Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

The Sacred Stones was the 2nd Fire Emblem game I had played, the first being the previous game on the Gameboy Advance. The same developer had made Advance Wars and you see some similarities between the games. It's a turn-based strategy on a grid with simple graphics, but in Fire Emblem, you have a specific cast of characters who can be killed. This permadeath mechanic makes it quite a tough game and requires you to play it safe. If your main character dies, then it is game over, but if other characters die you can continue the rest of the game without them, or reload the game.

There's five kingdoms that are in possession of a Sacred Stone. These were once used to seal away The Demon King. The kingdom of Grado have started a war and seem intent in destroying the Sacred Stones. Princess Eirika and Prince Ephraim flee the kingdom of Renais, amass some allies and try to stop the Grado army and the recent emergence of monsters. Your main heroes are Eirika and Ephraim. You follow Eirika for the first several levels, but then the story branches for a bit and you have to choose who you want to follow and be the main character from then on. There's lots of characters and it's quite hard to remember who is who.

The maps you battle on are a mix of outdoor and indoor areas. Indoor have rooms and corridors. Outside can have cliffs, rivers etc. You move all your units, then the opponent moves there's. Some missions have a small group of allies that you need to reach and defend. For each unit you can move then either attack, use an item, trade an item, or rescue.

There's a wide range of characters, and your roster increases as the story progresses, some being recruited in battle from the opposing side. You just need to talk to them with a character that knows them. This can be a challenge as you need to move adjacent to them to talk, but make sure you don't put yourself in danger on the next turn. Getting in range can be tricky because you don't want them to attack you and lose, and you may need to take out surrounding units to clear a path to them.

The character's attributes include Strength, Skill (chance to hit), Speed (Fast units can attack twice), Luck, Defence, Resistance, Move, Conditioning, Aid determines if they can rescue. You gain XP for attacking, and gain more when dealing the finishing blow. This creates more strategy as you need to move your units to attack but not put them in danger on your opponent's turn. If you just keep dealing finishing blows with your strongest units, then your weak units won't develop and this will hurt you in subsequent missions. This is another great aspect of the game because you always need to think long term rather than just on the mission. Level ups are random, so sometimes you might just get 1 point, and other times you get up to 5.

At level 10-20 (20 is max level), you can use a certain item to change most characters to a more advanced form (then their level resets to 1). You have a couple of options to choose from eg turn a Cavalier into a Paladin or Great Knight. Some characters are "Trainees" which is a weaker form, so they auto-change at Level 10, then can be upgraded as normal when they reach level 10+.

The different type of unit types have different attributes, movement ranges and equipment, and it's good to have a balanced team. There's swordsmen like the Myrmidon who seem to have a larger critical hit, Archers give you a ranged attack with Bows, Pegasus or Wyvern riders have large movement and aren't restricted by mountains since they fly, but are weak in general and very weak to arrows. Mages and Monks can use magic and use healing staves. Knights tend to have lower movement but high hit points and defence, good as "tanks". Cavaliers have great movement range and have high aid ability.

There's a "Weapon triangle" system which is: Swords beat Axe; Axe beats Lance; Lance beats Swords. However, there are special weapons like the "Lancereaver Sword" which is then strong against lances. There's a similar system with magic which includes fire, lightning, dark and light. All your weapons and magic are limited use, and so there is inventory management involved. You have access to the shop between missions and can set inventories there. Sometimes enemies drop items when defeated, and some maps may have shops, chests, or civilian buildings. Even if visiting civilians don't give you an item, they may give you a tip on something useful in that mission like an enemy weakness.

By the end of the game, you need around 12 level-20 characters with a decent stock of weapons. There's a couple of "Towers" where you can grind out some XP if you wish, although you will probably deplete your weapons. It's a lengthy game, taking 25-30 hours, (but there's longer Fire Emblem games).

Its a fine game on its on, but unfortunatly comparing it to Fire Emblem (the 7th one, also for the GBA) does no favors at all to this game.

It keeps a lot of the strenghs of the series, but in the small all that they changed the core formula i feel that it was for the worst. Starting of with the plot, dividing the story into two independent armies halfway through the game only really works when you are attached to both armies, and unfortunatly this game does not offer nearly the same amount of charming characters as other Fire Emblem usually do. I found the two siblings pretty dull actually, and i couldnt get behind the story to motivate me going on.

Gameplaywise there have been a few changes, the major one is the available combat arenas outside the main mission, which effectively let the player grind out the levels they want. This is a terrible design decision, because it makes the game so much harder to balance when it comes to its difficulty. The level design of the missions also feel worst, definitly more unfair and since many are in open plains there is less room for intelligent tactics. Its still very ssatisfying to level your favorite characters out though, and some of the maps are great.

It just feels like a lesser game in almost everysingle way. Its still a solid entry for fans of the series, but definitly not the ones you should be playing first.