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{{quote|''Ages ago, or so the stories tell, the power of [[Alchemy]] ruled over the world of Weyard...''
|'''Prologue of''' '''''Golden Sun: The Lost Age'''''}}
''Golden Sun'' (known as ''Golden Sun: [[The Foreign Subtitle|The Broken Seal]]'' in Japan) is a 2001 [[Role
''Golden Sun'' tells the story of Isaac, a teenager from the [[Hidden Elf Village|village of Vale]], gifted with the power of [[Elemental Powers|Psynergy]], and his journey to stop a dangerous group of antagonists from releasing the ancient power of [[Alchemy]] and to rescue his friend Jenna. The resulting journey takes him and three companions through many lands and cultures to the Elemental Lighthouses, the seals preventing Alchemy's release.
The sequel/second half changes the viewpoint to that of Felix, one of the enemies from the first game, and has you trying to release the same power you wanted to keep sealed in the first game, for equally good reasons.
''[[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn]]'' takes place thirty years later and stars the [[Spin Offspring|children]] of the characters from the original game, who are collectively called the Warriors of Vale.
The English script has given the games a reputation for poor characterization and excess wordiness. While the Japanese script is not entirely without fault for these issues, the English translation holds a lot of the blame for this. There is often failures to make the most basic effort at keeping characterization from being lost when moving from Japanese's distinct individual speech patterns, sometimes even changing lines to contradict established personalities massively to act funny, padding several lines of dialog to hide [[Parrot Exposition]] (with mixed at best results), droping several references to real world locations<ref>The manual for the second game uses a more rough and earlier translation which gets one of them right, which suggests they were changed for no reason.</ref>, [[Bowdlerise|excises some, very slightly, dark bits]] important for characterization, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and the silent main character is given a word of dialog]]. It also has a much higher reading level than the original script, which doesn't help with the wordiness issue.<ref>Going by the kanji used, the games have about a 6th grade reading level, while the English version dives into a thesaurus at times and makes use of fairly obscure words like "fell" and "draught" for major parts.</ref> While far from the [[Translation Train Wreck|total gibberish]] the plagued many earlier Nintendo games, Golden Sun's English translation has its share of flaws.
The game's battle system revolves around the presence of [[Our Genies Are Different|Djinn]], a creative but blatant [[Follow the Leader|attempt to cash in]] on the popularity of ''[[Pokémon]]'' with a dash of ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'''s Guardian Forces thrown in for good measure. There are a number of Djinn scattered throughout the gameworld (28 in the first game alone), and you [[Gotta Catch Em All]]. Once you have them, you [[Powers as Programs|equip them to your characters]], which alters their [[Character Class]] depending on how many Djinn of which element you gave them. Of course, in battle you can also ''deploy'' your Djinn for burst damage, [[Status Buff]]s, etc, and if you had enough unattached Djinn floating around, you could then use [[Summon Magic]] for extra beat-down ([[MST3K Mantra|just go with it]]). ...Of course, deploying Djinn removed them from your character, reducing their stats and even changing their class mid-battle, so there was a trade-off involved.
There is a [[Golden Sun/Characters|character sheet]], which all are invited to add to help out in.
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'''Please post any ''Dark Dawn'' tropes on [[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn|the game's respective page]].'''
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{{tropelist}}
* [[The Abridged Series]]: See ''[[Golden Sun the Abridged Series]]''.
* [[Absent Aliens|Absent Elves]]: While gnomes are random monsters, Loho has dwarfs (who are explicitly called such in an item description), Prox has some kind of dragon-people and there's even a town of werewolves, the only mention of elves is a relatively weak weapon called the "Elven Rapier" and the relatively-weak-yet-practical "Elven Shirt".
* [[Aerith and Bob]]: The antagonists, especially: you have Alex and Felix alongside Karst (the most normal of the others), Saturos, Menardi and Agatio. Though it's somewhat justified as they're a slightly different civilization from a distant corner of the world, and possibly not even human to boot.
* [[Alas, Poor Villain]]: {{spoiler|Agatio and Karst}}. To elaborate, {{spoiler|after they unknowingly killed by the player party in dragon form, both fully set aside their anger and beg Felix to light the Lighthouse for them. For Agatio, the whole situation's pretty darn depressing even though he ''is'' [[The Generic Guy]], and Karst gets it even ''worse'': her death involves Felix comforting her, warming her with the heat of his hands before finally heading off}}. Following all that, {{spoiler|both of them vow to stay alive until they see the last lighthouse lit: [[Tear Jerker|it's unclear if they did, since it would have arguably revived them the way it did Isaac's dad and Felix and Jenna's parents]]}}. Ouch.
* [[Amazing Technicolor Population]]: The Fire Clan.
* [[And I Must Scream]]: You can find an entire town of people who have been turned into trees. You can ''read their minds
* [[An Ice Person]]: Mia, Piers, Alex
* [[Anime Hair]]: Largely averted
* [[Another Side, Another Story]]: The first game takes place through Isaac's perspective, as he chases down Felix. Meanwhile, the second game takes place through Felix's perspective, as he's chased down by Isaac.
* [[Anti-Grinding]]: The first game's first dungeon turns off [[Random Encounters]] when all three party members reach a high-enough level.
** Can be avoided by [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|killing off Jenna
* [[Anti-Villain]]: {{spoiler|Saturos, Menardi, Karst and Agatio, ruthless in their aim to release the potentially dangerous force of Alchemy to the world but motivated by the fact their hometown, and eventually the world, would deteriorate and collapse over time if they didn't
* [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit]]: Used by the end of ''The Lost Age'' when the party is twice as large as the
* [[Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance]]: The Mercury (water) Adepts look like they couldn't be anything ''else'' than Mercury Adepts. Garet is also pretty obviously Fire-elemental, complete with [[Personality Powers|explosive personality]].
** Subverted with Ivan, however. When he first appears, he's quite the [[Creepy Child]]
* [[Atlantis]]: Lemuria, which is discovered and explored in ''The Lost Age''.
** {{spoiler|Anemos, arguably, though you never go there for obvious reasons}}.
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]:
** Iris, the game's ultimate summon, simultaneously completely heals your ''entire'' party (all eight, including dead party members) AND deals an insane amount of damage, more than three times as much as a level four summon. The drawback? It requires 13 standby Djinn to unleash. If you don't set them to standby outside of battle, you'll need a minimum of three turns dedicated solely to setting up for this summon. And don't forget that setting Djinn to standby temporarily gimps your characters stats. Also factor in three turns of recovery after doing the summon before your stats return to normal, and you've got an incredibly high cost summon that, while nice, isn't nearly worth the effort when you could accomplish the same thing with mundane but effective healing skills.
** Not to mention you only get it at the end of the game, at which point you really only have one boss left, and it's resistant to the two elements that make up the summon; you're much better off using a third level summon composed of the other two elements. And if that wasn't bad enough, the game assigns a multiplier to summon damage based on the target's maximum HP... and the final boss is considered by the game to be three bosses battled in sequence, each with its own set of HP.
** And worst of all: there isn't really any need to use it against the last boss. At all. Even if it worked at full power against him, and it wasn't such a hassle to summon, you have to consider that unlocking this summon requires beating a ''significantly'' stronger [[Bonus Boss]]. Anyone capable of beating him should be able to mop the floor with the last boss.
* [[Awesome Yet Practical]]: The Daedalus summon [[Nuke'Em|nukes 'em]] on the turn after summoning in addition to its (actually fairly weak) multi-missiles.
** Some of the weapons' Unleash animations are visually spectacular, especially with regards to the Sol Blade's Meggido and Excalibur's Legend. Next to summons, said Unleashes are also the strongest attacks in the game, and they come completely free of battle costs (PP, Djinni, etc
*** Can be turned into a [[Game Breaker]], since there are certain equips that can help boost the rate at which you unleash. The base rate starts at 35%, and if you have the right equips, you can buff that all the way up to '''99%'''. Factor in the way damage calculation works with Meggido, and you've basically just turned either Isaac or Felix (the only ones who can wield the Sol Blade) into a [[Person of Mass Destruction]].
** Most bosses will resist debuffing or status-inducing Psynergy... but are susceptible to Djinn with the same effects. The unleashed Djinn can then be used to summon. The exception to this is obviously the Djinn with [[One Hit KO]] effects, including the "curse" status.
* [[Badass Family]]: Briggs's family fits the bill nicely, with everybody from [[Never Mess with Granny|Obaba]] to [[Goo-Goo Godlike|baby Eoleo]] doing some awesome stuff.
* [[Badass Normal]]: The Colosso gladiators, Briggs and Moapa (alongside Briggs and Moapa's unnamed "Sea Fighter" and "Knight" goons, respectively) lack any form of Psynergy. With the exception of the first group (due to being a trio of [[Duel Boss]]es), they are not noticeably less of a threat than standard bosses. Exacerbated in Briggs's case by the possibility of [[Guide Dang It|accidentally]] [[Sequence Breaking]] your way to him while underequipped and under-leveled, turning what's normally ''The Lost Age'''s [["Wake-Up Call" Boss]] fight into one [[Failure Is the Only Option|you just plain can't win]].
* [[Bag of Sharing]]: Averted: each character has his/her own inventory.
* [[Bag of Spilling]]: Averted in that a data transferring feature at the end of the first game (either by Game Link Cable or by a HUMONGOUS 260-character password) lets {{spoiler|the party of the first game keep their equipment, levels, stats, and everything else when they are added to the new party near the end of the second game}}.
* [[Baleful Polymorph]]: The Kolima incident, of course. {{spoiler|And every boss dragon in Mars Lighthouse}}.
* [[Battle Theme Music]]: Most of the boss battle themes are epic, even on the [[Game Boy Advance]].
* [[Beef Gate]]:
* [[Behind the Black]]
* [[Betting Minigame]]: Lucky Dice (
* [[BFS]]: The [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|aptly named]] Huge Sword from the second game and its Unleash effect
* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: While the Western release lacks the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] reference, the Tomegathericon is still a neat treat. "To Mega Therion" is Greek for ''the Beast'', as in the one in [[The Bible|the Book of Revelations]].
* [[Black Mage]]: Mars (fire) Adepts.
