into the wide world of Weyard to prevent the destructive power of Alchemy from being released as it was in the past. Along the way the Adepts gain new abilities, help out the local populations, and learn more about why Alchemy was sealed away. Upon its release, the game was highly praised; IGN said that Golden Sun could "arguably be one of the best 2D-based Japanese RPGs created for any system."

The game was released in August 1, 2001 for Japan, Novemeber 11, 2001 for North America, and February 22, 2002 for Europe.

Setting
Golden Sun, in both background and chain of events, takes place in a fantasy setting that may be considered fairly typical of classic-style RPGs. It is the world of "Weyard", a massive earth-like environment with several major continents and many oceans. Weyard is revealed by the game's sequel, Golden Sun: The Lost Age, to be a setting modeled off the flat Earth ideal of the world; it is a flat, vaguely circular plane whose oceans perpetually spill off the edge of the world's entire perimeter into an endless abyss. The plot progression of Golden Sun spans the two largest continents in the world's central region: The Eurasian-themed main continent of Angara to the north and the more African and Middle Eastern-inspired continent of Gondowan to the south.

General Storyline
Golden Sun starts in the village of Vale, where a young boy named Isaac is woken by his mother so that they may get to a safe place due to an impending avalanche in the raging storm outside. Isaac meets up with his friends Garet and Jenna and are asked to find help to save Jenna's brother Felix. As they return with help, a giant boulder falls and crushes a house, and Felix, Isaac's father, and Jenna's parents are lost down the river.

Three years later, Isaac, Garet, and Jenna are studying Psynergy with the scholar Kraden who takes them into Sol Sanctum where they stumble upon the Elemental Stars. They are confronted by a group of mysterious strangers who take the stars and kidnap Jenna and Kraden. Isaac and Garet are saved by the Wise One who challenges them to go on a quest to recover the Elemental Stars and restore the Elements to their sealed state.

For more information on the game's storyline, see this page.

Characters
The player controls a total of four characters of Golden Sun. Isaac is a seventeen-year-old Venus Adept from the village of Vale, who serves as the game's silent protagonist. Garet, a seventeen-year-old Mars Adept also from Vale, is big and strong but slightly oafish and unfocused; nonetheless he is Isaac's closest companion. Ivan is a fifteen-year-old Jupiter Adept who has lived with a famous merchant in the town of Kalay all his life, but whose real hometown is actually Contigo, a town on the continent of Atteka; he is a somewhat quiet, insightful boy. Mia, a seventeen-year-old Mercury Adept from the wintry town of Imil, is a gentle healer from a heritage of Mercury Adept clansmen. A fifth character seen and playable in the game's exposition sequence is the 17-year-old Mars Adept Jenna, another childhood friend to Isaac, and Felix's sister, in Vale.

The primary antagonists of the game are Saturos and Menardi, a pair of immensely powerful and talented Mars Adepts of a foreign race hailing from Weyard's frozen northlands. Their aim is to restore Alchemy to the world, and they are assisted by the powerful and mysterious Mercury Adept Alex, of the same heritage as Mia, and Jenna's older brother, the 18-year-old Venus Adept Felix, who is indebted to Saturos for the latter's saving Felix from death.

Golden Sun