@@harrisjones2190 No, that clearly wouldn't work. The easiest way to get Jenna in your party would be to use Strength on the truck beside the S.S. Anne in pokemon Red/Blue, which would allow you to connect both games with a link cable and use her from start to end.
I find it so funny how Jenna basically becomes a time wizard that knows everything their opponent is going to do, the 80 turn routing literally was hilarious to me
She was retrieved from beyond time and space, saw the truths of the universe. She literally time travels back to her first meeting with you in order to rejoin the party. It just makes sense!
Isaac: "Would you beat the final boss?" Jenna: "Well I can't grind, switch classes and I wasn't programmed to go this far in the game." Isaac: "would you lose?" Jenna: "Nah, I'd win"
Felix: "Be on your guard. Isaac could be trying anything to stop us from lighting the beacons." (Jenna disappears in a puff of glitchy smoke) Felix: "What the?"
Little detail: Jenna's battle sprite has changed between the two games, especially when you equip her with a sword. In GS 1 it looks like a very short sword or a big dagger. In GS2 it looks incredibly nasty. A much longer jagged sword that looks like it'd hook and tear into the ennemies on a slice. Jenna was PISSED in The Lost Age.
Speed Runners: "You don't need the lure cap, Jenna's suppression overrides it so it's useless anyways." Also Speed Runners: "Oh yeah, the game glitches out forgets Jenna is in your party literally the fight after you could have gotten the lure cap."
that fight was kind of a catch-22, because there didn't seem to be opportunities to grind up Isaac in order to win. I don't know that it would have taken much of an alteration from the route at any rate
Imagine being Jenna. You decide to leave the party of the hero because you don’t really want to go on a quest, but then the hero breaks the laws of the universe to get you back in the party, causing you to be the main defense against the forces of evil.
That... Isn't quite what Jenna experienced. She's supposed to be a hostage in the first game. But imagine being Felix. You're traveling with your sister when someone from your childhood village snatches her from your grasp by breaking the very laws of reality.
I think what makes this video so much more interesting than a regular solo run video is the encounter suppression. It presents such a massive obstacle in the early game, makes you use scripted encounters you'd never otherwise use that way, and then there's the bug that lets you work around it, and then you purposely turn it back on as an advantage later in the game! That's what made this really fun to watch. There's also something really fulfilling about seeing a character never meant to reach a certain level actually getting there, and being rewarded with a move they'd never normally have.
@@MandatoryPixelI kinda wanna try this as a Challenge Run now. I just wish there was a weird warping to the story where Jenna is pretty much on her own Lugging the whole Party on her back.
i was just wondering that whether if you did a Save transfer whether you would get 2 Jenna in TLA since she technically replaces Mia but now im wondering what happens to Mia since you never actually used her or even had her in your party
@@lillia_eden3351 She doesn't "technically" replace anyone. The game does not work like that, you can even have more than 4 partymembers. It simply does not do anything with Jenna's part of the savefile at all, making all her stuff vanish into the ether.
@@lpfan4491 Adding on this. Mia will come at her default stats and equipment but not her starting Djinn. The djinn will be evenly distributed to the party and you can get Mia's starting one at Prox.
@@lpfan4491Man, I wish that would carry over. That would be insane to start off with Jenna waking up on the Island Maxed like that. I guess someone could enhance Jenna's code in GS1 if they know what they're doing a so if someone does this run, it does register.
It's always interesting hearing about ways devs go to do something in a game, Jenna having the ultimate No Encounters tied to her being near level 4 is just funny to learn and really makes you wonder why they decided they needed this feature, other then an attempt to hide Jenna only being a temporary character since it would be clear from her lack of skills being learned.
They did it that way because you'd have no way of knowing that was the case since normally her suppression is only active in the first dungeon, and there's literally no way to get her out of the party before that, or fight anywhere else with her after that dungeon. So it would look like it was a function of Sol Sanctum not Jenna.
@@Xershade I mean it was likely the obvious choice with how the game is designed... Kinda like how in RPG maker you hide events in walls that a player should never know about unless they break the game a walk into one. Pretty much that effect had to go somewhere in the dugeon and they chose to put in on jenna over anything else as she whouldn't be in the rest of the game with out a massive code weirdness. That I imagine was only found out years later by dire hard fans messing around in the out of bounders or in the code finding something the devs never could during production.
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough someone could have found it early tho if jenna got killed before the exp limit was reached. im pretty sure the no encounters thing was only active if she's alive when you get to the exp limit. but yeah that only got well known later on haha
@@napkin8920 I think they wanted to avoid people power-levelling that early in the game, period. Tying the flag to a temporary party member would handily remove it from play when it was no longer needed without having to put in a separate trigger.
I find it funny how the strategy to beat Deadbeard in any playthrough ever always boils down to "level grind against Tempest Lizard for hours until you can brute force it lol".
In this playthrough? certainly, but deadbeard really isn’t that bad if you have a good team comp, certainly nowhere near as hard as the Revenant, who pretty much REQUIRES heavy grinding or summon cheese
@@Macer84 Yeah, I second try'd Deadbeard and I didn't even use summons or Djinni attacks, nor did I ever do any grinding. Game's pretty easy. Never died to any other bosses.
Jenna having equipment and psynergy was likely a remenant of when Golden Sun and Golden Sun The Lost Age were a single game. IIRC the games were split as it turned out the project was too ambitious to fit in a single cartridge.
It's also just how programing works. It's easier to just code Jenna as a regular character because you have the code for that done already. It's only the unique properties like Classes that weren't added. Equipment is based on categories. So it's not that each weapon or armor needs to be added to Jenna as equipable, but that in order for her to equip her basic equipment, those categories were added to her as valid equipment.
