"Not great, not horrible... But good."

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is my second game in the Fire Emblem series. To be frank, the first one was better, but I'll go over why I think so, and also why I still think Fire Emblem: TSS is a worthy purchase for any GBA/SP/DS owner.

Gameplay:
As all of us should know, gameplay is the flesh of any decent game. Fire Emblem lacks no major flaws, yet presents no major innovations. You progress through the game in the story; of course. FE takes place with chapters- each chapter being a battle. There are different objectives that range from defeating all enemies to protecting a specific unit for a designated amount of turns. This leads to a nice variety of gameplay.

Sadly, there isn't as much strategy to Sacred Stones as there was in the past iterations. Don't misunderstand, though; you won't win any battles by arbitrarily attacking anything you see. You moves your units in a grid map. Every time you attack, get attacked, or kill an enemy the unit involved gains exp. Get 100 exp and level up. Quite simple, but it can be addictive.

Audio:
The battle themes suit the mood perfectly, and don't sound muffled at all, like other GBA games. The FX sounds aren't bad, but nothing to write home about. I'd write more about audio, but there isn't much on the count of this is a GBA game, and I don't pay too much attention to it anyways, I look for good gameplay.

Graphics:
The graphics won't wow anybody, but they're not terrible. Cutscenes take place with a background , and character sprites talking to each other. The units on the grid map are very basic too, but since this isn't on a console it's passable.

Story:
The story is fairly cliche and basic. For ANOTHER time, it's 50/50; not good, not bad, just okay. You are princess whom wants to reunite with her twin brother and avenge her fathers death from the suddenly evil Grado empire.

In closing, I'd like to say if you're looking for a good week-long game and have 35 dollars laying around, go out and buy Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/26/05