Golden Sun: Dawn of Djinn

Overview:

“Golden Sun: Dawn of Djinn” is a remixed version of the first game of the Golden Sun series. Featuring new Djinn, new Psynergy/battle abilities, and new challenges to overcome. Adjustments that tie into battle mechanics have been adjusted as well, not only to give more purpose to various methods of combat, but to encourage the use of features Dawn of Djinn specializes in.  Plus, this adventure takes quality of life improvements from mods like the Golden Sun Randomizer and builds off them to make travel outside of battle more enjoyable.

Battle Updates

New and Stronger enemies:

New enemies make their debut and returning ones have increased stats from the original adventure. Combat overall feels closer to the challenge of a playthrough of Lost Age's “Hard Mode” than it does the original adventure. Though there are methods to make your adventure easier or harder if desired available early on in the adventure.  New enemies as well as boss fights with a new set of moves are also available.

New Abilities/Reworked mechanics:

This mod features many new Djinn, Psynergy, and other abilities. Some classes now have new Psynergy within them, others are unlocked through equipping new items.

All this powerful Psynergy comes at a cost, as it now cost more to cast than in the original adventure. Thankfully, Dawn of Djinn introduces plenty of ways to assure a prepared Adept never runs out despite the increase cost.  

Weapons have been reworked so each group of them has distinct properties, to make you reconsider what to equip. making you consider more than just which give you the highest attack stat.  In addition Dawn of Djinn offers two new types of weapons, Gloves and Mitts.  They are no longer pieces of armor but weapons with more defensive properties and extra abilities.  Gloves boost defense as well as giving you distinct unleashes and item effects. Mitts are the more magical version of the Gloves.  Boosting elemental resistance, bestowing unique Psynergy for combat, and granting rare unleashes that act like Psynergy in of themselves.

In addition new recovery as well as battle items have been introduced to play around with. Tier 4 summons have also been slightly reworked.

Djinni Charms:

In addition to the upgraded Djinn, Dawn of Djinn introduces a brand-new mechanic call the "Djinni Charms".  They are essentially Djinn in a crystallized form, either because they've been weakened or have yet to fully awaken.  Though not wielding their full powers, they can grant an ability to an Adept of their element if they equip them and lend their Psynergy to them. Only Adepts of the same element can equip them, so Isaac can only equip Venus Djinni Charms, Garret can only equip Mars Djinni Charms, Ivan can equip Jupiter Djinni Charms, and Mia can equip Mercury Djinni Charms.  Furthermore, only one Djinni charm can be equipped to an Adept at a time, so you'll have to consider which charms will best assist you for each situation to get the most out of them. You'll find them throughout your adventure, though some are guarded by powerful mimics.

Adjustments to Overworld Abilities/Quality of Life Updates:

While majority of updates to Dawn of Djinn tie to combat, there are a few field exclusive updates.  

Retreat

Retreat not only warps you to the start of a dungeon or town but now functions similarly to teleport when used on the world map.  Using Retreat pulls up the map and you can select any town that you've previously visited to instantly return there.  The linearity of Golden Sun doesn't make this as needed as other RPGs, but it does open up some options that would be unreasonable in the original game, such as Retreating back to Imil to restock on Hermes Water.   

 Avoid

Avoid now behaves as a random encounter toggle rather than a wear off effect.  Using it once turns off 100% of random encounters, using it again turns them back on.  The adventure was built and play tested around fighting all of your encounters, and there are some bugs making it hard to toggle encounters back on that can result from saving and quitting the game while you still have Avoid on. So I'd personally recommend only turning Avoid on for backtracking for a smooth, grind-less experience. Though the option is there for people who want to use it.

Speaking of grinding, the mod has been design in a way where despite the challenge, grinding shouldn't be needed anything needed to see the credits as long as Avoid is used sparingly.  Main areas I felt the need to grind is for the optional dungeon of super bosses, and maybe a little with Grand Djinn.  Especially if you try them as soon as you see them isntead of waiting until you've done everything else in the Venus Lighthouse first. General end-game level is around Lv. 25, level 27 if you do all the optional content such as Grand Djinn fights and everything minus the final battles of the optional super dungeon. Enemies in around the final third of the game now give more experience to make the transition to these levels more natural as the final level your party learns new abilites is Level 30.

 Default Psynergy

Building off the built in Psynergy the Randomizer provided, many utility Psynergy like Growth, Whirlwind, and even Avoid are built right into party members so they have them, regardless of your class. In addition, Psynergy not tied to battle no longer cost Psynergy to use. Though they have different names to distinguish from their battle equivalents. For example in battle Growth still cost Psynergy to use, but outside of battle it is refer to as “Sprout” but otherwise functions the same.

Psynergy Items

Psynergy items also behave differently as well.  Often when you first encounter them they won't be items, but rather weapons and armor you can equip to party members to get the effect without wasting an extra item slot.  When the equipment becomes out-classed, you can sell it at a shop and a more traditional Psynergy item will appear in any item shop's Artifact section. You can sell and re-buy the items as you please, freeing up inventory space if you're familiar enough with the game to know when you do and don't need them.  As a fail safe, there are two new classes, Jack Adept & Toolsmith respectfully, that give you access to the majority of these Psynergy around the level/Djinn requirement you would be at when you obtain these items normally. Have some of the weakest stats of all classes, it's not ideal for battle, but it does get access to some unique Psynergy and slightly varies between which Adepts are in it.

---VERSION 1.1.02--

Updated to fix a couple things I overlooked that I only noticed as I was livestreaming the mod.

