This was my first Fire Emblem experience, and I really didn't know
anything about this game before I bought it, other than it was an RPG
and I needed a game for my brand new GBA (first title I bought too) so
I was pleasantly surprised how it turned out.
----------Battle System----------
Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones is a turn-based strategy rpg. At the
start of a chapter you get to pick and choose your party before going
into battle. Some characters are pre-selected for you as they're part
of the storyline, but the rest is completely customizable. The parties
size will vary depending on the chapter, so for example you could get
14 characters to battle in one chapter or 10 in another. Once the
chapter has started and your parties are assembled, your characters are
set on the map (you don't get to place them on it). The game uses a
grid system, similar to that of a Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre
battle grid system (which ironically the Fire Emblem series pre-dates
both of them).
The game's turns are set in rounds, so you move and attack with
all of your characters first, then sit back and watch the enemies
attack. When you initiate a battle with an enemy, your character is on
one side and the enemy is on another, similar to the opening to a
fighting game like Street Fighter 2. Your character will take 1 or 2
hits (depending on the weapon and his speed) at the enemy, and if the
enemy is still alive, he will get a counter turn to swing at you. When
it's the enemies turn to battle you, the fight will have the enemy
attack first and your character will get the counter. With this system,
even though the enemies are attacking you, your party could technically
wipe out half of the enemy forces without even moving (I've done it!).
The weapon system is kind of unique to me. You don't equip armor
or weapons in this game, but rather your character has 5 item slots.
You can put various healing items or weapons into the slots, but you
don't technically equip them. It depends on what class your character
is on what weapons they use. Each weapon has a number of uses it will
prefer before breaking. Each time you attack with that weapon, the
number will drop. The weapon you used last will the weapon you use
during the enemies attack. The battle system has a rock-paper-scissors
style to it. Swords top Axes, Axes top Spears, Spears top Swords, so
there's plenty of strategy within the game.
You gain experience for every little attack you do, including
counterattacking. Your character gains a new level at every 100
experience points. All your characters start off with a pre-determined
class, but eventually you'll find an item that can change their classes
if their level is high enough. You can't buy these items, and they're
sometimes rare to find, so changes classes is a slow process compared
to Final Fantasy Tactics. Some characters might only change their class
once. When you do finally have a chance to change their class you get
an option between two related classes.
Chapters will start you off with pre-determined goals, such as
"Kill all enemies", "Survive" or "Defeat the boss". In most cases
you'll probably be trying to kill everything on screen until you reach
the boss of the map. The boss won't move until your characters get
within fighting distances from him. Bosses are usually about 3 times as
strong as the other enemies on the map, but if you swarm him with 5
characters he'll usually go down without much resistance, just pray he
doesn't kill one of your characters with his turn. After you defeat the
boss, you usually have to siege the land, which for the most part is
always a waste of time.
On the maps there are various obstacles like fire, swamps that can
reduce your characters grids, or mountains that can stop your character
all together. They're also houses your character can stop at to get
advice, additional story or an item. You can even stop at shops and buy
stuff during the chapter. There are also rocket launchers you can pit
your character inside and start taking out enemies at a distance, which
is very cool.
The biggest thing that separates Fire Emblem from other RPGs is
when your characters HP drops to zero they are DEAD. No turning back,
no revive spells, no phoenix downs, your character is gone. You can
however restart the chapter if you want to preserve your characters
life, but battles can take up to 40 minutes, if not longer, so that's
alot of time just for one character. I tried to keep all my characters
alive until the end, but I eventually gave up around chapter 19.
----------Characters / Story----------
You play as Eirika and Ephraim, twin brother and sister. You are
the Princess and Prince of the kingdom Renais, when your kingdom is
suddenly blitzkrieged into war by former ally Grado. The Grado empire
is after each countries sacred stones to destroy them. Eirika and
Ephraim must go out and resist this evil empire by banding the other
countries together.
I loved the story, and by god there is alot of it. The dialog
scenes can take up 15 minutes of your time, and sometimes more (I use
to play this on my break at work, but couldn't even finish a dialog
scene during that break!). I love the whole desperation of war aspect
of the story, which reminded me alot of the early days of World War II.
I think the game could of used less dialog, they can endlessly babble
on for to long.. but hey, who am I to complain? Also there's alot of
characters that get lost in the shuffle once you get more, and they
become less and less important to the story.
----------Graphics----------
For the most part, the graphics are very impressive. So I'll do
the bad part of them first. There's a lack of variation on the maps in
this game, it's either a field or inside of a castle, with an
occasional marsh or mountainous area thrown in. The maps are in 2D and
seriously look like crap. While Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Tactics
Ogre and other Strategy RPGs for the GBA are still 2D they give a 3D
feeling to them that look current and update. The maps on this game
still look like an NES game. The maps are completely flat, so the
mountains look just like the trees and so on. You'll only know if you
can walk over them if the grids allow you do, so I barely pay attention
to my surroundings and just pay attention to my characters grids.
On a more positive side, there's a TON of characters in this game.
Most of them have dialog scenes, you can recruit a bunch of characters
for your party, and each recruitable character and enemy are carefully
rendered into the battle sequences. The characters look about 100xs
better than what they're shown on the map, for example they look like a
NES game on the map and look like a SNES game on the battle scenes. The
moves and attacks can be HUGE at times, which are extremely fun to
watch and find out, especially the critical attacks. The dialog scenes
are just the upper parts of the characters bodies talking to each other
from left to right with a nice looking background on display. The
characters eyes will blink and their mouths will move, so they're
pretty animated. I've seen atleast 4 characters on screen at a time
during dialog scenes.
----------Sound----------
I love just about everything about the music. Once you unlock the
music, you can go into an "Extra" menu and listen to anything you want
again without interuptions. The dialog has the standard Nintendo text
noise that gets on my nerves, I'm pretty sure you can't remove it.
----------World Map----------
The world map is a connect the dots Super Mario 3 type map. Each
chapter in the game is represented as a dot on the map, since your
party is constantly moving across the continent, never backtracking.
Between chapters you can venture back to any dot on the world map. If
you saved a shop in the previous chapters or the enemies didn't destroy
the shop, then you can always go back between chapters and buy from
that shop again. There's two sidequests on the map that will unlock on
the map. Monsters show up on the map aswell, they don't move across it
though, they just block your way. The further you get into the game the
dots start to connect more and it will be easier or faster to walk
through, but I rarely had a reason to go back.
----------Time to Complete Game (first run through, last save before credits)----------
23:45:00
Total Turns: 334
I only played Eirika quest. After you beat the game, watch the
ending and watch the credits, you get to find out what happened to all
your recruited characters. It will also tell you when those characters
died. The game will show how many moves you did in total and in each
chapter aswell. Other than that, there's no secrets unlocked, but you
can replay it with Ephraim.
