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What do you like about Sacred Stones?


ruadath
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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 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.

I do agree it might have made more sense and Ewan and Amelia been route-exclusive just as Innes & Saleh and Knoll & Duessel were.

Ah, the one big fraction of plot missing from Eirika's route: Knoll. But then again, Joshua's plot is equally missing from Ephraim. I guess the same goes for the tragedies befalling Selena and Glen. But I s'pose that's why one must play the game through twice to truly understand all sides of the story. (Or in my case initially, I played Eirika's route, and my brother played Ephraim's route, and we watched all the differences over each other's shoulders; yes I'm the wimp who favors Joshua's Eirika's route :P ; my brother's tactical knowledge far outweighs my own)

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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...

I dunno. There just don't seem to be enough characters to make it work - going by the characters you get in the first 2/5 of the game alone, you only have 17.

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Maybe they could create more characters or something? But that might not even be necessary; splitting 8 and 9 and then dividing up the rest of the party among the two routes would work out pretty well, wouldn't it? The only notable problems I foresee are only having one thief and one dancer, but it probably wouldn't be too difficult to introduce a few extra characters into the game.

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Maybe they could create more characters or something? But that might not even be necessary; splitting 8 and 9 and then dividing up the rest of the party among the two routes would work out pretty well, wouldn't it? The only notable problems I foresee are only having one thief and one dancer, but it probably wouldn't be too difficult to introduce a few extra characters into the game.

I doubt it, to say the least.

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The issue being inserting extra characters just to insert them for mechanics purposes rather than for plot. I was a fan of the smaller cast. It made things more personalized, and the only recruitable character who had practically no purpose in the story was Moulder (to the best of my knowledge), because they wanted to introduce healing earlier than Natasha. Plot > Mechanics. This is why I like TSS. They even introduced the Red & Green cavaliers later in the game because it worked better with the story than inserting them early.

Edited by Rethel34
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I don't mean to put down Magvel lovers here, but I have to say that the continent is my second least-liked (Akaneia in first)

I just couldn't care about the story, the gameplay is like the second easiest after FE4 for me even on hard, and the characters are mostly unmemorable, although I shamelessly admit to comparing them to ones in other titles.

The only bright points I enjoyed in the game:

- The reintroduction of skills (Jugdral was the first saga I played and I missed them dearly during Elibe) which I'm glad they brought back, though skipping the Akaneia remakes.

- L'Arachel and the gang brought a smile to my face in an otherwise dull progression of chapters.

- The semi-random Tower and Ruins areas, the latter of which I found to be the only real challenge in the game.

- Monsters added a decent bit of flavor.

I still enjoyed it as an FE title, but that's about where it ends. It occupied my time until FE9 came along. Also Myrrh is a boring dragon.

Edited by Lamia
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- The reintroduction of skills (Jugdral was the first saga I played and I missed them dearly during Elibe) which I'm glad they brought back, though skipping the Akaneia remakes.

This was barely the case, I mean they brought back like 5 skills, of which (IIRC) only Pierce was the only useful one. Also, I think these 5 skills include things like Silencer, which was even present in FE7.

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This was barely the case, I mean they brought back like 5 skills, of which (IIRC) only Pierce was the only useful one. Also, I think these 5 skills include things like Silencer, which was even present in FE7.

some is better than none (I know only the 2 were any good), I was just glad they didn't just throw them away

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The things I liked were:

*Music

*The three super trainee classes

*Lyon and his class (love them animations for necromancer)

*Naglfar magic time

*control enemy bug giving you cool monster weapons

*replayability You had the ruins+tower to go through and you got to unlock more characters. I love how you are able to do stuff post game in this one in my opinion all Fire Emblem games should let you play post game.

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Moulder joins at the same time that Vanessa does, so how much more "screen time" does Vanessa get than Moulder?

Moulder's sole purpose is "heal Ross, because we need a healer"; Vanessa was "rescue Ross and btw, you have an older sister who kicks arse on lower difficulties but sucks on higher difficulties". So while Vanessa wasn't exactly much more important, the having an older sister part gave her more purpose than Moulder.

I don't mean to put down Magvel lovers here, but I have to say that the continent is my second least-liked (Akaneia in first)

I just couldn't care about the story, the gameplay is like the second easiest after FE4 for me even on hard, and the characters are mostly unmemorable, although I shamelessly admit to comparing them to ones in other titles.

