Loho

Loho is a mining colony located near a small beach at the southwest coast of the northern continent of Angara.

Loho (ロッホ村 Loho Village) is a small settlement that becomes mandatory to stop at late in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. It is located at the southwestern coast of the northern continent of Angara and technically can be visited as soon as the party sails into the Western Sea for the first time. Loho is a set of ancient ruins that have recently been settled as a mining colony by a race of dwarves who had unearthed an ancient cannon that is apparently still functional, though they have yet to work out how to operate it.

Loho only offers a general store for most of the player's time in the Western Sea, albeit one where you can stock up on Vials before dealing with the other dungeons in the Western Sea. Once you retrieve the Magma Ball at the end of the dungeon Magma Rock following the Reunion between Felix and Isaac's parties, using it on the cannon will make it fire a destructive shot to help with the dwarves' mining operations, and they will install it on your Lemurian Ship as a token of their appreciation. This allows the player to bore through the ice wall blocking the way to the Northern Reaches at the north end of the Western Sea, directly funneling the player toward the final settlement and dungeon in the story.

In Golden Sun: The Lost Age

For all NPC gossip, see Side Scripts.

Loho offers little for the party beyond a general store until the Magma Ball is collected inside the dungeon Magma Rock.

When the party enters the Western Sea for the first time, the two "main" settlements that become available are Shaman Village in the northwest island continent of Hesperia and Contigo in the southwest island continent of Atteka. At the same time, Loho opens as a far less immediately relevant settlement at the far western tip of the north-central continent of Angara.

The only relevant feature that Loho has to offer for most of the player's time in the Western Sea is its general store, which is the first in the Golden Sun series that lets you buy Vials in bulk. For virtually the rest of the game, this restores enough HP that it will practically top off a party member's HP in most cases. Because it only costs 500 coins per Vial, it should not be difficult to have multiple party members hold their own modest stockpiles of Vials. Opening the artifacts menu at Loho also adds a Mist Potion to the menu shared between item vendors, and it adds a Spirit Armlet to the armor artifacts menu, which may be a worthwhile purchase for either Jenna or Sheba if one of them is still not equipped with a similarly strong hand-armor from the party's time in the Eastern Sea.

The party's time spent in the Western Sea boils down to first visiting Shaman Village and completing Trial Road to receive the Hover Jade, then using its Hover Psynergy to clear Jupiter Lighthouse northwest of Contigo. After the Reunion that takes place at Contigo, the newly expanded party will become capable of using the first game's Lift Psynergy, which will allow the party to enter and clear the Magma Rock dungeon in southern Gondowan. In addition to the Blaze Psynergy the party will earn for Jenna at the end, the party must inspect a particular burning rock close by to retrieve the Magma Ball.

Using the Magma Ball on the ancient cannon will blow open the east part of the wall, letting you find collectibles and causing the cannon to get installed onto your ship.

With the Magma Ball in the inventory, the party must visit Loho and use it on the ancient cannon set up at the west area of town. This will destroy a wall and trigger a cutscene that will result in the cannon getting added to your ship, which will allow you to sail up north past Kalt Island and through the ice wall blocking access to the Northern Reaches. This new route essentially amounts to opening up the final settlement, Prox, and the final mandatory dungeon in the game's campaign, Mars Lighthouse.

Before leaving, you can acquire several useful collectibles because of both the destroyed stone wall and the fact the dwarven villagers have updated their gossip and idle positions. At the southwest part of the screen is a spot that glows when Reveal is cast on it; because a dwarf who was standing in front of it has moved, you are free to cast Scoop on the spot to dig up the only Mythril Silver that can be found outside the optional endgame-tier dungeon Yampi Desert Cave.

North of the broken wall is a half-buried Golem Core out in the open, and Lifting a boulder north of that will uncover another half-buried Golem Core; both of these need to be Scooped out. (These two cores, along with the Golem Core that could be found inside Magma Rock earlier, are the only ones that will ever be available in game files where the party is incapable of entering Anemos Inner Sanctum.) Finally, climb the ivy ladder and hop left onto the roof of the sanctum to obtain the Jupiter Djinni Lull.

Vendors

In a gimmick exclusive to Loho, the innkeeper located in the northwest stone structure also provides the general store service; which service she provides depends on which counter you stand at, which will cause her to walk on over to face you across the chosen counter. The inn service costs 22 coins per party member, which would equate to 88 coins in total prior to the Reunion and 176 coins in total afterwards, when your party's size has doubled. While engaging her from across the south counter, she will behave like a normal vendor.

