Kibombo

Kibombo is reached by heading north from Gondowan Cliffs along southern Gondowan, and the Gabomba Statue at the north end of the village must be explored first.

Kibombo (キボンボ村 Kibombo Village) is a prominent village featured in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. It is located in the heart of the south-central continent of Gondowan, south of the Suhalla Range that separates southern Gondowan from the northern swath of the continent explored in the first Golden Sun. It is a tribal society whose equivalent to a ruling administrative figure, a witch doctor, is determined by whether they can successfully offer a jewel to a giant idol overlooking the village, the Great Gabomba.

Akafubu, seeking to succeed his departed predecessor Oeia as witch doctor, has his warriors steal the Black Crystal that the Lemurian sailor Piers uses to commandeer his ship, and Piers infiltrates Kibombo to retrieve it. Felix and his party catch up to Piers and help him retrieve his crystal so that they can make use of his ship to reach the remaining two Elemental Lighthouses on their journey. Their means of retrieving the orb entails climbing into the statue's clockwork mechanisms and ironically helping Akafubu's succession ritual from the inside.

After the Gabomba Statue dungeon is completed, Kibombo opens up as a settlement with all the expected services. The player is free to revisit it either by land or from the sea, which they should do once they have both the Cyclone and Reveal Psynergies so that they can complete an optional extension of the dungeon, the Gabomba Catacombs.

In Golden Sun: The Lost Age

For all NPC gossip, see Side Scripts.

Reaching Kibombo is set as the party's overarching objective after defeating Briggs in Alhafra and returning to Madra, which is where it is found that the future party member Piers has since departed west for the village in Gondowan. The party must cross over into Gondowan's southern tip through Gondowan Cliffs, then head north past the village of Naribwe and through the dungeon-like Kibombo Mountains, to reach Kibombo's enclosed area of the continent. The Lash Psynergy, which could have been ignored for much of the game up to this point, is required to pass through Kibombo Mountains, and so the player would have been forced to detour back to Kandorean Temple to fetch it in that case. The overworld's palette will darken as the party approaches Kibombo's icon to indicate that night has fallen by the time they step into the village.

Initial visit

The nighttime version of Kibombo's main area is functionally a dungeon-like puzzle screen because every building is blocked off by a torch, and a horde of villagers are arranged at the north end watching Akafubu's succession ritual taking place off the north end of the screen.

The party must hop across the pillars and walk left across this rooftop to reach the northwest cliff ledge, which leads to where Piers is spying on Akafubu's ritual.

Since it is impossible to muscle your way past the villagers to reach the north screen on the ground level, your objective is to reach the narrow cliff ledge at the northwest corner of the village screen and head north along that. This requires casting Lash at a coiled rope at the far southwest corner of the screen, then hopping east along the reddish brown pillars to reach the narrow cliff ledge running along the right side of the area. At the northeast corner of the screen is a Great Healer on a ledge who provides Sanctum services. Hop west along the pillars from the Great Healer, then hop onto the northwest building with conjoined thatched roofs while ignoring the standing puddle north of it, and finally hop left from the roof onto the northwest cliff ledge.

When you walk north to the next screen along the northwest ledge, a brief cutscene will show Akafubu beginning his ritual with the Black Crystal in front of the Gabomba Statue. Approaching Piers will initiate a cutscene in which Kraden proposes that the party move the earth pillar north of him, near the Psynergy Stone; once you do so by casting Move to drop the pillar into the gap left of it, a longer cutscene will eventually cause Piers to permanently join your party, bringing with him the Mercury Djinn Spring and Shade.

During your time behind and eventually inside the Gabomba Statue, whenever you attempt to head back south along the west cliff ledge, Piers will immediately leave the party, and he will immediately rejoin the next time you approach him further along at the north end of the north screen. It should be noted that when you first approached Piers, Gondowan Cliffs became impossible to head back through without Piers in the party because of a recurring cutscene that will now automatically force Felix's party back outside its west exit. The Gabomba Statue dungeon will now have to be completed before Gondowan Cliffs can be used to return to lower Indra.