So . . . the MC's best friend gets taken over by a demon who is apparently more memorable than the hero who originally vanquished him, destroys all but the tiniest sliver of hope for everyone, and even frigging RESURRECTS, which was the major part of his goal, before finally being defeated. And apparently this isn't a good enough story . . . I don't get what pleases people anymore. Ohthatsright. Scantily clad wyvern riders.

I also found many of the chars to be memorable. But mebbe this is just me . . .

This was barely the case, I mean they brought back like 5 skills, of which (IIRC) only Pierce was the only useful one. Also, I think these 5 skills include things like Silencer, which was even present in FE7.

Slayer on the bishops is one of VERY few ways to finish the final floor of the Lagdou Ruins (the Draco Zombie swarm) with minimal casualties. I count that as useful.

Edited by Rethel34
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So . . . the MC's best friend gets taken over by a demon who is apparently more memorable than the hero who originally vanquished him, destroys all but the tiniest sliver of hope for everyone, and even frigging RESURRECTS, which was the major part of his goal, before finally being defeated. And apparently this isn't a good enough story . . . I don't get what pleases people anymore. Ohthatsright. Scantily clad wyvern riders.

I also found many of the chars to be memorable. But mebbe this is just me . . .

Personally, I kinda agree with her - I have pretty low standards for FE stories, and yet Sacred Stones' story couldn't even meet those. Hell, most of the other FEs that got their stories criticized managed to have better stories imo.

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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Most of my complaints about FE8 are in comparison to FE7, which remains my favorite. I like that FE7 has more chapters and more characters, and that each character has a unique personality as shown in their Support Conversations.

Nonetheless, the last point also holds true for FE8's characters, even though there are fewer of them.

Also, maybe it's just because the Grado Generals get more screentime than the Four Fangs, but the antagonists in FE8 generally have more fleshed out personalities than those in FE7. I think Glen and Selena are more interesting than Lloyd and Linus, for example, and Lyon is much more interesting than Nergal (especially on Ephraim's route, when he manages to hold onto a few vestiges of his sanity). Even with the secret information about Nergal from Hector's tale (which you have to dig much deeper to find than anything in FE8), at best he breaks even with Lyon.

The fact that Lyon is about the same age as Eirika and Ephraim is another point in favor of FE8; nearly every main antagonist in any FE game is at least twenty years older than the protagonist, so it's nice to have a villain who is much closer in age to the protagonist. I think the only other main villains who are so close in age to the protagonist are Hardin from FE3 and Arvis and Julius from FE4.

Edited by Paper Jam
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lol Hardin barely looks it, though, by the time the Dark Side gets done morphing him XD

Indeed, there's only one FE game (or rather, pair of games that form the same story) that I feel has fleshed out some of the enemies in a way FE8 did, or maybe moreso, and that's the Tellius series. When you consider the fact that Lehran and Ashnard, two of the major antagonists, get their way EVEN WHEN YOU WIN, it's kinda funny.

The Imperial Six are a major part in the story, and the fact that they are so in-depth, particularly Valter, Caellach, and Selena, makes me wonder why people don't like this game a bit more.

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Lyon is my favorite FE villain. They say a good villain makes a good plot, and though FE8 is still big country invades little country, Lyon as a character saves it completely.

Eirika is one of my favorite FE characters. I love her relation with Lyon and her general personality.

Map design is mostly excellent, even if enemies eventually just keel and die.

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  • 4 weeks later...

One thing I would applaud Sacred Stones for is its villains. They really come in all flavors from completely insane, to evil, to noble figures forced to do evil. Caellach also strikes a nice grey area within the villains. He's evil while still clearly being sane and even if he's evil he doesn't really relish in his villainy. He just wants to become king and if anyone stands in his way then to bad for them. Mere opportunism isn't something we see a lot in Fire emblem villains.

Lyon never worked so well for me as he does with other people. I don't know why because I do see what people like so much about him and I don't disagree with it.

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Mere opportunism isn't something we see a lot in Fire emblem villains.

Arvis says hi. But still, Caellach is a great villain, especially because he responds to the other Gemstones with snark, even Riev. Speaking of, I like Riev as a villain because his entire motivation is based on his saltiness on being excommunicated. Not even exiled, just excommunicated. Yes, a lot of FE villains are petty, but not once did he ever fear for his life, nor does he fear anything at all. He's bad and knows it, and he doesn't care if he lives or dies, so long as his false god returns to reap the living.

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I like the hilarity of having a general that can double everything in the game after only 3 chapters of feeding. Amelia might be a waste of time, but the sheer comedy value of a unit like that is too much to pass up.

