Accessories

Solid but not groundbreaking gameplay.
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is a tactical role playing game. The gameplay is similar to the Advance Wars series, but the setting is a standard fantasy world. Basically, you move a variety of units across a terrain board to fulfill a specific goal and complete the mission.

Some players may find the long sections of dialogue tedious, but the exposition is designed to explain the plot and provide motivation to finish the missions. Unfortunately, this makes for a linear storyline and at least in the first few hours of gameplay, the player has no freedom to deviate from the setup.

The job system is not nearly as deep as that in Final Fantasy Tactics or even FF Tactics Advance, but there is some growth and weapons customization. Players may be annoyed by weapons breaking after a certain number of strikes. Also, because of the rock/paper/scissors system, a normally powerful character might struggle with a lesser enemy simply because the wrong weapon is equipped.

The battle map graphics are good and fairly clear, although the character sprites are small and sometimes hard to distinguish. The music is better than average. I have not completed the game, but guessing at the number of hours it takes to complete, Sacred Stones is probably a good value.

Overall, this is a solid game and if you like tactical RPGs you will enjoy it.

THE BEST
this has to be my favorite gba game of all time. it kinda stinks though that if a guy dies. he dies and he does not come back. i sugest that you also buy an a gameshark so that you can make sure your guys live to see tomorow. overal great plot and storyline. i just love it.

My first favorite Strategy RPG.
I will admit that, overall, the strategy-RPG genre has been very hard for me to get into. My first entry into the genre was with Tactics Ogre on the Gameboy Advance, which I thought was merely O.K., yet not enough for me to keep (that says a lot, since I rarely get rid of games). Final Fantasy Tactics on the PS1 I found rather... unbearable, to be quite frank, since it seemed to me to require more tedious power-leveling (e.g. beefing up your character's strength) and less strategy.

Considering these views I had of the genre, it's easy to see how I could be apprehensive about getting another one, not to mention I wasn't too keen on Advance Wars either (which actually shares some similarities to Fire Emblem, including the same developer). Suffice to say, I was pleasantly surprised twice over!

For those that don't know, Fire Emblem is, at its core, a turn-based strategy game in which you control a small army to complete certain objectives, which of course means you'll often fight your way through plenty of enemies. Initially you start with your main character, which in this game is Eirika (you have the option to switch to Ephriam after a handful of missions). As the game progresses, more and more characters will join your group--some automatically, some after you talk to them with the right character (the game will sometimes drop hints about who should talk with who by using dialogue)--which each have strengths and weaknesses of their own. For instance, in what has been dubbed the "weapon trio," there is somewhat of a "rock, paper, scissors" format. In this case, sword beats axe, axe beats lance, and lance beats sword. Bear in mind that it isn't nearly as simple as that. This only determines the initial advantage one has over the other, but a character's strength can be enough to go against the grain of this. Not to mention there are a few other items that have their own unique properties that are more or less effective depending on what they are used against, but the game does an extremely good job of telling you all these nuances and even has a guide handy that is accessible during missions with quick, concise info. In fact, pretty much anything you can highlight with the cursor has a quick access help topic associated with it that's as simple to use as pressing the R button--everything from getting info on ally or enemy units, right down to something as dumb as finding out what certain terrain does.

Being able to learn the ins and outs of the game in such an easy manner is certainly a good thing, because there is one aspect of the game that is unrelenting and brutal. If you lose one of your characters, they are gone forever. Granted, you do have the option of not losing them... IF you don't mind starting that particular mission all over again. It seems like a perfectionist's nightmare, yet I didn't have that must problem with that aspect. If you're think you might be worried a lot about losing characters, start the game on Easy. The game will still provide a challenge without being overly gruelling (well, the last battle will still be pretty hard). However, for those who are a bit more confident, the game offers up Normal and Difficult settings, the latter of which I've heard can be especially brutal.

Now, as far as visuals go, it's a bit of a mixed bag, but at the very least it's functional. The maps, which are setup in a chess-like grid with a bird's-eye view, are clear and concise. However, they lean a bit on the simple side, including how things are animated. Still, I actually prefer this setup compared to something like Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics. One of the better parts of the visual presentation are the little attack animations that happen when two units fight each other. The game "zooms in" on the units, producing two characters that attack, the animation of which is insanely smooth and quite impressive (some of the critical hit animations drive home just how devastating the attack is, in a way surprisingly good for an E-rated game). The funny thing is those animations are entirely optional. They can be disabled through the menu, or you can even assign the game to allow animations for only specific characters that you chose.

Sound, like the visuals, is also more functional than spectacular. The sound effect are geared more as a secondary way to tell you what's going on on the screen, which, despite being simplistic, adds surprisingly well to the effect. The music also blends well to the game, though I found a few tracks to be especially good in their own right.

Oh, on a side note, there's one thing I really loved about this game in the technical aspect. It has one of the best quick save systems I have ever seen. The game sports a normal save system in between missions, but during missions it has a unique quick save feature that is so good that it saves automatically when you turn off the system. Seriously! No buttons to press, no menus to dig through. Just power off the system and you'll be able to start again from that same point (unless you decide to erase the save). Ironically, this save system is annoying in a way that is clearly intentional. If you ever get one of your characters killed and power off the system at that point, you'll find that upon starting the quick save that it saved right before that specific enemy unit's action, meaning you are left with two options. Either proceeding on without that character or restarting that mission from the start. It's harsh, but you didn't expect them to make it easy, did you?

So, here's my summary of the pros and cons.

Pros:

+ Simple, yet surprisingly in-depth strategy gameplay.
+ Game eases you into the controls, which will become second-nature quickly.
+ Great cast of characters, representing some well balenced classes with their own strengths and weaknesses
+ Challenging, yet rewarding.
+ Smart AI that tends to target weaker characters, making you think.
+ Surprisingly intelligent dialogue despite the broad audience (the fact that it's rated E).

Cons:

- Can be a bit of a perfectionist's nightmare


In short, I recommend it to strategy fans out there.

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
This game was good. I just didn't like how most of the characters were guys. The only girls I could have on my team were Eirika, Vanessa, and Natasha. The characters are 6/10 but this game is challenging, which is good. The bad thing about this game is that most of the first 5 levels are tutorials and if one character dies, they never come back. This makes the game more frusterating because you need most of the character to unlock other characters in the game. I haven't played the first game but this game is okay. There is also way to much dialogue.

Great game for the GBA
The deep storyline is what really makes this game great. Each of its 21 chapters is a new battle, so if you don't like fighting, this isn't the game for you. If you enjoy leading virtual armies into battle, however, you'll love Sacred Stones.

The fact that if a character is really gone if he/she dies in battle can be seen as either good or bad. On the one hand, it adds an emotional element rarely seen in rpg's. On the other hand, you'll really wish you had some of those deceased characters back during tougher battles *cough*chapter 19*cough*.

The only bad point I can really think of is that the game saves automatically when the Gameboy turns off. It's good if you're doing well in battle and your batteries suddenly run out, but if you start out strong and lose several characters at the end of a battle, you have to start the entire chapter over if you want them back. Otherwise, this is a great game!