Golden Sun 2 1000+ Battles FAQ

      Golden Sun 2 1024 Battles FAQ

Q: What is this?
A: In this game there's a Battle Mode where you can battle consecutive parties made of monsters that you've fought in the game. This is me trying to win there over 1000 times in a row.

Q: So why are you doing this?
A: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Q: No seriously, why?
A: Ok, so, there's actually some old rl lore to this. A long time ago (I don't remember exactly when, definitely over a decade though), I made a save file that is pretty much impossible to lose in Battle Mode. That is, I got all the Djinn, grinded items and to Level 99, but didn't fight any of the optional bosses or Doom Dragon, because those would be the only fights that could really cause trouble.

At that time, I didn't know whether the count would cap at 999 or not, so I wanted to get 1000+. But I didn't have the attention span to do it in one sitting at home, and whenever I left it on the charger overnight it'd freeze at some point (I didn't have a Gameboy Player). I took it on a few long road trips as well, but the battery would run out at about 250 battles. So it was a wish left unfulfilled.

However, I never got rid of the save file. So every time I think about running this game I think about the fact that optimally, I'd need to delete that save file, and that would give me a bit of pause. And so, here I am in 2020 using that very same save file to finally fulfill that wish so that one day I can clear that save file with a clean conscience.

Q: So does that mean after this you'll be doing real runs of this game soon?
A: Soon™ (Note: I have been saying this for over a decade now)

Q: Why 1024 battles exactly?
A: Well I just wanted to do 1000, but when I considered the possibility that I miscount a few I thought I should do a few extra to make sure, and 1024 is a nice round number nearby, so it works well.

Q: What is the estimate for this?
A: I think just under 10 hours? I'll have a better idea after doing a few, e.g. 100 after an hour means about 10 hours.

Q: So what is the strat, what's the party setup?
A: So I'm not changing a single thing from the setup I had back then. The strat is basically to have crit boosting equipment and just spam attack with Isaac/Garet/Felix, and have Jenna/Mia healing (Jenna preferred because her damage output is better if you don't needto heal, but Mia more regularly because of her PP restoration allowing her to just spam Pure Wish).

For a full write-up of the equipment and such, see here: https://pastebin.com/s3SFqk0y

Q: What improvements could you make?
A: One of the most obvious things would be not fighting the Fire Dragons either, since they are the hardest party and aren't really required (like Agatio and Karst are). The stats aren't fully maxed either - although Isaac, Garet, and Felix have 999 Attack, others could be higher. If you did glitches in the setup (I didn't), you could have more than 1 Sol Blade too.

Q: What's the "WR"
A: Lol. If anyone else was dumb enough to do this, I haven't heard about it. And who would care anyway.