Goma Highlands Road
The Goma Highlands Road (ゴマ高原道 Goma Plateau Road) is a dungeon-style location in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. This place features some flower and gondola puzzles, items, and the Jupiter Djinni Gust. The area is intended to familiarize the player with the use of the Whirlwind Psynergy.
Walkthrough
Goma Highlands Road's icon on the overworld can be entered as soon as you are capable of exiting Patcher's Place out of its south end. It is situated immediately northwest of a similar icon for Carver's Lumberyard, which cannot be passed through from the west side, and progressing through it immediately deposits you into Carver's Camp to the east.
As soon as your party steps into the location itself, a brief cutscene shows wind passing through to make several Wind Blossoms temporarily hover in place, and a Jupiter Djinni is shown hopping across one blossom like a midair platform and departing for the screen up north. This is meant to clue you into using the Whirlwind Psynergy on them to turn them into temporary hovering platforms for your own use. If you cast Whirlwind on the particular blossom between the tree and the cliff that the Djinni had just used, you can climb the tree and hop east to a gondola, and hop into the gondola and cast Fireball into the extension in front of you to ride the gondola west. This lets you open the western chest for a Mint. At any rate, climbing the stairs through the area to get to the next screen up north should be a simple affair.
In the next screen, push the log in front of you. Of the four logs now grouped together, push the upper-right vertical one left so that you can push the right horizontal one down, and then push the left horizontal one all the way down. Push the upper right vertical one back right, then the right horizontal one back up; this clears the way to roll the left vertical log all the way into the river on the right. To capitalize on this, climb down either tree, then hop right from the log; to get to the elevated chest, position yourself immediately right of the nearby tree and cast Whirlwind in a straight line to make two Wind Blossoms hover, then quickly climb the tree and hop across them. This grants you the powerful Themis' Axe artifact. Climb back up one of the other two trees and follow the winding elevated trail north of the two signs, hopping across the chasm with a narrow waterfall and eventually exiting out of the right screen into Carver's Camp.
During your time in Carver's Camp, you can use Whirlwind to save a child in trouble if you wish. Once the long cutscenes have played out and you regain your freedom to explore the village, go left behind the northwest house and remotely use Move to shift the elevated earth pillar two spaces left so that it falls, letting you reenter Goma Highlands Road at a higher elevation. While you can get an Herb from the right of the two jars north of the rightmost tree on the map, you want to stand at the very westmost tip of the southwest fork and cast Fireball on the distant gondola to bring it over. Ride it over west with Fireball again, then traverse the green perimeter of this screen clockwise until you get to the Jupiter Djinni. Since this is the first Djinni in the game that you need to fight to add to your Djinn collection, it is recommended you save before battling it (though in this game, unlike in previous titles, only Djinn that are randomly encountered in the overworld have the capacity to flee mid-battle). Once you have collected it, ride the gondola back east with one more casting of Fireball and proceed through Carver's Camp as normal.
Enemies
| Bestiary of Goma Highlands Road | ||||||||||
| Monster Name | LVL | HP | ATK | DEF | AGI | EXP | Coins | Weakness | Drop | Drop Rate |
| Ape | 6 | 74 | 57 | 13 | 23 | 40 | 18 | 
|
 Nut
|
1/16 |
| Drone Bee | 5 | 46 | 43 | 11 | 18 | 15 | 9 | 
|
 Elixir
|
1/16 |
| Gobling | 4 | 50 | 37 | 9 | 10 | 13 | 7 |
|
 Sleep Bomb
|
1/16 |
| Rat | 4 | 35 | 33 | 15 | 10 | 11 | 6 |
|
 Herb
|
1/8 |
| Jupiter Djinni (Gust) (unique) | 6 | 151 | 50 | 13 | 23 | 116 | 45 | 
|
N/A | N/A |
Enemy Formations
- Group 1: Ape x1-2
- Group 2: Gobling x1-2
- Group 3: Rat x1-2
- Group 4: Drone Bee x1, Rat x0-1
- Group 5: Ape x1, Gobling x1
- Group 6: Ape x1, Rat x1
- Group 7: Ape x1, Gobling x1, Rat x1
Collectables
Gust: A Jupiter Djinni found near the end of the Goma Highlands Road. The player must enter the upper path via Carver's Camp to find it.
Themis' Axe: Found in an elevated chest in the second screen. Accessed by climbing a tree and jumping across wind blossoms lifted in a line by Whirlwind.
Mint: Found in the southwestern chest in the first screen, reached by casting Fireball on the gondola.
Herb: Found in the upper right of the two jars near where you can reenter the second screen from Carver's Camp at a higher elevation.
Story
The Goma Highlands Road stretches between an area south of Patcher's Place to Carver's Camp, and has several exits. It appears to be a site of logging for the lumberjacks of Carver's Camp. The area is littered with ancient gondolas. The gondolas travel along wires after being powered by fire, and ease travel though the road. The area is a common site for wild wind blossoms, which can be used as mid-air platforms after being lifted by the wind. Breezes blow through the area to activate the flowers occasionally, though the Whirlwind Psynergy also suffices as an activation method.
