Venus Lighthouse

Venus Lighthouse is the Elemental Lighthouse of Venus (Earth), located in the upper region of Gondowan near Lalivero. It functions as the third of a series of three dungeon-style locations that must be gone through in a row as the first Golden Sun ' s final dungeon "set"; first, the player enters Babi Lighthouse to the north, then goes underground through the Tunnel Ruins, and enters up into the dungeon portion of the Lighthouse that serves as the game's final dungeon. Additionally, there is a smaller, easier dungeon-area that serves as a one-way "exit" from the later dungeon portion, and this area is reached and explored earlier when the location is entered from the outside overworld map, which is done after passing Suhalla Gate. This dungeon area is even featured as the starting point of Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

While in the Lighthouse, Isaac receives 4 PP after every round in battle. This applies to both parts of the Lighthouse.

Walkthrough (Earlier, "exit" portion)
After having passed through Suhalla Gate, your path east along the overworld leads you into the forested area in front of Venus Lighthouse itself. Passing by the various wounded NPCs lying on the ground, go into the building's front entrance and proceed up until you get to a room where a brown mural is placed on a wall. Cast the Reveal Psynergy here to find a staircase which leads to a chest containing the first of two vital objectives in this area: The Carry Stone, which grants the equipped Adept the Carry Psynergy. Return and go up to get to a hallway that branches left and right. Choose the right path, then when you get to the downstairs room that has lots of hoppable platforms above an abyss, from the platform connected to the lower right corner of your floor, hop left three times, down once, right once, down once, right once, and down three times to get to a stairwell leading up. This leads to a chest containing the Lucky Cap, a headgear artifact that should be quite useful. Retrace your steps back to the branching hallway.

Take the left branch this time, and in the next room, which has five statues along the upper wall, the path branches again, this time to a stairwell leading up and a doorway going down. The stairwell leading up only goes to an NPC that gives a little context info. When you go through the doorway going down, you will be right next to a gray cube; push it right once and a brief cutscene will hint that the block is supposed to be "carried" down onto the ground. Use your new Carry Psynergy to lift the block up, then press either right or down so that the block will float over one space in that direction and then fall. The stairwell will be open for you to climb. The next room prevents you from going up with a barrier of electricity that can only be turned off from the other side; this room is the room that serves as the "one-way" exit from the later final dungeon portion of Venus Lighthouse (there is a door at the top end of the room from which the interior of Venus Lighthouse can be left out of). The real purpose here is a second stairwell that is hidden behind the inscription on the wall to the right of the stairwell you climbed out of; use Reveal to go up another flight of stairs.

The room you get into which has a giant goddess statue against the north wall and a series of circles on the floor is a very important room that essentially allows you to go through the final three-dungeon set later on. Interact with the statue to cause a particular series of circles to light up, and from here on out when you interact with the statue again, the state of the circles will be toggled between the "left way down" and the "center way down". Put simply, this chooses which of two "dungeon paths" in the upcoming Tunnel Ruins dungeon you will be going down (see Tunnel Ruins for an in-depth explanation), and since it is worth exploring both paths, you might want to make return trips to this room here to toggle the dungeon path. Once you've selected a dungeon path in this room after having used the Carry Psynergy to make it to this room to begin with, you're finished with this "exit portion" of Venus Lighthouse, so go back out the main entrance and leave the forest right to travel to Lalivero.

Walkthrough (Later, "final dungeon" portion)
Once you've entered the later, interior portion of Venus Lighthouse after having gone through the Tunnel Ruins, the music changes accordingly, and you enter a room that has two other doorways and a Psynergy Stone with which to replenish your party's PP after having healed everybody. The stairwell to the left is what leads you to the room in the "exit" portion of Venus Lighthouse that has the electric barrier (which you can temporarily turn off from this side by Moving the left statue onto the floor switch), and this can be used to leave the final dungeon portion so that you can go back to the goddess statue room, switch paths for the Tunnel Ruins, go back to the overworld, and go all the way through Babi Lighthouse and Tunnel Ruins again. However you decide to go about, the central doorway at the top of the room is the starting point for the actual final dungeon.