@@tadferd4340 Depends on how equipment is handled, some games do it by category like many early Final Fantasy Games especially Final Fantasy III and V while other like Dragon Quest III which has restrictions based on the gear itself. Likely the split happened early on with most of the story sounded like it had been planned out. Jenna likely had some work done on her character before the split given she has spell but no classes. Not certain why her equipment wasn't locked like some Final Fantasy games have done, maybe an issue with the Dragon Quest like Character inventory system.
@@costby1105 Equipment is categorised into different types of gear. Light swords versus heavy swords, maces and rods, etcetera, etcetera. Each character is given a set of equipment types they're permitted to equip, and any weapon or piece of armor in that category is thus available to that character. Jenna was simply given a list of equippable gear types like everyone else in Golden Sun.
@@costby1105 Psynergy given was probably also something like "insert X chain of Psynergy" so they gave her that particular string rather than a single individual Psynergy. Probably because all sorts of shenanigans with Psynergy being enabled/disabled from switching classes, so you'd remove one chain of skills rather than keep removing 1~3 different skills per chain every time
@@costby1105 yeah when they mentioned it being unexpected that jenna could equip stuff I just assumed that the game manually listed items as equippable
Fun fact related to the weird duplicate party member bug: If you don't have Jenna, you can actually use that duplicate in battle. It basically means the duplicated character gets to act twice per turn, but they also can be targeted twice by AOE attacks. But they can _also_ be targeted twice by AOE buffs/heals! I did a "solo" Isaac run where I used the duplicate, and having one of them use Wish to basically heal twice per turn made most bosses pretty easy. Also, without Mia, you can end up with more than 7 djinn per character, which lets you unlock partially-implemented classes that you're not supposed to!
True! You can also use the duplicate character even with Jenna in your party if you want to, since you can re-arrange the party so they're one of the four active members.
That sounds amazing. I do a little research but couldn't find any of that partially-implemented classes, can you elaborate or give me something specific to search?
@@Alnidru Hmm, I can't remember the specifics anymore. It's classes that are available in the sequel, and their existence in the first game is a relic of when they were both going to be one game. I think your class name changes, but you don't get any new psynergy, and your stats might not even change. I don't remember for sure which classes are available either... Sorry.
@Alnidru It's the usual ones that become available in TLA/DD from advancing regular classes to 8-9 Djinn - ones like Protector, War Adept, Ronin, and Pure Mage. The exceptions are the ones that require 8 of the same Djinn, like Sorcerer and Slayer. Even if you make a swap that would make the game predict 8 of the same Djinn on one character by trying to swap a second copy of the Djinn onto themselves, the prediction screen still shows its 6-Djinn counterpart.
I won't lie, I've never played this game, never even heard of it before, and probably never will. But seeing this video, and especially the insane out-of-bounds shenanigans you had to do to pull this off, put a massive grin on my face. I LOVE seeing weird challenge runs and all the ridiculous workarounds you have to use to finish the game.
It's awesome seeing a Golden Sun challenge run out there in our year of 2024, especially as out of the box as this one. Great job with the video, I can definately appreciate the work that went into editing this and I do not envy the grinding you had to do to pull this all off. I grew up with this game and have put way more time than I want to admit into it for my own projects and yet I never realized you could just glitch Jenna into the party. I'd say "if I would have realize I could have just glitched Jenna into my party I wouldn't have gone through the trouble I had to 'put her into the game myself' ", but I think both this and the way I pretty much modded her into GS1 are both cool in their own merits.
I stumbled onto your mod while making this video! They're definitely cool for different reasons, the glitch provides you with an incomplete character who has no dialogue, so a more complete version of Jenna in the first game is a fun idea!
I was SO happy to see this appear on my recommended. The Golden Sun series has been my all time favorite video games since I first played Golden Sun (I think I was in middle school, and The Lost Age had not yet been released), but there's so little content for it! I've thought about trying to do speedruns for the games just to feel like part of a vaguely existent Golden Sun community once more (but speedruns aren't really my kind of thing to do, as much as I enjoy watching them). So this was an instant click from me. And I loved learning things about the game from this, and you did a great job explaining how and why the various things happened. Really great video! Now to check and see if you've got any more Golden Sun content for me to watch. Either way, instant subscribe for this video alone!
This level of dedication is exactly what I love about the golden sun community, I can tell you I would've given up 5 minutes into this run but you somehow beat the game without issac, garet, ivan and mia. Amazing work.
Jenna planning her checkmates 80 moves in advance gives me light. I didnt know glitches like Retreat glitch when i played, solo was really tough but i did do a 2 character run. Think it was Isaac/Mia.
This was a video I wasn't expecting to see whatsoever in my subscription feed, but I am so excited! Golden Sun was one of my favourite games growing up, I've played through this game quite a few times over the years c: I'm so happy to see modern content with it!
Haha, I'm glad someone caught that! I never made a point of mentioning it in the video, but the duplicate character would end up moving down a little bit every time you opened the trade window in the Djinn menus, so they could even end up completely off the bottom of the screen if you were adjusting things for long enough.
This is wild. I'm currently playing through Golden Sun again on GBA, this being my third playthrough. I never knew about rainbow finishers until this video! Thank you for that but of new info! And very creative, fun run as well! Kudos to you for all this effort! 😊
All of your little editing jokes and quips gave me a loud cackle. This run was really fascinating to watch and learn about in its own right, but it was also really hilariously told. Great job with the challenge, and I hope it was as satisfying to finally complete (with the rng of damacles hanging over your head) as it was to watch :)
Thanks very much, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'd say it was quite satisfying to complete, in the recording of the final boss fight, after dealing the finishing blow there's 15 seconds where I don't touch anything because I was just staring at the screen in relief 😆
You had to do some really amazing things just to get by in this challenge, that could've been entire videos on their own! =') Level 1 Isaac Colosso is INSANE to me. There was true dedication here, and I loved every second (it does help that the twin Golden Suns are some of my favorite games of all time). The developers also did something incredibly right when designing this: they made menus instant and responding to your every button press immediately. Just imagine doing this if menus worked like GBA/DS Pokémon menus...