After completing the last puzzle inside Gabomba Statue, the party can briefly walk out of its mouth to talk to the warriors who were dancing.

After climbing down the ivy to the right and behind the Gabomba Statue, another cutscene will take place once you walk north through the gap between the statue's stone base and the cliff, where the characters will discuss a possible entrance into the backside of the statue. Say "Yes" when Kraden asks you to dig to watch Felix go around casting Scoop and uncover arrows pointing to a rock covering what was once the "main" entrance. (Scoop does not cost any PP when used on your behalf in this cutscene) After the cutscene, manually cast Scoop on the similarly cracked tile of ground very close to the ivy to expose a ladder into the tunnel leading into the Gabomba Statue dungeon. (If you cast Scoop on this tile to begin with, the cutscene will not trigger if you then head north behind the statue.)

At the end of your time inside the Gabomba Statue, you will have solved a puzzle that will have caused the statue's face outside to "swallow" the Black Crystal, then open its mouth and extend its tongue to allow Akafubu to step inside. After the party's first meeting with Akafubu inside the mouth, the party can briefly step outside through the mouth and walk down the tongue to talk with the dancing warriors outside. Once you ride an elevator in the back of the mouth and follow along the linear route to the idol at the end, a cutscene will eventually deposit Felix's party back at Akafubu's residence in town with the Black Crystal now in the inventory, and the town will have permanently assumed its regular "daytime" version.

Post-Gabomba Statue

With the Gabomba Statue now complete, the party starts off at Akafubu's second-floor residence above the Great Healer's floor in the northeast building in town, and they can leave Kibombo anytime and head back southeast through Gondowan Cliffs to return to Madra and meet with its mayor. All of the other buildings in town can now be entered, and the party can now easily reenter Gabomba Statue by walking atop its extended tongue into its open mouth.

Following the completion of the Gabomba Statue dungeon, both it and the rest of the village can be freely explored in the daytime.

The additional, optional dungeon that opened up next to the idol at the end of the Gabomba Statue, Gabomba Catacombs, will require both the Cyclone and Reveal Psynergies to complete. This means that it can be completed as soon as the Mayor of Madra gives you the Cyclone Chip as part of the mandatory cutscene with him, allowing you to add its Venus Djinni Mud to your collection before fighting the Aqua Hydra inside Piers' Lemurian Ship. Many players prefer to wait until after they slay the hydra and become capable of sailing the Eastern Sea before returning to Kibombo, since it takes significantly less time sailing back to Kibombo than to make the trip all the way back there on foot. (If Reveal was not yet collected at Air's Rock, the Djinni can still be reached, but not the Tomegathericon class-changing item at the end.)

The stores now open at Kibombo introduce the Claymore, Chain Mail, Gauntlets, and Iron Helm as common pieces, and the Frost Wand is added to the Artifacts menu shared between weapon vendors when the menu is opened here. There is some value in buying a Claymore for whomever among Felix and Piers is not equipped with the earlier Disk Axe if you feel that the Storm Brand from Air's Rock is not as good of a weapon to use against the Aqua Hydra boss. The item shopkeeper, located atop the ladder next to the armory vendors in the same building, is the first in the game who sells Nuts as common items.

The blue jar just left of the center-left residence in town contains one of the game's five Lucky Peppers. Another blue jar, located in the upper-right of the two-room residence at the northwest corner of town, contains one of the game's finite Lucky Medals.

Vendors

The town's inn service is provided in the southeast building and charges a fee of 12 coins for each party member. This makes it cost 48 coins for most of the game because the party will have unavoidably expanded its roster to four members by the time the inn is available. Much later, once the party's roster has doubled to eight, the inn will cost 96 coins.