I liked the layout of ephriam's maps, the last 2 eirka maps, and the maps after the routes merged. The awful growths on the enemy units hold them back, but they are actually pretty comfortable to move around in, and the enemy phase isn't too reliant on hitting you in one spot+GBA time pressure with green units and villages. Orson and Selena tricked me into thinking I was doing it wrong and could recruit them. They didn't read "bad guy" as much as the other people. My most remembered scene is just the early eirka chapter where you save the civilians from a spider: if any other lord said, "I don't believe you see our people as animals to be killed" I'd probably be annoyed, but it felt genuine with eirka(although her naiveness in later chapters doesn't work so well). And I guess the generic boss's reply is cartoonishly evil instead of bringing her down to reality.

Coincidentally I think it's the only FE game where I never turned the music volume down. Didn't stick out at the time, but it's true.

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Arvis says hi. But still, Caellach is a great villain, especially because he responds to the other Gemstones with snark, even Riev. Speaking of, I like Riev as a villain because his entire motivation is based on his saltiness on being excommunicated. Not even exiled, just excommunicated. Yes, a lot of FE villains are petty, but not once did he ever fear for his life, nor does he fear anything at all. He's bad and knows it, and he doesn't care if he lives or dies, so long as his false god returns to reap the living.

I wouldn't say Arvis is a case of opportunism. He ruthlessly seizes them when he can but Arvis is an idealist. He wants a peaceful world where no one will be persecuted and he is willing to dirty his hands to get it.

Caellach on the other hand doesn't have any noble intentions for his crown or any intentions with it. Caellach wants his crown because he just wants to be king, not because of what he could do with his kingship.

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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I like how it's almost a modern version of Gaiden. There's the monsters, branching paths with two different lords, trainees (villagers in gaiden) and even certain skills like Slayer. What else I like about FE8 is the amazing characters and introducing split promotions to the series.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm new to fire emblem games and I like FE 8's storyline. Honestly, FE 7's story was lack luster. I've actually tied out FE 6 and I think I like it more storywise. Might be my love of mercenaries (FE 6 gives me one on Ch 2, SWEET). Raven was the best character of FE 7, I'd have made him the lord if I could.

I've played both routes now and I like Erika's route the most. Yes, Erika's route is a bit easier, mostly due to more open maps and lacking stave spamming but honestly, Ephriam is not much harder but more annoying. Grr, corridors of hell. lol. I feel the story progress more naturally on Erika's route and I like the character development better. Granted this is probably because I think Jousha is awesome. lol

I even felt Erika was more useful right from the start (just 1 STR level up to ORKO bandits in CH2) unlike Eliwood or Roy.

I was worried that maybe Fire Emblem wasn't my thing but having tried out a bit of the GBA games, Path of Radiance, and FE 12. I'm think I just didn't care for FE 7. It just felt really bland.

I think I much prefer battles between nations than assassin wave #2036. Seriously, OMG, how many soldiers does the black fang have? lol

I think I can see why Path of Radiance is so liked. WOW, Ike and friends can take more than 2 hits before dieing on hard. Amazing. I prefer a more gradual increase in difficulty than getting two shot from the start. And yet normal is a bit too lacking in challenge. I know, I'm picky. lol

Edited by wissenschaft
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  • 4 months later...

I love Sacred Stones for a few reasons.

I actually very much dislike Ephraim and Eirika, yet this game is still my favorite GBA Fire Emblem. Ephraim seems too much of an overpowered guy, and Eirika is just kind of dumb/useless a lot of times. Which is a shame, because the storyline in this game was good.

My first reason is the villain of the game. Lyon is probably my favorite FE Villain (sorry Black Knight). He has actual personality, and was a great friend to the main characters, making you able to see actual emotion from the Lords. It's no longer just a "Let's save the world" situation, it's a "Let's get revenge for our friend."

I also love the idea of Trainee units, which I wish they had brought back for FE14 (NO MOZU IS NOT A TRAINEE UNIT). The idea of getting to promote twice and get even more of a choice on how a unit turns out is an interesting concept, although I can understand why they didn't include them, since Heart Seals and such are a thing now.

FE8 also felt like it heavily influenced later games, such as the world map, encounters, and different routes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ohh man here we go.

One of the pinnacle reasons I was interested with Sacred Stones was the characters. Eirika and Lyon's interaction is so sweet yet so depressing. Lyon is one of the villains I particularly love throughout the game (his gentle personality!) Oh yeah, and the demon king hehee (he screwed everything up. Yay.)

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