In the first screen you come to, which might be thought of as the "lobby room" of this dungeon, go left and enter the left door, where there is an easy Carry-cube puzzle to solve. Simply push the right carry cube one space left, then Carry it one space left to hop the gap to reach the next room. Ignore the downstairs stairwell as it leads to the room that you would drop into and be getting out of if you fall into the abyss while on the large sandfall in this room. Run right while on the sand river that projects you downward to get to the right ledge and reach both a doorway leading down and a stairwell leading up. Go down to get a chest containing the Thunder Crown, a Cursed item that is a perfect fit on any Adept equipped with the Cleric's Ring, then go up and on the stairs.

Like with the waterfall walls of Mercury Lighthouse, the sandfall walls of Venus Lighthouse sometimes conceal doorways which you can enter by pressing up against a sandfall. Press up against the rightmost sandfall to get to a room where you are to hop down a series of platforms to the right; hop down twice, right once, down three times, and left once to lead yourself to the next room. This small room demonstrates a type of puzzle that will feature elsewhere in Venus Lighthouse: Moving around blocks into holes to complete conduits so that statues will send power along to open the doors to the next room. Simply push the vertical-conduit block into the hole to see how this works, and go up into the next room. Step on the floor switch to cause essentially one sandfall leading into the "lobby room" you were in earlier to be replaced with another. Go left and down the stairs to return to the "lobby room".

In the main "lobby room", climb down, go across, and climb up to the central elevated portion of the floor next to the new sandfall to the right, and run across it to get to and enter the door to the upper right corner of the room. In the next room, climb down to where the two gray-topped pillars are, and Move the left pillar down one space so that you can cross through to where the lone pillar above is. Move that all the way to the left, and now you can climb back up and hop up to the stairs to the top. Go up them. and follow the linear path until you get to another, larger conduit-connecting room. One way to solve this room is to move the right-down conduit block into the upper-left hole, the left-up conduit block into the lower-left hole, and the horizontal conduit block into the upper right hole. Proceed to the next room once you're done.

In the next room, hop left, go left across the sand river, and go up the dry land so that you can hop left again near the top and make it to where there is a stairwell going up and a doorway going down. The stairwell is actually an exit, so do down the doorway to another room with two sandfalls. Both of these contain doors; the door behind the right sandfall leads to a chest containing the Dragon Scales armor (which is almost as useful as the Storm Gear). Then go through the left sandfall and get to a carry-cube puzzle just like one that was seen in the left path of Tunnel Ruins; move one carry cube down to the lower left corner and Carry it down one space so that it falls onto the white platform below, and do the same thing again with a second carry stone to stack it on top of the first. This makes the white platform to the right elevate so that you can go down the doorway to the right. In the next room, step on the floor switch to make a sandfall appear in the room below, then hop up to go down and return to the room below.

Back at the big room, which now has two sand rivers flowing through it, ride the sand river to the left down so that you go up the stairwell at the lower left corner of the room. Follow the path to a mazelike room in which all the pathways are moving paths of sand. Step into the sand, run down the first opening below, then run immediately into an opening to the right. You will be traveling on a course that will take you in front of a chest at the lower right part of the area, so run up to it and claim the Gaia Blade, which is the strongest weapon in the game and a perfect fit for Isaac. When you step back onto the sand below the chest, keep on running in an upward direction to get to the door on the upper right, and enter it. Ignore the white hoppable platforms and go down the doorway to the right of the doorway you come out of.

You enter the third and final conduit puzzle, where the four blocks needed to complete the conduit are all at the top. Move the right-down conduit block into the upper left hole. Move the up-right conduit block into the hole below the hole you just filled up. Move the left-down conduit block into the hole southeast of the hole you just filled up. And move the vertical conduit block all the way down to the lower right hole in the room, southeast of the hole you just filled up. When the conduit is complete, go through the door that opens, and step on the floor switch to make a third sandfall appear into the big room below. Hop up and go northwest down a stairwell, and when you go down through the subsequent small room, you return to the big room with three sand rivers by walking through the center sand river's sand wall. Run right across the right sand river to get up the stairwell at the upper right corner of the room. You are led to a final room where there is a Psynergy Stone and a slide into a small pit.

