Golden Sun CRT: Taking what you can dish out (Resistances and other minor additions)

[XitSign]

Hey look, I'm doing that thing again where I only ever talk about Golden Sun. I need to expand my scope of interest...

First issue at hand: Resistances

This is what triggered me to want to write this up in the first place. In Golden Sun all of our heroes are naturally resistant to all Psynergy types, and can become even MORE resistant through training, gear, and having Djinn, which by the end of their adventures they will have had a lot of all three of these. So it was generally agreed when the profiles were made that Golden Sun characters have some level of resistance to everything Psynergy can hit them with. Which I feel is entirely reasonable, given the context.

The only issue is that not everything our cast can dish out, and by extension be hit WITH, is listed on their resistances, so I think this needs updating. You can see this most easily on Isaac's profile (Because he's the Golden Boy so I'm using him for reference here)

Isaac has Holy Manipulation (Via Planetary and Excalibur's attacks), Light Manipulation (Via Light Surge, though I for some reason think there's more light-based attacks, don't quote me), Hellfire Manipulation (Via the Raging Heat attacks and Demonfire), Darkness Manipulation (Acheron's Grief, though this is another one where I swear there's more), Poison Manipulation (Acid Bath and Poison Flow), Soul Manipulation (SO many ways, Condemn, Charon, Haunts, Death Card, if your Venus attack isn't throwing a rock or a magic sword it's probably toying with life and death). However he resists none of these.

I don't think that makes any sense with the rules of how these resistances work. These are all Psynergy-based attacks, they do elemental damage that Isaac and company resist naturally. There's also a number of attacks enemies can do for these elements that, again, the gang will resist just like they resist the elements we do list for further proof. Examples like Poison Fangs for poison attacks, Dark Breath for Darkness, or Death Scythe and Rumble for Soul Manipulation.

I think any attack the Golden Sun characters can dish out should be a part of their resistances, both because it follows the rules of what they resist and a number of foes can turn those types of attacks back on the characters.

Second: Status Effect Resistances

This one is usually game mechanics and gets written off a lot, so honestly I won't delve too long into this. Golden Sun characters will resist all sorts of status effects in-game. Condemn will fail and pass by harmlessly, Sleep Star doesn't make the heroes drowsy, Poison Gel leaves our heroes still fresh and clean, Lucid Prophecy's candle gets snuffed out and the character isn't even cursed

Ect, ect, you get the idea, based on our hero's stats and resistances sometimes they just can't get Statused. I am aware though that totally resisting Status Effects isn't taking lightly here, so I'm not pushing this hard, but the last time this was talked about it didn't seem to get talked about a lot, so just leaving this here.

It should be interesting to also note there is also the Cleric's Ring which negates the curses on cursed equipment the gang gets their hands on, but I'm not sure that would be enough to be put on a profile, but that information seemed to belong here.

Third: (Minor) Regenerationn?

There's a small number of auto-healing effects, which seeing other profiles these kinds of minor auto-heals seems to get at least Low Regen status for things like RPG characters. Coatlicue is a summon that temporarially gives all allies an automatic HP restore at the end of their turns, healing them without an action. There's also equipment pieces like Asura's Armor which heals the wearer every turn they have it on.

TLDR:

Just general clean-up and additions for the GS gang, mostly little things if I'm entirely honest, but things I think need at least considered. I think for sure Golden Sun heroes should have added resistances based on the attacks they can dish out and also receive from their opponents based on how Psynergy resistance works (Holy, Light, Hellfire, Darkness, and Soul Manipulation). They might also resist Status Effect Inducement, however I am aware that this tends to be frowned upon and I'm not banking on this too much. And they could possibly get Regenerationn (Low) based on auto-healing effects in the series, based on what I've seen from other RPGs.

 

[IraFeuerbach]

I personally agree on. I recall a scene from GS1 where Tret the tree was trying to transmute the party into trees, but they could resist it even when they were immoblilized. They managed it because their psynergy had unconsciously created barriers for protection. This should be translateable for other psyergy based attacks and effects as well. For the third suggestion, I add the standard reg feat for items while the second more stronger one should be linked to the summon as a separate feat.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I agree with this; some of the resistances might have gone overboard; though, characters do resist their own elements given the nature.

