Golden Sun for GBA
Creature/Summon System Guide
Created by: Omegaxboy
E-mail: [email protected]
Created at 08.07.2001

This is a guide to the unique creature/summon system in Ougon no Taiyou
also known as Golden Sun. I just beat the game last night, so I will
explain how the magic system works since it's kind of confusing at first
and also a few things I discover.  If you have played the game to any
extent, you should know that you will find those little creatures along
the way on your adventure.  whenever you find these elemental creatures
(earth, fire, wind, water) you can move them around on any characters of
your party.  Each one of your characters have their own elemental
association. For example, your main character is earth based, and your
big friend is fire based.  It is always wise to put the creature of same
element as the character to improve their stats.  when you get a new
creature, if you hit A button on the map screen(brings up the menu) and
go to the creature icon, you should see the new creature on the first
person of your party and the creature's name is "red" <- this is
important.  There are 3 colors you will notice in their name when you go
to the creature screen and they are red, white, and yellow(when you have
more creatures, there will be numbers showing up right next to yellow).
If your creature's name is red or white, you can change them from red to
white or from white to red by pressing R trigger. (this is done in
creature select screen)

Now, let me explain what those colors represent.  When the creature's
name is white, it adds status effect to your character such as more HP,
ATT, DEF etc, as it depends on which creatures you have.  When the
creature's name is red, it takes away those status' that boost up your
character.  So, in this case, why would you want their name to be red?
Summons. When their name is red and you enter a battle, you are free to
use the summon magic.  There are 4 levels of summon you can use(at least
4 of same elemental creatures on a character) You will need to turn all
4 of the same elemental creature's names to red to use the level 4
summon and believe me, those level 4 summons are awesome.  Now I will
move on to the yellow names.  When your character use a summon magic in
the battle, the creature's name will turn from red to yellow which
represents that particular creature is in suspend mode.  You can not do
anything with the creature nor does the creature boost up your
character's status. In addition, you also can not move them around among
your characters in the map creature status screen while they are in
suspend mode.  The yellow name will turn white after one turn in the
battle(if you just used a level 4 summon, then you will need to wait 4
turns to have them all turn back to white, one creature at a turn) Once
the creature's name turns white, it will once again add back those
status upgrades that boost up your character.  Also, if you defeated the
enemy after using a summmon, you can walk around on the map(not in the
town, but where you can encounter enemy) and you should hear a ding
sound after few steps(I didn't feel like counting how many steps) The
ding sound means your creatures have returned back to normal from
suspended mode and at this time you can reactive them(turn their name
red by pressing R trigger).  These are the basics on the map screen and
now lets move on to the battles themselves.

Once you begin getting those creatures, you should see an extra command
in the battle that looks just like the creature status screen on the
map.  If you pick that command and you should see all the creatures that
are on your character and also their name can be red, white or yellow.
For instance, lets say if all the creature's names are white and you can
use them, you will notice that each creature has their own effect. Some
give your entire party ATT up, some give your entire party DEF up, some
let you attack twice in a turn and some are attack based that you can
use to attack the enemy with a powerful hit. once your use the creature
in the battle, their name turns red(just like when you use R Trigger to
turn them red on the map status screen) The creature you just used is
now in active mode so upon the next turn, you should see another icon
showing up on the battle menu(looks like a black shadow with a yellow
background).  This is where the fun begins, the summon command.  If you
pick that command, you should see that the summon magic you can use
depends on how many creatures are in active mode.  It is also wise to
let the character with same elemental association use the summon(ex:
earth based use earth summon).  But that is not a rule, anyone could use
the summon that is in active mode.(If you have 4 creature on a character
and all of them are in red. then you can use either level 1, 2, 3 or 4
summon, if you use level 1 summon when all 4 creatures are in red. Only
1 creature will go in suspend mode.) Just like I explaned earlier, once
a summon is called, the creature will be in suspended mode. If you have
just unleashed a level 4 summon and you go in the creature screen in
battle or map, you should see their name in yellow and a number right
next to their name.  The number indicates how many turns that they need
to get out of suspend mode.  So, all you have to do wait a turn in
battle(either attack or use magic, whatever you like) until the first
creature turns back to white and you can use the creature and activate
them to red again.

Now, let's talk about how each creature effects the magic arrangement
your character has.  If you put a different type of elemental creature
on a character that is not based on his or her associated element, then
your magic will change also(both battle magic and map magic). So,
sometimes you may want to swap the creature to get different kinds of
magic so you can use those various magic options around the world to get
various treasures or new creatures. Don't be afraid to swap them around,
but only when you need to see what new map magic you will get.  I would
suggest that you put the creature back to their associated owners after
you get the teasures or whatever at the various map locations.
Sometimes there are exceptions that you can't put the creatures back to
their owner. This occurs when three of your characters have 4 creatures
on them and your first character has only 3 creatures.  When you find a
new creature that is not the same kind as your first character. It will
put it on first character by force and you can't move it to another
character without trading. So, no matter what, your first character will
have a creature that is not his associated elemental and this can really
mess up your magic.  For example, your main character has healing magic
that can be used both in battle and on the map. However, once a creature
of another elemental is forced upon him, your healing magic will
disappear and you will see a whole different set of magic than what you
had previously.  But do not fret, all you have to do is turn the
creature's name to red and in doing so, it will active the creature
which will drop all the status boosts to your character and whoala, your
original magic is back.  So, just leave that creature in its active mode
until your first character can find another creature that is elementally
associated and then you can move that extra creature to their respective
owner.  Basically this is pretty much all my findings on those creatures
and the summon system.

Now here is some tips that is useful(I think)
1. You can always turn all your creatures' name to red while on map and
when you are in battle. You will have the summon command right away and
you can just kick the crap out of enemy with those summons.  It works
well at the begining of the game but later on in the game, if you don't
kill all the enemies with all the initial summons, they may be able to
kill you quickly because you do not have those creatures to boost up
your HP, DEF etc.  So in this respect, that is the one major downside of
having those creatures pre-set on active status.

2. There are more than 4 creatures that you can find for each
character(I have 6 on two of my character and 5 on the other two. I
believe there may be 6 for each of your four characters, but I can't be
sure) The max summon you can do is level 4 so in essence you really only
require 4 creatures each, at least for the summons.  So, if you manage
to have 6 creatures on one or more of your characters, you can just
active 4 of them to red and leave the other 2 white to boost your status
while you can still summon.

I hope this guide will help people that doesn't understand Japanese(Me
for one) to navigate the unique system of this awesome game.

Thanks:
Camelot/Nintendo for making this awesome game.
Rominator for grammar correction.

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