* [[Blind Idiot Translation]]:
** Similar to the "Fire Bracelet/Breath" issue from ''[[Final Fantasy]]'', there are several enemy moves in the first game called "Blessings" (Fire Blessing, Water Blessing, Evil Blessing), where the foe would spout said "Blessing" from its mouth. These were properly translated as "Breath" attacks in the second game.
** Menardi's "Death [[Sinister Scythe|Seize]]" attack, anybody?
** ''The Lost Age'' had [[Bonus Boss|Dullahan]]'s Fulminous Edge attack mistranslated as "Formina Sage", and his Dark Contact attack mistranslated as "True Collide". Both were corrected in his appearance in ''Dark Dawn''.
** Several lines are changed from questions to statements (or vice versa) for absolutely no reason in the slightest. Sometimes this is minor rephrasing and has no lasting problems, but others it makes old men grateful for unexpected help start dishing out orders instead of ''asking'' if you could help them further.
** One occurs in the Japanese version of the second game, which displays "THE LORD OF GOLDENSUN THE 2ND BOOK" in English text. The English version corrects this.
** トレビ (Trevi, as in Rome's famed Trevi fountain) is rendered as Tolbi.
* [[Blinding Bangs]]: Eoleo (though he grows out of it within 30 years in favor of a huge ponytail).
* [[Block Puzzle]]: <s>Far too many.</s> A lot.
* [[Blow You Away]]: Ivan and Sheba's wind-based powers, for starters.
* [[Bonus Boss]]: Two in the first game and several in the second, including the hardest boss in the series, all but one located in a...
* [[Bonus Dungeon]]: Several, and one in the first game even has its own Bonus ''Town'' outside (Lunpa).
* [[Boring but Practical]]:
** Due to certain pieces of equipment having the capability of boosting Unleash rates (certain combinations allow up to ''ninety-nine percent'' chance to Unleash, and with a generated password ''one hundred percent''), normal attacks generally outclass attack Psynergy (with the exception of Psynergy such as Astral Blast, Planet Dive and Cutting Edge, which factor weapon damage into the damage of the Psynergy) in terms of sheer damage. Especially deadly when combined with the [[Infinity+1 Sword|Sol Blade]]'s Unleash effect, which does three times the normal damage every time. Granted, many of the endgame weapon unleashes are even more fantastical than most attack Psynergy.
** Passive PP regeneration items are extremely unexciting yet highly valuable against most of the end-game bosses.
** Probably the most boring but practical strategy is to utilize shield
** Learning equipment slots and making use of them all. The Elven Shirt mentioned above gives only weak stat boosts, but is the first undershirt-type item you find in the game, and occupies a different equipment slot than armor. Other undershirts are even less fancy (with the logical exceptions of the Mithril Shirt and the Golden Shirt in
** Don't forget to check all the stores for stock you might want. Most people don't know that the Item Store in Prox sells [[Too Awesome to Use|Mist Potions]] as a [[Suspicious Videogame Generosity|regular item]].
** Isaac's [[The Cameo|Assist Trophy]] in ''[[Super Smash Bros Brawl]]''. Fans were initially disappointed to find out that all he does is cast Move three times... but one of the core mechanics of ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' is pushing your opponents off ledges, which is exactly what Move does.
* [[Boss Remix]]: Karst and Agatio's [[Leitmotif]] is remixed when Felix's party finally gets around to fighting them.
* [[Bound and Gagged]]: The thieves at Vault do this to a youngster to prevent him of discovering the crates where the thieves put the stuff that they stole.
* [[Bragging Rights Reward]]: The Iris summon after defeating the [[Bonus Boss]] in the last [[Bonus Dungeon]], for being [[Awesome but Impractical]], and the only boss left worthy of using her on is the [[Final Boss]]... who is fire-resistant.
* [[Brick Joke]]: Not a joke, exactly, but one of the weirdest, seemingly most random part of the beginning of the first game goes toward defeating the [[Big Bad]] in the sequel, long after it's been forgotten. {{spoiler|More specifically, The Wise One has Isaac take out the Mars Star for a moment, then put it back. This was apparently to take a small part of its power and give it directly to Isaac. This means that when Alex takes the power of the Golden Sun in the Epilogue, he doesn't have ALL of the power he's supposed to, and The Wise One is able to defeat Alex
** Another non-joke. While you're in Yallam, a group of kids will teach you a song and an oddly specific looking dance. A few dungeons later, you find out that the kids were teaching you
* [[Broken Bridge]]: Several straight examples that occur in the overworld map and fix themselves later. Also done differently with a raised drawbridge, and the guy who would gladly lower it is unable to do so because the [[Curse]] on a nearby town has transformed him into a tree.
* [[Buffy-Speak]]: Kraden amusingly refers to the Black Crystal that {{spoiler|controls Lemurian ships}} as "The thingie... that makes it go."
* [[But Thou Must!]]: In every cutscene you're presented several yes/no choices of opinion that don't affect anything other than the next two lines of the dialogue, except for ''once'' early in the game, where refusing the quest results in a [[Nonstandard Game Over]]. The 999 other times, however....
** ''The Lost Age'' spoofs it if you answer no on every question up to a certain point.
** There is one scene at the beginning of the first game where Jenna will keep asking Issac the same thing over and over until you says yes.
** The same goes for Flint and Echo, the first Djinni in each game. After enough refusals, the Djinni force themselves into the party anyways.
** Double-subverted in Champa in the second game. When Obaba asks Felix to leave, the player can choose to say "Yes" and walk away without a fight. The problem is:
* [[Butt Monkey]]: The town of Madra in ''The Lost Age'', at least early in the game. As if the tidal wave isn't enough, it is also attacked twice.
* [[The Cameo]]:
** ''The Lost Age'' has a sprite sheet for [[The Legend of Zelda|Link]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20130605002830/http://kprs.laronmi.net/taow/miscellany/link/link.htm in game but unused]. Also, the fairy Mia summons early in the previous game is Primula from ''[[Shining Force III]]''.
** Additionally, in the Japanese version, the [[Bonus Boss]] of the first game, Deadbeard, is called Talos, which is the name of a recurring boss from the Shining series (which would explain why he looks less like a pirate and more like a giant suit of armor).
** As mentioned above, Isaac himself shows up as an Assist Trophy in ''[[Super Smash Bros Brawl]]''.
* [[Can't Catch Up]]: When Isaac's party joins in ''The Lost Age'', they may be a significant ways behind Felix's party, so unless you're willing to grind them they'll probably stay that way (the inactive party only gets half experience
** This can work in reverse as well: because stats and levels transfer directly from the first game, if you did any significant amount of level grinding before starting the second game, Isaac's party will most likely out level Felix's. Getting the two parties to the same level is easy enough to those that like messing around with the combat system, but some players don't want to put forth the effort, or haven't experimented enough to know how.
* [[Cardboard Obstacle]]: Too many to list here.
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* [[Changing Clothes Is a Free Action]]: At some point between falling off a lighthouse and washing ashore on an island, Felix switched out his old sprite (which made him look like he had stick legs when viewed from the side) for one with baggier pants and a blue cape.
* [[Changing of the Guard]]
* [[Chaos Architecture]]: Averted. The first opus only takes place on one continent (and the northern part of a second continent), while the second one takes place all over the world ''except'' that continent and area.
* [[Chekhov's Skill]]:
** On the other hand, a throwaway line by Hama mentions the Fire Clan's ability to withstand extreme temperatures using their Psynergy. At the time, this is used to [[Hand Wave]] their passage through the blisteringly-hot Lamakan Desert. At the end of ''The Lost Age'',
* [[The Chessmaster]]: {{spoiler|The Wise One}} and, to a lesser extent, {{spoiler|Alex}}. The latter is using both the heroes and the villains to {{spoiler|light all four lighthouses so he can go to Mt. Aleph and gain ultimate power}}
** {{spoiler|Alex's}} chess mastery is [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|subverted beautifully]] by {{spoiler|Agatio in his first appearance}}, where he basically comments that he ''couldn't care less'' that he's being used, as long as the Lighthouses get lit.
* [[Chest Monster]]: Played straight with Mimics in several areas in each game. They drop good items
* [[Cliff Hanger]]: The first game's ending, which occurs at a point where you'd assume you were halfway through the game.
* [[Climax Boss]]: The first fight against Saturos in the first game and the fight against Karst and Agatio in the second game, both at the top of one of the elemental lighthouses.
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** Jupiter Adepts tend to have purple somewhere in the color scheme, usually in eyes or hair. Mars Adepts have red or orange somewhere in the design, Mercury Adepts have blue, and Venus Adepts tend to have brown or gold.
* [[Combat Tentacles]]: One of the bosses you fight in the first game is a Kraken.
* [[Contractual Boss Immunity]]: Exhibited by some of the higher-level enemies and
* [[Conveniently an Orphan]]:
** Isaac's father and Jenna's parents and brother are killed off right in the intro. Then it quickly turns out that the brother survived and seems to be an enemy. Then in the second game, {{spoiler|it turns out the trope is completely subverted: the parents and Isaac's dad also survived and were made hostages, and saving them is a big motivator to the quest. So the kids are not actually orphans... then [[Self-Made Orphan|they accidentally almost kill their own parents themselves]] near the end of the game
** Poor Isaac's mother has to almost force her son to keep going on his quest and is a source of worry, as she falls gravely ill in his absence.
** Ivan is an orphan and his adoptive father is kidnapped as you meet him, but the trope is toyed with: you're told that you can't do anything about it and you should just leave the father behind, but Ivan worries a lot, and you get an optional sidequest to free his father and ease his mind
** Sheba is also an adopted orphan and joins the group because ''she'' was kidnapped, but she's an inversion of the trope: in the second game, she refuses to drop by her hometown because her worried adoptive family would force her to stay.
** Piers is a straight and extreme example: he spends the first half of the game trying to go home, then when he finally does, he learns that his mother just died, and he quickly gets exiled.
** Mia's dad, [[A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil|who was Alex's master before Alex turned evil]] is dead, with an implication that it wasn't natural causes. For some reason the English script remove his existence entirely.