 

[TartaChocholate]

Given Golden Sun's cosmology in the first two games, is Light and Darkness manipulation applicable? They are still considered within the power scopes of Venus and Jupiter respectively and proper Light and Darkness elements weren't introduced until Dark Dawn, where their reveal was a big surprise. I could be wrong though.

 

[XitSign]

I don't think they're all that overboard, at least for our heroes. They naturally resist their main element the most, yes, but they have ratings for resistance for all elements naturally. Plus just having gear, Djinn, and using them regularly makes them more resistant. With how we orginize their profiles, every character can make use of their multiple classes and Djinn, so the resistances that come with it should come naturally.

I'm not sure the elements called Light and Darkness should change the fact that other attributes used light and dark attacks. All the attributes cover multiple types of attacks, and characters clearly use those types of attacks. Plus some elements occasionally have bleed over. There are poison attacks for both Mars and Venus, so it's not unusual.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I don't mean completely overboard; equipment and what not that enables them to resist statuses is all good. And some of the abilities shared by different adept types could be looked at.

 

[XitSign]

So are the resistance reasonable enough to make some changes, or would more input be needed?

And any thoughts on Regenerationn, or if that should even be Regenerationn?

 

[XitSign]

Another bump, especially for more input. I still think the general resistances seem pretty cut and dry with how even just HAVING Djinn makes you resistant to those elements, let alone the natural resistances, training resistances, and gear resistances that also help.

Status resistances I'm not nearly as sure about since I've seen stricter rules for status resistance sitautions.

And if regen is even applicable or if these situations should stay as 'Healing'.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Yeah, training with Djinns do increase resistances to other elements; but I meant certain status effects may not be real resistances without equipment ect.

 

[LSirLancelotDuLacl]

I am entirely okay with it, but having a more clear idea of what can affect resistance to status effects seems like it may be needed or for the best.

 

[XitSign]

Oh! Well I feel silly. I clearly have misread some of your previous messages Medeus, my bad...I for some reason thought you were talking about elemental resistances still.

Status resistances all come down to the 'Luck' stat. Luck is your resistance to any and all status conditions even working. An example being if you have a high luck stat a curse targeting that character will hit...and do nothing. The curse will trigger but the character will act like nothing happened. This was BRIEFLY talked about in the creation thread and then shot down because someone said (Paraphrasing) 'well that's a game mechanic' and was never brought up again.

However there are things that modify this situation, with gear that's meant to change luck just for resisting status effects. Items like the Jeweled Crown and certain Djinn change those stats to resist all status effects, so the fact there's gear in the game that's meant for these situations I think needs discussing.

I'm not SUPER attached to Status Effect resistance, because I'm aware this is still technically stat related and that's a big iffy area for the wiki, but I think the creation thread shot down this discussion too quickly without at least debating it a little.

 

[TartaChocholate]

I don't think they're all that overboard, at least for our heroes. They naturally resist their main element the most, yes, but they have ratings for resistance for all elements naturally. Plus just having gear, Djinn, and using them regularly makes them more resistant. With how we orginize their profiles, every character can make use of their multiple classes and Djinn, so the resistances that come with it should come naturally.
I'm not sure the elements called Light and Darkness should change the fact that other attributes used light and dark attacks. All the attributes cover multiple types of attacks, and characters clearly use those types of attacks. Plus some elements occasionally have bleed over. There are poison attacks for both Mars and Venus, so it's not unusual.

I see, makes a lot of sense. Thanks for clearing it up. I think though that it should be explained that elements in Golden Sun do contain properties withing their power scope that go beyond what their element indicates, just like you say. For example, all the necromantic stuff in the Venus element. So that it's clear for readers as well.

I didn't know Luck was what prevented status effects. Come to think of it, there isn't equipment that straigth up prevents Status Conditions like in other RPGs IIRC. So how would the resistance be applied then?

