Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

"It's Not What it Should Have Been"

Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones

Fire Emblem is probably my favorite franchise for the GameBoy Advance. It all started back in 2003 when a friend of mine recommended this game called Fire Emblem. “It's really popular back in Japan,” he said, “and it's a pretty sweet game”. Well, next chance I got, I stopped by at FYE and picked up a copy for myself. And, from the moment I started playing, I was absolutely hooked. Therefore, when Sacred Stones was announced not much later, I was full to the brim with anticipation; I expected another near-flawless game experience like the original Fire Emblem.

The plot of Sacred Stones takes place on the continent of Magvel, and begins in the small kingdom of Renais, under the rule of the just king Fado. Peace pervades Magvel, and the citizens live happily. But suddenly, a surprise attack hits Renais from its best ally; the kingdom of Grado. Soldiers and people of Renais are wiped out, and the force eventually reaches Castle Renais. Fado orders Seth to flee with his daughter, Eirika, while he stays to defend the castle.

The plot is set up in a rather typical manner, but looking back, I'd have to say that it's actually rather well done. There are several great plot twists, and there's the added addition of being able to follow two different characters. You may choose to guide Ephraim, Eirika's twin brother, and his direct attack on Grado, or go with Eirika in her attempt to gain allies for the war.

The story arc is fun for two reasons: the many plot twists throughout, and the fact that you can play through two separate campaigns to see two different sides of a many-sided story (again, play it and you'll understand what I'm talking about). However, if you're expecting a plot of the caliber of the first Fire Emblem, you're going to be rather disappointed.

There is one big reason that the plot in Sacred Stones just can't measure up to that of its predecessor. That reason revolves, for the most part, around what are called support conversations. If you have two compatible characters stand next to each other in battle for a certain amount of turns, then they will engage in a conversation. The point of these conversations are twofold: the first is that they provide stat boosts for both characters when they are within three spaces of each other. And the other (and more important, at least to me) is that they provide interesting information on each character's backstory.

Now that that's explained, I'd like to comment that the character development in Sacred Stones is paltry compared to that of the original Fire Emblem. In Fire Emblem, the support conversations seemed to matter; many of them had genuinely interesting information, and they served to emotionally attach you to all the 40-something characters in your party (no mean feat, by the way). Sacred Stones, however, absolutely fails to do that. Characters seem like just that: video game characters. You don't care about them, because you don't know anything about them. They are shallow and very one-dimensional, and are very forgettable. It's too bad, really, because more effort in terms of character development would really make this game a whole lot better.

At its core, Sacred Stones is a very similar gaming experience to the original Fire Emblem. And don't get me wrong -- that's not a problem. The entire game play mechanic is easy to learn, but there are so many subtleties that it'll likely take quite a while for you to completely master it.

Like I said, though, the basics of the Fire Emblem are rather simple. Think of it as a huge chess game, without the long waiting times and without all the movement restrictions. There are a countless number of character classes in the game, all of which have special abilities.

The game is divided up into chapters, and every chapter takes place on a new battlefield. Each chapter of the game has a specific chapter goal: some common ones are protecting a unit, routing the enemy, or seizing a throne. To begin each chapter, you must choose the characters that you bring into battle. You also have the opportunity to mess around with each soldier's inventory, consisting of weapons and items (each character can hold only five items at a time). Once you're geared up and ready to go, then it's time to fight.

The battling aspect of the game is divided up into turns: yours, the enemy's and the neutral units', if there are any. On your turn, every unit may move once; the amount of spaces that any unit can move is determined by their move stat. After moving, each character can also then perform one action; actions vary, from using items, magic (both offensive and defensive), or attacking an enemy unit. There are also more complex actions that you can perform, such as rescuing a unit, taking a rescued unit from another character, or dropping of a rescued unit.

What's really fun about the game play mechanic in Sacred Stones is that it requires some strategy if you want to come out on top. First off, it's necessary to carefully move your characters around when maneuvering about the battlefield. Because, of course, after you move, then the enemy gets his turn, and the AI is pretty good. If one of your characters is defeated, he is gone forever. That's right; he's dead. This isn't like Final Fantasty Tactics Advance when if a character drops to 0 HP he's just out for a few missions. Therefore, it's very important to make good strategically decisions when moving your units, so as not to lose any important characters. If your Lord dies (that's Eirika or Ephraim), then you will receive an automatic game-over; however, if anybody dies, you'll still probably find yourself restarting the chapter, just to keep from losing somebody that you like.

But there's more strategy to Sacred Stones than just keeping your units alive. If you hope to be able to defeat enemies, you're going to also have to strategize with respect to your weapons and magic. Both weapons and magic are divided into several general classes, and each class has both a strength and a weakness. For example, a weapon class is the sword class; however, there are many different types of swords, all with different stats.