** And Garet is a complete inversion: he's the only cast member who has a large, living and functional family, but they all encourage him to leave the town and fatherless Isaac gets more angst (since he's leaving his mother alone); then in the ''epilogue cutscene'' of the second game, {{spoiler|Garet comes home and thinks for a moment that they all died, for no plot-relevant reason at all}}.
* [[Conveniently Coherent Thoughts]]: Mind-reading functions much the same as [[Welcome to Corneria|dialogue]], typically adding to or clarifying whatever an NPC says
* [[Cool Old Guy]]: Kraden. While not obvious in the English script, Maha is supposed to be similarly aged going by speech style.
* [[Corridor Cubbyhole Run]]: One of the puzzles in the Jupiter Lighthouse involves dodging a statue spitting whirlwinds at you.
** Revisited in Mars Lighthouse, with a dragon statue spitting fireballs at you.
* [[Cosmic Keystone]]: The [[Mineral MacGuffin|Elemental Stars]] and their [[It's All Upstairs From Here|Elemental Lighthouses]].
* [[Critical Hit]]: Both normal critical hits and the special attacks each of the weapons may automatically launch on their own.
* [[Crystal Dragon Jesus]]: Sanctums (usually staffed by priests and monks) that drive away evil spirits, a Clan's worship and protection of its corresponding element/sacred place, calling upon pagan gods to smite thine enemies into oblivion... Worshipers at the church in Kalay make reference to a shepherd and the people as a flock. One NPC seems to describe the God of Abraham, but doesn't actually know what it is. Sheba is worshiped in her village as a god-child, due to having fallen from the sky and possessing mysterious powers.
* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: The floating eye stone creature in the Elemental Stones chamber isn't there to attack people who may steal the stones, and actually helps our heroes in escaping.
* [[Death Is a Slap on The Wrist]]: More like a heavy strap. If you have access to the Revive Psynergy, "downed" characters aren't much of a problem, but during the first half of a game a fallen ally means walking all the way back to the nearest Sanctum to pay a hefty fee in order to bring them back. Waters of Life accomplish the same thing, but those are expensive, and very hard to come by.
* [[Deceptive Disciple]]: Alex. Exactly ''who'' he was disciple to varies by the translation. It's either Mia or Mia's father.
* [[Deus Ex Machina]]:
** Type 2, even more obvious because it's an scripted event. Early in the game, Isaac and Garret will find an obstacle that they can't overcome with their current abilities. Ivan will immediately come out and help them using an ability he knows.
** {{spoiler|The party is put between a difficult position that would make difficult for them to leave the final dungeon, until a breach that suddenly appeared a few moments ago is undone spontaneously}}.
* [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]: {{spoiler|A breach suddenly appears separating our heroes from Sheba and Felix at the end of the first game just when the party was ready to take her back}}.
* [[Digitized Sprites]]: Almost all sprites were pre-rendered.
* [[Disc One Final Dungeon]]: The Venus Lighthouse in the first game. Your party has pretty lavish gear at this point and the lighthouse's background music practically screams [[Final Dungeon]] (which is technically true since this is the end of the game), but you discover that after the boss fight, Felix still plans to ignite the remaining lighthouses, Isaac still has to keep his promise to Babi to find more mythical water to keep him alive and Isaac also promised to rescue Sheba. These issues are addressed in ''The Lost Age''.
* [[Dishing Out Dirt]]: Isaac and Felix, naturally.
* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]: At some point, you can choose to pull a tree from a riverbank, so it doesn't float away. It turns out to be a transformed woman who wants to give you a "Special Gift".
* [[Doomed Hometown]]:
** {{spoiler|Double}} Subversion. ''Golden Sun'' opens with a (mostly successful) attempt to keep it from happening to Vale, then {{spoiler|the town is destroyed anyway after the finale to ''The Lost Age''. And subverted again at that point since Mr Floating Rock warned the villagers of the impending catastrophe beforehand, allowing them to stay out of town before it happens}}.
** Also, an inversion when it turns out {{spoiler|that Saturos and Menardi were motivated by the fact that their home town of Prox was on the verge of being consumed by an encroaching abyss, and only the restoration of Alchemy would save it}}.
* [[Dramatic Unmask]]: Felix, though it happens like, two minutes after you meet his masked version, so the viewer don't gets the dramatic weight of it as much as the characters.
* [[Dronejam]]: Averted
** Well, unless you first froze them in time with the Halt Gem... [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|But why would you do that]]?
* [[Dual Boss]]: Several times throughout each game.
* [[Dub Name Change]]: Most of the playable characters (Robin, Gerald, Ewan, Mary, Garcia, Jasmine
* [[Dub Induced Plothole]]: The Apprentice/Illusionist/Enchanter/Conjurer class line is actually physically focused, giving a larger than average boost to attack while giving the earlier attack based Psynergy, and contains no illusion or conjuration abilities. Their Japanese names are Magic Swordsman/Magic Warrior/Enchanter/Magic Knight.
** Briggs objects at being called a pirate, then a few lines talks about his ''pirate'' honor, so he'll go quietly. The Japanese script merely says that he's a man and he won't struggle after being defeated.
** There are two items named "Dragon Shield" and "Spirit Gloves", both of which have different Japanese names and statistics. Dragon Shield is understandable as both items translate to "Dragon Shield"<ref>りゅうのたて is Japanese for Dragon Shield and ドラゴンシールド is the English "Dragon Shield" written phonetically.</ref>, but "Spirit Gloves" have no excuse as neither was named "Spirit Gloves" in Japanese.<ref>Mystery Gloves and Spiritual Gloves.</ref>
* [[Duel Boss]]: Happens three times in a row during the first game's [[Inevitable Tournament]], leading to Isaac's [[Heroic RROD]].
* [[Dummied Out]]:
** [http://goldensun.wikia.com/wiki/Magnet#Magnet Various Psynergy] that have no effect outside of the debug room can be obtained via cheating. After beating the final boss in the second game, there is a brief sequence where you walk around the final town, normally you don't have access to mind read at this point (as the two party members with it aren't in the party at this point), but if you hack to obtain it, there are major [[Sequel Hook]]s in the mind read "conversations" seen [https://web.archive.org/web/20130605013113/http://kprs.laronmi.net/taow/miscellany/mindread/mindread.htm here] (obviously spoilers are contained within).
** Alex has an alternate portrait located within the party member but before Piers. He seems to have been intended to join (perhaps as a [[Guest Star Party Member]])
* [[Dungeon Master]]: {{spoiler|The Wise One}}.
* [[Elemental Baggage]]: Characters using their magic to freeze small puddles of water into huge ice pillars, for example.
** Water expands when it freezes (the only substance to do so), but that is still no excuse unless the puddles are REALLY deep.
* [[Elemental Hair]]: [[Dishing Out Dirt|Venus Adepts]] have brown hair, [[Playing with Fire|Mars Adepts]] have bright red hair (unless from the [[Amazing Technicolor Population|Mars Clan of Prox]]), and [[Making a Splash|Mercury Adepts]] have [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair|blue hair]]. Jupiter Adepts tend toward blonde (with overlap for light-haired Venus Adepts) or purple, but ''Dark Dawn'' gives them more variety.
* [[Elemental Powers]]: Virtually every major character except ([[Epileptic Trees|maybe]]) Kraden is an Adept of a specific Element, meaning he or she can use Psynergy of that element. A lot of monsters can use these too. Depending on Djinn setup, the characters can even use Psynergy they normally wouldn't be able to use otherwise.
* [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]]: Severely downplayed. Most monsters aren't identified with a specific element, and no "Element X does this to that" tutorial is ever given. The only even remotely obvious in-game sign of it existing is the punctuation used in the battle messages when enemies get hit by elements they're weak, neutral or strong against: the said messages will end with !!!, ! and ., respectively. Another hint is that, if a monster is killed with a Djinn attack bearing the element it's weak against, the monster will flash several colors and give a second death scream before dying. Ironically enough, though these weaknesses are downplayed, the bonus damage and the fact that the player gains extra money, experience and items for each kill earned with said Djinn attack at the end of the battle makes exploiting these weaknesses as often as possible a [[Boring but Practical|very beneficial, if tedious, strategy]]. Although there actually ''are'' a couple implications in the story. When the party is at the Mercury Lighthouse and the beacon is lit, Saturos is weakened, and there's actually a pretty good reason for him not even being ''half'' as strong as when you fight him at the end of the game. And the final bosses are weak to the Mercury Element, but you might have figured ''that'' out already. It runs like this, if you're curious: Earth/Wind and Water/Fire are mutually weak to one another and resistant to all others. But monsters don't have any actual associated element; like the protagonists, they have individual attack and defense stats for each element, so it's not so much a question of finding the element they're associated with, as finding the element they have the lowest resistance to.
* [[Encounter Repellant]]{{context}}
* [[End of an Age]]: The results of sealing off Alchemy and letting the world {{spoiler|waste away for centuries}}.
* [[Enemy Summoner]]: Several common monsters, and bosses like Briggs and Star Magician. The [[Bonus Boss]] Valkular can even turn your own Summons ''against'' you, at the expense of ''your party's'' Standby Djinn.
* [[Engrish]]: The people of [[Wutai|Xian]] have a few noticeable lines with odd grammar ("Using much armor is good for them") and use a number of one or two word sentences in sequence ("Relax. Stay long."). Thankfully, it is done pretty subtly. A comic spoofing this in the ''Golden Sun Gag Battle'' 4koma doujinshi suggests that the people of Xian also speak a little weirdly in the Japanese version. "THE LORD OF GOLDENSUN THE 2ND BOOK" is used in the second game's intro.
* [[Enigmatic Minion]]: Alex. Saturos, Menardi, Karst and Agatio fit as well. [[Manipulative Bastard|Depends on who's the minion]].
* [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"|Everyone Calls Her Grandma]]: Obaba, which is pretty much just Japanese for "Grandma".
* [[Evil Tower of Ominousness]]: The Elemental Lighthouses, sort of.{{context}}<!-- MOD: "sort of"? Please explain. -->
* [[Excalibur in the Rust]]: You can find rusty weapons in ''The Lost Age'', which can be refurbished by the blacksmith Sunshine into pretty decent weapons at the earliest you can find them, but pretty quickly outclassed otherwise.
