November + GS:DS Wishlist

November 3, 2009 at 12:59 am (General, Golden Sun, Ideas & Thoughts)

Hey all! I hope your autumn hasn’t been too strenuous – mine has been at times, as I am enrolled in what basically amounts to your average Lit class on methamphetamines. I am enjoying my semester, though.

I’m sure some of you who read this blog are wondering “where the posts be at”, or if I’ll even continue posting at all. I must admit, hearing the Golden Sun DS announcement at E3 this year was a bit of a double-edged blade for me, as it did disappoint the part of me who was honestly hoping for a chance to be a part of its development process. Silly, I know, but… we must be allowed our colourful dreams, ‘else watch our worlds turn grey. :)

But, this hasn’t killed my creative spark for this project completely. I will continue my posting, starting today. I can’t promise regular updates due to my classes, but I’ll try to give you tidbits of what I’m working on/modifying/thinking about. For instance, here’s my personal wishlist for Golden Sun DS:

1. An Epic Backstory Reveal
 As I’ve discovered from my own research, the Golden Sun series draws from an incredibly rich well: Hermeticism, focusing largely on the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. My now somewhat obsolete GS3 plot, The Myth of Laerad, introduced a (potential) epic backstory to the player for the first time, in the form of the Wise One’s revelation that he was the last of a secret race who watched over humanity (read more of this here). I want the secret history of Golden Sun to be revealed in a similar fashion.

2. New World(s) & Content
In the Myth of Laerad, Weyard is still available and essential to the plot. However, there are two new worlds to explore, one above Weyard (Anemos/Ji) and one below (Mu). I desire the same amount of exploration and content in GSDS.

3. Vivid & Detailed
Admit it. You are almost embarrassed about how much you love Golden Sun’s soundtrack. Well, so am I.
In fact, following this confession, I am demanding something not-so-modest from Golden Sun DS. Said simply, I want the graphics to (at the very least) match the music.
“The game is amazing enough on its own, but the soundtrack masterfully manages to weave the unique tale of Golden Sun in our minds without visual crutch, but beautiful melodies alone. When the synth kicks in, [for example], I can’t help but see Vale in all its magical and archaic splendor, its golden straw rooftops reflecting the sun’s brilliant rays.”
- xRisingForcex
I once wrote in response to this excellent quote that “I honestly could not agree more. Songs like Aqua Rock, which aurally project the sense of water into our minds with such mystery and power, to songs like The Elemental Stars, which bespeak the magnificence of the cosmos in a simple melody, bring a kind of second sense to our experience of this series.” (I didn’t even get started on Garoh… or the various Overworld themes)

I desire that the landscape match the soundscape. Read this if you want clarification on the vivid detail part. Ah, perfect time to end with…

4. Motoi Sakuraba
Nuff’ said.

I’m considering posting a top-secret letter to Camelot that I wrote on my iPod just before I fell asleep… who would want that, though?

- Daft


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Golden Sun DS – “Fan Trailer”

June 6, 2009 at 11:30 am (Golden Sun, Videos)

You’ve seen the trailer. Now watch it again – perhaps a better version. Worth watching; you’ll relate. :P

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Golden Sun DS [Updated]

June 2, 2009 at 10:45 am (Golden Sun, Video Games)



Screens Here

“Golden Sun™ DS: After going dark six years ago, 2010 will see a new dawn. Golden Sun DS updates the popular portable Golden Sun role-playing series with an impressive graphical style. This installment follows the story of the previous heroes’ descendants and immerses players into the magic of its adventure by pushing the boundaries of intuitive touch-screen controls. Golden Sun DS is playable on the Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi systems.”

*hyperactive breathing*

NOTE: this page will continue to be updated

UPDATE 1: Plot Hint [Screen]
UPDATE 2: Second gameplay demo:


[Watch In HD]

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Musings on Mu: The Setting

April 26, 2009 at 6:47 pm (Golden Sun, Ideas & Thoughts)

General:

The richest environments you can imagine; highly detailed, colourful, VIVID! There is a visceral sense of power in Mu, and the environments will convey it perfectly.

