My Review- Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (GBA)
I have a confession to make- up until now, I had never played a Fire Emblem game. The Fire Emblem series is noteworthy in that they were the very first Strategy RPGs, although we only recently started seeing localizations of the games. The Sacred Stones is only the second game released in the US, despite being the 8th in the series. As my introduction to the series, how does it fare?
STORY
As is typical for the genre, Fire Emblem’s story is steeped in the political and military situation between multiple kingdoms. When the kingdom of Renais is attacked by their former ally, the Grado Empire, Renais’s prince Ephraim goes to fight the invaders, but goes missing. His sister, Eirika, manages to escape Ranais with the aid of a loyal knight, and attempts to gain the support of other nations while attempting to find her brother. Along the way, Eirika and Ephraim discover that the Empire is attempting to destroy the Sacred Stones that protect the land from a malevolent demon sealed away long ago.
Sacred Stones won’t win any awards for originality. It’s story is filled with clichés. However, despite this, the simple story is very well told, and the characters, despite their generic roles, are quite endearing. One staple of the Fire Emblem franchise is that the death of a character in battle means that they are lost forever, and because every unit in your army is a fully fleshed out character, you quickly grow attached to them, and losing them can be a saddening experience. I cannot tell you how many times I replayed a difficult mission so that a character could live to fight another day. Sacred Stones is unoriginal, but it’s tale has enough heart to be engaging.