* [[Eyelid-Pull Taunt]]: Briggs gives one to Felix after he escaped.
** [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Briggs nearly chickens out and has to be goaded into it by Chaucha
* [[Fake Difficulty]]: Everything which can cast Djinn Storm is very hard, everything which can't is very easy.
* [[Fanfare]]: The overtures.
* [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]: Weyard is basically a loose analogue of Earth:
** Angara is Europe in the West, with Tolbi a budding Roman Empire, and Asia in the East with Xian and the Fujin and Lama Temples connected to the west by the Silk Road. The Angkohl Ruins are obviously Cambodian-inspired.
** Gondowan is Africa, with Arabic influences around the Suhalla desert and more stereotypically African influences further south.
** Indra, east of Gondowan, is India, complete with a town called Daila for Delhi. Osenia resembles Australia geographically, with Air's Rock in the middle of the central desert.
** The Eastern sea features Polynesian equivalents on the various islets and the Apojii Islands, a Japan equivalent in Izumo, and Tundaria for Antarctica.
** Finally, the Western Sea has native Americans in Hesperia, and a Nazca-based
* [[Fat Bastard]]: The Mayor of Alhafra is a greedy jerk.
* [[Feelies]]: Each game comes with a map of the game world, and a character chart on the flipside.
* [[Fetch Quest]]: ''Plenty''.
* [[Final Exam Boss]]: The last dungeon plays like this, testing all non-combat abilities of the party in the form of puzzles.
* [[Finishing Move]]: Some weapons' special attacks.
* [[Five-Bad Band]]: Sort of existent, at least until it falls apart later...
** [[The Big Bad]]
** [[The Dragon]]
** [[The Evil Genius]]
** [[The Brute]]
** [[The Dark Chick]]
** [[The Sixth Ranger]]
* [[Five-Man Band]]: Several...
**
*** [[The Hero]]
*** [[The Lancer]]/[[The Big Guy]]
*** [[The Smart Guy]]
*** [[The Chick]]
**
*** [[The Hero]]
*** [[The Lancer]]
*** [[The Smart Guy]]/[[The Mentor]]
*** [[The Chick]]
*** [[The Big Guy]]/[[The Sixth Ranger]]
** After the parties join in ''The Lost Age'':
*** [[The Protagonist]]
*** [[Deuteragonist|The Deuteragonist]]
*** [[The Lancer]]
*** [[The Smart Guy]]
*** [[The Big Guy]]
*** [[The Chick]]
*** [[The Medic]]
*** [[The Sixth Ranger]]
*** [[The Mentor]]
* [[Flat World]]: Weyard is a flat world {{spoiler|that is ''eroding '' as water spills over its edges. Its up to you to fix that
* [[Floating Continent]]: Mentioned in gossip in the second game that {{spoiler|this world's ''moon'' is one of these}}. Source of many [[Epileptic Trees]]. And the main world itself appears to be a giant floating landmass above an abyss.
* [[Floating Platforms]]
* [[Flunky Boss]]: Briggs and Moapa, who are accompanied by Sea Fighters and Knights, respectively. The Star Magician, who happens to be a [[Bonus Boss]], also has "Ball monster" minions that fight alongside him.
* [[Foreshadowing]]: In the [[Playable Epilogue]] of the first game, an NPC mentions Champa, a town of pirates on the continent of Angara. One such pirate causes problems in ''The Lost Age'', and his hometown is visited later.
* [[Food Porn]]: Looking in the ovens and stoves in both games can get you [[Rare Candy|power-up food items]] or descriptions of what the people who live there are having for dinner. Some of these can be quite appetizing, others are a [[Foreign Queasine|bit more exotic]].
{{quote|Felix looked in the oven. It's lamb on the bone, broiled over an open flame. The lamb is golden brown and juicy. They'd probably notice if I took some... too bad.
Felix looked in the oven. Ew! They're frying up bug larvae! It looks awful... but it smells great!
* [[Four-Element Ensemble]]
* [[Fragile Speedster]]: Ivan, Sheba
* [[Frictionless Ice]]: Several puzzles like this in ''The Lost Age''.
* [[Friendly Fireproof]]: Many summons and a couple weapon Unleashes.
* [[Fusion Dance]]: Each game's {{spoiler|final boss is a fusion of characters: Saturos and Menardi in game 1 become a two-headed dragon, and the parents of Felix and Isaac's dad are turned into a three-headed one}}.
* [[Genius Loci]]: Tret Tree in the first game, the Great Gabomba in the second.
* [[Get on the Boat]]: The ship gained about 25% into the second game, {{spoiler|which becomes the [[Global Airship]] close to the end}}.
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: Rescuing the tree from being swept downstream in the first game.
{{quote|Jill gave Isaac a nice surprise! Isaac got a [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|Hard Nut]]!}}
* [[Global Airship]]
* [[Going Through the Motions]]: And don't forget the Lucky Fountain in Tolbi and Lemuria, respectively.
* [[Good Morning, Crono]]: In the middle of the night though, with the impetus being 'a giant rock is falling towards our village!'.
* [[Go Wait Outside]]: The entire village of Yallam, that is, so that the blacksmith there can do [[Item Crafting]] for you
* [[Green Rocks]]: Purple Psynergy stones showered over the world by the eruption of Mt. Aleph change everything
* [[Green Thumb]]:
* [[Grim Up North]]: The blizzard-ridden bleak setting of the final dungeon of ''Golden Sun: The Lost Age''.
* [[Guest Star Party Member]]: Jenna joins the party for the Sol Sanctum in the beginning of the first game.
* [[Guide Dang It]]:
**
** Killing an enemy with a Djinn unleash of the element they're weak to will give you a major boost in XP, coins, and item drops. How anyone's supposed to figure that out on their own...
** And of course, you can get into Crossbone Isle before you enter Tolbi on the first game. {{spoiler|When you're on the ship crossing the Karagol Sea, you have to pick rowers in a certain order that will unbalance the two teams, sending the ship north. One confirmed order is this}}:
{{quote|{{spoiler|'''1. Guy in the green cape on the right side of the room:''' Hey! You're not thinking of making me an oarsman, are you}}?
{{spoiler|'''
{{spoiler|'''
** Relative power of Psynergy and Psynergy are based on attack (very useful) and which aren't.
** Most monster weakness are obviously the opposite element, but some monsters never use elemental attacks yet still have a weakness.
* [[Hailfire Peaks]]: Mars Lighthouse, a fire-based dungeon that has frozen over.
* [[Happily Adopted]]:
** Sheba. None of her family even mention that she's adopted, despite her unknown origins being a plot point.
** Ivan is Happily [[Foster Kid|Fostered]] and doesn't even bother referring to Hammet and Layana as his parents... but [[Beware the Nice Ones|don't mess with them]]. [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|Ever]].
* [[Headless Horseman]]: The Dullahan appears as the [[Bonus Boss]] to end all bonus bosses, but [[Sadly Mythtaken|his horse is strangely absent]].
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** And every element except Jupiter/Wind includes at least a few healing abilities, though Mercury/Water is best at it.
*** Unless you're playing the first game, before Fire-based healing was introduced. The result of this is that Saturos has an Earth-based Cure Well in his arsenal, and Menardi has a ''Water'' spell, Wish, in hers.
* [[Heroic Mime]]: Isaac and Felix. Possibly the most ridiculous example of silent protagonists in any RPG, seeing as both talk like anything at times when they're not playable (Felix in the first game; Isaac in the second game). In fact, {{spoiler|Felix gives up the idea in ''The Lost Age'''s ending and talks to Isaac, Garet, and Kyle to reassure them
* [[Hero of Another Story]]: Humorously, Isaac is presented this way in ''The Lost Age'', at least until he joins your party.
* [[Hidden Elf Village]]: Vale is this, keeping themselves secret so knowledge of Psynergy doesn't get out. Shaman Village fits too
* [[Hitchhiker Heroes]]: Ivan and Mia in the first game, Piers in the second game... And then the two parties unite, so ''everybody'' technically fits by the end.
* [[Hopeless Boss Fight]]: In the [[It Was a Dark and Stormy Night|dark and stormy prologue]] in the first game. And the [[Puzzle Boss|Serpent]] in the second game, if you haven't lit any of the special lights inside Gaia Rock before fighting him. [[Beef Gate|Poseidon]] can be one of these too if you don't meet him on the right circumstances.
* [[Hostage for McGuffin]]: {{spoiler|Jenna,Sheba and Kraden in the first game, Felix's parents in the second in exchange for lighting the Lighthouses}}.
* [[Hot Dad]]: Kyle looks like he could be Isaac's scruffy older brother.
* [[How Much Did You Hear?]]: In the first game's prologue, said by Saturos and Menardi to Isaac and Garet. Doesn't go well for the latter two.
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* [[I Did What I Had to Do]]: When you're faced with the very last boss of the second game, even if you may not have guessed exactly {{spoiler|''who''}} it is, you probably remember that {{spoiler|big dragons tend to be transformed people. And you've already got rid of all the baddies... so this can only be innocents}}. Unfortunately, [[Stupidity Is the Only Option]]. You're even asked afterwards if you knew what you were doing. Whatever you answer, though, be informed that ''Isaac knew'' that he was {{spoiler|''killing his father and your parents''}} and ''still'' did it. Even considering the alternative would have been the end of the world, that's... rather cold.
** To be fair, it's clear that making that decision depresses Isaac. He {{spoiler|mourns as much as the others do}}, he just {{spoiler|stops them from blaming the Wise One}}. And although no one could have predicted it happening, it certainly lessens the impact of this choice when {{spoiler|the lighting of the beacon revitalizes the parents anyway}}.
*** It's also stated that {{spoiler|turning people into dragons takes so much energy from them that they would probably have died even if the party had chosen not to fight
* [[I Have Your Wife]]: Revealed to be {{spoiler|Felix's and Jenna's motivations}} for {{spoiler|helping Saturos and Menardi light the lighthouses; their parents and Isaac's father are being held hostage in Prox}}.
* [[I'm Cold... So Cold...]]: {{spoiler|Agatio and Karst}}, justified in that they're dying of hypothermia.
