With Halloween just around the corner, I think it’s time for the monster killing game of the series, Fire Emblem Sacred Stones. From zombies and giant spiders, to a final boss demon sealed into several stones, this game brings out the lighter version of the post-apocalyptic world of monsters.

Sacred Stones follows Eirika and Ephraim, Princess and Prince of Renais, as they fight Grado after being invaded under orders of Emperor Vigarde. Ephraim fights his way through Grado territory trying to distract the enemy army so Eirika could escape.

Eirika on the other hand, starts out as the main character, trying to escape from her kingdom in an effort to get to Frelia, a neighboring kingdom and an ally with Renais, after which she finds that her brother is still fighting Grado in the heart of its country, so she decides to fight more until she meets up with her brother. Along the way, they find monsters, only thought to be a legend.

Meanwhile, Ephraim fights his way through Grado, low on supplies and weapons but not on courage. Using small numbers and deception to win and escape, he is betrayed by Orson, one of the veterans in his ranks. Orson leads Eirika into a trap on false information that the Grado army had captured Ephraim.

The two are reunited and head back to Frelia, where they find the true goal of the Grado army: to destroy the Sacred Stones, holy stones that once sealed the demon Fomortis away 800 years ago.  This refers to the monsters appearing as the seal on Fomortis has begun to weaken. The two then split up and take two different approaches to dealing with Grado. Ephraim volunteers himself to go into Grado territory again, while Eirika goes to Jehanna to request assistance. After arriving at the locations and annihilating the Grado armies that guard the palaces, they discover that Lyon, prince of Grado, is the mastermind behind the whole scheme. Afterwards, they regroup in Jehanna and deal with the remainder of the monsters and Grado army, finally arriving at Renais again, releasing the true power of the bracelets that they were given by their father, King Fado, promoting them and allowing access to their sacred stone.

Unfortunately, Lyon takes advantage of their kindness, and shatters their sacred stone, so they go to Rausten to acquire their stone, and finally facing off with the demon’s body by sealing his soul inside the last stone.

This game takes back to the second Fire Emblem game, Gaiden, and employs several of the old mechanics in the game. The first is a traversable map, allowing the player to go back to former locations and purchase weapons from that place if they need it. For example, most classes, when they promote, start with an E rank in their new weapon, so a player might go back into an earlier location to buy the items that they need to build up the rank to their current level of weapons. The only problem with this is the fact that the shop’s items from the map are different from when you buy them from the battlefield. Another thing is that after the game is finished, some stores also change their stocks, in particular the secret shops in Grado or Jehanna. One thing that players can buy there is Stat up items, one use items that permanently increase a specific stat by 2 points, except for HP which goes up 7 points.

This however, reduces the value of a perfect unit. Usually, a player would be proud to have a perfect unit because that meant that they were lucky, but in this game, a perfect unit doesn’t mean as much. Not the biggest downside of the game but as a Fire Emblem Perfectionist, this does bug me.

Originally in Gaiden as well were monsters and skirmishes. On the map, either after completing a chapter; going into the Tower of Valni; the Lagdou Ruins; or just letting time pass between playing the game, a monster sprite would appear at a location. Mind you not all locations were able to have monsters on them. Only places that had monsters could be places for skirmishes. In these battles, players would fight against a group of monsters and gain gold from drops. The main enemy boss was the sprite used on the map, so if the sprite was a Minotaur, the boss would be a Tarvos. The monsters were: Renevants- Entombeds; Bonewalkers -Wights (skeletons using any physical weapons except axes); Tarvos- Maelduin(horse units with axes and bows for the promoted form); Mogal- Arch Mogal (dark magic); Cyclops (Axe wielding giant) to name a few. One of the greatest things about a skirmish with an enemy boss that had weapons was that they might drop it for the player. This means that early on in the game a player could get a Spear; a Runesword; a Tomahawk, or a Longbow. Of course the player could also get another basic weapon, but it’s worth the gamble to get those kinds of weapons early.

One of the main new aspects of the game is the split story. When Eirika and Ephraim spilt up, the player has the choice of who they want to go with. The main difference is when the player recruits certain characters. For example, on Ephraims route, the player will recruit Cormag, the Wyvern Rider of the game, in Chapter 10, but for Eirika’s route not until Chapter 12. One where characters are recruited earlier on Eirika’s route are Innes, Tethys, Gerik, and Marisa in Chapter 11. Marisa is recruited in Chapter 12, Gerik and Tethys in Chapter 13, and Innes won’t be recruited until Chapter 15 on Ephraim’s route. Also, some units will come with different items or different levels. Innes and Duessel, the two early recruitment exclusive characters, will come at higher levels when recruited later. Also on each story are two chapters, Chapters 11 and 12 that come back to back, meaning that the player will have no time to rest between those two: they’re stuck with what they have. This is where the game made one of its biggest mistakes: the arenas.