So, the strategy is in fighting enemies with weapons that they are weak to. The little circle of weapons is as follows: swords are weak against swords but strong against spears; spears are weak against axes but strong against swords, and axes are strong against spears but weak against swords. So, if you're fighting a soldier with an iron lance, it will be advantageous for you to attack with an axe. The exact same holds true for the magic system (the classes of magic are black, light, and anima).

Another pretty cool aspect of the Sacred Stones game play mechanic is the way in which characters will level up and gain new classes. Most of the characters that you obtain throughout the course of the game come at a basic class (some characters that you get late in the game, though, do come in advanced classes). Once a character hits level 10, you have the ability to use an item that will allow him or her to gain a new class. Rather than having one basic class promote into one advanced class, each basic class can in fact promote into two different advanced classes. This ability is really cool because each character is now even more customizable. For example, your cavalier, once he promotes, can become either a Great Knight (fantastic strength, low speed and movement, and great weapon variety)) or a Paladin (great movement, slightly less attack, and only two weapons). Which will you choose? It's all up to you, and your personal playing style.

While the basic game play system is quite solid, Sacred Stones does run into some significant problems. The game is lacking in difficulty, length, and originality, but all three issues are sort of rolled up into one. To begin with, the game is not difficult, nor does it take a long time to beat. Chapters are, for the most part, very easy. You will seldom, if ever, have to play a chapter over again, at least if you're playing on the Regular difficulty setting. If you play on Hard Mode, of course, this will change, but even Hard Mode is not incredibly difficult. The final chapter in particular, as compared to the final chapter of Fire Emblem, is pathetically simple.

Additionally, the game is very short. If you have any idea what you're doing in the game, you can rather easily complete an entire campaign in just 10 or 12 hours. The chapter amount is only in the low 20s, which is disappointing when you consider the fact that the chapter amount in the original Fire Emblem was approaching on 40. Then, in an attempt to make the game longer and supposedly more enjoyable, the developer (Intelligent Systems) added on a few extras.

Both extras involve beating monsters, essentially; they're called the Tower of Valni and the Ladgou Ruins. The Tower of Valni consists of a number of floors, each of which must be cleared in order to progress to the next floor. The Ladgou Ruins, similarly, consists of a number of levels, where you need to defeat all the monsters in one floor before you get to go to the next one. The problem is, these levels are no more difficult than the original game; in fact, killing these stat-dead monsters is easier than most of what you'll play through in the regular campaign.

Then comes in the issue of annoyingly high amounts of repetition. Again, in order to get gamers to spend more time with Sacred Stones, Intelligent Systems threw in some unlockable incentives. If you clear the Tower of Valni of Ladgou Ruins a certain number of times, then you'll get special characters that you would otherwise not be able to play as. To get the final unlockable character, you'll need to play through the entire Ladgou Ruins nearly TEN times. Yes, that's right: ten. I, for one, am totally turned off by the thought of playing the exact same long, boring, and simple dungeon nearly ten times in a row just to get a secret character that I don't even care about. It's ridiculously annoying, very boring, and you'll most likely push the game aside before you actually commit hours to completing what could possibly be the most repetitive task in the history of video games.

Shying away from that huge flaw for now, it's important to mention both the graphics and music in Sacred Stones. The graphics are just about identical to those in the original Fire Emblem. It's not a bad thing, necessarily, because the fighting animations, while very repetitive, are also nice and shot (so you won't get tired of them), and are also pretty cool. And in the tradition of Fire Emblem games, the music in Sacred Stones is absolutely incredible; in fact, it's not that outlandish to suggest that the music is actually the most enjoyable part of the entire game. The sounds range from emotional to epic to just kind of quirky; regardless, though, there are tons of different sounds, all of which you can listen to at your own leisure in the Sound Room.

Finally, Sacred Stones offers some rather paltry multiplayer, just in case you and a friend are bored out of your minds and have nothing better to do. It's no different from the multiplayer mode in the original Fire Emblem, so if you've played that, then you know exactly what to expect. You create a team of your five best characters, and pit them against an opponent's team. This does not take place on a map; rather, it occurs in a sort of arena, where you merely select which unit to engage. It's a mildly entertaining diversion, but certainly nothing to take all that seriously.

Overall, Sacred Stones is somewhat of a mixed bag. The game play mechanics are great, and the plot is also pretty good. The difficulty and length are lacking, which is a disappointment. By itself, though, even those two drawbacks still wouldn't keep Sacred Stones from being a great game. What really hurts this game, though, is the fact that the developers saw those two problems and tried to fix them, mainly just by adding simple, repetitive, and outrageously boring extra content to the game. That aspect of the game, combined with the initial facts of the game being too short and easy to begin with, really cripples what could have easily been a gaming experience as good as the original.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/01/07

Game Release: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (US, 05/23/05)