If i had a nickel for every non permanent staff wielding love interest in an JRPG, which can then be glitched back into the party, i'd have at least two nickels. Which isn't a lot. But it's weird that it happened twice... (Aerith and Jenna)
Mario Golf Advance Tour also has a lot of the same things in it as Golden Sun and Tennis. Same engine, same music (actually a more advanced version of the golden sun sound engine with slightly higher quality samples!)
Me, who has never played this game and knows nothing about it: Hmm, intriguing. And it was! I watched the video the whole way through and enjoyed it quite a bit! Take my sub, good sir.
Really cool to see how far this game's tricks have come! I remember working on Retreat glitch testing in like 2012 and playing around with Mia-less playthroughs, but not Jenna ones. All sorts of neat new complications here!
Yeah, I thought so too! Until earlier this year, I wasn't really familiar with many of the game's glitches outside of the Retreat glitch, so there was a lot of cool stuff to learn once I started looking into it!
great video! I'm not a speedrunner, but I HAVE been religiously watching speedruns of this game for probably 6 years or so now lol so it was really cool seeing you take the Jenna glitch & make a solo run out of it. all of your jokes sprinkled in were great as well. welp, guess we better head off to save Jenna now!
Thanks very much, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I didn't know the GS games had many glitches outside of the Retreat glitch until earlier this year, so there was definitely a lot to discover 😆
I learned so much from this that I wouldn't have known before. I also once tried to level grind in the early sections, I had no idea it was Jenna's immense potential that was scaring away the monsters.
Yep! For that same reason, if you get Jenna defeated in the first dungeon, you can level Isaac and Garet as much as you want, like somebody did here: www.reddit.com/r/GoldenSun/comments/18yi7b9/i_cant_say_you_didnt_warn_me_four_hours_in_isaac/
I've seen a few videos of you and always thought you did amazing with them, so I finally actually went to your channel and saw just how many videos you have... HOW? You're SO GOOD! Honestly. Quality over Quantity, I love your stuff! KEEP IT UP! You're amazing!
Really cool run! I thought there would be very little new to learn about this childhood favourite game years later but looks like with arbitrary code execution anything is possible! Also hearing the name Salanewt made me remember being around the Golden Sun Hacking community Discord for a bit, it was really fun. I should try to get back in to learning their tools and tricks and see how likely it would be to fully decomp this game
I used to play through this game probably a few times a year when I was younger and I've never even heard of/noticed the "rainbow kill" for weaknesses.. Didn't think I had much more non-exploit based knowledge left to learn for this game but here we are 😳
I have this weird relationship with Golden Sun where I beat the entire first game on the GBA and probably still have the save somewhere, yet remember absolutely nothing about it. This was such an interesting video, especially learning the intricacies of how the game works behind the scenes, that it makes me want to replay it again.
I have never been recommended a vid from you man before, but I gotta say, my brain worms got very clicky on the recommendation as soon as I read a combination of the words "Can I beat" + some game title that I have never heard of + "glitch character", that's just like a recipe for carbonara meatballs spaghetti as I see it
Golden Sun means so much to me, that I would have watched all of this, even if it were 3+ hours long. This game hits a level of nostalgia that is almost depressing, the fond memories are beyond priceless.
Seeing this video just makes me learn more how the rng of this game works. I'll probably gonna try some of these rng optimation when I play this game again
I've played through this game every couple of years since it released and I never knew about random encounters being disabled in the first dungeon. Really interesting piece of trivia.
Yeah, it's kind of neat! Since the mechanic is tied to Jenna, if you want to, you can get her defeated in the first dungeon and then level Isaac and Garet as much as you want, like somebody did here: www.reddit.com/r/GoldenSun/comments/18yi7b9/i_cant_say_you_didnt_warn_me_four_hours_in_isaac/
Honestly when you got the glitch character after the Arena you said it mimicked other party members so it would have been pretty funny if you rearranged your party until it and Jenna were both in the party and it was mimicking Jenna and did that. The game goes from her being the Damsel in Distress to Conquering God with her Eldritch Horror Missingno Doppelganger.
Oh you can cure the Curse countdown status effect with an Elixir btw ! Only status that can't be cured without a djinn or a priest is Haunted. This... really came in clutch to me lol
Fun fact. The desert with the tornado lizards has a optional boss that can transport you to crossbone isle as well as an alternative method to reach there other that the ship. The whole schtick of the desert is you need to use douse when you are caught in the tornado in order to free yourself and fight a lizard, but the final lizard with the red tornado after the cave will tornado you to crossbone island if you ignore the teachings of the desert and just stand in his tornado. This is repeatable ofc, and as long as you dont engage the boss fight by using douse, you can keep tornadoing back and forth as much as you please😊
Thanks very much! I don't think the sequel can be broken quite like this, though there is a trick you can do to get Isaac early! ua-cam.com/video/_ZtncjaNvOo/v-deo.html I've gotten some requests to complete the Jenna solo saga by doing that in the sequel though, so maybe at some point!
I know GDQ would probably never take this run, but i would love to see it thereb(I usually go in person). This is cool as heck and was an interesting watch.
Knew about some of these glitches, but some of the stuff like rainbow kills were new to me!! Really wish Golden Sun explained its mechanics better (even in DD where they had way more room for expodumping) because combat always felt a little mind numbing to me
Whenever I see people do these sort of things, I just think... "you know there's other games out there right? You can go play something else once you beat this one, right?" But sometimes a fella has something to prove I guess. This was a wild ride, thanks.
