Levatine

A Levatine (レヴァテイン, Revatein^?, lit. Lævateinn) is a Long Sword-class Artifact Weapon that can be forged in both Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.

In Golden Sun: The Lost Age

Levatine (TLA)
Visual effect of Radiant Fire
In-Game Description
"Long Sword: Unleashes Radiant Fire" (TLA)
Trade Info
Weapon class	Long Sword
Buy value	19700
Sell value	14775
Artifact?	Yes
Statistic Boosts
Attack Boost	173
Unleash effect
Effect name	Radiant Fire
Extra damage	66
Side effect	May ignore 50% of the target's Defense
Acquisition
• Forged from Mythril Silver (TLA)

In The Lost Age, following the game's next-to-last storyline dungeon, Magma Rock, you must use the Magma Ball collected from it to gain the Cannon for your ship at Loho. The resulting changing of the positions of all the NPCs in Loho lets you Scoop up a previously blocked-off tile of the ground to gain one Mythril Silver. Later, once you gain the Teleport Lapis a short ways through Mars Lighthouse, you can cast Teleport on the circular pad at the entrance to the optional Yampi Desert Cave dungeon to go inside the dungeon proper. There, you can both Scoop up another individual Mythril Silver and attempt to farm multiple units from the randomly appearing Soul Army monsters inside; the default 1/128 chance to drop a Mythril Silver is quadrupled to 1/32 when it is felled using the attack effect of an offensive Jupiter Djinni.

Fittingly for its late availability, when Mythril Silver is brought to Sunshine the Blacksmith in Yallam, he will randomly convert it into one out several of the game's toughest pieces of equipment. In addition to the Mythril Armlet, Mythril Clothes, and Mythril Helm (all of which add to the proc rates of Unleashes) and the Psychic Circlet (which restores 12 PP per turn), a Mythril Silver can be forged into either a Levatine or a Mythril Blade. The Levatine is largely seen as the "stronger" outcome of the forging process because of its relative power, but the "weaker" Mythril Blade's relatively high 20% probability of being forged is twice as high as the Levatine's 10%.

The way a Levatine is stronger than a Mythril Blade is that it features 13 more Attack and an Unleash effect that adds 10 more flat damage, though the two swords' unleashes are fundamentally different. Whereas the Mythril Blade's Unleash is aligned to Mercury and attempts to Seal the target's Psynergy usage, the Levatine's Unleash, Radiant Fire (ヘルファイア, Herufaia^?, lit. Hellfire), is Mars-aligned and comes with a 50% chance to ignore half of the target's Defense stat. (Radiant Fire plays out onscreen as the wielder dealing an attack that explodes into a series of overlapping circular fire patterns.)

Were it not for the presence of several endgame-tier weapons with Unleashes that outright multiply the damage dealt (like the Sol Blade, Excalibur, Tisiphone Edge, and Masamune), the Levatine could lay claim to being one of the most damaging weapons overall to make standard physical attacks with. On top of having a relatively ideal base Attack rating for endgame play, its Unleash has a chance to deal sharply more damage (without any additional visual fanfare indicating it) by treating half of the target's Defense as missing. If an enemy has 120 Defense, for example, it being struck as though it were 60 Defense largely means you will deal roughly 30 extra damage.

The Levatine is similar in scope to the Fire Brand that can be found in lower Treasure Isle, which features 176 Attack (which is automatically aligned to Fire even with standard strikes) and an Unleash that adds 67 damage and a chance to put the target to sleep. Both of these weapons can be optimized by the Brute class series, and a case could be made that you do not need to go out of your way to craft a Levatine because a warrior Adept like Garet can hold the Fire Brand while you are searching for the above-mentioned "ultimate weapons". If you are looking for a weapon that focuses purely on raw Attack so that more reliable attacks that derive from the Attack statistic can be used on command (like Elemental Physical Attack Psynergies and Quick Strike), the best weapon possible would be the cursed Darksword forged from Dark Matter.