Arenas have been a staple for Fire Emblem ever since the first game. An arena works as so: the player moves a character to an arena tile; they enter and either pay a certain amount of money or exit and enter until they decide get an amount that they like; then they enter into a battle where the character fights until either character is defeated, or the player forfeits. If the player loses, then the wager is lost, but if the player is victorious, the character gets EXP just like a regular battle, and the wager is returned to the player times two. So, if a player won a battle that cost 680 Gold, he/ she would get back 1360 Gold. This was the main way to earn massive amounts of gold in those chapters as well as get units that the player was using a lot more EXP, so the other enemies wouldn’t go to waste because the higher level units were being EXP hogs. Later games, instead of letting the player fight multiple rounds, allowed each character could only fight once per turn, but this didn’t hamper most people’s ability to use the arenas. Healers, while unable to enter the arena because they couldn’t fight, could get more EXP for healing the other units that just came out of the arena, thus every turn they’d gain EXP for healing.

My main problem with the arenas in this game comes not from their difficulty, but from the number of arenas that were in the game. In Fire Emblem 6, there were 5-6 arenas in the game, but in Sacred Stones, a game of similar length going 21 chapters long, there were only two arenas in each story. The first one was on Chapter five, which was nice, allowing some characters to level up to the max, but with no promotion items at that point, this arena had limited use. The second arena’s location was different for each story: on Eirika’s story, the arena was on Chapter 10 right before the back to back chapters, whereas in Ephraim’s story, it was on Chapter 12, the second chapter of the back to back chapters. This gives Ephraim’s characters a huge boost as they most likely would be higher leveled and the player would have more money, but again the same problem persists. No arenas come at a good time. it is unlikely the player will have much to bet for the first one, and for the second one, especially for Eirika, few promotion items have been discovered. The arenas have much more limited usage than in Fuuin no Tsurugi or Rekka no Ken, where the arenas are more bountiful and more usable. The main reason however, is the Creature Campaign which can be considered a substitute for the arenas.

Another new feature is the Creature Campaign, a game feature that starts after completing the main story of the game. Two locations: the Tower of Valni which opens after Chapter 8 right after the story spilt, and the Lagdou Ruins opening after completing the game, become new spots for monster hunting. While the player can visit the Tower of Valni any time during the playthrough to gain EXP, the Campaign bonuses only take effect after the game. In each location, the player is challenged to a gauntlet of monster battles, much like the skirmishes on the map, but the difference is that while the map bosses are random, the Tower of Valni and Lagdou Ruins have the same bosses for specific floors. The weapons may change, but the boss will not. Also, during the campaign, when a player completes up to a certain floor or completes a location 3 times (yes completing the tower or the ruins 3 times) the player will be rewarded with a secret character, much like the trial maps from Fuuin no Tsurugi. Out of the 10 secret characters, 6 of them were enemies, and the rest were NPCs, and all except one are dead as of the final chapter. These characters are already high level with little chance of maxing out any stats, but they do come with an A rank in every weapon they can use, so Fado who is a General has an A rank in Swords, Lances and Axes. Hayden, the only secret character remaining alive at the end of the game, is a Ranger with an A rank in Bows and Swords. This base however, is somewhat wasted by their low growing potential, fixed by buying the stat ups, but more so is that they can only get on S rank, the maximum rank for any weapon. With the other characters, it’s less pronounced because when they promote, they only get an E rank in their new weapons, just like I mentioned before. While this feature is nice, it still doesn’t even out the few limited arenas.

The game is also the first to have two new additions to the promotion tiers: trainees and branching promotions. First the trainee units are akin to Baby Pokémon like Pichu and Magby, they are the beginning units. They start out weak, and by that I mean really weak, but they have the chance to become the stronger of your units. They also have more potential because they get to become one of two classes in their set when they reach level 10. The first is an Axe trainee named Ross. Ross has the typical stat growths of an Axe unit, but with the bonus of either changing into a Fighter like his father, or becoming a Pirate, the only one in the game. The second trainee is Amelia, a Lance wielding Recruit, who can change into a female Knight or Cavalier. The last Trainee is Ewan, a Pupil who can become either a Mage to further his Anima Abilities, or to a second Shaman, gaining the Dark arts in exchange for his Anima magic. Note that Ewan’s promotion is one of the few exceptions to the E rank to new weapon rule because there are no E rank Dark tomes, which is the oddest thing to me.

