Taopo Swamp
Taopo Swamp (タウポ沼, Taupo Swamp) is an optional dungeon-like location in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, located in east Osenia. Its icon on the overworld is reached by departing from the north exit of Yallam and heading west, following the route counter-clockwise until the location is reached southwest of Yallam's placement on the map.
The blacksmith from Yallam, Sunshine, had until recently been able to make trips to Taopo Swamp so that he could gather raw materials for his work. However, the swamp is shown to be partially dried up as a result of the changes to Weyard's climate brought about by recent events such as the eruption of Mt. Aleph and the heating of the oceans brought about by Poseidon's return within the distant Sea of Time.
From a gameplay perspective, the "dungeon" consists of multiple cave networks connected to the swamp, all of which can be explored as soon as the Lemurian Ship is acquired. One network contains a collectable Venus Djinni, and the volcanic depths deep in another cave network allow you to collect one unit of the rare crafting material Star Dust — though this will require the Tremor Psynergy available in Madra Catacombs.
Walkthrough
Presuming you have the Tremor Psynergy from Madra Catacombs, go east past the screen with the canoe in the dried-up river to reach the west end of the prominent outdoor swamp. Cast Move to remotely drop the half-sized earth pillar on the elevated planks in front of you into the gap left of it, then head up to three bushes against the cliff walls. Cast Whirlwind (or Gale) on the left bush to open up a small cave that contains a blue object the game will report is buried in the ground; cast Scoop to get a Tear Stone.
From the green ledge with the three bushes, step onto the bubbling water tile down the stairs to your right. If you walk to the bubbling tile right and south of that, you will find that Felix will steadily submerge himself up until he steps onto the bubbles, which will cause him to float back to the surface. If he fully sinks into the water, he will respawn on the stairs because the game will have registered that as the last point of solid land he had stepped off from. With this in mind, walk to the bubbling tile far to the south of the starting bubbles, then head west across two tiles, then round the base of the vertical wooden blank so that you reach the bubble tile bordering its lower left. Walk behind the narrow wooden posts to your lower left to get to the water bubble immediately to their lower left, then walk south around the cliff to get to the bubble tile at the lower left corner of the swamp. Climb up the stairs to return to the west screen and find a Cookie southwest of the canoe.
To make it to the east edge of the swamp screen, step back onto the southwest bubble tile, go back north to the tile near the two thin posts, go onto the tile right of them, and step onto the rile right of that at the lower right corner of the raised vertical plank. Now go southeast onto a bubble tile, then directly east onto a bubble tile, then northeast onto a bubble tile between masses of small rocks in the water, then east onto bubbles, then north, then east, and finally southeast to the bubble tile next to a staircase headed up to the right. You will find yourself at a bush and a fidgeting sapling at the southeast corner of the screen. Clear away the bush with Whirlwind to enter the first underground cave network.
"Venus Djinni" cave network
After you climb down the stairs in the purple cave, you will find yourself at the west end of a wide open cave area with steam vents blowing jets of air in alternating patterns to your right. Letting yourself get blown off either of the two cliff slides below them will bring you to the dead-end in the floor below that the stairs off to your upper left will bring you out of, though the dead-end features a cross-shaped pattern of weeds you can clear away with Cyclone to expose a Bramble Seed. Pace yourself to pass through the four steam vents left of the earth pillar and cast Move to shift the earth pillar onto the floor indentation into the left. This is one of two steam vents you must block in this manner to cause the steam vent currently blowing north of a Venus Djinni in an enclosed space to grow strong enough that it can reach the Djinni.
Head north from the Venus Djinni's enclosure and head down the top stairs, and follow along the linear route to reach another half-buried Tear Stone that requires you to Scoop it up. Head back up the stairs and wrap around clockwise to a position east of the Venus Djinni's enclosure, carefully avoiding the five steam vents along the way to the earth pillar right of it. Move the earth pillar onto the ground indentation two spaces right of it to block another steam vent, which will cause the vent behind the Venus Djinni to grow strong enough that the Djinni will get sent hurtling down the cliff slide south of it.
