Azul

'"An awakened dragon from the deep."

Azul (アズール, Azul) is a Summon of the Mercury element found in Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. It is one of 14 summons that is not instantly accessible when the required Djinn are accessible, but must instead be specifically acquired by encountering a stone tablet that contains the summon. Like Daedalus, Catastrophe, and Iris, Azul's tablet can only be encountered by defeating a unique boss in battle. Azul the strongest Mercury-aligned summon, and thus is considered to be one of the ultimate summons in both games.

Basic Characteristics

As mentioned previously, the Azul summon can only be acquired after defeating the required boss in battle, the Star Magician, one of only two bosses to appear in both The Lost Age and Dark Dawn. In The Lost Age, the Star Magician is encountered at the deepest part of Treasure Isle. In Dark Dawn, the Star Magician is encountered at the Lost Ship.

After acquiring the Azul summon, a successful summoning of Azul requires that the player have four Mercury Djinn and three Venus Djinn on standby. Azul has a base Mercury power of 330 and also does additional damage equivalent to 21% of the enemy’s maximum HP. In addition, each enemy affected may be Stunned. Following the summoning, the Mercury Power and Venus Power of the summoner will increase by 100 points and 60 points, respectively.

Azul's appearance in Dark Dawn

In The Lost Age, Azul's summon sequence features a very lengthy blue sea serpent that encases the opposition in a big 3D sphere of Mercury energy. The sea serpent will then crash into the sphere from below into the top of the screen. In Dark Dawn, Azul is featured rising out of the sea from a water spout. The sea serpent will gather energy from within itself, then fire that energy as a water sphere that envelops the enemies. Azul will then crash into the sphere as in The Lost Age.

Analysis

Azul is among Daedalus, Catastrophe, Charon, and Iris as “ultimate” Summons in the Lost Age. Azul is the game’s strongest Mercury-based attack; stronger than the popular Boreas summon. The somewhat hefty Djinn requirement, however, causes players to use Azul mostly in boss fights, rather than in random monster battles, though Azul proves extremely effective against Wonder Birds at Islet Cave in The Lost Age. And in the few boss fights that remain in The Lost Age after when Azul can first be acquired, Azul can be hugely effective, dealing massive damage to Valukar, Sentinel, the Flame Dragons, and the Doom Dragon itself.

In Dark Dawn, Azul can be acquired as soon as the player gains access to the Search Psynergy, much earlier than the other ultimate summons. This early access means that Azul can see more uses than the others, as the player can gain if before fighting the Chaos Chimera, not to mention the other bonus bosses.

Cultural references

Origin: Judaism

Azul is modeled after the Leviathan described in the Old Testament of the Bible. The name "Leviathan" is used five times in the Bible, particularly in the Book of Job where the description in chapter 41 causes many to interpret it as a massive sea serpent, which lead to its popular modern-day image. This serpentine version of the entity makes many spiritual appearances in modern video games such as Square Enix's Final Fantasy series, and though its name in Golden Sun is different it is altogether likely this is yet another Leviathan appearance.

The name Azul also describes its color; the Spanish and Portuguese word azul means "blue".

Trivia

• Azul has been featured in a few promotional materials for Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. An Amazon.com trailer for the North American version of the game featured Azul's summon sequence, while a promotional poster for Dark Dawn showed Azul in the background.
• It is the only "ultimate" summon that can be collected once the team consists of 8 payable characters. In The Lost Age, it can be collected once Isaac's party joins. In Dark Dawn, it can be collected once Himi joins.

Extended Gallery

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  Full-length Azul separated sprite

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  Dark Dawn Azul promotional artwork