Howdy folks, I'm Pascal Pixel, and I'm decompiling both Golden Sun games using AI, in a single project called ⛰️ Alchemy. A couple of weeks ago I shared that we hit 75% and the sub went absolutely nuts. Thank you for cheering things on. Golden Sun deserves the love and I'm glad we're bringing some much needed life back to our favorite game

So: after three months of work, ☀️ The Broken Seal is fully decompiled in all six languages, and work has already moved on to decompiling ⚓️ The Lost Age 😄

Repo: https://github.com/PascalPixel/alchemy

As I said last time, a year ago I burnt out after spending three years building a browser by myself, and needed to learn to relax again. I got back into gaming, but playing FF7 Remake was such a bad experience I had to force myself to finish it, and I couldn't tell why. I thought perhaps I'm just not much of a gamer anymore. That is, until I decided to play Golden Sun for the first time since 2002, and loved every minute of it... so it wasn't me 🙃

It's such a contrast with modern games: you get to loop back on your adventure multiple times, there's lots of optional content, and exploration is really rewarded. In modern games if you go all the way to every corner, maybe they'll just leave a chest with a potion in it. It's an afterthought, it's not fun

In Golden Sun you get actual content, like seeing how your family deals with you having left on your adventure, and trying to be strong for you. Its the kind of content we don't see anymore, and it makes the world feel lived in when you go back places and things have subtly changed. You can even loop back alll the way to Fuchin Temple, far off the path we're supposed to go, and there's still new content: Master Nyunpa has fasted until he's skin and bones, everyone thinks he's passed away, but your Mind Read still reaches him

The work and love Camelot put into these games is staggering, and you really feel it even playing it today. It's one of the best RPGs ever made, and now we can see just how much in the decompiled code. English has changes that Japanese doesn't have, and Spanish, French and Italian have updates English doesn't have. So even while the translations were being made, updates were still going in!

The code is now available for all of us to see, and I hope it'll help people make beautiful new stories and adventures. I'll keep chugging on The Lost Age, and my final goal remains the same: fulfill our long-term dream of creating a single game out of both 1️⃣✨2️⃣

We're unleashing Alchemy upon the world! 🌋 Let me know what you make!

No context here. Just Mia up to no good.

The shaking and chaos seems like it stopped and Garet is is all freaked out like everyone else and says "Do you know what that is?!". And Isaac I imagine also startled, maybe finding his footing, points at it and says "It's a rock!!" 🤣

I first played through Golden Sun: The Lost Age in 2004, when I was 11 years old. Back then, I had no idea there was a game before it. I was young and clueless.

Funnily enough, though, that made the story take me by surprise in ways I never expected.

At the beginning, I genuinely thought Alex was a nice guy because he helped you deal with the soldiers from Tolbi. Eventually, I reached the point where I thought, “Man, what an asshole... but oh well.” And for the longest time, I actually believed that Isaac's group from the first game were the bad guys, until everything was finally revealed at Jupiter Lighthouse.

It was 2004. I was young, I had no internet access back then, and I just accepted the story as it unfolded. A few years later, I did my research and learned everything I had missed, but it was never quite the same.

And now... in 2026... I've finally done it. I've beaten the first game, including absolutely everything, even Crossbone Isle.

And holy shit, what an experience.

I imagined Mt. Aleph differently, and I had always pictured Mercury Lighthouse as something more epic. Still, the fight against Saturos was incredible.

But the final battle against Saturos and Menardi, the dialogue, and especially the conversations involving Felix... that really got me thinking.

I keep wondering what it would have felt like to experience all of this back then, knowing the full story from the beginning. And I can only imagine what it must have been like to play as Felix, knowing what we know now.

Suddenly, you're playing as the very people you thought were the villains. You're the ones trying to light the lighthouses. And you begin to understand that Saturos and Menardi, despite being assholes at times, genuinely believed they were doing the right thing.

This is what makes Golden Sun so special to me. It's a game that shows you that the world isn't simply divided into good and evil. Sometimes, there is so much more in between.

An absolute masterpiece!

