Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

THE GOOD:
Multiple promotion paths
Amazing animations
Lots of tactical planning needed
Many options available

THE BAD:
Dull cast of characters
Shopping has bee diluted from before
Multiplayer is still terrible

SUMMARY:

Fire Emblem is one long running series of SRPGs that has spanned generations. Sacred Stones sits as the third entry to appear on the Gameboy Advance, and the eigth entry in the series overall. Of course, this applies only to Japan. As far as the majority of the Western audience is concerned this is the second game both to appear on this system and in the series released outside of Japan.

Blazing Sword (a translation of the Japanese subtitle for the previous game) set quite a standard for the SRPG genre and won itself many fans the world over. Sacred Stones aims to...

THE GOOD:
- FE:TSS had various interesting ideas, such as the theory of split promotions - a new idea to the series.
- The portrait graphics have much deeper tones, creating a much darker feel to the game.

THE BAD:
- The innovations were unsuccessful
- Lack of a challenge
- Annoying music
- Terrible character and plot development.
- Smallest choice of characters in any western-released FE

SUMMARY:
Okay, to be honest, this review does look pretty biased, but I do feel it was a major disappointment.

- To be honest, every new innovation failed in one way or another. Many of the promotion choices were relatively one-sided, and the rogue aside, most of the new class are arguably redundant. The map system, whilst a nice idea happened to contain the random battles and the tower, which is often argued to make the game too easy.
- Speaking of too easy, even if you don't use the random encounters, the game...

Now, I love the previous Fire Emblem released for GBA, and Path of Radiance as well. So it truly pains me to see this abomination of a game. There are few games that I've played that have left such a sour aftertaste in my mouth, but I'm afraid that I will have to add FE2, also known as Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, to this list.


I spent my £29.99 on this with joy, hoping to receive a strategy RPG adventure on par with the masterworks that were FE1 and FE3. I've only played up to Chapter 4 so far, but I must say that the developers were on some kind of drug when they were working on FE2.


The Fire Emblem games have always been about challenges; your handful of troops, maybe a dozen or less, against hordes of enemies. But what challenge is there when the enemies have a staggering Speed stat of 0? The lackluster graphics of the FE series have paled in comparison to the PSP's library, and up until now, I've found this tolerable. Up until now. I'm...

The Fire Emblem series will always be a classic, and The Sacred Stones (TSS) will just add to that. First, there is the fact that the game seems very welcoming to beginners. The Tutorial Mode helps new players with their first few missions to get them off their feet and on their way to becoming a great tactician. There is the Tower of Valni, which you can go to any time to level up your characters. The Tower, however, is also a double-edged sword, because it makes the game much easier than most other Fire Emblems, since others in the series have a set amount of levels, and ONLY in those levels can you train your characters.

TSS was the first Fire Emblem game I ever played. However, when comparing it to other Fire Emblem games later, it seemed quite watered down. As stated, "abusing" the Tower of Valni can make it harder for you to adjust when you play harder Fire Emblem games. All in all, compared to others in the series, the bosses were easier, the monsters were...

THE GOOD:
_Number of recruitable characters that all have backgrounds that can be gleaned from Support Conversation
_Excellent dialogue and scripting to create an expressive and realistic world with which the player can relate

THE BAD:
_Some characters start at level 1 when recruited later in the game, thus making it difficult to utelise them.

SUMMARY:
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is a tale of the two royal twins of the duchy of Renais, Ephraim and Eirika. One day the neighbouring duchy, Grado breaches a peace contract and slaughters all those in the palace bar the twins; Eirika who escapes into the night and Ephraim who is already deep within Grado territory. Thus starts the journey to reclaim their kingdom and get revenge.

The storyline primarily follows Eirika as she desperetely struggles to comprehend her situation and locate her brother, who is lost to her within Grado.

To support the princess is a cast of colourful...