I don't understand why you got rid of the random encounters after you got them back? Wouldn't they allow you to level Jenna without having to grind less than optimal enemies that gave very little XP? I would think Jenna was strong enough when you got the random encounters back so the fights wouldn't be as hard and you would be able to earn max XP for each fight, making leveling go MUCH faster than grinding in the desert? I've never attempted to speedrun this game in anyway, let alone with just 1 glitched character so I am sure you are right to do it this way, but I just don't understand why... Great video and run! Keep up the great content! This was the first video of yours I watched and I am now subbed and can't wait for the notification for your next video!! Lax
Action economy. Jenna is a very fragile unit, as seen throughout the run, always being killed by 2 or 3 attacks. Lategame enemy packs can have up to 4 enemies in some configurations, and there's not exactly a wide berth of damage in the basic attack option between trash mobs and boss monsters. With a full party you can gang up on one mob and kill it in a single turn or spam psynergy with everyone and annihilate an entire pack all at once. Heck, with any other character in the game just setting up the proper class can provide the stats necessary to survive trash easily for grinding, if soloing. The problem comes down to Jenna not interacting properly with the class and djinni system. Golden Sun tends to finish with the characters around level 30, and their stats are significantly higher than in the base game then, but not entirely because of the levels gained. When you change class, you don't just get access to higher tiers of psynergy, you also get significant bonuses to your actual stats, offensive and most importantly defensively. You can more than quadruple your chance of surviving a single round by setting up the proper class, and farther into the game you're expected to be making use of those class bonuses to properly equip your units. So without them, Jenna dies too fast and can't output enough damage to safely clear massive groups of enemies.
What a ride! This was such a a fun watch. Good work on puzzling through all the tough situations. I love how you explained how things worked in an entertaining way. After the 5th team member glitches started popping up I would have been so nervous to keep going. You're so brave!
Golden Sun is one of those games I wish I'd known about back when I was playing my GBA SP, as I probably would have loved it. Especially since I had played Shining Force 1, 2, and 3 by then, and more Camelot would've been great.
1 & 2 are worth a play through even now. I've gone back twice? now and eventho the challenge is pretty minimal knowing how to actually play games it's still a pleasant play through that doesn't take too long either.
@@MandatoryPixel The Tempest Lizard was my go-to when I decided I was gonna power grind Isaac's party in hopes of having a chance against Dullahan in GS:TLA. I think I ended up grinding the whole party to Lv 50. Then, I found out the boss could be defeated at about Lv 30 with a specific set of equipment....
![The Complete Story of Destiny! From origins to Shadowkeep [Timeline and Lore explained]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9mbDXvDNqTU/mqdefault.jpg)
The Wise One: "Isaac, will you take on this quest to save the world?"
Isaac: *shakes head 'No'*
Jenna: "Fine, I'll do it myself."
...and so the world drifted towards its fated destruction
as a kid I believed a troll on gamefaqs who said that would work if you said no 99 times.
@@harrisjones2190 No, that clearly wouldn't work. The easiest way to get Jenna in your party would be to use Strength on the truck beside the S.S. Anne in pokemon Red/Blue, which would allow you to connect both games with a link cable and use her from start to end.
I find it so funny how Jenna basically becomes a time wizard that knows everything their opponent is going to do, the 80 turn routing literally was hilarious to me
She was retrieved from beyond time and space, saw the truths of the universe. She literally time travels back to her first meeting with you in order to rejoin the party.
It just makes sense!
Golden Sun, but Jenna is secretly Subaru!
Isaac: "Would you beat the final boss?"
Jenna: "Well I can't grind, switch classes and I wasn't programmed to go this far in the game."
Isaac: "would you lose?"
Jenna: "Nah, I'd win"
*Jenna playing solo while Isaac’s being down throughout the whole game
“Don’t worry husband. I can cook this-“
@@weikoonng oh okay 👍
Tbf, jenna is a better matchup, since she grows twice as large~
Felix: "Be on your guard. Isaac could be trying anything to stop us from lighting the beacons."
(Jenna disappears in a puff of glitchy smoke)
Felix: "What the?"
Little detail: Jenna's battle sprite has changed between the two games, especially when you equip her with a sword. In GS 1 it looks like a very short sword or a big dagger. In GS2 it looks incredibly nasty. A much longer jagged sword that looks like it'd hook and tear into the ennemies on a slice.
Jenna was PISSED in The Lost Age.
She was angry at only being a temporary party member in the first game and took her rage out on the enemy
To be fair, after carrying the whole first game on her own, she would be.
if i was the only character in the whole game who didn't get my stats and items carried over to the sequel i'd be pissed too!!
@@MaoTenshiJenna's Rage Grows as Red Sun over Paradise Plays.
Yep and it looks so much better in GS2. All her battle animations were improved!
Speed Runners: "You don't need the lure cap, Jenna's suppression overrides it so it's useless anyways."
Also Speed Runners: "Oh yeah, the game glitches out forgets Jenna is in your party literally the fight after you could have gotten the lure cap."
Speedrunners think in splits
A real forehead slap moment
Real forehead slapping moment
that fight was kind of a catch-22, because there didn't seem to be opportunities to grind up Isaac in order to win. I don't know that it would have taken much of an alteration from the route at any rate
I mean they answered the question correctly. Maybe they didn't know the context yeah?
using arbitrary code execution just to start a challenge run is so funny
The rare example of ACE being used to make the game harder... besides low% runs of course _-cough-_- Majora's Mask -_-cough-_
Imagine being Jenna. You decide to leave the party of the hero because you don’t really want to go on a quest, but then the hero breaks the laws of the universe to get you back in the party, causing you to be the main defense against the forces of evil.
That... Isn't quite what Jenna experienced. She's supposed to be a hostage in the first game.
But imagine being Felix. You're traveling with your sister when someone from your childhood village snatches her from your grasp by breaking the very laws of reality.
@@hv433 Yeah she didn't "decide to leave the party." She got kidnapped. The quest is literally to rescue her.
Eh sounds more like playing against a theater script.
😢fi@@hv433
So Yuffie warping to revive Aerith instead of playing the FF7 Remake Trilogy.