First time playing so was a bit surprised to not even get a reset for stats! Damn Saturos cursed my main character so now he keeps taking extra damage, if there’s a 3rd phase I’m gonna lose my mind lol.

Amazing game, very excited to suss the sequel out!

This is an unresolved childhood memory.

I need a romhack that includes a fight against the Wise One, adds lore to him and a climactic fight against Alex on Mt. Aleph.

Now in the age of "reverse engineering" by AI, can't we get a tool to do Romhacks more easily?

I have sooooo many ideas.

Over twenty years of traversing Weyard and playing the games over and over, a lot of fan theories have popped up. Whether it's lore based or your personal theory, what's the craziest thing you've seen or read about Weyard or Golden Sun lore?

I'll start: Moapa and the Hesperians are the remnants of a pre-Alchemy sealing civilization similar to the Lemurians.

With all the commotion around decompilation of the games code lately it got me starting to think about what some good mod ideas would be. I want to share a couple that I had and see what y’all think and also see what other ideas are out there.

My first idea is a slight modification to the djinn system in TLA, to add a “bench” system, wherein the 4 “catch-up” djinn are always made available instead of being catch up. I’d give some new names to these djinn and a fairly generic probably copy of another djinns abilities and stats. One for each element. Now, if you already have all 72 djinn, and then go collect these 4, it would put them into a separate group of djinn called the bench. These aren’t available to use in combat nor do they buff anybodies stats. They’re treated as not actually assigned to anybody. But what this lets you do is now you can swap any djinn from a character onto the bench. Want to play your dream class combination but have one extra mars djinn and one venus djinn too few? Just swap in a venus djinn! This just gives flexibility to have more class combinations without screwing over at least one adept putting them in a weaker class.

Other ideas were a bit simpler, but one is a fast forward mechanic that you can toggle through in game. It keeps the music and sound effects at normal pace but pressing some key combination would cycle through speed increases at 2x, 3x, 4x, then back to 1x.

Same concept would apply for a zoom out function. Cycle through different levels of zoom.

A separate bag for crafting materials. All crafting materials would go in this bag and one person holds it. Same goes for stat boosting items.

What else ya got?

Hi,

I made a fan project that combines Golden Sun and The Lost Age into one GBA cartridge. You play GS1, after the credits TLA starts automatically as "Chapter 2" and your party (levels, Djinn, items, equipment, coins, names) gets transferred like with the link cable. No password needed.

- Both games complete and unchanged
- Separate saves, start menu to switch between both games
- New title screen (GS1 intro, then pans over to TLA)
- English or German

No ROMs included. You build it from your own copies of both games with a small Python script, instructions are in the README. Tested in mGBA.

https://github.com/Penrim/golden-sun-collection

Please note:

- First release. Lots of automated tests, but no full playthrough yet. Small glitches are possible, mostly in GS1. Backup your saves.
- Finish GS1 before you start a TLA save, otherwise your party is not transferred.
- Flash carts / real hardware not tested.
- AI disclosure: made with Claude Code. The middle part of the title screen panorama is AI generated, everything else is from the original games. Mods are ok with the post.

Feedback and bug reports welcome, here or on GitHub. No ROM links please.

Got my Gameboy player and the first game I put in was Golden Sun.

In this third video, we continue following Alex's adventure, written by BIG. For those unfamiliar with it, this is an ongoing project created using GSHTML5. I encourage anyone interested in project updates to visit the GS Dev Discord server (BIG's official server) and the official GSHTML5 Discord server. Leaving a positive reaction can help BIG with the project.

https://discord.gg/QEYjuQkXa

https://discord.gg/fYFSxPMjmS

I believe moving the series to a completely separate universe would be the best way to revitalize the series. A sequel to a nearly two-decade old game would not capture enough of a new audience.

This tattoo was done by the very talented Daylyn Bond (instagram: Illustday) who works out of Oshawa, Ontario.

And i was trying to remember to navigate the dungeon cuz it's been awhile since the last time i tried to fight Dullahan.