General Store
Name	Class	Cost	Effect
Herb	Consumable Item	10	Restores 50 HP to one Adept
Nut	Consumable Item	200	Restores 200 HP to one Adept
Vial	Consumable Item	500	Restores 500 HP to one Adept
Antidote	Consumable Item	20	Cures Poison and Venom from one Adept
Elixir	Consumable Item	30	Removes Stun, Sleep, and Delusion from one Adept
Sacred Feather	Consumable Item	70	Temporarily lowers monster encounter rate
Artifacts
Spirit Armlet	Bracelet	9000	Defense +38, Venus and Mercury power +10
Mist Potion	Consumable Item	9000	Restores 300 HP to all Adepts

Collectibles

• Crystal Powder: Found inside the brown barrel under the dark-gray jar outside the southeast stone structure, which is southwest of the cannon.

The following collectibles can only be reached after using the Magma Ball from Magma Rock on the cannon to blow the right wall up, thus causing the cannon to be installed onto your ship:

• Mythril Silver: Is fully buried under a tile of ground in the southwest part of the settlement that is adjacent to two diagonally arranged rocks. The spot lights up when you cast the Reveal Psynergy in its vicinity and requires you to cast Scoop on it to retrieve the Mythril Silver. A dwarf stands in the way of reaching this spot up until the cannon is used and acquired, after which he will have moved elsewhere.
• Golem Core: Is visibly half-buried in the northeast area opened up using the cannon; cast Scoop to retrieve it.
• Golem Core: Can be uncovered by casting Lift on the round boulder at the northeast area of the settlement just above the other Golem Core. It is half-buried like the other Golem Core and also requires you to cast Scoop on it.
• Lull: Is visibly sitting atop the stone structure housing the sanctum in the upper center of the settlement. It can only be reached by climbing the ivy in the northeast part of the settlement that opens only after blowing up the wall blocking the way, then hopping left onto the roof of the structure.

History

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This set of ruins built out of stone and into a mountainous area on Angara is apparently the remnants of a city that once existed in Weyard's ancient past. Whatever this city used to be named and what it was like in the ancient past is a mystery. Today, however, it is inhabited by settlers that appear to literally be a race of Dwarves - squat humanlike people that in both appearance and hobby are exactly like Dwarves that commonly appear in other high fantasy works. This is the only appearance of Dwarves in the known world of Weyard.

The Dwarves in Loho are not natives of these ruins, however, but settlers. Apparently, the race hails from beyond the ice floes of the Northern Reaches just like Prox and its own humanlike race, the Mars Clan. "A short while back", the enterprising Dwarves sailed down from the Northern Reaches and sailed in search of an ideal location to settle. They are naturally talented and interested in mining and excavation, but also hold a deep-rooted interest and appreciation in history, which is why they settle the ancient ruins when they eventually discover them along Angara's west coast. They name their new settlement Loho and begin staking claims in the area, mining for ore and precious metal. It becomes part of their culture that if one lives in Loho and doesn't dig, one "doesn't belong".

At some point in their mining expedition within the ruins, they unearth an ancient cannon, which appears to be an intact war weapon from the ancient past. This is an exciting discovery for the Dwarves, but they find they have no idea how to operate the heavy device. They note that it "looks a little like an old ballista, but the way it works is totally different", and they surmise that it is capable of immense blasting power. That would be just what they need to blast away a particular stone wall in the ruins that blocks them from reaching a new area to mine (since the stone walls of the ruins are remarkably durable even to the point that the Dwarves' own manpower cannot damage them), but if they cannot use the cannon to begin with, it is useless. Some Dwarves nonetheless hold the cannon as a cultural symbol that could attract tourists and commerce, while some Dwarves think it should be sold to Tolbi, which is geographically close by down south. Others think that possession of such a great power could lead to potential for great evil by whoever has the cannon, and that it should not be handed to anybody.

