Neptune

"An incarnation of the sea king."

Neptune (ウォーダン, Wodan) is a Summon of the Mercury element. It is one of sixteen summons that is automatically available as soon as the player acquires the necessary Djinn. Neptune, modeled to resemble its GBA incarnation, was featured by IGN at E3 2010.

Basic Mechanics

For a successful summoning of Neptune, the player must have three Mercury Djinn on Standby. Neptune has a base Mercury power of 120 and also does additional damage equivalent to 9% of the enemy’s maximum HP. In addition, the summoner's Mercury Power will be increased by 60 points.

Neptune's appearance in Dark Dawn, redesigned with a horn and other features.

In Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age, Neptune's summon sequence features a titanic purple whale with two pairs of red eyes and beige tusks surface from an ocean and launch a Mercury beam attack with its frontal snout. This then assaults the enemy party in the form of downpours of water resembling waterfalls. In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, Neptune itself is redesigned to sport darker, pale purple skin, a yellow horn on its head, and sharp beige protrusions adorning its sides above its eyes. Neptune's summon sequence features Neptune swimming through the seas to emerge above the waves. Neptune then launches a beam attack which hits the enemy as three separate streams of water.

Analysis

Neptune is the first truly useful Mercury summon sequence in terms of power. It is twice as powerful as Nereid and uses only 1.5 times the amount of Djinn on standby. In practice however, Neptune does not have many uses, as Boreas is usually available soon after Neptune is. In addition, it is slightly outclassed by Moloch, available as a summon tablet. Though Moloch strikes with 20 less power, it has the same HP multiplier, and has the added benefit of lowering the targets' Agility down to 50%.

Cultural references

Origin: Rome

Neptune in Roman mythology was the god of the sea. His Greek equivalent was the god Poseidon, which may create an odd circumstance where Neptune may be summoned during the battle with Poseidon.

Origin: Anglo-Saxon, Norse, Germanic

In the Japanese version, the summon is known as Wodan, a Germanic and Anglo-Saxon deity related to the Norse King of the Gods, Odin. As the leader of the Wild Hunt, Wodan was understood as a psychopomp, and to the Romans, as equivalent to their limnal-messenger deity, Mercury, who likewise is understood here as the Water Element, hence the connection.

Extended Gallery

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  Neptune separated sprite, TLA version

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  Neptune full GBA sequence

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  Neptune as it appeared in a beta of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.