Weapon Shop
Name	Class	Cost	Effect
Battle Mace	Mace	2600	Attack +56
Battle Rapier	Light Blade	2900	Attack +58
Broad Axe	Axe	1400	Attack +50
Claymore	Long Sword	4000	Attack +70
Artifacts
Frost Wand	Staff	5400	Attack +76, Unleashes Frost Bite

Armor Shop
Name	Class	Cost	Effect
Adept's Clothes	Clothing	850	Defense +18, Max PP +8
Armlet	Bracelet	900	Defense +17
Chain Mail	Armor	2000	Defense +25
Gauntlets	Gloves	1600	Defense +23
Iron Helm	Helm	1600	Defense +20
Iron Shield	Shield	1200	Defense +20
Silk Robe	Robe	1400	Defense +20
Silver Circlet	Circlet	1300	Defense +16

Item Shop
Name	Class	Cost	Effect
Antidote	Consumable Item	20	Cures Poison and Venom from one Adept
Elixir	Consumable Item	30	Cures Sleep, Stun, and Delusion from one Adept
Herb	Consumable Item	10	Restores 50 HP to one Adept
Nut	Consumable Item	200	Restores 200 HP to one Adept
Sacred Feather	Consumable Item	70	Temporary lowers monster encounter rate

Collectibles

When the party adds Piers to the party, he joins equipped with a Battle Mace, Chain Mail, Bronze Helm, and Iron Shield, and he brings two Mercury Djinn with him: Spring and Shade. Following the completion of the Gabomba Statue, the village can be properly explored, and the following items can now be found within it:

• Lucky Medal: Found in a blue jar inside the residence with two rooms at the northwest part of the village, in its upper-right room.
• Lucky Pepper: Found in the blue jar at the center-left edge of the village, north of a slab of meat being cooked on a spit by children.
• Nut: Found in a barrel in the second floor of the Inn, at the left end.

History

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Felix uses Move to help Piers retrieve his Black Orb, which reveals to Piers that his party are Adepts.

Although apparently warlike and violent in nature, Kibombo's warriors are in fact primarily hunters and farmers. Their fearful reputation comes from the fact that their spears, which are laced with a deadly poison, and their protective body paint, which their witch doctor makes using his magic, are much more potent than standard weapons or armor. The fact that the warriors are the primary food collectors for Kibombo also has the side-effect of forcing the residents to eat substandard food while they are away, much to the detest of the local children.

The Kibombo worship a deity called The Great Gabomba which is a spirit that resides in a huge clockwork and Psynergy powered statue to the north of the town. The Kibombo are ruled by a wise Witch Doctor who must undergo a test of offering to the Great Gabomba to validate his or her leadership. The people of Kibombo are slightly more warlike than their peaceful southern neighbors in the village of Naribwe, and they patrol the Kibombo Mountains to the south tenaciously. The latest Witch Doctor, Akafubu is childish and reckless, and thus has difficulty accessing his potential. It doesn't help that the Great Gabomba keeps refusing to acknowledge that his skills are sufficient, undermining his self-confidence. What no one realizes is that the fault is not that Akafubu's skills are insufficient (they're not), but that the system that would conduct the Witch Doctor's Psynergy to the Gabomba spirit has broken down from age.

Once the ritual is completed, the village's warriors return to their primary job of collecting food and Kibombo quiets down again. They relay this message of peace to the nearby settlement of Naribwe via smoke signals, much to their neighbour's relief.

Trivia

• The architectural design style and culture seen in Kibombo resemble Sub-Saharan African societies such as the Zulus prior to the advent of European colonization. Gondowan itself is an in-game allusion to real-world Africa.
• When you approach Piers for the first time and are encouraged by Kraden to move the earth pillar for Piers' benefit, Gondowan Cliffs suddenly prevents the party from passing east back through it to return to lower Indra. A cutscene that will play whenever the Cliffs are entered from the west will have the rest of the party unilaterally deciding that helping Piers retrieve his Black Orb comes first, and Felix will wordlessly exit back out into Gondowan. This might be an issue for players who wanted to go back to fetch missing collectibles before playing through Gabomba Statue proper. Only by successfully retrieving the Black Orb will the recurring cutscene be deactivated.