The slide in the last room contains this game's "point of no return"; once you slide down there, you are brought up to the Venus Lighthouse Aerie, where the game's two subsequent final boss battles and the lengthy cutscenes before and after them take place without any break in between. Therefore, you would most likely want to save here, since doing all this will prevent you from going back to find or complete anything else in the game. Once you defeat the final boss, cutscenes that take over will eventually and automatically return you out of Venus Lighthouse into Lalivero.

Walkthrough (Golden Sun: The Lost Age)
After starting a New Game and watching the introductory cutscenes, you start out with a party comprised entirely of a level 5 Jenna, and your starting point is right in front of the stairs in Venus Lighthouse's "exit portion" where Isaac's party in the previous game used Carry to remove the carry cube. (Luckily for you, random encounters no longer occur here.) Go through the left door, go through the lower left door of the room with the five statues, and you arrive at the branching hallway. Go down the stairwell at the right end of the hallway to get to the room that has lots of hoppable platforms above an abyss. Just like in the previous game, from the platform connected to the lower right corner of your floor, hop left three times, down once, right once, down once, right once, and down three times to get to a stairwell leading up. This leads to a chest; for obvious reasons, it no longer contains the Lucky Cap, but there is still an Herb inside. Retrace your steps back to the branching hallway, and go down until you exit the Lighthouse structure.

Outside the lighthouse, when you try to go down into the forest, a cutscene takes over, after which you are to leave the screen through the left exit - if you try to go out to the right exit, Kraden will stop you and direct you west, so you cannot go out that way. When you reach the left end of the screen, a Ruffian will attack you in a cutscene, which serves as the game's first battle; it is easily won by using Jenna's Fume Psynergy. After that, exit west; rather than appear in the game's overworld like in the previous Golden Sun, you will immediately appear at the right exit of Suhalla Gate,

Items
Carry Stone - In a hidden room in the beginning "exit" portion. The door to the room is on the wall with the drawings, visible by using Reveal. Gaia Blade - In the room with the flowing sand maze. Herb - in the prologue Golden Sun: The Lost Age, when you control Jenna in leaving Venus Lighthouse, this is found in the chest the Lucky Cap used to be in. Lucky Cap - in a chest in the beginning "exit" portion, visible in the room with the wall with the drawings. Thunder Crown - In a room south of the first room with flowing sand. Dragon Scales - In a room inside the sandfall next to the sandfall that leads to the "blocks-and-weights" puzzle.

Background and Story
The Venus Lighthouse existed in Weyard's Ancient Past much like the other three Elemental Lighthouses as a source of its respective element in Psynergy and Alchemy. The structure is designed to work with the Elemental Star jewel of the Venus element, the Venus Star; if the Venus Star, the container of the purified essence of the Venus element, is cast down the well at the top of the Venus Lighthouse, its essence would be channeled by the Lighthouse's internal mechanics and be placed atop the aerie as a spherical beacon emitting Venus-based energy.

Located near the modern-day settlement of Lalivero are ancient ruins belonging to a civilization that had apparently based itself around Venus Lighthouse specifically; the ruins connect to an underground path that leads straight into the interior of Venus Lighthouse, whereas the perceived "front entrance" at the base of the structure itself is in fact an "exit". Only a group of Adepts that include at least one Venus Adept in their numbers may pass either the door at Venus Lighthouse's front exit and the door that otherwise seals the entrance into the Tunnel Ruins and subsequently explore Venus Lighthouse in full; this, of course, is why neither the Laliverans nor the nation that would eventually take over it, Tolbi, know anything about the Lighthouse, even though Tolbi recently had sent scholars and soldiers to study it up close.

Late in Golden Sun, the group of Adepts led by Saturos and Menardi, who are journeying to light the Elemental Lighthouses with the Elemental Stars, arrive at Venus Lighthouse; Saturos and Menardi have apparently become more brazen and brutal at this stage, as they physically attack and leave wounded on the ground all those unfortunate enough to be in their path, and they have their Venus Adept companion, Felix, use his Psynergy of his element to grant them admittance into the Venus Lighthouse. They soon come to decipher and understand that this is not the true entrance into Venus Lighthouse, which is instead at the ruins to the north which Babi Lighthouse is being constructed upon at present, so they depart north.

