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What do you like about Sacred Stones?


ruadath
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A lot of the new animations in this game were actually really good. I feel like most of the new animations in FE7 were kind of cheesy and over the top (the lords, but also Assassins). Aside from Ranger, the animations in this one are really smooth and look good too (Wyvern Knight, Great Knight, Rogue).

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Its fun, got a pretty great cast, branching promotions, world map, and i can power level my guys if i want. I like its simplistic, but engaging story. I like how its not Dragon Is Going To Nuke The World thing. (demon king, but still..not durgin)

Joshua and his mighty Hat exist in it too. Whats not to love?

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It was my first FE, so that's a big one. More specifically...

1. It's quick to beat, so I don't ever feel like I need to slog through a bunch of filler levels.

2. The game is rather easy, especially with the arena and tower, so you're free to play however you want.

3. The villains are multi-dimensional. You've got Selena, loyal to a fault. You've got Caellach, a scoundrel you can still sympathize with. You've got Valter, an inhuman monster. Then there's Lyon, probably the best FE has done in terms of sympathetic final boss.

4. The soundtrack is great.

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The personalities within the game.

Lyon's split personalities fighting for control is intriguing, and nearly every ally and enemy character has their own interesting backstory and relationships with other characters. And fucking Valter.

Branching promotions.

The game is easy on the whole but it can be make into a challenge with certain limits and restrictions set on yourself, e.g. no tower usage, no skirmishes, and so on.

Oh and yeah definitely the music.

Edited by Raven
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1. I can run from skirmishes, which leads to. . .

2. Map shopping done right. Certain things are only on sale while playing the chapter.

I wish Chapter 6 was a rout map, simply because it'll rip your team to shreds if you're not careful.

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Everyone else pretty much said everything I wanted to say, so I'll just add that I really like the darker color pallet they chose for this game. It fits the themes of the story and helps to differentiate it from Elibe with its bright pastel colors.

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It isn't a very difficult game to begin with, which is actually one thing I do like about it. Some files I arena whore really hard, while others I will just play through to be decently challenged.

I will say something that I don't think anyone else has said: the game feels like a fanmade hack. What I mean is,

  • the units are "forgettable", much like every made up character in an FE hack. Then you have the likes of Joshua and L'Arachel, who should be important but just aren't.
  • the class choice. I may be wrong, but wasn't this the birth of class choice? (Did not play FE2.)
  • the completeness of different weapons, like Dragon weapons, is something that hasn't been done since Awakening.
  • the monsters in general. That's the most hacked in thing ever.
  • the tower and ruins, plus the overworld all being grind spots. That's really fun.
  • the Wyvern Knight glitch. Honestly seems like a really big oversight, but don't hacks have really big oversights?
  • the story being so one-dimensional - c'mon, you guys have probably made better stories.
  • how out of place FE8 is. It's the last GBA FE game with no follow-up to it - it felt like a quick filler game while IS worked on their first 3D game.
  • the fact that you know who is a bad guy because they have those eyes. You know what I mean.

I think it was the delivery of the game itself along with the game mechanics that sold it for me. I remember dropping FE7 like a rock when I got FE8, although eventually I did the same to FE8 when FE9 came out.

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  • 3 months later...

Ok so...

Characters: While the lords are bland and Mary Sues (with Eprahim being debatable due to combat) the rest of the cast is great. Innes, L'Arachel, Lute, Ross, Garcia, Natasha, Gerik, Forde and especially Joshua are some of my favorite characters in the series. The villains range from complex and interesting (Selena, Orson), unique in motivations (Lyon) or just fun to watch (Caellach, Valter).

Gameplay: While the game is easy, it also introduces one of my favorite mechanics in the series: branching promotions. It also has the map system which is tons of fun, and the maps have some good level designs in them (say all you want about Father and Son, to me that chapter is well designed due to the change in strategy).

Story: it may be simple but some darker elements in the plot like Orson's madness and the fall of Jehanna add a nice touch to it (altough FE7 has the better plot).

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It was my first FE from the 3ds program. I liked the whole new playstyle and the awesome use of classes and map play. The characters were awesome such as Joshua and Gerik who were my best units. It was a blast and I will never forget it. Brawl showed me Fire Emblem, but I never had a FE game. Once the program came out with Sacred stones, my FE adventure began and to this day this is my favorite series. Can't wait till Feburary

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Well, I definitely liked the story and how personal it gets, especially with the flashbacks with the Renais twins and Lyon. It really did a good job at making you feel for the villain and get invested in the emotional struggles Eirika and Ephraim are going through. I especially like a lot of Lyon's lines in Ephraim's story and how tragic they sound, especially with Lyon's quotes to Ephraim before and after their battle in the Final Chapter.