I think what makes this video so much more interesting than a regular solo run video is the encounter suppression. It presents such a massive obstacle in the early game, makes you use scripted encounters you'd never otherwise use that way, and then there's the bug that lets you work around it, and then you purposely turn it back on as an advantage later in the game! That's what made this really fun to watch.
There's also something really fulfilling about seeing a character never meant to reach a certain level actually getting there, and being rewarded with a move they'd never normally have.
Thanks! I felt the same, Jenna's weird mechanics feel almost like a built-in challenge run in some ways.
@@MandatoryPixelI kinda wanna try this as a Challenge Run now. I just wish there was a weird warping to the story where Jenna is pretty much on her own Lugging the whole Party on her back.
And the saddest thing is that Jenna does not even carry over for the sequel. Transfering this save will not give her any of the grinded stats. 😂
i was just wondering that whether if you did a Save transfer whether you would get 2 Jenna in TLA since she technically replaces Mia but now im wondering what happens to Mia since you never actually used her or even had her in your party
@@lillia_eden3351 She doesn't "technically" replace anyone. The game does not work like that, you can even have more than 4 partymembers. It simply does not do anything with Jenna's part of the savefile at all, making all her stuff vanish into the ether.
@@lpfan4491 Adding on this. Mia will come at her default stats and equipment but not her starting Djinn. The djinn will be evenly distributed to the party and you can get Mia's starting one at Prox.
@@lpfan4491Man, I wish that would carry over. That would be insane to start off with Jenna waking up on the Island Maxed like that. I guess someone could enhance Jenna's code in GS1 if they know what they're doing a so if someone does this run, it does register.
I want to see a follow up to this where he transfers the save to TLA and does a Jenna only run there as well
Jenna gets kidnapped.
Jenna: "Don't worry guys. I'll save myself."
It's always interesting hearing about ways devs go to do something in a game, Jenna having the ultimate No Encounters tied to her being near level 4 is just funny to learn and really makes you wonder why they decided they needed this feature, other then an attempt to hide Jenna only being a temporary character since it would be clear from her lack of skills being learned.
They did it that way because you'd have no way of knowing that was the case since normally her suppression is only active in the first dungeon, and there's literally no way to get her out of the party before that, or fight anywhere else with her after that dungeon. So it would look like it was a function of Sol Sanctum not Jenna.
@@Xershade I mean it was likely the obvious choice with how the game is designed... Kinda like how in RPG maker you hide events in walls that a player should never know about unless they break the game a walk into one. Pretty much that effect had to go somewhere in the dugeon and they chose to put in on jenna over anything else as she whouldn't be in the rest of the game with out a massive code weirdness. That I imagine was only found out years later by dire hard fans messing around in the out of bounders or in the code finding something the devs never could during production.
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough someone could have found it early tho if jenna got killed before the exp limit was reached. im pretty sure the no encounters thing was only active if she's alive when you get to the exp limit. but yeah that only got well known later on haha
i think they wanted to avoid people power-levelling jenna only to find out in the sequel that she's only level 5
@@napkin8920 I think they wanted to avoid people power-levelling that early in the game, period. Tying the flag to a temporary party member would handily remove it from play when it was no longer needed without having to put in a separate trigger.
I find it funny how the strategy to beat Deadbeard in any playthrough ever always boils down to "level grind against Tempest Lizard for hours until you can brute force it lol".
In this playthrough? certainly, but deadbeard really isn’t that bad if you have a good team comp, certainly nowhere near as hard as the Revenant, who pretty much REQUIRES heavy grinding or summon cheese
@@Macer84 Yeah, I second try'd Deadbeard and I didn't even use summons or Djinni attacks, nor did I ever do any grinding. Game's pretty easy. Never died to any other bosses.
Jenna having equipment and psynergy was likely a remenant of when Golden Sun and Golden Sun The Lost Age were a single game. IIRC the games were split as it turned out the project was too ambitious to fit in a single cartridge.
It's also just how programing works. It's easier to just code Jenna as a regular character because you have the code for that done already.
It's only the unique properties like Classes that weren't added. Equipment is based on categories. So it's not that each weapon or armor needs to be added to Jenna as equipable, but that in order for her to equip her basic equipment, those categories were added to her as valid equipment.
@@tadferd4340 Depends on how equipment is handled, some games do it by category like many early Final Fantasy Games especially Final Fantasy III and V while other like Dragon Quest III which has restrictions based on the gear itself.
Likely the split happened early on with most of the story sounded like it had been planned out. Jenna likely had some work done on her character before the split given she has spell but no classes. Not certain why her equipment wasn't locked like some Final Fantasy games have done, maybe an issue with the Dragon Quest like Character inventory system.
@@costby1105 Equipment is categorised into different types of gear. Light swords versus heavy swords, maces and rods, etcetera, etcetera. Each character is given a set of equipment types they're permitted to equip, and any weapon or piece of armor in that category is thus available to that character. Jenna was simply given a list of equippable gear types like everyone else in Golden Sun.
@@costby1105 Psynergy given was probably also something like "insert X chain of Psynergy" so they gave her that particular string rather than a single individual Psynergy. Probably because all sorts of shenanigans with Psynergy being enabled/disabled from switching classes, so you'd remove one chain of skills rather than keep removing 1~3 different skills per chain every time
@@costby1105 yeah when they mentioned it being unexpected that jenna could equip stuff I just assumed that the game manually listed items as equippable
Today on increasingly arcanes and obtuses videogame challenges : the main character dies of heatstroke, repeatedly and Jenna wins by seeing the futur.
Fun fact related to the weird duplicate party member bug: If you don't have Jenna, you can actually use that duplicate in battle. It basically means the duplicated character gets to act twice per turn, but they also can be targeted twice by AOE attacks. But they can _also_ be targeted twice by AOE buffs/heals! I did a "solo" Isaac run where I used the duplicate, and having one of them use Wish to basically heal twice per turn made most bosses pretty easy.
Also, without Mia, you can end up with more than 7 djinn per character, which lets you unlock partially-implemented classes that you're not supposed to!