The group of young Adepts pursuing Saturos in an effort to stop his plan to light the Lighthouses, led by Isaac, happen upon Venus Lighthouse's front entrance and perform their own investigation, coming to the same conclusions that Saturos' group came to earlier. They depart north for Babi Lighthouse.

Saturos' group soon makes it into the tower's interior portion, and Saturos and Menardi proceed to climb through it while trying their hand at the ancient riddles within the structure; as their companion Alex would much later claim, they have great difficulty in this area. They soon order Felix to lead their captive members Jenna and Kraden back out of the lighthouse through its exit portion while they bring their other more recent captive from Lalivero, Sheba, with them up to Venus Lighthouse's aerie. At some point, Felix, however, decides to go back and follow Saturos to the aerie alone so as to confront him over the involvement of someone like Sheba in their quest. Alex rejoins Jenna and Kraden to learn what had happened, and Kraden figures at the same time that Isaac must have come into Venus Lighthouse to stop Saturos and Menardi; Jenna is worried, because if Felix and Isaac meet up there, they would fight. The only thing Alex seems to be concerned about, however, is that the Venus Lighthouse will soon be lit, which is a very pleasing prospect to him; he strongly wants Alchemy returned to the world so that wondrous magic would once again reign supreme as it did in the world's ancient past, or so he claims. The three eventually agree to resume their trip to where Saturos had ordered them to wait for him and Menardi until after the Venus Beacon was lit, the peninsula of Idejima.

When Jenna, Kraden, and Alex exit out of Venus Lighthouse's structure, large groups of soldiers from Tolbi and workmen from Lalivero await them outside, and demand they hand Sheba back. After affirming Jenna is ready to fight her way through the workmen to Idejima using her Mars Psynergy, Alex uses his extreme powers as a Mercury Adept to hold off the Tolbi soldiers for a while, and eventually rejoins them on Idejima.

Meanwhile, at the aerie of Venus Lighthouse, Saturos and Menardi are about to cast the Venus Star down the Venus Lighthouse's throat when all of a sudden Felix arrives to demand why they haven't released Sheba yet; Saturos explains they need her as a Jupiter Adept so that Jupiter Lighthouse can be explored in the future. When Felix proclaims he will be taking Sheba back down with him to Idejima for safety's sake, the Mars Adepts deny him his request, explaining that they cannot trust him and his rebellious attitude, and a falling out occurs.

Just then, Isaac's party arrives at the aerie of Venus Lighthouse to confront Saturos and Menardi in person. Saturos threatens that Sheba's safety cannot be guaranteed unless Isaac's group hands them the Shaman's Rod they know is in Isaac's possession; the reason Saturos brought her up here was so that they could get the Rod, which they know is also needed for Jupiter Lighthouse somehow. Through crafty wording, Saturos gets Isaac to give him the Rod under the impression that it is an exchange, only to clarify afterward that he didn't say he was going to let her go. Now declaring that Isaac's party has meddled in their affairs for the last time, Saturos and Menardi launch a full-force offensive with the intent to kill; the battle is fierce, but Isaac's four-Adept group manage to best them in battle and leave them weak on the ground.

Isaac's party is under the impression that Felix has only been traveling with Saturos and Menardi all this time because he was forced to submit under their power. They are completely taken aback when Felix displays his full intention to continue lighting the Elemental Lighthouses after this, even if Saturos and Menardi are out of the picture, but Felix does not even take the time to explain why lighting the Lighthouses is necessary; Isaac is forced to label him their enemy. But then, Saturos and Menardi arise and shock everyone by casually tossing the Venus Star into the Lighthouse's well, beginning the process that will establish the Venus Beacon upon the aerie. The energy that begins to flow out of the Lighthouse recharges them (even though they are Mars Adepts, they are recharged because Venus and Mars - as in, Earth and Fire - are symbiotic), and they execute their ultimate offense against Isaac; physically merging together into a massive, terrifying two-headed dragon, which engages Isaac's party in their final battle. The battle is intense and drawn out, but the Adepts miraculously prove victorious and slay the beast. Saturos and Menardi revert to their original forms, and now in a dying state, they fall backwards into the lighthouse well to their shared demises.