* [[Inconsistent Translation]]: The English script can't decide if nobles being addressed as 様 should be addressed as "Lord" or not in English. A more serious issue than it would initially seem, as it's one of the more obvious contrasts between Garet (who addresses lords very casually) and his more polite companions.
* [[Indy Escape]]: Sparked by [[Violation of Common Sense]] instead of grabbing a sacred relic: specifically, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynp-M0xwUVQ&feature=related hitting a wall for no apparent reason besides seeing a sign that said not to hit the walls]. Played entirely for funny though, and the point of the sequence was so that the boulder could open the way to the [[Boss Room]].
* [[Inevitable Tournament]]: An annual tournament of gladiators held at Tolbi that [[It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans|just happens to be in effect when Isaac's party comes along]]. {{spoiler|Isaac is automatically entered into it after he rescues Tolbi's ruler Babi from death in a nearby cave}}.
* [[Infinity+1 Sword]]: Gaia Blade in the first game, Sol Blade in the second.
** Excalibur and Tisiphone Edge for non-Earth Adepts.
*** Also the Darksword
*** Lachesis' Rule serves this purpose for the [[White Mage
*** Note that the first two here are actually in very easy-to-get treasure chests along the paths in each game's [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon|final dungeons]], while it's the slightly weaker ''later three'' that are either [[Item Crafting|randomly forged]] or [[Randomly Drops|randomly dropped]]. And none of these are [[Sword of Plot Advancement|Swords of Plot Advancement]].
* [[Informed Ability]]: Kraden says even a single one of the elemental stars would allow one to conquer the world, but you carry one around for the majority of both games with no {{spoiler|gameplay-related}} effect other than having one inventory spot being taken up by them.
* [[Informed Flaw]]: A popular fanon idea back in the day was that the Adepts were naturally averse to their opposite elements, such as Mars Adepts being afraid of water and Jupiter Adepts hating the desert. Obviously, this holds up in battle, but not so well outside of it (for instance, Garet, the first party's Mars Adept, is the most excited to see the ocean).
** Garet's gluttony, mentioned by his siblings when you're leaving Vale and never heard from again.
** Agatio is billed as the [[Dumb Muscle]] villain in Nintendo's strategy guide for ''The Lost Age''. [[Genre Savvy|This isn't entirely accurate]].
* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons]]: Dragons serve as a penultimate boss in the second and final bosses in both. {{spoiler|Actually, they're just people turned into Dragons}}.
* [[Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence]]: And not just the fences. Oftentimes your path is blocked by knee-high ROCKS.
** Played with in the prologue of the first game, when Saturos and Menardi jump up and down ''cliffs'' without a second thought.
** Similar thing with the Living Statues
* [[Invisible to Normals]]: Psynergy cannot be seen by non-Adepts. This disparity naturally comes into play during a few different places during the story, for instance, when the party first meets Piers. However, if the Psynergy produces any ''physical'' effects, then anyone can see it. [[Weirdness Censor|Whether or not]] they ''notice'' it...
* [[Invisibility]]: The Cloak Psynergy, a pretty lame variant that only works in shadows in a few particular areas (and not at all in the second game).
* [[Item Crafting]]: A straightforward but entirely randomized setup (give the Blacksmith in Yallam a material item and buy whatever he decides to make with it).
* [[It's All Upstairs From Here]]:
**
** Compared to the lighthouses, the huge enormous Elemental Rock dungeons involve long stretches of literal mountain climbing.
** And the three towers containing the Trident of Ankohl also qualify... though one of them had an elevator, so there wasn't as much climbing involved there.
* [[It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans]]: Tolbi's Colosso competition.
* [[It Was a Dark and Stormy Night]]: The prologue to the first game.
* [[Jack of All Trades]]: Isaac and sorta Felix.
* [[Just a Kid]]: The party is ready to take the mission of undoing the curse that transform people in trees, but Lord McCoy dismisses them with base on this trope.
* [[Katanas Are Just Better]]: The Kikuichimonji (try saying that five times fast) in the first game.
* [[Keep It Foreign]]: A few of the Japanese names were actually typical Western ones, and got changed in Western releases to sound a bit more exotic. Notable examples include Robin -> Isaac, and Mary -> Mia. In ''[[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn|Dark Dawn]]'', we get things like Stella -> Sveta as well.
* [[Kick the Dog]]: While {{spoiler|they [[Anti-Villain|have very good reasons for doing what they are doing]]}}, the "enemies" of the first game nonetheless do some fairly dickish things, like {{spoiler|shoving what is a [[Baleful Polymorph
** The first deed above may not have been "for no reason"
** No mention of the carnage around Venus Lighthouse?
*** Weren't all of those people Babi's soldiers? They'd be fair game for Saturos & Menardi to fight back against.
*** Nope, some of them are helpless elderly scholars studying the Lighthouse. Some even mention knowing Kraden.
* [[Kid Hero]]: Most of the playable cast is 18 or under. The only exceptions are Piers, who is probably several hundred years old and Felix (who is 18), though most of the cast is 17 with implications that the journey has taken a year or more (
* [[Kill It with Water]]: Mercury Adepts are this and [[White Mage
* [[Kill Sat]]: The Venus final summon Judgment, who is a giant knight that shoots a bolt of destructive energy from a lion head on one arm. There's Eclipse, a giant dragon who fires a breath weapon from low orbit, and Catastrophe, who's kind of like Judgment's [[Evil Twin]].
* [[Kleptomaniac Hero]]:
** [[Kleptomaniac Hero, Found Underwear]]
*** [[Zig-Zagging Trope|Kleptomaniac Hero Steals Underwear]]... or tries to anyway. "[[Crowning Moment of Funny|Isaac! Put that back!]]"
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* [[Last-Disc Magic]]: Several final summons in game 2.
* [[Leaked Experience]]: Party members not in battle gain half experience.
* [[Leitmotif]]:
** Babi has one in the original game, as did Ivan. The latter is also used for Hama {{spoiler|because, as revealed in ''The Lost Age'', she's Ivan's sister}}.
** Even though a dramatic track plays in the presence of the villains in the same game, it's used for the game's [[Bonus Boss]] as well.
** ''The Lost Age'' gives Briggs a laid-back one that plays [[Wasted Song|during one scene]], specifically during {{spoiler|his getaway scene}}.
** The sequel gives the game's villains, Karst and Agatio, one that's used more often (and unlike what their predecessors had, it's used exclusively for them), with theirs being a dramatic-sounding one that their battle music is based on.
* [[Lethal Lava Land]]: Magma Rock, Mars Lighthouse, underground of Taopo Swamp...
* [[Lighthouse Point]]: They are called lighthouses, but they're really more towers that store magical energy.
* [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards]]: Not in the attacks but in the healing Psynergy. Isaac's (the leader and warrior type of the team) healing Psynergy exactly doubles whenever he learns another. Mia's ([[The Medic]] and [[White Mage]] of the group) healing Psynergy doubles and then pentuples as they are learned.
* [[Literal Cliff Hanger]]: {{spoiler|Sheba ends up in one of these at the end of the first game. She falls}}.
* [[Little Miss Badass]]: Karst has a ''huge'' variety of attack (including a [[One-Hit Kill]]), buff, debuff (including a Djinn nerf), and heal options, and is generally considered Menardi's [[Stronger Sibling]] despite being the younger sister. She's also usually estimated to be a teenager, with some guesses going as young as fifteen (the same age as Ivan and Sheba).
* [[Little Professor Dialog]]: Eoleo, the son of the pirate Briggs, who is capable of Psynergy (and effectively uses it to break his father out of prison), seems to be unusually verbose for his age (when you read his mind, that is, since he ''isn't able to talk yet'').
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** Lampshaded and possibly deconstructed by another child in Champa, who isn't impressed by his "grown-up attitude".
* [[Locked Out of the Fight]]: Agatio and Karst make use of one of Jupiter Lighthouse's traps to separate Mia (who they believed would be their most dangerous opponent, due to her [[Shoot the Medic First|healing magic]] and [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors|Mercury Psynergy]]) from the rest of the group. Garet ends up falling in as well, leaving Isaac and Ivan to fight Agatio and Karst two-on-two.
* [[Lost Forever]]: If you didn't transfer data, after a certain event the [[Bonus Dungeon]] (and thus the [[Bonus Boss]]) is not
** However [[New Game+]] makes it possible to try again next time
* [[Lucky Translation]]: Briggs's [[Eyelid-Pull Taunt|gesture]] upon {{spoiler|escaping from jail on the ship}} is more along the line of flipping someone off in Japan; outside it, it's just silly. Luckily for the scene it's noted how pathetic "payback" it is and adds to Briggs's childishness.
* [[Luke, I Am Your Father]]: Strangely played. {{spoiler|The final boss of ''The Lost Age'', the Doom Dragon, is a monster the Wise One forcibly fused together from Isaac's father Kyle and Felix's and Jenna's parents
* [[Machete Mayhem]]: Your weapon in the prologue/tutorial.
* [[Macross Missile Massacre]]: The Daedalus summon.
* [[Magical Negro]]: Literally true, but otherwise thoroughly averted by Akafubu, who instead follows [[Personality Powers|Fire Adept]] [[Hot-Blooded|personality]] [[Ambition Is Evil|standards]]. He assists your party, but only unwittingly, and is rather miffed to learn that he did, even though you helped him in the process.
* [[Magic by Any Other Name]]: Psynergy is elemental magic with [[Psychic Powers|psychic]] trappings and design influences.
* [[The Magic Goes Away]]: Inverted. The end goal is to bring the magic back.
* [[Magic Knight]]: Almost everyone who isn't a [[Squishy Wizard]], since all the characters have access to attack magic.
* [[Manipulative Bastard]]: {{spoiler|Alex
* [[Marathon Level]]: Plenty to be found, and most are necessary stops on the way to completing the game. Air's Rock in the second game is by far the worst offender.
* [[Meaningful Name]]: Karst's name may or may not be derived from the Lithuanian for "hot" (''karŝta''). Since she's both [[Ms. Fanservice]] and [[Playing with Fire]], this is completely appropriate.
** Piers, the sailor. Also applies to his Japanese name, [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Captain Picard]].