True! You can also use the duplicate character even with Jenna in your party if you want to, since you can re-arrange the party so they're one of the four active members.
That sounds amazing. I do a little research but couldn't find any of that partially-implemented classes, can you elaborate or give me something specific to search?
@@Alnidru Hmm, I can't remember the specifics anymore. It's classes that are available in the sequel, and their existence in the first game is a relic of when they were both going to be one game. I think your class name changes, but you don't get any new psynergy, and your stats might not even change. I don't remember for sure which classes are available either... Sorry.
@@Gorfinhofin No no, just knowing that they are classes from the secuel is enough. Thanks!
@Alnidru It's the usual ones that become available in TLA/DD from advancing regular classes to 8-9 Djinn - ones like Protector, War Adept, Ronin, and Pure Mage. The exceptions are the ones that require 8 of the same Djinn, like Sorcerer and Slayer. Even if you make a swap that would make the game predict 8 of the same Djinn on one character by trying to swap a second copy of the Djinn onto themselves, the prediction screen still shows its 6-Djinn counterpart.
I won't lie, I've never played this game, never even heard of it before, and probably never will.
But seeing this video, and especially the insane out-of-bounds shenanigans you had to do to pull this off, put a massive grin on my face.
I LOVE seeing weird challenge runs and all the ridiculous workarounds you have to use to finish the game.
When you're so far out of the bounds of your own reality, that you can interact with your own currently running simulation.
It's awesome seeing a Golden Sun challenge run out there in our year of 2024, especially as out of the box as this one. Great job with the video, I can definately appreciate the work that went into editing this and I do not envy the grinding you had to do to pull this all off.
I grew up with this game and have put way more time than I want to admit into it for my own projects and yet I never realized you could just glitch Jenna into the party. I'd say "if I would have realize I could have just glitched Jenna into my party I wouldn't have gone through the trouble I had to 'put her into the game myself' ", but I think both this and the way I pretty much modded her into GS1 are both cool in their own merits.
I stumbled onto your mod while making this video! They're definitely cool for different reasons, the glitch provides you with an incomplete character who has no dialogue, so a more complete version of Jenna in the first game is a fun idea!
I found this challenge run particularly enjoyable, just like a warm fuzzy blanket in audio/visual form.
Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I was SO happy to see this appear on my recommended. The Golden Sun series has been my all time favorite video games since I first played Golden Sun (I think I was in middle school, and The Lost Age had not yet been released), but there's so little content for it! I've thought about trying to do speedruns for the games just to feel like part of a vaguely existent Golden Sun community once more (but speedruns aren't really my kind of thing to do, as much as I enjoy watching them). So this was an instant click from me. And I loved learning things about the game from this, and you did a great job explaining how and why the various things happened. Really great video! Now to check and see if you've got any more Golden Sun content for me to watch. Either way, instant subscribe for this video alone!
15:03 I mean tbh I can't think of a worst state for the game than "Locked out of random encounters due to a glitchy temporal anomaly of a girl"
This level of dedication is exactly what I love about the golden sun community, I can tell you I would've given up 5 minutes into this run but you somehow beat the game without issac, garet, ivan and mia. Amazing work.
Jenna planning her checkmates 80 moves in advance gives me light. I didnt know glitches like Retreat glitch when i played, solo was really tough but i did do a 2 character run. Think it was Isaac/Mia.
2 characters? I think you're forgetting an adorable little Earth fairy Pokémon.
I love the sneaky Jenna, that peeks from the bottom of the screen at 49:26 - 49:37.
1:05:35 So double down, transfer this save to TLA, and do the entire thing solo as Jenna. Got it. :)
I sure hope they manage to find and rescue Jenna with the orb!
This is really well done and amazing commentary, thanks for sharing!
Ah, the most mandatory of pixels...... Here from his sacred tower to bless us with his divine presence. I surprise to be sure but a welcome one
It's funny to see Isaac and Gareth leaning on their non equipped weapons.
There is a romhack where you can play as Jenna through the whole story. I haven't tried it myself but it is easy to find
This was a video I wasn't expecting to see whatsoever in my subscription feed, but I am so excited! Golden Sun was one of my favourite games growing up, I've played through this game quite a few times over the years c: I'm so happy to see modern content with it!
I dunno why, but Jenna just peeking at the bottom of the menu at 49:24 is funny. Like she's going "Psst hey, what you doing?"
Haha, I'm glad someone caught that! I never made a point of mentioning it in the video, but the duplicate character would end up moving down a little bit every time you opened the trade window in the Djinn menus, so they could even end up completely off the bottom of the screen if you were adjusting things for long enough.
Cute little Easter egg to see who caught it too.
Not an easter egg. @@xstrikefiredragon
Yes it is @@TopOfAllWorlds
This is wild. I'm currently playing through Golden Sun again on GBA, this being my third playthrough. I never knew about rainbow finishers until this video! Thank you for that but of new info! And very creative, fun run as well! Kudos to you for all this effort! 😊
Thanks very much, I'm glad you enjoyed it! The rainbow kills definitely seem to be a more obscure mechanic, from what I've seen.
All of your little editing jokes and quips gave me a loud cackle. This run was really fascinating to watch and learn about in its own right, but it was also really hilariously told.
Great job with the challenge, and I hope it was as satisfying to finally complete (with the rng of damacles hanging over your head) as it was to watch :)
Thanks very much, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I'd say it was quite satisfying to complete, in the recording of the final boss fight, after dealing the finishing blow there's 15 seconds where I don't touch anything because I was just staring at the screen in relief 😆
You had to do some really amazing things just to get by in this challenge, that could've been entire videos on their own! =') Level 1 Isaac Colosso is INSANE to me.
There was true dedication here, and I loved every second (it does help that the twin Golden Suns are some of my favorite games of all time). The developers also did something incredibly right when designing this: they made menus instant and responding to your every button press immediately. Just imagine doing this if menus worked like GBA/DS Pokémon menus...