Huge rivers to cross; waterfalls splashing through gullies, lofty mountain passes, sacred grottos, hidden lagoons, eerie marshes haunted by will-o’-wisps and faerie lights, the ancient mists of the northern seas, the bright sun of open plains, the broad reaches of sloping valleys, the wide and mysterious Western Moors… hidden glens with dappled sunlight, dusty mines with forgotten treasure, rain-soaked forests with deep pools… a small shrine next to one, and further back; a wise woman’s hut, hidden amongst the ferns… the friendly light of a candle in her window…

Read the rest of this entry »

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April Updates

April 18, 2009 at 4:41 pm (General, Golden Sun, Ideas & Thoughts)

updates

Alright guys. I know I haven’t updated for a while, and it’s because of a combination of busyness, laziness, and life. However, now that I’ve finished my first year of University, I’m ready to continue writing my story for the Myth of Laerad. There’s some major plans in my future for summer projects, but I’ll detail the three main ones here:

One: Continue writing my Myth of Laerad plot. I’m still writing “Gloom”, which tells the tale of tenacious metallon adept Demetri Vespar on his quest to achieve knowledge of Triunitas, as well as the Anti-Kythera mechanism. This story, as you are probably aware, takes place in the underworld of Mu. The scenarios of Weyard and Ji are also being written at the moment, and you’ve actually seen previews for both of them (see above).

Two: Buy the iPhone Standard Development Kit (SDK). Over the summer I want to learn how to write code and develop interfaces for Apple’s iPhone & iPod Touch. This has been a withheld desire of mine since I acquired my own iPhone back in October of last year.

Three: Publish a children’s book with a friend of mine who could illustrate it. In my poetry class last semester, I wrote a ballad about a hermit and some hobgoblins, and it received my highest mark in that class. In fact, the teacher himself urged me to attempt publishing it! So, I want to develop the poem further, and ask my friend if she would be willing to work with me on it. Wish us luck! :)

So yes, now you see my plannings. I’m amazed to see that my blog has an overwhelming 5700+ hits nowadays! You all are awesome, and I’m going to continue to do my best for this blog.

- Daft

P.S.: I am now administrator of Golden Sun Complete, one of the largest independent Golden Sun news sites on the Internet. In fact, when you type in “Golden Sun 3″ into Google, it’s the fourth result! I’ve been put in charge of the site as of a few days ago, and I’ll be updating it any time I find relevant news for Golden Sun 3. Cheers!

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History of Metallon

January 27, 2009 at 4:34 pm (Golden Sun, Ideas & Thoughts)

Erython

The first metallon adept came into existence around seven hundred years ago, when an especially curious Venus adept discovered an equally curious Mars Djinn, hidden away in a mine for countless years. The two befriended eachother and became such good companions that their fellow miners called them the “Hotrock Combo”. Now, although a match between a Mars Djinn and a Venus adept is rare, our story doesn’t end here.

One day, something both deadly and remarkable occurred. An accidental breech in the mine caused an outflow of vanadium pentoxide – a poisonous gas – emitted from an incredibly ancient fungus as it was exposed to the air for the first time in millennia. A feeling of icy cold dread enveloped the miners as they felt their throats constrict, their vision growing fuzzy and their knees beginning to give out. With hardly seconds to think, certain they were all dead, the miners prepared for the worst… but then, something extraordinary happened. The Mars Djinn shot over to the Venus adept’s hand, pulsed once with a fiery red glow, and fused with him. Immediately, the gas was sublimed out of the air, becoming a metallic orange compound the size of a small boulder in the passageway. The thrill of this psynergetic communion between the Venus adept and the Mars Djinn was so powerful, it manifested as an audible hum in the air. Using their now combined strength, the Venus adept lifted the fallen earth back to its original position, and the Mars Djinn followed by sealing the cracks with a blast of heat.