Another promotion they get is not to change their class names. By going through each story once in any mode, the player has the choice to make their trainee into a basic class but the same name. For Ross, he can become a Journeyman; Amelia becomes a Recruit, and Ewan becomes a Pupil. These again lead to the “Super Trainee” class, which again has the same name but with a special bonus that comes along with the class. The only one that has no actual potential, unfortunately, is the “Super” Journeyman. This class gains a Critical bonus, but it’s essentially like the Berserker class, with a lower strength cap. However, this does not match with Ross’s strength growth, which at the cap the Journeyman gives, maxes out at level 10, leaving much too much room ungrown. Amelia becomes a Super Recruit, which gives the same kind of Bonus to critical as the Journeyman. However this class gives Amelia the best Speed cap out of all her class choices. With Amelia’s Speed growth, she uses the 28 point cap to its best efficiency level, as opposed to the 24 average cap that she has, or the 23 cap for the General. Ewan’s promotion to Super Pupil, while not adding any critical bonus, allows him to use all three Magic types. Essentially, he becomes an Archsage class from the previous game, but without the use of Staffs. While this may be the best class in terms of versatility, the stat caps are not truly the best, as the Sage class has better offensive caps and the other classes make him a viable healer. This, combined with the fact that all units can only get one S rank for all their weapons, being able to use the other magic types doesn’t give him enough room to build them up.

As somewhat mentioned in the previous paragraph, the other addition to the game is branching promotions, allowing each character to change into two different classes when they promote, except for Eirika and Ephraim. Using the Trainee units for example, Ross either changes into a Fighter or a Pirate; Amelia into either a Knight or a Cavalier, and Ewan into a Mage or a Shaman, but it’s not just for the Trainees. The Fighter class can go either to a Warrior or to a Hero; the Troubadour becomes either a Valkyrie or a Mage Knight; Cavaliers become either Paladins or Great Knights. Now, with this increase of choices for units to transform, they added new units. The units they added were: Mage Knight, a mounted magic unit akin to the Valkyrie of the past games; Great Knight, an armored mounted unit that could use all of the Physical weapons except Bows; Summoner, a dark magic user who could summon an ally Phantom unit, akin to the druid of former games; the Rouge, an upgraded thief capable of opening doors without a lockpick, and a Wyvern knight, the flying unit with only lances and a dangerous skill. They also changed some units’ choices of arsenal: Valkyrie uses Light magic instead of Anima; Paladins no longer could use Axes, while Generals gained the use of Swords, and Sages and Druids each gained Light magic and Anima magic respectfully.

Some units also got skills, a feature from Fire Emblem 4 and 5, giving certain units an advantage in battles. Rouges had the Lockpick ability. Generals gained Great Shield, which nullified an attack. Summoners had Summon ability. Assassins once again had Silencer/ Lethality. Snipers had Sureshot, which when activated made the attack have a 100% hit rate. Wyvern Knights had Bierce, a skill which nullified the Defense of the opponent when activated. Bishops had their own skill as well for the Creature Campaign, Slayer, which tripled their damage output against monsters.

Now with all the new classes, there was bound to be some unevenness between all the classes, as well as some redundancies. One of the biggest inequalities is the General and Great Knight. Both classes can use the same weapons, but the General has both better stat caps and the Great Shield skill, causing the difference between the two classes to be very large.

The Sniper class has the Sureshot skill, but the class has the highest Skill cap as well as using weapons, Bows, that are very accurate, so the Sure hit bonus is somewhat wasted, even more so with the buyable Stat up items. The Bishop and Valkyrie, and similarly the Sage and Mage Knight Classes fall under the same imbalance of bower. Both the Bishop and Valkyrie can use the same Light magic and Staffs, but the Bishop has Slayer and a better Resistance cap. what the Valkyrie does get over the Bishop does not make it anywhere near making the classes even. Similarly, the Mage knight uses Anima and Staffs, but the Sage has Anima, Staffs, AND Light. Another thing between these two classes is the type of unit their caps allow: the Sage is a more offensive class having higher Magic, Skill, and Speed caps, whereas the Mage Knight has better Defense and Resistance Caps, and better Build rate. Again, this comes down to high AS high damage, or better surviving ability.

So, that’s it for Sacred Stones. Join me in future reviews, as I cover Path of Radiance and also some Character Spotlights, featuring Characters that either appear in Awakening or just ones that I like.