THE GOOD:
Sequel to a great strategy game, amazing new attacks, unique new characters, excellent gameplay.

THE BAD:
Storyline is a bit of a bore, this version is much more easier than the first.

SUMMARY:
First off, if you're looking for a good strategy game, look no further. Sacred Stones is the second Fire Emblem to be released in America. What's different about this game is there's new classes. We've got Recruits, Pupils, and Journeymen who are weaker than any other class, but when they reach a high enough level, are allowed to turn into two different classes. Thats whats new, is that when you promote your unit, they can turn into two different classes, to give yourself a balanced team.

Whats fun but also a bad thing, are the Ruins and Towers. A world map has been added, so you can roam freely of the world of Fire Emblem, but whats bad is the monster battles. You can gain so much experience, you can max out your character's levels...

THE GOOD:
This game has a good storyline, and some of the characters are well done. The branching classes make it more interesting, and so do the skills that may occasionally activate. The game is also easy enough for beginners to pick up and play. The supports also enhance the story quite nicely, and most of the music is good.

THE BAD:
However, this game has it's flaws. Most of the characters are never heard from again after you recruit them, and some have annoying personalities anyway. I mentioned that the game was easy... It does get too easy. I overtrained my characters accidentally on my first playthrough, and the final level was far too easy. Getting supports is also a pain, as it takes far too long. The music is mostly good, though the most repetitive and annoying songs are the ones that are played the most.

SUMMARY:
Overall, this is a good game. It will entertain you for many hours. However, If you only have money to buy one strategy...

THE GOOD:
Virutally everything about this game is good.

-It's surprisingly realistic, in many different ways. For example, the characters have many emotions that you can relate to, making them more human. Also, the fact that once you lose a unit, they "die" and are gone forever adds a nice challange to the gameplay.
-The plot is amazingly good. With lots of twists and turns, flashbacks, different characters who are never what they seem to be...makes this one of the best video game plots ever.
-Animations. The various different attack animations are awesome. They are surprisingly detailed, and every unit has AT LEAST two different animations.
-Gameplay. The gameplay is smooth, with no noticeble glitches. The revelations and developements of the plot between battles are a nice way to wind down after the intense confrontations that required much thinking.

THE BAD:
Nothing really bad about this game, except that the graphics could have...

THE GOOD:
- A large amount of weapons.
- The characters are better than the last.
- You can unlock secret characters.
- The monsters.
- Support conversations.
- Large battlefields.
- The game never ends.
- Creature campaign.
- The classes branch and you have a choice.
- A good storyline.
- Easy to get into.

THE BAD:
- The monsters.
- You are still restricted to one color.
- The neutral units have no intelligence.
- The multi-player could be better.

SUMMARY:
Overall this game joined Fire Emblem 7 on gaming shelves. The same gameplay as Fire Emblem 7 and Advance Wars. The graphics became a little better and you had choices. Although they could have made a better game. It just was a little better than the seventh fire emblem. A little better and might get more attention than the last.

THE GOOD:
great storyline... new classes which was needed to beef up the whole, "ROLL THE DICE! I LEVEL UP!! I ROLLED A 14+6 IT HITS!! I LEVEL UP WOOO!! I BECOME A MULTICLASS 4TH.BRD/2ND.FGT".... hope that dont offend any o' you

THE BAD:
the bad parts are if you are good at it the only chalenge is hard mode.. which i started at...and beat it... while.. losing.. about.. 12 guys.. but still!
if you have a fully charged ds and a backup gba, you can beat it in 1 sitting (stretch your legs or you'll hear a pop)

SUMMARY:
the difficulty for one thing was a nice option.. though still not too hard.

the new subclasses (recruit, journeyman, pupil) great.. loved em.. if you start with ross.. he can become more powerful than his father garcia.

you can travel the world map and battle zombies that pose a threat to unarmored comrades.. but are easy when you throw a general or a great knight at em...

still a great title.. you might...