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Djinns do technically count as equipment similar to ribbons from Final Fantasy; though, I think it was specified that for certain statuses such as ones that fall into mind manipulation or time stop, they often require the gameplay to be outright "status immunity".

 

[TartaChocholate]

Yeah, but there is no way to fully prevent status ailments IIRC. You can reduce the chances of the ocurring, but, for example, end-game bosses can still afflict the party with them, such as Dullahan inflicting instant KO with Charon and Condemn or Doom with Haunt.

Boy, talking about it makes me feel nostalgic and want to check the games once again.

 

[XitSign]

We might need a blog of some sort to explain what elements cover the scope of various manips then, because I'm not entirely sure where we'd put it on the main character's profiles and it not be kinda clunky or look weird. Just to have it on refrence for readers, like you said.

They never get to immunity, that's right, you can only increase your chances of them failing. So I'm not sure where that leaves us on the status situation. If we need total immunity in game, then we can cut the status resistances entirely then...like I said, I wasn't super married to the idea, I just noticed the creation thread gave up on that without debating it.

Please don't remind me of the Dullahan...the computer's nothing but a cheating bastard, his proc rate for Charon is so much higher than the player's it's not even funny.

 

[TartaChocholate]

A blog is actually a pretty good idea. Several verses use blogs to explain the major mechanics or details of their universe that are too long for profiles or equire too much detail. Golden Sun could benefit from it, with explanations of the Cosmology and how elements work in the setting.

I think resistances can stay. Being resistant to something is very, very rarely a full immunity in the site as well, as sufficiently powerful hax in theory should overpower a resistance. I don't think it's needed to fully resist the condition like in Final Fantasy, but it can be explained in profiles that the characters have the chances of being affected by ailments significantly reduced instead of being fully immune. After all, they are still preventing from being affected from certain hax, not having resistances would equal having a full vulnerability to the ailments.

The douchebag was pretty hard, lol. He also loved spamming Charon and Fulminous Edge in Lost Age.

 

[XitSign]

Forgot to get back to this. We'll need to write up a blog soon then, just to make everything easier to read for casual users.

I'd love to hear more input on the status resistances, and the regen since I'm not sure if anyone has actually commented on that portion since resistance talk has dominated everything, before adding it, since Status is treated as a pretty big deal

He's just the worst...That tin-head drives me nuts to this day.

A minor addition to this thread, should we remove 'Magic Users' from the Golden Sun pages? Psynergy is a manipulation of the mind, and the adepts channel their powers through Psychic means. I know it's a minor change, but just little touch-ups.

 

[Antvasima]

I trust Medeus' sense of judgement.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

@XirSign, there are still some classes that are described as mages, and magic is still a sub ability of Psynergy. So I think Magic users is still fine to keep. Is is true that Psynergy is basically Psychic energy from the mind of the wielder.

 

[XitSign]

Then the tag can stay, just trying to clean up all the little details if we can, but that does seem fine.

Should we add tags for Psychics because of that, though?

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Psychics as a category seems fine.

 

[TartaChocholate]

I think Regen could go between Mid-Low and High-Low when boosted with more powerful effects. After all, it is capable of healing from near death the user when powered enough. Thouhg it should be specified that the stronger effects are achieved via this or that ability, djinn, summon or equipment.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

That sounds good.

 

[XitSign]

"Regenerationn (Mid-Low via equipment, High-Low via Coatlicue)"

How about that?

 

[TartaChocholate]

Pretty good, IMO

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

That also looks good to me, feel free to make those edits.

 

[XitSign]

Perfect, when I get the time I'll be sure to update the GS characters then

 

[Kalaam]

I think the page would need some important clarifications. Isaac's abilities aren't the ones of his summons, especially Iris. he cannot summon her by himself. And even then, if he summoned the strongest summon available to a single character (Catastrophe) it would weaken him a lot, and that should be addressed too. I think classifying Isaac's power based on the summons is misguided, it would be like basing DBZ character's power by counting summoning Shenron or Porunga as one of their moves. I don't see where you can come to the conclusion that isaac is faster or stronger than Iris either. I do aggree that the Golden Sun fragment probably gives him some sort of powerboost, but it's hard to tell how much or in what way.


