Walking: D-Pad: Move A: Talk To Someone/In-game Menu Select: In-game Menu Start: Pause Menu L, R: Use preset command B: Run/Back
Notes: Golden Sun's controls are pretty straight-forward and you shouldn't have any problem with them.
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Regular Play
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A good deal of Golden Sun is spent in regular play, where your character is
walking around performing certain tasks within towns, forests or dungeons. In
regular play, you can talk with different people, use Psynergy that will have
effects on the map (for example: using Move will move a rock out of the way),
and move around accomplishing whatever goal you may need to achieve. When
you're outside of protected towns or villages, each step you take will have a
small chance of a random enemy coming up, unless that attempt is thwarted by obtained a feather or something to that extent.
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World Map
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The World Map operates much like Regular Play, except there won't be any people
to interact with or villages to explore. Instead, the World Map (which is
available once the first temple has been beaten) allows a player to move from
one place to another quickly due to the greater scale of movement (you'll
notice that your character is more pixilated because he is zoomed in on more.)
You will be able to go through trees, but not over water or mountains. Random battles occur here, too.
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Battle Screen
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The battle screen, like most other RPGs, is a separate screen from the regular
game window where you and your allies fight various enemies that come along.
You will have the option of picking what attack, item, etc. each character uses
and on who before each round of attack. Generally your faster characters will
attack first, then the enemy will attack, then your slower characters will
attack. This cycle is repeated until you or the enemies are dead. There are
several important things to look out for in the Battle Screen. Each character
has HP which represents how much health he has left, and PP which represents
how much Psynergy he or she has left. When HP runs out, that character will
die and can only be brought back by an item that revives, or a Djinn that has a
revive move. When PP runs out, a character can no longer use Psynergy attacks
with Psynergy requirements greater than what is left. PP can be restored by
finding energy stones.
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Villages
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Inside each village there are several things to look out for. The first is an
Inn where you can rest for a small charge and replenish all of your party's HP
and PP (note: this doesn't affect passed out characters who have no HP left.)
To revive a character, cure a poison or a bad spell, look for a Sanctum which
is a building with an old man in it (note: If all of your party members die in
battle, you'll end up in the last one of these you visited.) For a larger fee
than what you paid in the Inn, you will be able to get treated with the things
listed before. Other important buildings include the Armor and Weapons shops
where you can buy the latest and greatest attack and defensive boosts for your
characters. I recommend getting the most expensive weapons and armor that you
can afford for each character in each town, because it is very important. Also
in each town is a shop where you can buy items, but this is not a very
important shop because you should have plenty of the items that the lady sells
from random battle collections.