Great Sword

A Great Sword (グレートソード, Gurēto sōdo^?) is a common Long Sword-class weapon available throughout the Golden Sun series. It offers the highest attack of any "generic" weapon commonly sold at vendors and is the most expensive to boot.

In Golden Sun and The Lost Age

Great Sword (GBA)
In-Game Description
"Long Sword" (GS) (TLA)
Trade Info
Weapon class	Long Sword
Buy value	7000
Sell value	5250
Artifact?	No
Statistic Boosts
Attack Boost	90
Acquisition
• First sold in Tolbi (GS) • First sold in Apojii Islands (TLA) • Starts on Isaac if no password was used (TLA)

In Golden Sun, Great Swords are first sold in Tolbi, and they are also sold in the subsequent villages of Lunpa and Lalivero. At 90 base Attack, they are technically the strongest and most expensive "generic vendor weapon", offering 10 more Attack than the Great Axe that would have been sold in the previous main settlement on the player's journey, Kalay. As a long sword, it can only be wielded by the warrior-style Adepts Isaac and Garet, whereas two other generic weapons introduced in Tolbi can be additionally wielded by one of the other party members: the 86-Attack Master Rapier, which Ivan can also wield, and the 84-Attack War Mace, which Mia can also wield.

The best weapons Isaac and Garet could be wielding by the time they first make the crossing on the Tolbi-bound Ship are the aforementioned Great Axe and the 76-Attack Vulcan Axe from Lamakan Desert. If you made use of the secret method of accessing Crossbone Isle early, you might also have acquired the 84-Attack Mystery Blade before reaching Tolbi. In any of these cases, a Great Sword could feasibly offer an Attack boost that would add several points of base damage to all physical attacks and abilities deriving from the Attack stat, albeit without the possibility of proccing an Unleash of its own. However, you ideally would want to avoid this because the Lucky Medal Fountain in Tolbi potentially allows you to get even stronger weapon artifacts free of monetary charge by tossing Lucky Medals into it. You can acquire the 84-Attack Burning Axe, the 88-Attack Grievous Mace, and the 90-Attack Assassin Blade with a little bit of luck, and these weapons feature Unleash effects that allow them to produce more impactful attacks on average than the Great Sword, even if its own baseline 90 Attack is slightly higher in a couple of these weapons' cases as well.

In The Lost Age, Great Swords are sold at Apojii Islands, which means it is possible to buy these as soon as you begin sailing the Eastern Sea roughly 40% into the game and can access all four of the new settlements located across the sea. Avoiding this is strongly recommended because the various dungeons in the Eastern Sea dispense weapon artifacts such as the Mist Sabre, Rusty Weapons can be reforged into artifact weapons like Captain's Axe and Hagbone Mace for comparable prices, and stronger artifacts like Shamshir and Dragon Axe can already be purchased among these four settlements. By the time you reach the Western Sea, you will be likely sporting weapons at least 1.5 times as hard-hitting at base as the Great Sword, which is still sold in Contigo (the only other vendor that carries Great Swords, or generic gear in general).

It should be noted that Isaac will be equipped with a Great Sword by the time his party joins up with Felix's late in the game if the game file was not enhanced with a Gold-level Password in which he was equipped with a different weapon at the time the Clear Data Save File was created in the first Golden Sun.

In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

Great Sword (DD)
The DS model of the Great Sword
In-Game Description
"Weapon: Long Sword" (DD)
Trade Info
Weapon class	Long Sword
Buy value	7000
Sell value	5250
Artifact?	No
Statistic Boosts
Attack Boost	90
First Unleash effect
Effect name	Critical Strike
Extra damage	x1.5
Second Unleash effect
Effect name	Spin Strike
Extra damage	0
Side effect	Hits each adjacent foe
Third Unleash effect
Effect name	Fearless Attack
Extra damage	x1.7
Side effect	May reduce target's HP to 1
Acquisition
• First sold at Harun Village (DD)

In Dark Dawn, Great Swords only become available as soon as you explore the Eastern Sea for the last third of the game, since they are only sold in each of the four newly accessible settlements once you gain the sailing ship: Harun Village, Yamata City, Champa Camp, and Tonfon.

Like all other generic weapons, it gains a selection of "basic" Unleashes that the game will randomly choose between when an Unleash is procced: Critical Strike (かいしんのいちげき, Critical Hit^?), which deals 1.5x damage; Spin Strike (かいてんぎり, Spin Slash^?), which deals a normal-strength attack that is aligned with Jupiter and will additionally hit each adjacent enemy for 80% of the overall force; and Fearless Attack (すてみのいちげき, Desperate Blow^?), which deals 1.7x damage and comes with a 35% base chance to lower the target's remaining HP to 1 if they would survive the blow.

To be fair, Fearless Attack is an Unleash that is only otherwise found among the Unleash lists of various weapon Artifacts and is a stronger version of the Critical Move unleash that appears even among several endgame weapons. But realistically, the player will have had all sorts of opportunity to outfit Matthew and Tyrell, the only two Adepts who can equip Long Swords, with easily discovered artifacts like the 114-Attack Giant Axe and even the 100-Attack Sword of Dusk, which can be found way at the start of the Morgal arc. This is not to mention that even stronger Artifacts can be acquired throughout the player's time spent in the final Eastern Sea arc of the game, in many cases for free, such as by bringing forgeable materials to the Blacksmith in Champa.

During the earliest stages of the game, while Isaac and Garet are a part of your party as computer-controlled guest characters who occasionally attack, Isaac will be equipped with a Great Sword. You cannot see his inventory or change it, and you can only tell he is wielding a Great Sword by looking at his weapon's model in battles.

Gallery of Dark Dawn unleashes

• 

  Critical Strike

• 

  Spin Strike

• 

  Fearless Attack