After this incident, their actions were labeled by the multitudes as heroic, despite some brief extremist talk about the heresy of a Mars-Venus alliance. Working together, the Hotrock combo went on to do amazing things. The orange rock they had created in the mine was soon forged into a blade; Rauthaz, which would burst into resonant flame when their intentions were joined. They even defeated the dread pirate Gölsyr, a powerful Mercury adept who had plagued the southern seas for a score and a half years. And, eventually, their skills grew to the point where they themselves merged, and they took up their now famous name and title – Erython, patron saint of Kíramyn.

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A New Name

November 24, 2008 at 7:28 pm (Golden Sun, Ideas & Thoughts)

I think… not sure, but I think I may have found the perfect name for the Myth of Laerad!

Honestly, this is actually the “perfectest” name there could ever be. A syzygia, in astronomical terms, is a conjunction of three or more celestial bodies. Sound familiar?

Huh. I think this is all part of some theme that I’m slowly discovering. It’s even a part of gnostic terminology as well, except it has to do with pairs rather than triads.

Well, what do you think? Good name? Should it be more subtle?

Let me know!

EDIT: I’m thinking of just using this name as a replacement for “Congruence” in the Incarnadi piece.

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Gloom – Updated (Part 2)

November 16, 2008 at 4:20 pm (Golden Sun, Ideas & Thoughts)

A lone psynergy lamp dimly illuminates an otherwise empty street, a silent sentinel in the abandoned North Sector of industrial Dregvant. Imbued with strange phosphorescence, soft tendrils of dust motes swirl leisurely through the air, eventually collected by the lamp at the end of the street. As the dust meets the lamp’s surface, a coronal discharge of atmospheric energy transfers the minute amount of energy to the lamp’s interior, creating a faint beacon in addition to forming a psynergy cache.

This city is an old one. As a established front-runner of steam and allotropic technologies, it has had to reinvent itself numerous times as technology advances have dictated. Consequently, certain areas of Dregvant, such as North Sector, have become abandoned as the technology that empowered them grew obsolete. Smugglers and rebel adepts are attracted to such forsaken areas, perhaps because the nature of such places is similar to theirs… but darker, more mysterious purposes have been known to fester in such places as well.

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Golden Sun Origins [Updated]

October 19, 2008 at 2:33 pm (Golden Sun, Ideas & Thoughts, Video Games)
Tags: ,

In the research for my Golden Sun III project, the Myth of Laerad, I occasionally stumbled across the hermetism/hermeticism page on Wikipedia. Hermeticism is basically a esoteric discipline (religion) with gnostic concepts throughout. It’s set apart from other disciplines because of its amazing Mysteries, and the powerful mythology and magick that drives them. Perhaps go to its Wiki page if you want more info.

Recently, I discovered a very apparent truth as I examined the page in detail for the first time: Golden Sun and Hermeticism have incredible similarities. Not only that, but the work I’ve been doing the past three years on the Myth of Laerad is actually spiritually successive to what could be the larger, hidden plot of the Golden Sun series, which I believe I may have uncovered. Let me show you my findings.

  • First, the founder of Hermeticism: Hermes Trismegistus (meaning “Thrice Great”), named so because, as he claims in The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, he knows the three parts of the wisdom of the whole universe. One of those three things is Alchemy.
  • Next, take a look at the Hermetic creation myth! The Maker of the world created “seven powers”: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun and the Moon. Not only this, but the classical elements of Fire, Air, Earth and Water are essential to Hermetic practice.
  • Who was the Wise One? “The Latin Ops: Terra, genius of the earth.” Ops, or Opis, was the same mythical figure represented as Gaia, or Mother Earth, and thus was female. The Wise One of Golden Sun, to me at least, feels decidedly patriarchal. But compare the symbol of Ops (the Monad) to the Wise One itself:

The Stone of Pessinus: “There was an oddly shaped stone that was procured from Pessinus that represented Ops. It was put in the famous temple in Rome and worshiped by the Romans, particularly the Cult of Cybele, for a long time in numerous ceremonies.”

