Golden Sun: The Lost Age/Air's Rock

Here it is. Air's Rock. This is, without a shadow of a doubt, the longest, most tedious, and most annoying dungeon in the game, maybe even the whole of Golden Sun. There are three distinct parts to it - getting to Air's Rock, climbing the outside of Air's Rock, and then navigating the inside of Air's Rock. And it takes ages.

The Base of Air's Rock

Right, to begin. Firstly, set Move and Whirlwind to your Psynergy shortcuts, if they aren't already, because you will be using both of these a lot here. Now, go forward and use Whirlwind on the rock here. It'll blow the sand out of the way. Go ahead and keep going north, until you reach a set of rocks in front of a big pink stone, and a lone chest. The chest is a Mimic, which defeating earns you a Lucky Medal (which is useless right now). Head south down the other path and follow this around. Going north to the climbable wall is useless right now because a pillar at the top prevents you getting past. Go right, and when you reach another T-junction, go right. At the next junction, go up and fire a Whirlwind across to the left - this will clear a path for getting a chest later on. Keep going south to find another Whirlwind stone. Blast away the sand and then go north. Go back around the rock so you can get through the pass you just made. When you reach this Whirlwind stone, use it twice - the first is necessary to get to that big pink stone, but the second will allow you to get a chest. Now use Retreat to get to the beginning of Air's Rock (don't worry, this won't reset the sand).

Go north again, then to the right. Go north to reach the chest, containing a Cookie, then go south and left to reach a different angle of the first stone. Blast away the sand to the left, and go back around. Go through the freshly-created path, and use the Whirlwind stone from this angle to clear a path. If you want, you can go around to the other side of the stone and use it again to blow away some more sand, to reach a chest containing a Smoke Bomb, but I don't think it's worth it.

Anyway, if you follow the new path to the north you'll end up right next to that big pink stone you saw earlier. Go ahead and use Whirlwind on it, and the tornado created is so strong it blows away a whole pile of sand in front of a long ladder. Climb up it to the next area.

Climbing Air's Rock

You can't go right since there's a pillar in the way, so climb up the wall to your left. The wall to your right here doesn't lead anywhere either, so climb up the left again. Drop down the groove here and let the statue blowing whirlwinds blow you across. Drop down the groove here, and down the next one too. Hitch a ride on the passing whirlwinds down here. Shove the pillar off to open up a shortcut, and then head right. Shove this pillar off (this is what was blocking you earlier) and ignore the climbable walls for the mean time. Go down the wall furthest to the right and you'll be back at the base of Air's Rock. This is why you cleared the sand away here earlier - the chest contains the Storm Brand, a very decent weapon for the mean time, so equip it on Felix.

Climb back up. Take the climbable wall on the left here. Work your way up to a ledge. There's a climbable wall leading down to the right, so take that and let the whirlwind blow you across. Ignore both of the grooves and climb up the wall. Shove the pillar off the top (this is what was blocking the other whirlwind statue) and let the next whirlwind carry you across. Climb up to the next area.

Go left, and begin climbing the wall. You have to time your advances here, because the whirlwind statues will blow you off if you don't, and you'll have to start the climbing again. When you reach the top, drop down the groove. Move the pillar onto its metal plate, opening up another shortcut, and climb down the wall. Wait for the statue to blow a whirlwind, then grab the Sleep Bomb from the chest. Stand on the statue, and the next whirlwind will blow you back up to the top. Thoughtful, eh? Now, go to the next area to the right.

Begin climbing this big wall. Go past the first ledge and carry on to the second. Up here, Move the pillar you can reach to the left. Climb back down to the ledge below, then walk across and slide down the groove. Stand on the statue and let it blow you up. Walk across this ledge to the left, and Move the other pillar you couldn't reach before to the left. You can now jump across and slide down the groove, allowing you to use the statue before that was fenced in by rocks. It'll carry you up to the top, where you should climb along the wall to the next area.

If you went the other way this is where you came to a halt. This misty area is endless - if you try to climb up off the top of the screen you'll end up back at the bottom. But, since you came this way, you can move a pillar out of the way. Climb back down (you can go down but not up) and follow the path back to a groove you can take. Go down this one, and the next one, and go back to the climbable wall to your left. Now, scale this up to the top, and back to the misty area.

Up here again, use the big pink stone to clear the mist (you couldn't access it before). Now the mist has cleared, you can start climbing up. But there's another special item you can get! Go back down, until you reach the groove on the first ledge up the long wall. Basically, go back the way you went to move the pillar blocking off the pink stone in the first place. When you get back to the area with the big pink stone, you can climb off the top of the screen and get a Fujin Shield in the next area - equip this to Felix. Head back down...again...so you get back to the pink stone area. Climb up the other side of this wall and you end up on the summit of Air's Rock.

To be completely fair, this would have counted as a dungeon in its own right. But no, you've only done a very small bit of Air's Rock. The interior is rediculously long. Anyway, go up and use Whirlwind on the pink rock. Lightning will strike and blow a hole in the top of Air's Rock, revealing a way down into the interior.

Air's Rock Interior

You get a Psynergy Stone here to recharge you. That was thoughtful. Go right at the fork since left is a dead end, and follow the path around to a room with the biggest statue yet. You can't do anything or get any chests here yet, so head around the outside of the room and exit through the yellow-dot-marked door at the top.

This is the biggest room in Air's Rock. You can choose two doors here - one's marked blue, the other red. Choose the blue one first. You can't do anything here yet, save shoving a pillar onto a panel. This is important later on, so that's why you did it. Head back to the big room and take the red door.

Follow the path around, and head north. You're faced with an interesting puzzle here - there are Pound Pillars and normal ones. If you stand on any of the Pound pillars and the other one on their side isn't weighted down, the pillar will drop. You need to get across to the other side of this room.

File:Pillarpuzzle1.PNG

How the puzzle is set up at the start.

File:Pillarpuzzle2.PNG

The solution.