In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

Levatine (DD)
The DS model of the Levatine
In-Game Description
""Weapon: Long Sword" (DD)
Trade Info
Weapon class	Long Sword
Buy value	19700
Sell value	14775
Artifact?	Yes
Statistic Boosts
Attack Boost	173
First Unleash effect
Effect name	Critical Move
Extra damage	x1.4
Side effect	May reduce target's HP to 1
Second Unleash effect
Effect name	Centurion
Extra damage	x2.4
Side effect	May ignore 50% of the target's Defense
Third Unleash effect
Effect name	Radiant Fire
Extra damage	66
Side effect	Hits each adjacent target May ignore 50% of each target's Defense
Acquisition
• Forged from Mythril Silver (DD)

In Dark Dawn, the Levatine is also randomly forged from Mythril Silver, which is easier to come by before having to rely on random drops. As soon as you begin sailing the Eastern Sea for the last third of the game, you can go to Champa to unlock the service of its Blacksmith, who works in all the same ways except for not charging coin costs whatsoever.

You may have gotten a permanently missable Mythril Silver from a return trip you may have made to Teppe Ruins before beginning the Eastern Sea arc. Even if you did not, you can find one at Harapa and one at Iceberg Outpost, and the wild Skinwalkers fought in Snowdrift Shrine and just outside it can drop it at a 1/128 chance (which is quadrupled to 1/32 if you slay them using offensive Mars Djinn). Once Himi joins, her Search Psynergy lets you explore the optional Lost Ship for another Mythril Silver; one can be found during the Apollo Ascent leading to the end of the game; and the postgame dungeons Otka Island and Crossbone Isle each contain one as well.

The game's redesigned Unleash system inserts a lot of randomness and inferior effects into the potential performance of all sorts of weapons, which particularly affects those that randomly choose between four separate Unleashes when proccing an Unleash, like Tisiphone Edge and Excalibur. The Levatine, however, is notably left in a much better state than most of the rest of these weapons and can be argued to be vastly improved over its incarnation from The Lost Age. Even though it has one possible Unleash outcome that is decidedly weaker than the other two, both of its later-unlocked Unleashes can be regarded as strong, meaning the Levatine is more likely than most weapons to land on one of its stronger Unleash outcomes.

Its first possible Unleash is the rather weak Critical Move (クリティカル, Critical^?), which deals 40% increased damage and a 35% base chance to lower the target's HP to 1 if it survives the blow. Its second, however, is the incredibly powerful Centurion (センチュリオン, Centurion^?), which deals damage multiplied by 2.4 and aligns it to Jupiter, and it also carries a 50% chance to ignore half the target's Defense stat (which is made all the more valuable by the increased Defense stats of enemies across the board compared to prior games). Its final Unleash remains Radiant Fire, which retains its own 50% chance to ignore half the target's Defense stat, but it now additionally hits each enemy adjecent to the target for 80% of the attack's overall force.

The only two party members who can wield long swords are Matthew and Tyrell; though neither of them are Jupiter Adepts who can easily provide extra Jupiter Power to enhance Centurion, this hardly diminishes its function as clearly the standout Unleash of the Levatine. That said, you can give Jupiter Djinn to one or both of them to turn them into War Adepts, which have the same Attack modifier of Matthew's mono-elemental Slayer class but more Jupiter Power to work with. This will particularly help in Tyrell's case, making up for his low-attack Hero class.

At the end of the story, Matthew can be expected to be wielding the Sol Blade, which is superior overall because it also sports Centurion and Radiant Fire in its Unleash repertoire (in addition to its signature damage-tripling Megiddo). For Tyrell, the Levatine is easily one of the best weapons he can wield for its relative consistency as a weapon to try to proc Unleashes with. The only reason he might be equipped with something else is if you have found the Cleric's Ring in the postgame-exclusive Crossbone Isle dungeon, which can let him safely wield the Darksword instead. That way, he can rely instead on Elemental Physical Attack Psynergy, particularly if he is a Ronin with Quick Strike.

Cultural references

The Lævateinn is a weapon from Norse mythology described as having been forged by the trickster god Loki and needed to slay the rooster Viðofnir perched atop the world tree Yggdrasil. Scholars debate whether this is intended to be the same weapon as a fire sword described as wielded by Surtr, a fire giant whom tradition holds will engulf the world in flames when he takes part in Ragnarok, the battle heralding the end times.

Gallery of Dark Dawn unleashes

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  Critical Move

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  Centurion

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  Radiant Fire