** With a side of [[Bilingual Bonus]]: ''Contigo'' is a Spanish phrase meaning "with you". Contigo is the city where Isaac and Felix join forces. In the Spanish version of ''The Lost Age'', the city's name is instead the German "Mitdir" (''mit dir''), with the same meaning.
* [[The Medic]]: Mia and Piers, the latter of whom is about as far from a typical healer in personality as possible. Jenna can also work as a healer in a pinch. And whoever it is you gave all those Vials and Potions and Waters of Life. If you can be bothered to play around with the Djinn, any character except Garet can be a healer. Garet as a Brute can get Revive. That's probably about as [[Combat Medic]] as you can get, folks.
* [[Medium Awareness]]: In the scene displaying [[Chekhov's Skill|the force-field power]], Garet explicitly compares the force-fields to scoring critical hits in battle. Like the rest of the scene, [[Non Sequitur Scene|this never comes up again]].
* [[Metal Slime]]: Phoenix and its palette-swapped variants are very powerful and can wreck an unprepared or ambushed party.
* [[Mind Over Manners]]: Toyed with by Ivan, who doesn't see problems with [[Mind Probe|invading people's mental privacy]]. Garet objects, and it's implied that Isaac does too.
* [[Mind Over Matter]]: Many non-combat Psynergy.
* [[Mind Probe]]: One of the trademark skills of the Jupiter element.
* [[Mineral MacGuffin]]: The Elemental Stars are said to have great power, but all they really do is light lighthouses.
* [[Minigame Zone]]: Tolbi in ''Golden Sun'' and Contigo in ''The Lost Age'' have several gambling minigames each.
* [[The Missing Faction]]: A lot is made about the Anemos tribe, of which (at least) two major characters are descendants and whose entire city apparently lifted off to become the Moon. Guess who ''doesn't'' show up in ''[[Dark Dawn]]''?
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* [[Mundane Utility]]: A Catching magic spell to pluck nuts and apples off trees, and various powers to mend or clear paths throughout the games.
** Isaac is also ([[Crack Pairing|infamously]]) repairing his roof with Psynergy in the beginning of the first game.
* [[Mysterious Waif]]: Sheba.
* [[Never Mess with Granny]]: Obaba, Briggs' grandmother, who is a highly skilled smith/alchemist/Adept (and probably the oldest character in the game who isn't [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old]]), who summons a salamander to fight the party when Briggs convinces her that they want to rob their town, and, after learning about Briggs' pirating and giving him a good scolding, reforges the Trident of Ankohl.
* [[Never Say Die]]: A reference to Mia thinking she had failed her dead father in the Japanese script is replaced with her just saying she failed her clan.
* [[New Game+]]. Literally, a ''new game''.
** ''The Lost Age'' also included a more traditional [[New Game+]] by allowing you to restart on "Easy Mode" with clear data, which just carried over your levels and money.
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* [[Non-Indicative Name]]: Sunshine the depressed blacksmith.
* [[Non-Lethal KO]].
* [[Nonstandard Game Over]]: At the start of the first game when the bad guys make off with the Elemental Stars, you are asked (not told) by your village elder to go after the stars. Refuse twice and the screen fades to a sepia tone, accompanied with the text "And so, the world drifted towards its fated destruction." You are then given the option of continuing from the beginning of the conversation. This is ironic because the destruction it is describing {{spoiler|is actually the slow erosion described in the second game, because alchemy would never be unlocked. The player at the time would assume the world ends because alchemy IS unlocked
** A small case of [[Fridge Logic]] followed by [[Fridge Brilliance]]:
** Well, not quite.
* [[Noob Cave]]: Sol Sanctum in the original, Kandorean Temple in the sequel.
* [[Not Helping Your Case]]: ''Everything'' the Proxians do. This could be a case of [[Values Dissonance]], however. If Saturos and Agatio are anything to go by, they have quite a ruthless, militaristic tendency (Agatio does indeed express the desire for Prox to [[Take Over the World]] at one point). The return of Alchemy might be ruining their fishing waters, but several characters note that Champa turning to piracy was still a jerk move. Briggs faking a cold to get out of paying recompense to the people he robbed is ''definitely'' not helping his case.
* [[Not the Fall That Kills You]]: Played straight when {{spoiler|Sheba falls off Venus Lighthouse and Felix jumps after her; both}} survive thanks to [[Deus Ex Machina|the sea miraculously rising up as they fell]].
* [[Now Where Was I Going Again?]]: After getting a boat in the
* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]: In a fashion
* [[Obviously Evil]]: The thiefs on Vault, thanks to their extremely pale skin and purple hair that makes them contrast even with the with the''grass''.
* [[Oculothorax]]: The Wise One.
* [[Old Save Bonus]]: You can transfer party and event data from the first game for some really ''necessary'' bonuses
* [[Omniscient Morality License]]: {{spoiler|The Wise One, particularly for what it does to the entire group at the end of ''The Lost Age''}}.
* [[One-Hit Kill]]:
** The Crystal Rod's unleash, Drown, will sometimes cause this via suffocation. [[Nightmare Fuel|Yeesh...]]
** No better is the Thanatos Mace unleash, Heartbreak, which summons some kind of demon to literally tear out your enemy's heart and crush it in his hand.
* [[One Game for the Price of Two]]: The two games can be played alone, but you won't make much sense of the story, or get the best possible summons, magic and equipment.
* [[Orphan's Plot Trinket]]: Ivan's staff.
* [[Our Dragons Are Different]]:
* [[Our Genies Are Different]]: For one thing, they don't grant wishes
* [[Our Werewolves Are Different]]: They're psychic, and the result of [[Green Rocks|Psynergy-stone exposure]].
* [[Out-Gambitted]]: Oooh, you ''almost'' had ultimate power, {{spoiler|Alex}}! Too bad {{spoiler|The Wise One}} took a moment at the start of the ''first'' game to set up a plan to screw you over at the last possible second, huh?
* [[Padded Sumo Gameplay]]: For all the flashy Psynergy and Summon Magic, endgame [[Level Grinding]] is a lot faster if you just hit attack over and over again.
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* [[Party in My Pocket]].
* [[Peninsula of Power Leveling]]: Just past the barricade in the first game there is small area just outside of the baricade where you can run against the mountains and fight much stronger monsters.
* [[Personality Powers]]: Mostly averted, as the characters don't all have clearly defined personalities, except for Garet and Jenna who are both [[Fiery Redhead]]s, and Piers, who gives the party [[Incredibly Lame Pun|the cold shoulder]] [[Defrosting Ice Queen|for a while]]. Mars Adepts in general seem to be a [[Hot-Blooded]] lot.
* [[Petal Power]]: Flora, an early-game summon in the second game.
* [[The Philosopher]]: Kraden the Sage.
* [[Planar Shockwave]]: Seen in quite a few Summons' attacks and weapons' Unleashes. Sol Blade's Unleash
* [[Player Versus Player]]: Both games have a two-player duel mode.
* [[Playing with Fire]]: Garet, Jenna
* [[Poke in the Third Eye]]: Adepts can detect their minds being read, and respond in a way that interrupts the reading. Alex, for instance, asks aloud if you really thought he'd let you do that, while Karst notices and starts mocking and threatening you in her mind. Even Garet gets in on this in the first game, [[Psychic Static|shielding his thoughts with mental complaints about Ivan reading his mind]].
* [[Polite Villains, Rude Heroes]]: Alex is always polite, even when making threats. Garet, the main speaker in the party of the first game, has a very rude/casual speaking style. The Japanese script has Ivan and Mia speak fairly politely as contrast, but you'd never notice in the English script, especially when it goes out of its way to add rude lines (with notes by other characters confirming the tone of these lines was intentional) to them on occasion.
* [[Port Town]]:
** Kalay, Lalivero, Alhafra and Champa.
** Lemuria seems to have been a more active port town in its heyday.
* [[Pound of Flesh Twist]]: {{spoiler|Alex getting screwed out of achieving god-like powers}} at the end of the second game by a [[Deus Ex Machina]] that was set up at the start of the ''first'' game by {{spoiler|the Wise One}}, who {{spoiler|altered the Mars Star in some way so that part of its power would be given to Isaac if all of the lighthouses were ever activated}}.
* [[Powers as Programs]]: Quite apart from the [[Class and Level System|Djinn-based class system]], many "utility" powers are [[Upgrade Artifact|gained from certain items]]
* [[Previous Player Character Cameo]]: In ''Golden Sun: The Lost Age'', you take on the role of Felix, who was a minor antagonist in the first game, and take on three new party members with him. Eventually, you run into the original party from the first game. {{spoiler|They join up with you in Contigo after the conflict that occurs at Jupiter Lighthouse
* [[Psychic Powers]]: Some forms of Psynergy. The English script tries to give Psynergy such a feel overall, emphasizing the role of the mind in it, while the Japanese script also notes that it causes major stress on the heart (as in the organ).
* [[Punny Name]]:
** The Mercury Adept sailor named ''Piers''.
** Air's Rock. It's a massive singular rock in the middle of a desert, [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|on the Australia-based continent]].
** Steel, originally [[Kiss of Death|Kiss]], ''steals'' the opponent's HP.
** Tret Tree (treachery) in the first game.
* [[Puzzle Boss]]: Serpent in Gaia Rock.
* [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]]: Or as Agatio puts it, "This is an unlikely bunch of ragamuffins."
* [[Random Encounters]]: And how!
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*** There are also accessories that INCREASE the likelihood of random encounters. Great for [[Level Grinding]]!
* [[Randomly Drops]]: The game uses this, but it was discovered that the random number generator used to determine drop rates wasn't really random at all. Thus, by making a specific party and conducting battles in ''just'' the right amount of turns and action orders, you can ''guarantee'' that an enemy will drop [[Infinity+1 Sword|even the most powerful weapons and armor]] in the game.
* [[Rare Candy]]: Peanuts, cookies, bread, apples, mint leaves
* [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old]]: {{spoiler|Babi}} and {{spoiler|the Lemurians}}. This is played with in the case of {{spoiler|Piers/Picard, the Lemurian sailor}}, who refuses to admit his age.