Hey everyone

Friendly reminder to not only use save states in case you lose 20 hours of progress and have to start again 🥲

If anyone happens to have a save file for The Lost Age set after exiting Lemuria... Please save me from my current existentialism.

TrimUI Brick Hammer is rad tho. Highly recommend.

Though most aren't original.

The GS 1 box and everything included is a reproduction and the 2 TBS cartridges (in the case and the one running in the original DS) are also reproductions I believe, they cost me 12 USD each and when I'm saving a brief pause is happening. Something similar is happening to the English ROM translation I have as a GBA card of Fire Emblem The Binding Blade, so I'm certain these two aren't originals, but it's fine one of the cards is meant as a present for my cousin.

The TLA poster was not bought now, I actually had that one since 2006 when I got TLA.

The maps are incredible.

Now I need to find an adapter and GBA games link cable to connect the GBA with the DS Lite and have some battles as long as I have the 2 English cartridges of TBS. Does such an adapter even exist?

There is a warning in the German version of TLA to never connect 2 games using a different language, or data might get lost.

One of the reasons I love this game so much is the art... specifically the pre-rendered 3D sprites of the GBA games, they looked so perfect and lively. If Golden Sun will ever get a remake i hope they keep the same style and upgrade it a little bit. Is it just me? Or would you guys prefer it to be completely 3D like from Dark Dawn..? What do you think?

How do you think the writing of Golden Sun holds up today, and how do you think someone playing it for the first time in 2026 would answer that question? I love these games, and to me, the overarching story and world is creative and diverse, the individual characters' stories and personalities have depth and emotional resonance, and the dialogue is interesting and doesn't feel stale or contrived.

There are occasionally certain bits of dialogue that might feel a bit more heavy-handed, awkward, or childish, but it is infrequent enough that I don't find it grating, and I can chalk it up to a combination of awkward translations from the original japanese, as well as the characters themselves being teens or young adults, who are notoriously prone to sometimes saying dumb or overly simplistic things. This doesn't fully explain Kraden's occasional jarring dialogue, but he talks so much that it would be impossible for him to never say something stupid.

That said, I recently gave Octopath Traveler 0 a shot, because many people here have mentioned it was the closest to scratching the Golden Sun itch for them. After about 10 hours of gameplay, I had to put it down because I found the writing so damn bad. To me, the dialogue is all tell-don't-show, incredibly simple, and lacking any emotional depth. I felt nothing for any of the characters, and for the one's I've picked up so far you don't even get to know them before they join you, they just do almost at a whim. The overarching story, as far as I made it, also felt very banal. The first hour or so of gameplay was almost scene for scene the same as another GBA game I remember playing all the way back in the early 2000s, Tales of Phantasia (Which I remember as a good game with more depth and creativity). I was shocked at how all the character relations and story points played out because it was so starkly familiar it felt like plagiarism, and certainly lacking any creativity. I also had to mute the voice acting (I used the English voices) because it was so grating, which isn't necesarily to do with the writing, but I would argue that it had the exact same energy as the actual written dialogue. It made me miss the squibbling dialogue sound from Golden Sun.

Do any of you find Octopath 0 to have these same flaws? And for both those who would answer yes or no, do you think that Golden Sun 1 and 2 presents in the same way as Octopath in terms of writing? In other words, does Golden Sun's creative direction and writing hold up to scrutiny of an adult in 2026, or am I merely blinded by my nostalgic love of this game?

A few months ago I borrowed a GBASP from a friend and played the OG Golden Sun. I loved it. I thought "what a neat concept." I loved the battle animations, the world, the characters, and summoning big god like beings. Overall a great experience. Now, I'm playing lost age and I'm having a good time as well.

Eventually I want to try Dark Dawn. My question is, is this franchise dead? It seems like Nintendo/Camelot built a beautiful game that could rival similar games, and yet, there's nothing new.

Does anyone know of some possibility that we'll see a new installment or is this it? 💔

I'm not trying to be rude to the fan base but this is my first game of this nature where you have a small team of people fighting bad guys taking turns and throwing attacks at each other.