The five cliff slides right of the enclosure formerly containing the Venus Djinni all lead down into the right portion of the dead-end cave chamber below. If you slide down either the first, third, fourth, or fifth slides, you will land in the lower level of the floor below and will have to head up the northeast stairs to return to the five steam vents. The scattered weeds at the left end of this dead-end, however, contain a hidden Mad Plant battle that drops a Lucky Medal when felled. If you drop down the second cliff slide from the left, you will land at a ledge that will let you hop left to where the Venus Djinni now stands, where you will have to battle it to add it to your collection as the Venus Djinni Flower.
From there, you can either slide down the cliff slide underneath you and clear the weeds to fight the Mad Plant if you haven't already, or you can hop to the cliff slide to the left to return to the previous dead-end where the Bramble Seed was hidden under the weeds there. Either way, the fastest way to return to the outer swamp screen is to cast Retreat, which will deposit you at the start of this cave network and let you walk out south because the cave networks count internally as a separate "dungeon" from the outdoor portion of Taopo Swamp.
"Star Dust" cave network
If you cast the Growth Psynergy on the fidgeting sapling just outside the "Venus Djinni cave network" entrance to turn it to a vine (temporarily changing your class if necessary to get access to Growth) and follow along northwest to another bush, clearing it away will expose a cave entrance into an entirely separate, larger cave network.
To an extent, if you collected the Venus Djinni Flower from the previously described cave network at the far east edge of the outer swamp screen, you will have already gotten the most significant collectable from Taopo Swamp by far (and the other collectables previously mentioned will also have been well worth picking up). Literally the only purpose in exploring this other interior portion of Taopo Swamp is to collect a single piece of Star Dust at the end, which will require having collected the optional Tremor Bit Utility Psynergy item from Madra Catacombs first. This is the only Star Dust you will have access to until you have cleared the Sea of Time at the end of the Eastern Sea segment of the game. If you consider the items Sunshine can reforge it into at Yallam not worthwhile in the long run, you can feasibly skip this entire optional dungeon-like segment altogether.
Follow the purple cave trail down the staircase and you will end up in an area with a large, black hole to your left and a fork in the route branching left up a wall ladder (which is a dead-end at present) and east, so follow along with the east branch until you get to an adjacent cave screen above. After you go past a steam vent that will temporarily block you, wait until the moment another steam vent stops blowing its steam through an indentation on the ground and open the Psynergy menu, then cast Douse to fill the indentation and then Frost to turn that into an ice pillar very quickly. Then, as fast as you can, climb up the wall ladder and hop left onto and up off from the pillar before the next jet of hot steam from the vent melts the ice pillar and makes the puddle dissolve. From there, it is a matter of following along west and going down the northwest staircase.
It may be difficult players to figure out on their own at first that the ground indentation in the above puzzle can be filled up with their own water via Douse so that it can be turned into a brief Frost pillar. This is why the cliff slide south of the indentation — whether you slide down it on purpose or get pushed off it by the steam vent — drops you into an out-of-the-way portion of the cave network that exists solely to bring you back to the start point of the cave network while educating you on the puzzle mechanics with a different version of the puddle-and-vent puzzle. Skip the following paragraph if you had gotten the puddle-and-pillar puzzle right the first time:
When you follow along the narrow route south, you will reach an indentation in the ground set up in front of another steam vent, but water dripping from the ceiling will automatically fill up the puddle for you. As soon as the puddle reaches normal size, quickly cast Frost on it and climb up and hop across it (this can actually be done with a smaller ice pillar made out of a half-sized puddle) to reach the northwest cave doorway; that leads to a dead-end with an out-of-reach coiled rope, so slide down the cliff slide southwest of it instead, go up the stairs it leads to, and drop an earth pillar onto its adjacent ground indentation to return to the area described at the start of the previous paragraph.
As you climb down the staircases through the purple stairs, you can cast Lash on the coiled rope if you wish, which can lead you into the out-of-the-way area described above. The important thing, however, is to go downstairs one floor further to reach the northwest corner of the lava-filled basement level of Taopo Swamp's latter cave complex. Cast Douse on the glowing red rock to turn it into a blue rock, then Move it left to drop it into the lava so you can hop south. As you travel south past the lake of bright blue water, not that everything east of it is a dead-end from this side, so proceed further south.