Also, I kinda get your logic for Light and Holy manipulation, but it's a big stretch. With the phaeton blade you could say he can do Light based attacks, but it's something that he cannot control. As for Holy, I'm not sure what it has to do with isaac. Nothing is considered "holy" in that setting, some stuff look like sacred/holy magic from other games/settings but has nothing to do with it. That's a big point in Golden Sun's subtext: no element is good or evil, they just are. Even Light is deadly to the characters, they cannot survive standing in it. And sure, Dark element looks evil but it's more order vs chaos than good vs evil. So clearly not Holy vs Unholy/Demonic.


A better classification of what he can do by himself and what is clearly locked behind classes/items/weapons is very much needed. It's already the case with the item psynergy category but it needs more in the main list of abilities. Same in other elements psynergy, you should tell which ones are locked behind a class. Like curse etc, Isaac has no access to those in his base Lord class.

Some of the psynergies and djinns could use a better, more precise description. A few examples: -Seal/Luff/etc, only seal magical abilities. The ability to cast spells. Nothing else. It wouldn't stop, say, a Brachydios from monster hunter to make explosive punch because it's just part of his biology. The seal just blocks access to the source of magic the target taps into to cast spells. Also, Luff never misses so you could note that as bypassing resistance to ailment. -Healing psynergies would need to have a better reprensentation. Pure Ply is 3 times the potency of Potent Cure. - For Epicenter, a "dragon cloud" doesn't make much sense if someone doesn't know the spell. Better describe it as a opening a vent to the core of the earth, and directing the intense heat and pressure straight to the opponent -The resist spell only increases magical resistance, the physical defense one is separate. -The buffes in general can be stacked 2 times for their maximum effect, we even have the numbers. Attack buff is 25% per stack on single target for a 50% max increase. -I'd say that Granite, Flash etc don't really increases the user's durability. They rather block the incoming damage for him. like summoning a shield rather than making yourself more durable.

I just got to rewrite that message because it didn't post the first time so I probably forgot a few things xD

 

[Antvasima]

Can somebody summarise what we need to do here?

 

[TartaChocholate]

Well, the Revisions previously mentioned by XitSign were added, however Kalaam does raise new good points about the overall structure of the GS profiles that should be discussed further.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

We already had long discussions on the Golden Sun profiles as well as their stats, but here's the details.

First of all, the Shenron/Porunga is false equivalency. The Dragon Balls are nothing beyond wish granting items that could be used by anyone who collects all 7 of them. The Djinns do more than just fused together to form summons, they stand beside the party members and legit empower them. Chaos Emeralds and Power Star are better comparisons to the Djinn as they have multiple functions.

Also, each party member can be empowered by up to 9 Djinn, which the combined party would often be the power of 72 Djinn. Summoning Isis is only the power of 13 Djinn which shouldn't be too far different from the power of a single Adept. The party members are also able to trade blows with the various bosses such as Dullahan, Fusion Dragon, Karst, Blados, ect regardless of whether all 72 Djinns are on stand by or if they each empowered by 9, meaning they should be the same tier regardless of Djinn empowerments. There's no reason for Iris to be astronomically stronger or faster than other summons such as Charon and they don't instantly oneshot end game bosses.

The Djinns are still part of the parties standard equipment, so summons are usable. And finally, Isaac and his friends especially should be inherently stronger than Iris due to being empowered by the Golden Sun; the most powerful thing in the entire verse. So their stats are fine, though I think range should specify that it's only Interstellar with summons.

I agree that some abilities are iffy and that we should probably remove certain abilities that are exclusive to classes certain party members do not have access to.

 

[XitSign]

EDIT: TLRD at the bottom for summary of everything I said here because I write walls of text. There's a lot in Kalaam's post to go over, especially based on agreements about how to handle GS that happened a long time ago that I actually wasn't a part of so I'm not really the person to go to for a lot of the original decisions. Some of my understanding about the reason why we do what we do with GS might be wrong, Medeus might be the better consultant but I'll give it my best.

