Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

"Not as good as FE7 but still a good game."

Introduction

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is the second Fire Emblem game to be released outside of Japan, however it is the 8th game in the overall series. Fire Emblem 8 was made by Intelligent System and supports up to four players in the link arena to one player in the story mode. The game is about 25-30 hours long and you need to play through single player to unlock the link arena. You do not have to beat it, just play.

Graphics

The graphics are great for a sprite based game, If not one of the best at least better than some games I've seen for the GBA. Each class has a unique appearance and each character that you can recruit, as well as each boss has a unique portrait in their status screen for you to look at. Unlike FE7 however, there aren't any CG pictures for us to look at as we play through the game. A little bit of letdown but it isn't a necessity.

Sound / Music

The music of Fire Emblem 8 is decent, at best. Though I did like a handful of songs I found myself changing to my CD player more often than not. You might wish to play with the sound on for the first time you play, however, don't be surprised when you find yourself changing to one of your CDs or even songs that you have on your computer.

The sounds within the game are pretty decent, though with the music I found myself tuning out to them because they just aren't all that great and I have heard better.

Gameplay

The game play is half of what I think Fire Emblem is about. The other half being the story. This game has rather easy to use controls as well as a very light learning curve so most people can easily get into the game. Some of the more complex aspects of the game as well as all the basic are explained if you choose the easy difficulty. There is no tutorial however if you choose normal or hard difficulties, but if you are choosing the latter then you probably don't need one.

Chapters are the main points of the game. In each chapter there is a single story battle for you to take part in to move on with the game, in total there are about 27-30 chapters. However, at a certain point in the game you must choose which path to take in which you miss out on 7 or 8 of those for the game to end at chapter 21. You will have to make two saves at the choosing point or play through the game once more to see all of the chapters. In addition to battles from chapters, players can go to the tower to fight monsters (A new feature in FE7) or fight random monster battles. Late-game, players unlock another area called Ruins to fight in.

Once you are in battle, you'll find that you must select a certain number of characters to participate - One of the two main characters you are playing as is generally a must. On average you can bring 12-13 characters into a battle nad you get about 35, but there are hidden characters you can unlock after you complete the game. Each character can carry up to five items and you get a merchant that can store up to 100. You can configure your team and each unit's items before a battle.

Each character also has their own class. Although there are some duplicates, there are some classes only certain characters can get. Each class has it's own stat caps, promotion items and weapons it can use. The weapons vary from the spear, axe, sword or bow to the Anima tomb, Dark tomb, Light tomb and healing stave. Naturally, physical classes use the former and magic-base classes use the latter. You also get special 'trainee' classes (Only three, one for each set.) that get an extra ten levels to go up before they need to change into a stronger class. Not to mention upon promotion, most classes get the choice of going either one way or the other. However, you'll find that some classes are just utterly useless compared to others and you will probably stick with those classes throughout the game. Unless you are experimenting.

One of the downsides to the battles is that there are only three objectives. You will either have to seize a gate, protect someone or something, or simply kill all enemies on the field. There are little submissions in some missions but they aren't anything too major. Though there is little else you can do for an objective, a few more would have been nice to see.

Another thing that makes the game is the RNG, or Random Number Generator. I both hate and love it, for sometimes it can be nice and give your characters good levels (3-4 stats per level) or it can be evil and destroy your characters utterly and make them useless (1 stat per level, usually HP and in some cases - no stats at all.)

Storyline

The storyline of Fire Emblem 8 is not connected to the storyline of Fire Emblem 7, meaning, it is not a sequel or a prequel and simply a new game in the series. Much like each Final Fantasy is a new game. Fire Emblem 8 revolves around sacred items called 'The Sacred Stones' and the Demon King that was defeated ages ago. There aren't as many twists as the previous game but all in all it is still an enjoyable story.

If you don't like the story however, don't let it stop you from enjoying the game.

Overall

Overall, I give the game 8 out of 10. There was a few things they did that was enjoyable where there were others that weren't so. The music could have been better and making more balancing classes would have been nice, but those are it's only major drawbacks.

Being a semi-long game with a bit of replayibility, I would still advise you to rent this game before you buy. Just be careful not to rid yourself of everything to try and do in the rental time. =\.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/31/05