* [[Red Herring]]: In Lemuria, reading a dog's mind provides a hint to dig around for buried items. When the player uses Scoop near the dog, yields a bone
** Might also be a [[Call Back]] to a dog in the first game that, when given a bone, shows you where to find a short [[Bonus Dungeon]] leading to a Djinni.
* [[Run, Don't Walk]]: You walk so slowly outside of battle it is practically required to hold the B button down at all times.
* [[Sadly Mythtaken]]: Over and over. The way the elements are associated is hint enough of not following any mythology to a T.
** It becomes very interesting when you summon Neptune against Poseidon. Poseidon, stop hitting yourself!
** Coatlicue, the hideous all-devouring snake goddess of the Aztecs, is routinely portrayed in summons as a cute [[Magical Girl]] who heals your party. In comparison, Boreas the giant snow-cone machine doesn't seem nearly as bad.
* [[Sand Is Water]]: Sort of. Felix's ''Sand'' spell dissolves the party into sand and allows them to travel through patches of sand, including moving freely against "currents" of sand and up cliffs with sand spilling over the edges.
** And through glass panels.
*** Although, it could be argued that the glass panel didn't go all the way down to the rock, so they group could squeeze under the glass panel when they were in "sand" form.
* [[Save Point]]: Averted
* [[Saving the World]]: {{spoiler|But ''Felix's'' party is the one that is actually working towards that goal, although no one (not even Felix himself) knew it until Lemuria}}.
* [[Scarf of Asskicking]]:
*
** Menardi's Sash of Asskicking.
** Felix
** [[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn|Isaac's son]] [[Continuity Nod|inherited the scarf]] and kicks just as much ass.
* [[Schmuck Bait]]: There are at least two cases in the first game alone of a sign telling you ''not'' to do something necessary to advance in the game. [[Hilarity Ensues]].
* [[Secret Test of Character]]: {{spoiler|The Wise One gives one to the Adepts at the end of the second game in the form of tricking them into murdering their own parents before being able to light the last Lighthouse; when the heroes do light it, the parents are revived, and [[The Philosopher]] Kraden figures it was a test
* [[Sequel
** Possibly justified by Isaac's party joining Felix's: the games presumably expect the two parties to be pretty much equal by that point, so Jupiter Lighthouse was presumably intended for the same level range as Venus Lighthouse was.
* [[Sequel Hook]]: At the end of the first game, setting up the second. At the end of the second game too, when {{spoiler|The Wise One takes some of the power from the Golden Sun and seals it away in the Mars Star}}, not to mention the fact that the villain, though vanquished, did not technically die, setting up... over six years of waiting until ''Golden Sun DS'' was finally revealed at E3 2009. Don't forget that if you cheat, you can give Felix mind read and you can read the minds of the people in Prox. This is normally impossible, but if you do do it, you will hear thoughts that hint at a sequel.
* [[Sequence Breaking]]:
*
** Normally, you need the Orb of Force to get the Lift-psyenergy, getting through the mines in Altin and ultimately progressing in the game
** Possible in the second game
* [[Sequential Boss]]: The final bosses of both games. In the first game, {{spoiler|Saturos and Menardi battle Isaac's party, revitalize themselves after the fight and fuse into the Fusion Dragon}}. In the second game, {{spoiler|although you fight the Doom Dragon in one long battle, it has three forms with their own separate HP meters}}.
* [[Shifting Sand Land]]: ''Two'' deserts in ''Golden Sun'', one in ''The Lost Age''. Lamakan Desert in particular DOES become too hot for the group and they start ''taking damage from heatstroke'' unless they rest at hidden oases.
* [[Shipper on Deck]]: A rather notorious scene in ''The Lost Age'' has Sheba asking Jenna about the nature of her relationship with Isaac.
** During [[Chinese Girl|Feizhi]]'s [[The Cameo|transfer-data appearance]] in ''The Lost Age'', Kraden points out and openly supports her crush on Isaac, [[Crowning Moment of Funny|much to Feizhi's dismay]].
* [[Ship Tease]]:
** What powers the above developed shipping fandom. Most of the major ships get a moment or two (i.e. Jenna blushing when Kraden and Sheba call her and Isaac an "item".
** How about a [[Ship Tease]] for both Valeshipping ''and'' Mudshipping in the first game? Go back to Vale, and some of the NPCs will express alarm that you're traveling with a girl who isn't Jenna. Isaac, you old two-timer, you!
* [[Shock and Awe]]: Ivan and Sheba again.
* [[Shout-Out]]:
** To... ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus|Monty Python]]''? ''Yes''. Amazing the [[Easter Egg]]s you can find with Mind Read... In Kolima, one of the NPCs is thinking the Lumberjack Song to himself.
** If you keep telling the first Djinni in the second game "no", he'll eventually launch into a [[Billy Mays]]-esque sales pitch.
** There's a mob in the second game called an Alec Goblin, which may or may not be a shout out pun to Alec Baldwin.
** The Japanese version has a [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Captain Picard]].
** Due to Camelot's (then Sonic! Software Planning) involvement with the ''[[Shining Force]]'' series there are a number of nods to it. Beyond the the easily noticed graphical similarities in the interface, one injured person in the
** [[The Incredible Hulk]] is referenced with a random castle guard, who is thinking "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" when you mind read him.
** <s>Chi</s> Ki is named [[Star Wars|Force]] in the West. Makes sense in context, and probably was unintentional, but it was too funny to let it pass.
** The Djinni Rime is found in Old Lemuria... home of the "[[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner|ancient mariner]]".
* <s>[[Blind Idiot Translation|Sinister Size]]</s> [[Sinister Scythe]]: Menardi and Karst's.
* [[Sidequest]]: Important if you want [[
* [[Slap-On-The-Wrist Nuke]]: Being tossed into the sun, for starters.
* [[Sleeves Are for Wimps]]: The Proxians seem to follow this trope, and it [[Justified Trope|makes sense as well]]
* [[Sole Entertainment Option]]
* [[Sorry I'm Late]]: {{spoiler|The fight against Karst and Agatio on Jupiter Lighthouse}} works like this: much to the enemies' chagrin since their original plan was to fight the group two at a time.
* [[Sound Test]]: ''Golden Sun: The Lost Age'' has a pretty well-hidden one as an [[Easter Egg]], which requires talking to a specific NPC (the woman in the lower-left-most corner of the area) in the multiplayer Battle Mode lobby while holding the L or R button. The Sound Test only lets you play songs that you'd already heard on that save file, but using a completed save file unlocks every track. ''[[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn]]'' contains no such feature, however.
* [[Speaking Simlish]]
* [[Spell My Name with an "S"]]:
** Some characters that appear or are referred to in both games have differently-spelled names, or different names altogether. The most notable are Hsu in the first game -> Ulmuch in the second, and Hama in the first game -> Hamma in the second.
** One of [[Bonus Boss|Dullahan]]'s attacks is called "Formina Sage". However, in ''Dark Dawn'', this attack is called "Fulminous Edge", most likely the correct translation.
* [[Spider Sense]]:
* [[Spiritual Successor]]: The ''Golden Sun'' series is this to the ''[[Shining Force]]'' series, at least as it was back on the Sega Genesis and Game Gear, when Camelot was the developer. Those original ''
* [[Spiteful AI]]: The Djinn you fight as random encounters plus the phoenix type monsters will usually decide to run away from battle before you can finish it off. In dungeons, Djinn that flee can be fought again by just leaving the area and returning while those on the overworld map just have to be found in the area again. The phoenix monsters, however, appear randomly like any other monster, but since they are [[Metal Slime]] type monsters, they give TONS of experience points.
* [[Squishy Wizard]]: Ivan
* [[Start X to Stop X]]: Restoring Alchemy might destroy the world, and will most likely cause wars. Not restoring Alchemy will destroy the world eventually.
* [[Stealth
* [[The Stinger]]: The first game has this as a setup for the sequel. The second game has this as a setup for... nothing, for six years. Then ''Dark Dawn'' happened, but it still [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot|resolved very few]] of the [[Sequel Hook
* [[Strange Syntax Speaker]]: The people of Xian use some strange sentence structures (though not nearly as strange as some fanfic writers portray it), presumably to show that they normally speak a different language from the heroes. This is present even in the Japanese versions, as references to it are made in the ''4koma Gag Battle'' doujinshi. Curiously, Xian's successor-nations in ''Dark Dawn'' are filled with people who speak normally.
* [[Summon Magic]]: The Djinn. And, you know, the Summons themselves. Also the magic provided by the class-changing Trainer's Whip and Tomegathericon items.
* [[Take Your Time]]: Oh, yes. Lampshaded when Layana scolds your party after you
* [[That's No Moon]]: {{spoiler|Anemos is said to be an artificial moon, specifically a city on Weyard that was raised into the sky}}.
* [[Title Drop]]: {{spoiler|The Golden Sun is a mass of energy that rises above Mt. Aleph in the second game
* [[Tome of Eldritch Lore]]: Tomegathericon, a spellbook in the second game which gives you a demon-summoning character class. The Japanese version even calls it "[[Cthulhu Mythos|Necronomicon]]". It lets you summon the [[Bonus Boss]] as a Psynergy attack.
* [[Too Awesome to Use]]: Waters of Life and Psy Crystals, although the second game is a bit more generous with the amount you can get. In the second game, you can get those as random drops, but both are in bonus dungeons, the latter of which is in the Anemos Sanctum, needing all djinn from the previous game.
* [[Took a Level in Badass]]: Isaac and Felix, in different ways in ''The Lost Age'':
** Once he stops the [[Heroic Mime]] business, Isaac speaks like a kind but hard-cutting warrior, especially evident in the way he stands up to Karst and Agatio.
** Once Felix begins fighting for himself instead of apparently letting Saturos and Menardi kill everything, it's very possible for him to be more powerful than Isaac {{spoiler|when the two parties join up near the end of ''The Lost Age''}}.
* [[Trauma Inn]]: Only for HP and MP though. All status ailments like poison and death must be removed either by magic spells, elixirs or antidotes, or visiting the town's Sanctum and paying for each individual cure. Being haunted by the Grim Reaper can be fixed with Restore. Being haunted by evil spirits requires a professional exorcist.