Late in The Lost Age, the traveling party of human Adepts co-led by Felix and Isaac sail to the beach near Loho and land their Lemurian ship there, and enter the settlement. They inspect the cannon themselves, and soon figure out that to make it fire whatever steel ball is placed inside it, apply a Magma Ball from Magma Rock to it. The cannon shoots out a blast with intense explosive force, utterly destroying the wall it was pointed at, and everyone is momentarily stunned by the display. Upon realizing that now the miners can continue their excavations, the head Dwarves thank the Adepts for assisting their activities and propose to give them the cannon, and they place it onto the Lemurian ship, stating that now the Adepts can sail into the Northern Reaches and get past the ice floes that prevent the Dwarves' own ships from sailing back north. Now armed with a functioning weapon from the ancient past, the Adepts are able to sail north into the Northern Reaches, using the Magma Ball in conjunction with the cannon to blow away the recently formed wall of ice, and continue to the end of their journey.

While neither Loho nor its people are mentioned in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, it can be surmised that their discovery of the ancient cannon at Loho -- and perhaps its usage by the Warriors of Vale in their famed quest -- spurred on the reintroduction of cannons throughout Weyard in the thirty years following the conclusion of Isaac and Felix's journey, for the sailing ship used by the pirate Briggs and later on Eoleo and Matthew includes a full compliment of functioning cannons. This is not thought of as a remarkable feature of the ship by any NPC, suggesting that cannons are now commonplace in society. (The Lost Ship also features a full compliment of cannons.)

Trivia

Loho lies a short ways north of where Altmiller Cave from the first Golden Sun would have been located; the changed landscape around Loho would have been visible from the perspective of Isaac's party.

• Loho's location at Angara's southwestern beach is close enough to the mountains separating Angara from the northermost tip of Gondowan that Isaac's party would have had a clear view of Loho's area during their time in upper Gondowan in the first Golden Sun. The changes to the landscape north of the mountains can be observed by holding the L-shoulder button to zoom out the camera's view of the overworld while standing near Altmiller Cave. In addition to Loho's added overworld icon and the surrounding landscape changes being an obvious retcon that can be easily observed between the two games, Altmiller Cave's icon would have been visible to Felix's party with a similar zooming-out of the camera were it not removed in The Lost Age.
  • The tiny beach that was added southwest of Loho to serve as a convenient beaching point would have been unavoidably seen by Isaac's party as they approached Altmiller Cave. Because of an apparent development oversight, inserting the ship into the "notch" between the southwest tip of the beach and the grassy cliff underneath it allows Felix's party to disembark in a southeastern direction, letting them walk across a fair swath of the overworld regions that could be explored by the first game's party. Most overworld icons representing areas in the first Golden Sun have been removed.
• In the English-language localization, a Mind Read-able thought from an elderly NPC at Kalt Island implies that the dwarves of Loho had "crossed the frozen wastes" by using their legendary cannon. This is highly inconsistent with what the player finds when they visit Loho, which is that the dwarves have only recently dug up the ancient cannon, which they do not know how to operate. The line at Kalt Island is a fabrication by the English script; in the Japanese version, the old man at Kalt makes no mention of Loho and instead thinks that the cannon could be used to open the way north if fed a magma ball.
  • Though the dwarves in-game say that they had only settled the ruins recently and called their mining colony "Loho," it is not indicated where else they may have come from or settled. The aforementioned fabrication between localizations would seem to imply the dwarves either headed north into the Northern Reaches or had departed them and headed south to Loho; the latter scenario might even give the impression that the dwarven race originated from somewhere in the Northern Reaches. However, the original Japanese script does not imply any of this whatsoever.
• The scene after the firing of the cannon, in which the dwarves offer to install it on the party's Lemurian Ship, is written with the presumption that the player had beached their ship at the small beach immediately west of Loho, and the three dwarves will approach the party from that direction when they tell you they finished their job. The scene does not change if the player instead beached the ship at the larger beach north of Loho, or used the Hover Psynergy to land the ship at any grassy spot on the surrounding continent that can be reached on foot from Loho – such as the area around Angara Cavern far to the northeast.
• In a glitch seemingly tied to the unique way the innkeeper switches between innkeeping and shopkeeping services depending on your location, having Felix stand in the exact center of the circular red-and-blue carpet south of her and press the interaction button while facing upward will remotely trigger her innkeeping dialogue. She will continue to randomly look around at the crates even while being talked to, and her service will be for the inn even though the party will remain physically far to the south of her (which is supposed to be the direction that would prompt her to act as a shopkeeper instead).
  • It is possible to perform this glitch while having Felix run north through the circular carpet and pressing the interaction button the moment he passes over the spot that will remotely trigger the inn prompts. If done correctly, Felix will run in place until the inn prompts are exited.