One of the major agreements was in compositing of Djinn loadouts and classes due to Game Mechanic reasons. The game artificially limits djinn, and thus classes, but there's clear evidence that that any adept can have as many Djinn as they want in theory. As playable characters there's no 'canon' Djinn loadout, so there's no 'canon' class choice for each of the characters. They can have any Djinn and the only reason they can't have them all is the game outright TELLS you to share and be fair in your party. Isaac, and everyone else's profile, assumes they're on their own and thus they have everything that was ever at their disposal, each and every Djinn, each class they're allowed to have, all their gear, ect. This basically boils down to "It's Game Mechanics, and it's even arbitrary in-universe, so we ignore it"

Golden Sun Summons aren't comparable to Shenron or Porunga, that's a REALLY bad example. Shenron needs prep and isn't combat applicable, but for Isaac, Venus to Iris are readily available parts of the arsenal and used frequently and ARE combat applicable. The Golden Sun gang gets their scaling from not only having the empowerment of the Djinn that can cause these summons (Djinn power-up Adepts they fuse with for some context) but also because of the endgame of Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Iris is, without a doubt, a devastatingly powerful being/attack but the Doom Dragon actually beats her out, and Dullahan (Iris' guardian) is even stronger. Even as a team, the adepts scored wins against both, being able to both harm and survive battles with two foes that outpaced the Iris' Supernova, Star Creation, and Star Bust. Plus the Golden Sun boost is only listed as 'Higher' for a reason, because it is unknown and we recognize that, there seems to be no good way to measure the Golden Sun. It being a part of the creation of the universe is promising, but we never got back to that. I believe speed is just from upscaling, and I believe Meteor is also MFTL, but the calcs for that have been buried for months...

Holy comes from Excalibur from what I understand, one of the descriptions of it's Legend attack being holy in nature I believe? This was something done in the original creation thread, so people there are better resources for where that comes from. And 'he has no control over it' is somewhat misleading, these are attacks from gear he has access to, even if it's a 'random unleash' it is still a factor. I do agree a 'gear' tab might be necessary, but it's no stretch to be on his profile. It's something Isaac has in his arsenal, just like the rest of his allies would too (Depending on gear and Psynergy loadout of course), and by the rules of Psynergy, as long as it exists our Adpets should still be resisting it. Even if Light CAN hurt them, they're still 'resisting' by how we understand the universe's rules.

Somewhat of a nitpick on Sealing, Psynergy isn't (totally) magical in nature, which is why our own description of it is weird. Psynergy is a VERY loose power system in-universe, and not all Psynergy is 'magic'. From both attack descriptions and a handful of characters we get an explanation that Psynergy is a mental/psychic concept that can manifest itself in attacks of a wide variety. Some Psynergy is 'magic', however some are mental attacks, and some are explicitly physical/biological attacks. Seals interactions with these makes what they do and don't interact with when we bring other verse into the mix messy, but that's what Verse Equalization is for...love the rule or hate it. Point is, Psynergy is not well defined, which makes how we have to describe things it HAS interacted with it a bit all encompassing.

Also, the weakness of using Djinn and Summons is mentioned. It was put in the Weaknesses section that using Djinn and Summons would mean Djinn can't give benefits and Adepts need to balance their roster to avoid that from hurting them too much.

HOWEVER, I do still have a lot of agreements with you. New tabs to better explain gear are necessary, and I even called for rewriting Djinn before because we're actually missing a few. (Mind control comes from Mold, but Mold is not a 'notable Djinn' we list, however that's a very substantial ability in the arsenal). It's a lot of work for rewriting though, and a lot of us have other projects we're working on, so those rewrites have been taking a while...and now adding a gear tab will require even more extra review.

A TLDR:

-Game Mechanics for classes and Djinn were agreed to be ignored because the game does this arbitrarily, currently the profiles are semi-composited with that in mind.

-Summons are VERY relevant to the cast, this is a JRPG, summons are basically another type of attack.