Isaac's incredible victory over superior opponents intimidates Felix into saying that he is no match for Isaac now, and that therefore he must leave with Sheba. It is then that the Venus Lighthouse, as part of the final step in establishing the Venus Beacon atop its aerie, generates a powerful earthquake through the surrounding landscape as it temporarily divides itself into quarters; Sheba loses her footing and is unable to hang onto the side of Venus Lighthouse, so after thanking Felix for his consideration, she falls off the towering structure to what would appear to anyone is a certain doom. Felix, in a delirious state over the circumstances, jumps clean off the tower after her, leaving Isaac's group speechless. After the beacon is established, the lighthouse reforms, and the shaking stops, the four young Adepts gather their thoughts and soon start going back down.

Jenna, Kraden, and Alex have only just gotten onto Idejima when the earthquake let loose by Venus Lighthouse's forming beacon suddenly begins; all of a sudden, a rift is torn through the Suhalla Range to which Idejima is connected, physically severing it and turning it into its own, buoyant island that begins floating east out to sea. The earthquake also causes the forested ground at the base of Venus Lighthouse to break off and away so that the ocean's water floods the Lighthouse's base - the rushing waves of the water is miraculously where both Sheba and Felix fall into from the top of the Venus Lighthouse, causing them both to survive the fall. Sheba is knocked unconscious, but not Felix, and when he sees Idejima south of him floating out to sea, he carries Sheba with him and swims with all his might to catch up to the island before it gets away. He and Sheba wash up on the floating island's shore, which Alex calmly reports to Jenna and Kraden later.

When Isaac's party returns to the base of the Lighthouse, they find the base is now all flooded because of the earthquake. They decide then to gaze out to sea so as to perceive the fog representing the Sea of Time far in the distance; they had been ordered to do so by Babi a while back, for they had previously agreed with him that after Isaac's business in Venus Lighthouse was taken care of, he would seek out the Sea of Time for Babi's sake. The Adepts then return to Lalivero, and over the next long period of time, they conduct a tiring but fruitless search for Jenna.

At the end of Golden Sun: The Lost Age, all four Elemental Lighthouse Beacons are lit, which automatically triggers the process shared between Venus Lighthouse and Mt. Aleph that brings the force of Alchemy back to the world. As though the Lighthouses are linked, they shoot beams of purified energy from their respective beacons and merge them in the airspace above Mt. Aleph, forming the Golden Sun.

Trivia

 * The Psynergy Stone in the first room of Venus Lighthouse's main dungeon, after being used up, instantly regenerates if you go down the staircase into the Tunnel Ruins and come right back up. This makes this particular room probably the best place to level-grind in the original Golden Sun, since you can fight battles over and over again in this room, then heal everyone with Psynergy, then replenish all PP meters with the stone, then leave the room and come right back to make the stone reappear, and repeat the battling ad infinitum.


 * Venus Lighthouse is the only lighthouse to not house a Djinn of its respective element, or any Djinn for that matter.


 * Venus Lighthouse is the only lighthouse lacking a location for an elevator at its ground level. It is also the only one built into a mountain side.


 * Like with the Mercury Adept Mia at Mercury Lighthouse, Isaac restores 4 PP at the end of each round of battle because he is a Venus Adept. This works both in the earlier "exit" portion and the later "main dungeon" portion of Venus Lighthouse. However, when the beacon restores Saturos and Menardi while lighting up, in theory the beacon should also make Isaac much stronger as well due to it being of a matching element.


 * Interestingly enough, the Venus beacon is green, despite gold being the typical Venus color throughout the series, and the fact that during the rise of the Golden Sun, the energy sent from the Venus Lighthouse was gold as well.


 * The Venus Lighthouse is the only lighthouse seemingly lacking a nearby living Venus tribe or a settlement that is explicitly descended from one - rather, the remnants of an ancient civilization north of Lalivero are the only indication of such a tribe's existence. It is also the only lighthouse for which there isn't a single adept of its element living nearby in the present.