Gameplay wise, I really liked the split promotions, training with skirmishes on the map screen, and Creature Campaign. Adding the split stories in choosing either Eirika or Ephraim, the game gave you a lot of options and freedom. I also found that levelling up/using the weaker characters was much easier to do in Sacred Stones compared to other FE games, especially with the Tower of Valni being available most of the time for unit training.

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Lyon has a multi personality issue. He's in a innoncent mood, to a demonic monster. I feel like he suffers more in Eirika's route and it kills me in the inside. You lost your friend and forced to kill him, while he seems to have somewhat of a free choice in Epharims route while being envious. Lyon made the story one sad and plot twisting scenario. Btw his tome is OP

Edited by Radiance
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I'm probably in the minority but I kind of dislike branched promotions, the choices for which classes to promote to are often more or less one-sided (Wyvern Knight, Paladin, Bishop > Sage, and some more that I can't exactly talk about from experience), I'd rather have the "new" classes implemented via an individual unpromoted class (think thracia axe knights) or something so you're actually going to use them for reasons except like randomly wanting to.

Anyway I just find it a nothing special but good enough game, its lack of difficulty is part of why I don't find it very interesting on replay, but I still had fun with it on my first playthrough because while it's somewhat of a steamroll, it's not the dull type of it and because I played the nice and fun Ephraim route. Randomized FE8 is pretty fun too, but that's the randomizer lol.

Edited by Gradivus.
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I just recently completed this game, and while it wasn't the hardest FE game ever I did really enjoy it. One thing I liked in particular was the characters. I thought L'Arachel was hilarious, it didn't take long for her to become one of my favourites.

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Btw his tome is OP

I'm extremely hesitant to buy this, considering that the damn thing's heavy to the point of unusability... If you're willing to splurge on Body Rings, then maybe, but otherwise, no dice. FFS, it's part of why I consider unlocking Lyon a disappointment.

Edited by Levant Colthearts
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I just recently completed this game, and while it wasn't the hardest FE game ever I did really enjoy it. One thing I liked in particular was the characters. I thought L'Arachel was hilarious, it didn't take long for her to become one of my favourites.

Yeah, although it was not that hard, it was a good game. Idk about you, but Phantom ship on hard is so annoying.

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A few things I like about the Sacred Stones...

Gameplay Mechanics

  • Fog of War
  • The ability to summon phantoms
  • The Dark magic glitch that allows any unit to use Dark magic

Story&Characters

  • Fast Paced, emotionally charged story
  • Relationships between allied units and enemy bosses
  • L'Arachel/Ephraim support/pairing
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  • 4 weeks later...

I like Ephraim and his warrior personality. Gotta piggyback off what everyone else said and agree with Lyon as well. It's a very interesting hero-villain dynamic,

The Demon King is much more of an intimidating/worthy final boss than a mere dragon.

I also love the fact that there's a world map with grind spots, and an Epilogue. The old-school Fire Emblem style doesn't strike my fancy.

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i'm not too good at expressing my opinions, i can't quite put into words why the story and characters stick out to me more than the other GBA games, but they do.

gameplay-wise, though... to me it actually feels like it was trying to do something. sure it wasn't perfect, and it didn't exactly do anything new, but it did more than the previous two.

Binding Blade and Fire Emblem felt too bland to me. they just have the most basic design in the series - they do pretty much nothing that most of the other games don't, but Sacred Stones brings back the world map, branching promotions, and skills (even if they were so limited), and it has its split story paths - it feels like they tried more than with the previous two, and i like that.

but then again i specialize in the first 5 games so i may be missing some things from 6 and 7. honestly they just don't interest me as much as Sacred Stones. it's far from perfect but just barely does things right enough to keep my attention. (disclaimer: my idea of "right" is heavily influenced by my opinions on shouzou kaga so if you're sick of hearing about him then forget everything i said)

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I think SS is one of the best FE games. I haven't played it in ages, but I can still remember my last playthrough pretty well.

It has my favourite plot and second favourite cast of characters (I like Path of Radiance's more) out of all of the FE games and the art style is great, not to mention the soundtrack is <3. The gameplay isn't the BEST, imo, but everything else is pretty darn good. Maybe I should go back and replay it later.

