Gaia's Axe

A Gaia's Axe is an Axe-class weapon found in Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

Basic Characteristics
When equipped, a Gaia's Axe increases the wielder's Attack by 163 points. It is a pure-element weapon, based in the Venus element. This means that any normal Attack made with the weapon applies the wielder's Venus Power and the target's Venus Resistance when calculating damage. It can be bought for 16400 coins and sold for 12300 coins.

A Gaia's Axe is one of several items that can potentially be forged from a Golem Core. To obtain the Gaia's Axe, the Golem Core must be delivered to Sunshine of Yallam. Being an axe, one can be equipped by Isaac, Felix, Garet, and Piers. Its Unleash effect is Mother Earth, unleashing at the standard rate of 35% of the time, which adds 59 points of damage before modifying damage based on the Venus element, and then has a chance to inflict Sleep on the opponent. The Unleash visually resembles the Adept attacking the target and a brown rocky boulder appears from off-screen from the upper-right to smash into the target and shatter.

Analysis
When deciding whether to get the Gaia's Axe, one must take the time to note that the Axe is one of three weapons obtainable from Golem Cores, the other two being the Huge Sword and the Tungsten Mace. Of the three, the Gaia's Axe is marginally more powerful in terms of attack, while having a less useful unleash effect. The Huge Sword is also a pure-element weapon, and its Unleash can lower the target's Defense by 25%. Finally, the Tungsten Mace has the distinction of a wider availability (Sheba and Mia in addition to the four warrior-style Adepts), while its Unleash sometimes ignores half the target's Defense rating to increase damage somewhat substantially. All three of these weapons are solid and viable for use by the two Venus Adept warriors prior to the best weapons available in the endgame, especially if Isaac does not join up with the Gaia Blade in his possession, so deciding between the three weapons is mostly a matter of taste.

Cultural References
In Ancient Greek mythology, Gaia is the primordial goddess of the earth, with her counterpart being Uranus, the primordial sky god. She was the ancestress of all the other Gods, and thus was often referred to as Mother Gaia.