Even more relevant, take a look at this alchemical woodcut, dated around the 17th century, of the Eye of Providence; the infamous symbol of all things occult:

  • Next, the Hermetic description of Adepts.

“Adeptship is the state of complete spiritual maturity so far as this is possible to a member of the human family. Deficient in nothing necessary to a life of wisdom, the adept is sufficient to his own needs and capable of determining that course of personal action most likely to lead to enlightenment. The adepts foreshadow the state of mankind when it will have attained the full release of its faculties and powers. The adept is, therefore, the truly evolved of our species.”

  • One of the most famous occult writers ever (along with Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, etc); Madame Blavatsky “asserts the capabilities of the adept as being able to take active control of elemental spirits.“
  • Lastly, and definitely the most interesting:

1. “In the initiatory system of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn(!), an adept is one who has been granted the title Adeptus Minor. Symbolically this degree represents a spiritual aspirant who, having mastered the union of the four elements under an upright and balanced spirit, is allowed passage from the Portal of the Vault of the Adepti to… Abiegnus; the center of the universe.

2. “In the lore of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Mons Abiegnus (Latin, ‘fir covered mountain’) was a mythical mountain that symbolized the spiritual journey of the initiate. Borrowed from Rosicrucian symbolism, Abiegnus is visualized as the kabbalistic tree of life in the form of a subterranean mountain.”

3. The Aleph Ritual. A Ma’aseh Merkabah ritual constructed from traditional sources and from the angelic pantheon adopted by the Order of the Golden Dawn. This ritual is to be performed in conjunction with a study of the Tree of Life.

Mons Abiegnus… Mount Aleph…

There you have it. Not only does Golden Sun partly originate from a secret religious discipline (it also takes a lot from Norse mythology and others), but nearly all my ideas for Golden Sun III are aligned with it.

Pretty awesome.

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Notice of Progress

August 27, 2008 at 7:20 pm (General, Golden Sun, Ideas & Thoughts, Video Games)

DAYUM. It’s been a little over four months since I started posting here, and I now have over 1,500 hits! As I warned you, most of my posts have been relating to Golden Sun and my Myth of Laerad project. But that’s truthfully why I started this blog in the first place.

I feel that my progress on this work is at the point where it could be realized; made physical in the world. I started this project as a serious endeavor, and so it remains today. Although I don’t know how yet, I intend to get in touch with the developers of Golden Sun (Camelot®) and ask if this could work. I already know it could, and would work. But I need to hear criticism from the actual creators, for they know the true base of the games.

The best work I have done so far is “The Incarnadi” piece. It summarizes and expresses the immensity I feel when working on this project. But much remains to be shown… so I’ll tell you some of my hopes and dreams, as well as my next few steps:

  • I may soon be working with a few accomplices to create artwork of some of the locations in Mu.
  • I hope to work on an intro video of the game, using this as a script. Besides the artwork I want to be shown, I also want to find a narrator to read the script.
  • In the final game, there will be some amazing CG, for the intro, descent and ascent to Mu and Ji, and other story-based cut scenes. This could be done on DS, but better pulled off on Wii. I know a lot of you want the game to be on DS… I wouldn’t mind either way.
  • The game, as extant within my mind, is becoming quite allegorically mystical. Don’t be worried about this, because as Origins reveals, Golden Sun is already quite symbolic of such ancient mystic teachings.

The latest story piece is Gloom, which is the next part after Inception, except this takes place in Mu, not Ji. Inception drops a few more little hints about the cosmology and deities of the Myth of Laerad, while Mu tells a little of a certain character’s history and journey… oh, and yes; he will be important in the final plot.

That’s an update on my current progress. Any questions, head over to Contact.

- The Daft Monk

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