Edited by Matt-hue
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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

It was my first (like many here), so my opinion may be biased toward it a bit. But here's why I absolutely love the game:

1) The plot. IDK how you can grow bored with a plot that is *constantly* moving. Looking at other games in the series, many have battles that you may find yourself asking "why is this chapter here?" The number of such chapters (ignoring grind spots, because grind spots are never intended to expand on the game anyway) are relatively lower in this game than many others. Sure there may be one or two monster chapters that seem unneeded, but when even the early bandit chapters have some significance, I consider that a great feat. After all, compare Sacred Stones Chapters 2 and 3 to Path of Radiance (another game I consider great, so don't think I'm dissing it) Chapters 1 and 2. In Sacred Stones, these chapters aid in explaining just how important protecting Eirika's bracelet is, which is further spurred with Seth's rather frantic mindset when Colm steals the bracelet at the end of Chapter 2. In Path of Radiance, chapter 1 serves as a further tutorial to the inexperienced and shows that the mercs do normal merc work. Then chapter two continues on said merc work. Not necessarily bad, and aesthetically, these chapters are great, but there's relatively little plot in the game by this point.

2) Lovable enemies. Doesn't seem to be that interesting, but when you look at it, the big baddies are rather well fleshed out. Many of them have histories that relate to your own characters. For example, Valter has his backstory as far as how he went insane explained in Duessel and Cormag's supports. Glen is another interesting "enemy". However, I won't spoil it for those who may not have played the particular section in Eirika's story. Selena is loyal to the emperor, despite him not acting normal, for reasons pertaining to him saving her as a child. Even the semifinal boss is one we come to love, who many would rather rescue than fight. And even a few of the lesser-important bosses leave lasting impressions. One that comes to mind in particular is Tirado. I've found myself using Ephraim to absorb as much EXP as possible on the two missions you get to use him up until you fight this tank just so I can use the Reginleif to kill him. Even so, he tends to be among the more difficult bosses of the game, being the first promoted boss and being a GENERAL at that, not to mention having fairly good stats all-around. Riev, however, will always be that creepy old man that we all love to hate.

3) Split routes. This game could not possibly be as complete without the split routes. Each helps to explain from different perspectives what is going on. Granted, the storyline in itself has certain changes depending on which you go, but there are parts of the storyline that one misses out on without playing and understanding both routes. This in itself adds replay value.

4) The soundtrack. I have heard many say in the past that their favorite FE soundtrack was that of Sacred Stones. And with good reason. The soundtrack is constantly building on the mood of the game, if somehow the incredible plot movement didn't do enough of that. Heck, even the makers of Smash couldn't deny it had some good music, and remixed its Battle Prep theme of all things, and usually, in most games, the battle prep themes are one of the most boring (at least imo).

5) Character development. Nearly all the characters, enemies and allies alike, had purpose, and a well-developed personality. A prime example is Joshua. He is so much packed into one character, and is my favorite character in the game because of it. He seems random and minor at first, but this gambling wanderer is much more than first meets the eye. He is respectful, and refuses to attack a woman, especially should she be unarmed. We also find out later that he is prince of Jehanna, but left the palace life to travel and see the world, becoming a swordsman of notable skill in his travels, respected by (and at one time a companion of) even Caellach of Grado's Imperial Six, as well as Jehanna's General Carlyle. Lastly, he is a loving son who, though having left his original lifestyle behind, cares deeply about his mother. Compare this multidimensional character to many of the characters from fates who are defined by a single trait and are rather one-sided, and you'd understand why people love Sacred Stones' characters so much.

There are other points as well, but I think I've done a decent job of showing why this is my favorite game in the series.

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3) Split routes. This game could not possibly be as complete without the split routes. Each helps to explain from different perspectives what is going on. Granted, the storyline in itself has certain changes depending on which you go, but there are parts of the storyline that one misses out on without playing and understanding both routes. This in itself adds replay value.

I agree completely. Even where the story differs, I like how it generally makes sense.

Sure, Amelia's presence in Port Kiris on Eirika's route is a bit odd, as is the presence of Ewan and Saleh in Taizel on Ephraim's route, but everything else makes sense either way.

I admit that I like Lyon better on Ephraim's route (where he's merely insane with power rather than outright possessed), but I appreciate his outright possession in Eirika's route as well.

I also like the brief flashback at the end of Ephraim's route where we actually see what Vigarde was like before his death, when talking to Lyon and Knoll about their predictions.

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I think this point was made on another thread already (in the Fates section) but I think the route split in this game would have been a good opportunity for having a split army like in Radiant Dawn. Of course, most people didn't like the split army, so not sure...

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