-Based on the foes battled and Djinn giving power, the Warriors of Vale should scale above Iris which is where we get our current stats. Speed is upscaling from what I understand.

-While some abilities DO come from gear and Djinn, they should remain on the profile because they are still relevant and available, even attacks with random chances are still attacks that CAN be used. However, new tabs to explain what comes from gear, Djinn, and natural Psynergy are good ideas, just for general organization. (We even attempted this a little with the Regenerationn additions)

-Psynergy is a very loose power system and the lore of Golden Sun is not amazingly fleshed out. Psynergy covers a mix of magic, mental, and physical powers (There's also a SECOND power system in-universe which is ALSO physical and that's just another can of worms, lets not do that right now, no relevant character even uses that power system), and abilities like Seals DO interact with these varieties of Psynergy. That's something for Verse Equalization to handle, the profile should still mention that these situations occur in Golden Sun's universe

-Additions for Djinn have been overdue, and general description rewrites have also been overdue (Mia VS Cell's "How does a curse kill you instantly slowly?" comes to mind). That's gonna take some work, but this HAS been a problem in the past, we need to rewrite a lot of descriptions that were just copy and pasted.

So yeah...We have a reason for a lot of the things we did, I think the reasons why we did some of them still hold up, and I don't think the profiles need any removals or stat changes. However new gear tabbers, new descriptions, and Djinn additions are overdue, and we need to find the time to do them.

 

[XitSign]

And I'm utterly sniped by Medeus...

But yes. Stats are fine from what I understand, the cast should logically have everything at their disposial when we're documenting them (The fact some characters didn't even have any weapons listed in their Standard Equipment was a huge oversight), and some game mechanics should be ignored because they're arbitraty game mechanics.

But also yes, some little things definately need cleaned up. A LOT of the profiles have copy and pasted parts that need cleaning, descriptions aren't always great, and we are missing Djinn. We just need people to have time to actually go through and do that.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. Thank you for the summaries.

 

[Kalaam]

For the power scaling regarding summons I think it can be interpretated in two ways, when compared to bosses. Either in end-game the bosses and the characters are God level, and can fight and kills gods, and then why would you need the Philosophical Stone at this point ? Or what you summon is just a figment of that god, akin to some versions of summoning in Final Fantasy (look up how Final Fantasy XIV's summoning works, I think it's a very good comparison this time). The aura and power of said incarnation that's left after the summoning ends just rests in the summoner, providing the elemental power boost. I think it's a fairer option, as much as I love the idea of the cast going toe to toe with gods. It's always hard to gauge the real power of summons because if we were to consider them canon, we'd wipe continents at each fight we're using them. There is probably (kinda like in FF) some alternate dimension magic at play.

I think what supports the second version is also the debuff from not having djinn sets. It's true that without them the characters can still stand against bosses, but clearly not as well. Without djinns, the HP of a character are halved. Most of their stats get -30 to -80% or more depending on what class they were with djinns. Given the damage end game bosses can do, it clearly makes a big difference wether your max HP is 450 or 1000 when the attacks deal 300.

If we do give Isaac all the djinn (which would be a bit weird since they don't all belong to him, and it's pretty clear that everyone kept their own given Dark Dawn's prologue, but for the sake of getting a max power Isaac let's roll with it) how could we calculate the power boost? Do we take the best stats of each class and stack all the individual djinn stat buffs (+3 atk from one, +10hp from another etc then all the multipliers?) If so then yeah Isaac would be very, very strong. I still wouldn't say Star class, but country class, if not continent after some buffs or summons to get their power.

TLDR: I think that summons aren't the full on gods but just icons/demi-incarnations of them to help in battle rather than the gods at full power, otherwise the power scaling makes no sense and any salamanders or griffin in the golden sun world is God tier.


Edit: Last year I had started doing actual Death Battle-like research on Isaac's potential (DB had open a poll for future fights and I got curious to try) so I went and tried to get reference of actual measurable strength in GS and how it translated in term of stats. That way we could have some numbers on Isaac's strength if you want me to post the doc.