If i had a nickel for every non permanent staff wielding love interest in an JRPG, which can then be glitched back into the party, i'd have at least two nickels.
Which isn't a lot. But it's weird that it happened twice... (Aerith and Jenna)
can't believe i sat through the whole 1 hour plus of this and i loved every minute of it. keep up the awesome vids man
Thanks very much!
Until you said that thing at the beginning I never realized how similar golden sun and that one Mario tennis game were lmao
Same company. Though I don't recall Mario casually summoning gods.
They were made by the same studio, in the same engine, with the same composer!
Mario Golf Advance Tour also has a lot of the same things in it as Golden Sun and Tennis. Same engine, same music (actually a more advanced version of the golden sun sound engine with slightly higher quality samples!)
Me, who has never played this game and knows nothing about it: Hmm, intriguing.
And it was! I watched the video the whole way through and enjoyed it quite a bit! Take my sub, good sir.
Fascinating how this game went from "epic fantasy adventure" to "underdog trapped in a timeloop"
Golden Sun being the goat JRPG series
Really cool to see how far this game's tricks have come! I remember working on Retreat glitch testing in like 2012 and playing around with Mia-less playthroughs, but not Jenna ones. All sorts of neat new complications here!
Yeah, I thought so too! Until earlier this year, I wasn't really familiar with many of the game's glitches outside of the Retreat glitch, so there was a lot of cool stuff to learn once I started looking into it!
seeing a golden sun video with 50k views. after thinking no one else knew of the series. brings me an indescribable happiness
great video! I'm not a speedrunner, but I HAVE been religiously watching speedruns of this game for probably 6 years or so now lol so it was really cool seeing you take the Jenna glitch & make a solo run out of it. all of your jokes sprinkled in were great as well. welp, guess we better head off to save Jenna now!
Thanks very much, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I didn't know the GS games had many glitches outside of the Retreat glitch until earlier this year, so there was definitely a lot to discover
😆
I learned so much from this that I wouldn't have known before. I also once tried to level grind in the early sections, I had no idea it was Jenna's immense potential that was scaring away the monsters.
Yep! For that same reason, if you get Jenna defeated in the first dungeon, you can level Isaac and Garet as much as you want, like somebody did here: www.reddit.com/r/GoldenSun/comments/18yi7b9/i_cant_say_you_didnt_warn_me_four_hours_in_isaac/
Every time I see you, I keep thinking you’re me.
Play until I stop having fun? Sir, I do believe you've underestimated how much I enjoy Golden Sun lol
Then by all means, give it a try! 😆
This was so enjoyable to watch it must of been grueling glad you actually took your time to clear it lots of credit indeed!
I've seen a few videos of you and always thought you did amazing with them, so I finally actually went to your channel and saw just how many videos you have... HOW? You're SO GOOD! Honestly. Quality over Quantity, I love your stuff! KEEP IT UP! You're amazing!
Thanks very much! Hopefully you enjoy the ones you haven't seen yet too. :) I'm working away on the next one!
I love getting Golden Sun content in late 2024, I'm still hoping for a remake!
wow, informative and entertaining video! also such a trip down memory lane. loved this series growing up!
49:24 seeing jenna's model at the bottom with her eyes barely peering over the screen made me laugh harder than it should've
This was a blast to watch. Well done!
I'd never even heard of this game before but ended up watching FX's entire tutorial at 3am, I love weird ACE stuff
This is like in One Punch Man where he defeats all the villains/monsters and everyone but him gets credit for it
I only ever played Dark Dawn, but im glad to see the Golden sun series get some love!
golden sun? nice! its really awesome to know someone play this
Really cool run! I thought there would be very little new to learn about this childhood favourite game years later but looks like with arbitrary code execution anything is possible! Also hearing the name Salanewt made me remember being around the Golden Sun Hacking community Discord for a bit, it was really fun. I should try to get back in to learning their tools and tricks and see how likely it would be to fully decomp this game
I used to play through this game probably a few times a year when I was younger and I've never even heard of/noticed the "rainbow kill" for weaknesses.. Didn't think I had much more non-exploit based knowledge left to learn for this game but here we are 😳
Man I love Golden Sun, first RPG I ever played! This was an excellent surprise to see!
Always great to see Golden Sun getting some much deserved love!
I have this weird relationship with Golden Sun where I beat the entire first game on the GBA and probably still have the save somewhere, yet remember absolutely nothing about it.
This was such an interesting video, especially learning the intricacies of how the game works behind the scenes, that it makes me want to replay it again.
I remember having trouble with Saturos with 4 party members, and you beat him with one that’s insane
Thank you for playing, now can you beat The Lost Age with Kraden.
I have never been recommended a vid from you man before, but I gotta say, my brain worms got very clicky on the recommendation as soon as I read a combination of the words "Can I beat" + some game title that I have never heard of + "glitch character", that's just like a recipe for carbonara meatballs spaghetti as I see it
1:04:50 okay you got me there, im laughing now and i cant stop
The dedication is off the charts. Great run.
Golden Sun means so much to me, that I would have watched all of this, even if it were 3+ hours long. This game hits a level of nostalgia that is almost depressing, the fond memories are beyond priceless.
Oh the melancholy, the glitchyness, loved it
Seeing this video just makes me learn more how the rng of this game works. I'll probably gonna try some of these rng optimation when I play this game again
i like the fact that you first going to ignore deadbeard but then you though, after all i did, i cant just leave without doing this
This was very entertaining, thank you
I've played through this game every couple of years since it released and I never knew about random encounters being disabled in the first dungeon.
Really interesting piece of trivia.
Yeah, it's kind of neat! Since the mechanic is tied to Jenna, if you want to, you can get her defeated in the first dungeon and then level Isaac and Garet as much as you want, like somebody did here: www.reddit.com/r/GoldenSun/comments/18yi7b9/i_cant_say_you_didnt_warn_me_four_hours_in_isaac/
The golden sun trilogy is by far my favorite.
i like it too. Haven't played the ds one, was it good?