-Previously the Sapling Sword wasn't programmed right. Instead of bestowing Psynergy when equipped, you had to use it like an item. It now bestows Sprout when you equip it

-Ponce Knife's power has been nerfed from 30 to 10 as I forgot to do so after changing how you got it so you could get it much earlier.  It's an Easter Egg more than anything so I don't mind if it's stupid weak as you should only be equipping it for the fun of it.

Known Bugs/Issues

- Occasional visual effects when using Retreat in the overworld. I believe this is a carry over from the Golden Sun Randomizer and if so, I'm not sure if I have the ability to fix it.

- I feel fairly certain that there are some visual bugs and occasional moments of lag caused the amount of extras I added into the game's "code". Though there is a chance that may just be caused by the software I use to run it and not the mod itself.  I will attempt to fix it as I'm reworking version 2.0 as I'll be better able to optimize the space I already have.

- Certain enemy encounters may defend when intending some other action.  This is most common with enemies that use more items than they normally would.  I've adjusted some enemy patterns to reduce this issue, but I'm not certain if I got all of them.

- NPCs aren't affected by Mind Read minus the one where mind-reading is needed for progression.  I believe this is a carry-over from the dialogue disabling patch the Golden Sun Randomizer I worked off of applies, and will be fixed in Version 2.0 and up as I intend to include the dialogue by default and include a patch that disables it after the fact. 

- There is also a puzzle in the Venus Lighthouse that you would normally need Mind Read to solve. However, I've adjusted the puzzle so that it could be solved without it.

-Avoid can be buggy with it's new implementation.  If one saves and quits the game while Avoid is still toggled on, they may have problems turning it back off once they reopen the game. Most consistent solution I've discovered to fixed this from a player's end is to toggle it on and off, transition to a new area, toggle it on and off again. If done correctly, this will make it toggle like normal.  As for correcting this problem from the creator side. I'm not sure if this is possible as the Avoid changes were carried over from the Golden Sun Randomizer and I don't have access to the original code.  Best measure of avoiding this issue is to make sure it's off before saving the game.

- Due to an oversite in how items are used in cutscenes, this happens during the cutscene in-between boss fights on the Venus Lighthouse...

  ...I think I'm just going to leave it in until the release of version 2 because for one, I'm going to have to rework items from scratch in Version 2.0 anyways, and two, it's funny.

 FAQ

How do I install and play Dawn of Djinn?

1.) Download the patch.

2.) Have your copy of Golden Sun for the GBA ready

-Make sure you use a clean copy, patching something already patched is not recommended.

3.) Use Lunar IPS to patch it to your copy of Golden Sun

Is Dawn of Djinn hard?

Dawn of Djinn by default is harder than the original Golden Sun, but is not intended to be "brutally hard".

Previous experience with the Golden Sun series is recommended before jumping in.

On average, monster's stats are multiplied similarly to how they are in Lost Age's hard mode. Though movepools have been changed to make them more capable than normal, including with bosses.

However, if you find a normal playthrough of this mod to be too easy or hard, you can artificially adjust

the difficulty by equipping either the "Casual Key" or the "Brutal Key" to all your party members.

 How do the Brutal Key and Casual Key Affect Combat?

When equipped, the Casual Key will boost your stats similarly to how the enemies are boosted in this mod,

plus gives a multiplier on your max PP to compensate for Psynergy costing more to cast in this mod.

It also has an outside of battle use that will recover all of your party's Psynergy, in case you prefer

RPGs where you only have to manage your stats during battle. It is completely optional to use.

The Brutal Key divides your stats, making you weaker than when unequipped.

Where do I find the Brutal/Casual Key?

In Vale, the shop has been readjusted to have both these key items in their armor section for free.

You'll also find the Casual Key in Vault's shop, in case you forget to backtrack.

How does equipping Djinn Charms work?

Djinn charm are elementally aligned, meaning they can only be equipped by an Adept that shares there element.

Only Isaac can equip Venus Charms, Garret to Mars, Ivan to Jupiter, and Mia to Mercury.

Furthermore, Djinn Charms count as a ring equipment, meaning you can only have one equipped at a time, and trying

equip an actually ring item unequips the Djinn Charm.

Where's the dialogue?

For the sake of easier playtesting, I used a version of Golden Sun that had dialogue turned off for all my work with Version 1.0...

Due to the nature of working off a copy of Golden Sun that already had the dialogue remove, rather than patching it out myself, I have

to basically start with a fresh new patch in order to make a version with the dialogue on.  This dialogue version of the mod is planned

to be made for either a 1.5 or 2.0 release, but I figured since everything else is set to share already that I would release my dialogueless 1.0 version while I'm reworking a dialogue version, hopefully taking advantage of starting from scratch to clean up some "code" that

I probably made a mess of putting 1.0 together.  No set release date for the dialogue version yet, 

but it shouldn't take nearly as long as it has for me to make version 1 in the first place.  I apologize in advance to everyone who was

looking forward to enjoying the full experience of Golden Sun's story while playing this mod.

Avoid toggles on and off but monster encounters are still gone, how do I fix this?

This is bug seems to be caused by saving and quitting the game while avoid is still toggled on.

So first and foremost, getting in the habit of turning off Avoid when you don't need it can be helpful.

If you do run into this bug however it is fixable with a little work.

-First toggle Avoid on and off a couple times

-Transition to a new screen, either by entering a town/dungeon or entering the overworld.

-When you toggle Avoid off now, monsters should appear like normal.

How do I progress through ____?

Lack of dialogue in version 1 may make certain plot areas a little obtuse.

Feel free to reference the "Event Trigger Notes" text file if you get stuck on your adventure.

In addition there are other text files included in the care package that act as Cheat Sheets for Djinn,

Djinn Charms, and Monster drops if you don't mind the spoilers, and I may add more in the future.