 

[XitSign]

I think you're falling into the trap of "God means all powerful"

Iris is a 'god' in the Golden Sun universe, yes, but her attack is a Star Level feat. Now it's possible we're lowballing her, we don't have a calc for how big that Supernova or Star is, but we can reasonably at least assume she is capable of a Supernova, 1 FOE, because of the animation of that attack.

The Doom Dragon is superior to that attack. The Dullahan is superior to the Doom Dragon. Isaac and friends, regardless of the situation you manufacture for debate, still was capable of fighting those opponents, harming them, surviving their attacks, and winning. This would scale them to the power of their opponents, who are scaled beyond the attack they surpassed, which is Iris' feat, which is clearly at LEAST a 1 FOE feat.

The numbers don't really matter. Stats and specific numbers are game mechanics, and we try to rely on statements and feats first and foremost. So yes, not having the Djinn does make Isaac weaker, but Isaac is still able to stay in the ring with these foes no matter what, he should scale.

Being a 'god' means nothing without feats, so being superior to a god also is not all that much of a big deal. The Warriors of Vale walked away from two fights that were better than what Iris at LEAST showed us, so they should be above Iris' attack. Add the Golden Sun fragment, and they're even stronger.

The mooks of the verse probably don't scale, because again, surviving attacks from the other 'gods' doesn't mean anything without those gods also being scaled for power. And we normally consider Mook monsters PIS for being able to handle the player character to keep the game functioning, but even if we took it literally, nothing is really contradicting here other than an assumption that Iris and the summons should be this higher 'god tier' just because they're 'gods'.

And the Prolouge of Dark Dawn doesn't mean much, because while some of the Djinn were kept by the Adepts, others clearly were not, there's a clear lack of rhyme and reason, and there's next to nothing to go on for canon for what a Djinn loadout should be. Isaac can, and DOES, make use of any Djinn in the game, so we simply assume he can call on any of them. He's just 'stronger', above where he was before but unknown. It can be as simple as that, powerscaling is not a fine art, there is wiggle room.

 

[Kalaam]

What I mean is that those feats of iris and such should probably not be taken litteraly. It's too easy, I think, to disreguard base ennemies surviving and not bosses. It makes the character way too powerful in my opinion, and it doesn't fit with what we see in dialogues and cutscenes as feats of power.

Look at Dark Dawn, when we see what remains of a puzzle room that Arcanus brute forced through. Someone who should be more powerful than Isaac. If the characters are that strong, why bother most of the time when they could solve an issue themselves by using raw power ? That's why I think the summons are not as strong as they may seem, because it makes no sense otherwise. And I refuse to consider that what we see is what actually happens, but not that it has any real effect on the world or that it's only the case for specific scenarios. It's poor logic, imo. If Judgment was as strong as we see, it would wipe sooooo many countries everytime, there should be traces of it but there isn't. And we do travel the whole world. I do aggree that by the end-game, the characters get close to godly power level (given how everyone wants an adept in their army in DD, it's safe to assume most adepts are regarded as semi-godly beings with their powers and strength.) but given the context of the game, they aren't THAT strong.

 

[XitSign]

Okay...Base Enemies do not frequently survive Iris' attack, most videos showing the animation will also show you hilariously stomping normal foes. But even for the ones that DO survive, this is a standard for most verses. Mooks are not special, they don't scale to the heroes/major foes.

Some level of video game logic needs to be ignored to make sense of what we're seeing. It's not reasonable for the game to account for powerscaling when the creators aren't powerscalers. The planet shouldn't be utterly destroyed each and every time we use an attack because that would seriously derail the very point of the game.

A character choosing not to use their sheer power in the face of something like a puzzle is known as Plot Induced Stupidity, where, for the sake of the plot/game/medium to work and still be fun for the consumer, the levels of power sometimes need to be ignored to not utterly break the point of the plot/tension/game play.