When you arrive at a lava-filled room littered with small platforms and steam vents, step onto the platforms underneath the steam vent and begin following them northeast until you reach four platforms arranged in a vertical line under another steam vent. Wait until that vent stops spewing steam and run up and hop right from it as fast as you can, and hop southeast until you reach the brown land southeast of this lava lake. (If you wish to get the chest at the southwest corner of the lava lake, which contains a Vial, hop left across two narrow lava rivers, remotely cast Douse on the glowing red rock to turn it blue, Move the blue rock up into the lava, then retrace your steps back to the vertical line of four platforms, and hop left from the bottom end of the four-platform line so you can hop your way southwest to the chest. You will then have to hop all the way back to the southeast edge of the lava lake.)
At the southeast corner of the overall area is a thick lava river that flows north past a glowing rock. Hop up to the narrow strip of brown land running parallel to the river's left edge and step on the platform two tiles worth of space left of the glowing rock, turn the rock blue with Douse, and Move it left, which will cause it to float up and stop in place against some tiny stalagmites in the lava. Head north back into the upper lava screen, where you will find an earth pillar with a large rock carefully balanced at its top. Cast Tremor to make the rock fall straight onto the lava river, redirecting the river toward the bright blue water lake from earlier and causing a new mass of solid brown substance to form. Once more turn a glowing red rock blue with Douse and push it into the lava to let yourself hop back south of the river's horizontal portion, and walk northwest across the newly formed brown mass to reach the staircase leading downstairs at the top end of the screen.
You will end up in a small, rocky chamber where a glowing red rock provides light to the surroundings. Turning this rock blue with Douse will make the room darker and allow you to push it south so you can proceed south. Follow along clockwise around the lava lake in the next room to reach the final chamber, which similarly features a red rock lighting up the surroundings. When you "turn off" this rock by turning it blue via a Douse cast, a tile of the ground off to the upper left will suddenly start glowing, and inspecting it will convey a message that something is "sparkling in the ground" and automatically open up the Psynergy menu. Cast Scoop on this spot to get the Star Dust, then cast Retreat to leave this cave complex. Exit back out into the exterior swamp screen and cast Retreat again to make leaving Taopo Swamp much easier.
Considering how much effort it took for you to get this forgeable item, you will want to get one of the better items from it when you bring it to Sunshine in Yallam nearby and play through the rest of the Eastern Sea segment of the game with it equipped. The worst item by far is the Stardust Ring, which essentially adds the Bind Psynergy to any Adept's Psynergy repertoire, and forging the Star Dust into a Comet Mace is not recommended because other weapons found in dungeons in the Eastern Sea easily outclass it. On the other hand, you can consider forging it into an Astral Circlet (caster head armor with +32 Defense and +15 maximum PP), a Luna Shield (warrior hand armor with +33 Defense and +30 Venus Resistance), or a Planet Armor (warrior body armor with +36 Defense and +10 to all elemental Power values).
Bestiary
| Bestiary | ||||||||||
| Monster Name | LVL | HP | ATK | DEF | AGI | EXP | Coins | Weakness | Drop | Drop Rate |
| Cave Troll | 23 | 212 | 199 | 45 | 44 | 106 | 134 | 
|
 Nut
|
1/16 |
| Death Cap | 22 | 117 | 159 | 19 | 90 | 48 | 56 |
|
 Sleep Bomb
|
1/32 |
| Dire Wolf | 22 | 155 | 186 | 44 | 101 | 118 | 114 |
|
 Weasel's Claw
|
1/32 |
| Faery | 23 | 105 | 182 | 46 | 150 | 172 | 175 | 
|
Nut
|
1/4 |
| Ghost Mage | 22 | 161 | 168 | 43 | 86 | 80 | 110 |
|
 Bramble Seed
|
1/16 |
| Mad Vermin | 22 | 131 | 164 | 22 | 67 | 55 | 80 |
|
 Herb
|
1/32 |
| Undead | 22 | 165 | 180 | 27 | 58 | 74 | 90 |
|
 Antidote
|
1/16 |
| Mad Plant (unique) | 26 | 518 | 227 | 56 | 104 | 507 | 409 |
|
 Lucky Medal
|
1/1 |
| Venus Djinni (Flower) (unique) | 23 | 590 | 182 | 51 | 149 | 519 | 432 |
|
N/A | |
Enemy Formations
- Group 1: Mad Vermin x1, Death Cap x1
- Group 2: Cave Troll x1
- Group 3: Dire Wolf x1-2
- Group 4: Dire Wolf x1, Ghost Mage x0-1
- Group 5: Undead x1, Cave Troll x0-1
- Group 6: Death Cap x0-2, Dire Wolf x1
- Group 7: Faery x1, Dire Wolf x0-2
- Group 8: Faery x1-2, Mad Vermin x1
Collectables
First off, in the exterior portion, the following item can be collected:
Cookie: In the first exterior screen on the bottom, reached from the next screen to the right.