* [[Turns Red]]: {{spoiler|Doom Dragon, as it loses its heads. Each form is programmed to act differently and has its own HP meter, which causes [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle|summon rush strategies to fail]]}}.
* [[Uncanceled]]: Only to end on another cliffhanger that will soon be unresolved for as long as the previous one.
* [[Unfamiliar Ceiling]]: During the [[Inevitable Tournament]], dying in battle makes you wake up in the infirmary, surrounded by your friends, who will then inform you that you were just dreaming. Then you have to restart the tournament from the beginning. And if you win... you wake up in the infirmary, surrounded by your friends, who will then inform you that you won.
* [[The Unfought]]: {{spoiler|Alex. His final fate was left ambiguous (he was left atop Mt. Aleph as it collapsed)}}.
* [[Unwinnable By Mistake]]: Averted: [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]]. If you give the Lash Pebble to Piers, and you go to Lemuria, when Piers will leave the party, you will need to Lash once to enter the house of {{spoiler|Lunpa}}. However, if you can't use Lash, {{spoiler|Lunpa}} will insult you and throw down a rope instead, preventing you from getting stuck.
** In the first game, if you enter Altin Mines without the Force Psynergy needed to cause a path-opening rockslide, Garet will get frustrated and kick a wall, causing the rockslide.
** Used the Retreat glitch to skip getting Mia at Mercury Lighthouse? Well, you also skipped the only locations where Ply is needed to continue, and getting the Frost Gem enables you to solve Frost puzzles without her.
* [[Upgrade Artifact]]: Psynergy-bestowing equipment, Psynergy-teaching tablets in the Elemental Rock dungeons, etc.
* [[Useless Useful Spell]]:
** Bosses in particular tend to shrug off status ailments in about a round or so. And your buffs are useless against the Fire Clan enemies, since they all apparently know Break.
** Especially unusual, considering how Break is a ''water'' element ability. Though maybe they have [[Upgrade Artifact|special items that allow them to use it]].
** Well, if Menardi could learn Wish...
* [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]:
** Venus Lighthouse in ''Golden Sun'', Mars Lighthouse in ''The Lost Age''. On the contrary, many a gamer is disappointed to find {{spoiler|the Venus Lighthouse battle is the end of the game
* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]:
** You know that guy at the beginning of the game who appears to be injured, and asks you if he's going to die? If you say "no", he gets up and finds that he's not injured at all. But if you say "yes", ''he actually dies''.
** Likewise, you can completely miss the tree situation at Bilbin Junction, so Jill the tree gets washed away downriver. Either she [[And I Must Scream|never reverts to being a human when Tret restores everybody else]], or she reverts to human and then drowns, or she washes ashore far away from her home and everybody she's ever loved, probably in monster-infested territory. Pick your [[Fridge Horror]].
** The [[Anti-Grinding]] mechanic in Sol Sanctum can be duped by getting Jenna KO'd. [[So Long and Thanks For All the Gear|You can also loot her stuff before she gets kidnapped]].
* [[Villain Episode]]: Subverted in ''The Lost Age''; Felix's quest is just as heroic as Isaac's.
* [[Villains Act, Heroes React]]: Subverted in ''The Lost age''
* [[Violation of Common Sense]]:
** There is a sign, deep within the Altin Mines, that says, "Do not strike the walls! Rocks may fall!". [[Schmuck Bait|Right next to it is one of those logs you keep knocking over with Force, positioned right by a wall...]] unfortunately, [[Stupidity Is the Only Option]] in this case: using Psynergy on the wall/[[Crowning Moment of Funny|letting Garet kick it]] is ''necessary'' to advance further in the cave.
** In ''The Lost Age'', you must ''jump off the edge of the world'' to find a hidden Djinn.
* <s>
* [[Warmup Boss]]: The three thieves in the first game, the three <s>
* [[Warp Whistle]]:
** The Teleport Lapis, found in the second game's last dungeon.
** Retreat, a default power of the heroes, lets you escape a dungeon quickly, unless the plot actively wants to prevent you doing so.
* [[Wasted Song]]: Briggs has a [[Leitmotif]] in ''The Lost Age'' that is used in only one of the many scenes featuring him.
** It's also quite easy to go without hearing the theme for multiplayer battles more than once
* [[Watching Troy Burn]]
* [[Welcome to Corneria]]: An interesting variation
{{quote|*Thinking* "How many times do I have to tell them? Why won't they leave me alone?"}}
* [[Wham! Episode]]: The visit to Lemuria.
* [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?]]: The GBA games feature an ''extremely'' dynamic camera that will quickly zoom in and out on anyone who's performing an action and sweep across the field often. Although for a GBA game, that ''is'' pretty awesome.
* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: Whatever you choose to answer when asked to hand over the Elemental Stars in Sol Sanctum, either Garet (who wants to [[Always Save the Girl]]) or Kraden (who is in the [[Hostage Situation]] but tells you to forget about him) is going to call you out about it. Garet even kicks you.
* [[When Trees Attack]]: Tret, a talking tree that has been given a violent split personality, is one of the earliest boss battles.
** Amusingly enough, you don't have to go through his area before clearing Mercury Lighthouse, adding Mia to your party and grabbing the healing water you need to heal him so you can go that way anyway...
* [[Whip It Good]]: The Trainer's Whip in ''The Lost Age
* [[White-Haired Pretty Boy]]: Alex, just put blue instead of white. Saturos, as well.
* [[Who Wants to Live Forever?]]: Subverted. The Lemurians willingly keep drinking the elixir and could end their lives or choose to age normally at any time; a lot of them are simply supremely bored.
* [[World Sundering]]: Happens after {{spoiler|Venus Lighthouse is activated}}. This is commented by several NPCs.
* [[Wutai]]: Izumo, although it represents an older Japan than the standard trope.
* [[Xanatos Gambit]]: {{spoiler|The Wise One, knowing that someone might take advantage of the Golden Sun to become all powerful, modifies the Mars Star at the beginning of the first game so that whoever is at Mt. Aleph will only inherit 3/4 of its power. In addition to this, he sends Isaac on the quest to stop the lighthouses from being lit and, in case it fails, tests the group's resolve by pitting them against their transformed parents ensuring that they were willing to do whatever it takes to keep the world safe
** Alex's [[Plan]] is not this. {{spoiler|He gets [[Out-Gambitted]] at the last possible second by the aforementioned Wise One's plan
* [[You All Look Familiar]]: The shop and inn girls/dudes.
* [[You Can Barely Stand]]:
** Inverted. Four teenagers battle the extremely powerful Saturos on the top of Mercury Lighthouse about 25% through the game and would normally not be a match for him, but the location's influence on [[Elemental Powers]] lets the group manage to defeat him and render him in this position.
** Inverted again {{spoiler|after the second-to-last boss of the first game, where they do it again only without the bosses being handicapped. Of course, said bosses end up getting [[Fusion Dance|very creative]] with how they use the new fountain of Earth energy they just activated}}...
** And inverted again in the second game, when Felix and co. do this to Agatio and Karst.
* [[You Can't Go Home Again]]:
** Inverted: in the first game, after Isaac and Garet set out from their hometown on their journey after agreeing to the Wise One's instruction to stop the villains, they can return home at several points, and the villagers will even ask how things are going. This is double inverted because Dora apparently made Isaac promise (off-screen) not to come back before he has completed his quest, yet not only are you allowed to return to the home town, you are actually encouraged as there's a Bonus Dungeon hidden in there.
** Quasi-inverted in ''The Lost Age''. You can see the part of the world map where the first game took place (it takes maybe 1/4 of the overall map used in part 2), but it is surrounded on all sides by mountains and impassible barriers making it impossible to access in Part 2; however, there is a glitch somewhere on the western shore where if you angle your ship just right, you can exit, and your character will spawn on the other side of the mountains letting you onto the Part 1 world map complete with towns and dungeon icons all the way to Mt. Aleph and Venus Lighthouse. However, ''again'', these icons aren't linked to any actual towns or dungeons: when your character walks over them, he passes right through them without shifting from the world map. Still, even though you can't actually go home, it makes for a nice sightseeing tour.
* [[You Fail Physics Forever]]: In ''The Lost Age'', when things start getting really cold after you light Jupiter Lighthouse, Kraden theorizes that the reason this happened after you lit the ''wind''-element lighthouse situated in a temperate climate rather than the ''water''-element one in the frozen North is that water doesn't cool as efficiently as wind. I don't... except... hang on... what is...[[Angrish|AGHLRPBNBNWHIODROCTAGONAPUSSLJKEWIOBJ]].<ref>Slightly more eloquently, air is a ''terrible'' conductor of heat; that's why people don't die of hypothermia in sixty-five degree weather (or for that matter, why some people can consider 65 degrees Fahrenheit to be "warm weather"). By contrast, water is a much better conductor of heat, which is why a hot piece of metal will stay hot for quite some time in open air, but cool almost instantly in a bucket of water.</ref>
** It's been suggested that Kraden is referring to the phenomenon of wind-chill, the relationship of wind and water in the elemental scheme, or possibly that things just work differently in Weyard because "[[A Wizard Did It|alchemy]] [[Memetic Mutation|lolz]]".
*
* [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]]: Agatio and Karst try to pull this on {{spoiler|Felix}}. It backfires if you win.
* [[You Killed My Father]]:
** Definitely invoked by {{spoiler|Karst}}, with the variation that {{spoiler|it's her sister who was killed, and Karst doesn't know she actually committed suicide}}.
**
* [[You Meddling Kids]]: One of the Champa Pirates delivers the line if Felix and the gang visit them in jail.
* [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle]]: The
* [[You Said You Would Let Them Go]]: Played with at {{spoiler|the end of the first game, where the party trades the [[Plot Coupon|Shaman's Rod]] to Saturos for his hostage
** Subverted with Jenna and Kraden at the beginning of the first game, as Isaac and Garet are unable to hand over the Mars Star before Saturos and Menardi's party is forced to flee with the hostages.
* [[You Shouldn't Have]]: For some reason, the English script changes Hamet's genuine gratitude at being rescued from an unfurnished cave cell into scolding Ivan for risking himself.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Trope Overdosed]]
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[[Category:Video Game]]
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