Hard resetting fights to get turn by turn rng is giving character stuck in a time loop energy and I kinda love it
i never thought of it... good job!
Amazing video. You brought me back some memories from a great game
Honestly when you got the glitch character after the Arena you said it mimicked other party members so it would have been pretty funny if you rearranged your party until it and Jenna were both in the party and it was mimicking Jenna and did that. The game goes from her being the Damsel in Distress to Conquering God with her Eldritch Horror Missingno Doppelganger.
loved this game when i was younger, it and FFTA were my go to games to pass time
Oh you can cure the Curse countdown status effect with an Elixir btw ! Only status that can't be cured without a djinn or a priest is Haunted. This... really came in clutch to me lol
Fun fact. The desert with the tornado lizards has a optional boss that can transport you to crossbone isle as well as an alternative method to reach there other that the ship. The whole schtick of the desert is you need to use douse when you are caught in the tornado in order to free yourself and fight a lizard, but the final lizard with the red tornado after the cave will tornado you to crossbone island if you ignore the teachings of the desert and just stand in his tornado.
This is repeatable ofc, and as long as you dont engage the boss fight by using douse, you can keep tornadoing back and forth as much as you please😊
Quite possibly the most interesting solo run pulled off in jennarations
I just remember adoring this game when I was younger so to see anything on it still brings me joy.
Woah an entire hour, wowie! Thank you!
this was just incredible... i subbed.. i want to see more
This video was a delight, excellent job
Incredible video, loved it! Would be thrilled to see the sequel broken in similar ways...
Thanks very much! I don't think the sequel can be broken quite like this, though there is a trick you can do to get Isaac early! ua-cam.com/video/_ZtncjaNvOo/v-deo.html
I've gotten some requests to complete the Jenna solo saga by doing that in the sequel though, so maybe at some point!
I never played this game, but it looks so cozy! I really wanna give it a try next month
Love how you havew to play really smart to do a dumb run xD Glorious.
The fact that the game has early-game anti-grinding coded in, and it's tied to having Jenna in your party, is just so delightfully goofy.
I know GDQ would probably never take this run, but i would love to see it thereb(I usually go in person). This is cool as heck and was an interesting watch.
Thank you for enduring this for us.
Knew about some of these glitches, but some of the stuff like rainbow kills were new to me!! Really wish Golden Sun explained its mechanics better (even in DD where they had way more room for expodumping) because combat always felt a little mind numbing to me
Whenever I see people do these sort of things, I just think... "you know there's other games out there right? You can go play something else once you beat this one, right?" But sometimes a fella has something to prove I guess.
This was a wild ride, thanks.
I don't understand why you got rid of the random encounters after you got them back? Wouldn't they allow you to level Jenna without having to grind less than optimal enemies that gave very little XP?
I would think Jenna was strong enough when you got the random encounters back so the fights wouldn't be as hard and you would be able to earn max XP for each fight, making leveling go MUCH faster than grinding in the desert?
I've never attempted to speedrun this game in anyway, let alone with just 1 glitched character so I am sure you are right to do it this way, but I just don't understand why...
Great video and run! Keep up the great content! This was the first video of yours I watched and I am now subbed and can't wait for the notification for your next video!!
Lax
Action economy. Jenna is a very fragile unit, as seen throughout the run, always being killed by 2 or 3 attacks. Lategame enemy packs can have up to 4 enemies in some configurations, and there's not exactly a wide berth of damage in the basic attack option between trash mobs and boss monsters. With a full party you can gang up on one mob and kill it in a single turn or spam psynergy with everyone and annihilate an entire pack all at once. Heck, with any other character in the game just setting up the proper class can provide the stats necessary to survive trash easily for grinding, if soloing.
The problem comes down to Jenna not interacting properly with the class and djinni system. Golden Sun tends to finish with the characters around level 30, and their stats are significantly higher than in the base game then, but not entirely because of the levels gained. When you change class, you don't just get access to higher tiers of psynergy, you also get significant bonuses to your actual stats, offensive and most importantly defensively. You can more than quadruple your chance of surviving a single round by setting up the proper class, and farther into the game you're expected to be making use of those class bonuses to properly equip your units. So without them, Jenna dies too fast and can't output enough damage to safely clear massive groups of enemies.
7:25 until Isaac's "pp" is below six in.... I mean, just six...
Great amazing legendary mandatory pixel thank you for this blessing
What a ride! This was such a a fun watch. Good work on puzzling through all the tough situations. I love how you explained how things worked in an entertaining way. After the 5th team member glitches started popping up I would have been so nervous to keep going. You're so brave!
Golden Sun is one of those games I wish I'd known about back when I was playing my GBA SP, as I probably would have loved it.
Especially since I had played Shining Force 1, 2, and 3 by then, and more Camelot would've been great.
1 & 2 are worth a play through even now. I've gone back twice? now and eventho the challenge is pretty minimal knowing how to actually play games it's still a pleasant play through that doesn't take too long either.
You can play them on switch now as well. They are in the game boy section
I think the most efficient way to level up is to actually kill the tornado lizards in the desert. 620 xp and there's tons of them and they die easy
I _think_ the Tempest Lizard is faster, but even if not, it drops the Potions, so it was helpful for that reason as well!
@@MandatoryPixelmaybe yeah. I just love spamming douse on that area but primarily cuz it's earlier in the game. But you only get weasel claw item
@@MandatoryPixel The Tempest Lizard was my go-to when I decided I was gonna power grind Isaac's party in hopes of having a chance against Dullahan in GS:TLA. I think I ended up grinding the whole party to Lv 50. Then, I found out the boss could be defeated at about Lv 30 with a specific set of equipment....
55:53 Ah, good ol' JRPG grinding sesh. Brings back memories 🥲