Iris blows up in a supernova, makes a star, and blows up that star. You need to provide evidence that's not actually what's happening, not simply saying 'I don't believe that, because that's too strong' or 'There's not enough damage'. You need to provide something concrete, or we will scale characters to what we see happen, and ignore smaller oversights because sometimes media is inconsistent and we have to account for the creators not knowing/not being able to account for the implications.

 

[Kalaam]

I think it's to convenient and that it overblowns the character powers. If they were that powerful, why would Garet and Isaac get worried for Tyrell if they can get there in a flash ? That's why I prefer to look at summons the way FF explains it, overlooking the logic when its convenient is terrible method in my opinion. I'd like to look at a common spell in DnD and Pathfinder usually called "Avatar", which I think is relatively similar. Basically using this spell allows a cleric to become an avatar of their deity. They bear their appearance, and can use their power, on a smaller scale. I think that's more or less what happens, plus we see all party members outside of the summoner disappear with most summons, so it leads me to believe something similar is happening. Like a copy of the reality where the summoner and ennemies are transported, and where an avatar/icon/figment of the summoned being take shape and delivers an attack. Look at how summons work in Crisis Core FF7 for example, you see it from the point of view of someone attacked by it. In my opinion it's on of the best depiction of how summons in JRPG work in universe. Yes it's not from Golden Sun, but in golden sun summons are never adressed within the lore. It's purely a game mechanic and cutscenes made to look cool over making sense. I don't mean that gods in Golden Sun are all all-powerful, far from that. And even if we disreguard trashmobs, why isn't there any remains from the attacks of the summons ? "Because video game logic" is too easy of an argument in my opinion. Same with "Plot induced stupidity" it's just so convenient to say that the characters are extremely powerful, but always forget about it outside of battles, which are packed with game logic and mechanics. It makes more sense, in my opinion, that the characters are less powerful than that, and that also explain why when they do see someone who has brute forced a puzzle it is impressive to them.

Plus even normal humans can withstand summons, look at the colosso fighters. They aren't standard trashmobs, but they can take a hit from summons.

We probably have a fundamental disaggreement on how to consider the summons in the power scaling. It's two way to look at it, I lowball it, you highball (is that the correct term?) it. But I think my version makes more sense in universe without having to explain it by "video game logic" or "they get weak outside of combat because the plot demands it".

 

[XitSign]

You're pulling logic and explanations from completely different franchises with different rules and different writers. And, frankly, I hate to say this but your only real evidence in your corner is that you headcanon it that way. You've decided on a rule set of logic for a genre when every universe, and with it writing team, is different. And that's not how this works at all, especially not on this wiki.

That's also not true, Iris is referenced as the Rainbow Goddess in Golden Sun 1 in the Mercury Lighthouse, and Crystallux in Dark Dawn is part of a quest. The Summons are real in the universe, Iris is explicitly worshiped, ect.

The reason there's no remains...IS Video Game Logic, and PIS, the developers couldn't be expected to rework a map if you ever used Judgement to utterly destroy the game, that's a super unrealistic requirement for a game to make. MANY series have this problem, and we solve it with the simple explanation of PIS, the author can and does make mistakes in logic or even defies it just to preserve the game.

I can assure you, a good chunk of media wouldn't work without some PIS explanations, where you just have to ignore inconsistencies. The Wiki has to do it a lot, and this is a classic case of it, we can't expect every game with a doomsday attack to obliterate the game you're playing...that would not be a fun game.

This is also a fantasy world, with monsters, supreme beings, and large and powerful attacks. There's not really 'normal humans' in this universe, they're surviving in a much more dangerous world than our own, it's more reasonable to assume that a trained warrior is going to be super powered compared to a normal human when he's living in a world like the one in Golden Sun.

You explanation relies heavily on what you're basically headcanoning, using material you like from other sources that have nothing to do with Golden Sun. It requires us to use logic that's not from this universe, and say everything we see isn't really happening, or isn't how it seems, because there's puzzles in this game. And if they're powerful they shouldn't need to do puzzles. You're basically providing nothing other than "I don't believe it." Your line of logic would severely downgrade nearly every character on this Wiki, and go against how a lot of things are run here.