Accessible from the outdoor swamp area are three separate cave entrances, initially covered by vines, all leading into separated cavernous areas underneath Taopo Swamp's surface levels. The first contains the following item:
Tear Stone: In the small room reached from the left cave entrance from the exterior behind a Whirlwind-sensitive bush. Half-buried in the ground, retrieved with Scoop.
Of the two cave entrances located close to each other at the east end of the outdoor screen with the swamp, the lower-right entrance leads to a cave complex that contains these collectables:
Flower: In the room where this is visible, push the earth pillar west of it one space left and the earth pillar east of it two spaces right, and a burst of steam will push the Djinni off to fall into the abyss below. Then, you can drop down below into a position near it by sliding down the second slide from the right of the space the Djinni was just located at. Must be fought to be obtained.
Bramble Seed: Found by casting Cyclone on a small plus-sign-shaped arrangement of weeds.- Tear Stone: Half-buried in an area of cave similarly to the above Tear Stone, but deeper into Taopo Swamp. The cave room in question is reached by entering the downstairs up and left of the area where Venus Djinni Flower is initially located.
Finally, the cave entrance to the upper left of that leads to a more complex network of caves that ultimately yields these two treasures:
Star Dust: In the final room at the deepest point in Taopo Swamp, filled with many rocks, cast Douse on the volcanic rock in the center, and then go to the spot to the upper left that is now glowing, and cast Scoop on it to get this.
Vial: In a chest in the lower left of an area with a large lava lake.
Trivia
- Taopo Swamp's name and in-universe location are likely a shout-out to Taupō Swamp, a 60-acre swamp located at the south edge of New Zealand's North Island. The geographical region encompassing New Zealand and Australia, collectively referred to as Oceania, mirror how Golden Sun's Taopo Swamp is located in the in-universe continent of Osenia. The volcanic segment of Taopo Swamp's cave network in the game may also reference a separate location in the center of New Zealand's North Island named Lake Taupō, which was the site of a supervolcano's eruption 26,500 years ago.
- A glitch that may cause an unexpected annoyance to players unaware of how it is triggered pertains to several of the cliff slides in the cave network containing the Venus Djinni Flower. Of the five cliff slides east of Flower's starting enclosure, the right edge of each of the first two cliff slides closest to it, as well as both edges of the fourth cliff slide away from it (the second one from the right edge of the area), are slanted as opposed to flat horizontal surfaces. The same applies to the left edge of the right of the two cliff slides at the west end of the area. If Felix is pressing diagonally against any of these slanted surfaces while positioned atop the cliff slide itself, he will likely slide off the cliff slide in a way that causes the screen to fail to transition into the floor below, leaving Felix trapped in an off-screen space below the black abyss in the current screen. He can freely wander around this space and continue to fight monster battles, but the only way out is to cast Retreat.
- The small, enclosed lake of blue water just outside the entrance into the upper cave network feeds a trail of water that visibly drips through each floor of the cave network underneath it as the party descends along with it, with the water drops pooling up to form a Frost-worthy puddle at one point. The water eventually pools up into a watery lake in the volcanic lower floor of the dungeon, which the party must mix with a lava stream using Tremor to gain access to the furthest depths of the dungeon.
