Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones review (Game Boy Advance)

One of Fire Emblem's best, most controversial features is that, despite the fantasy trappings, death in the game is permanent. So if one of your characters is vanquished, your options are to press on, knowing you'll never be able to depend on that character in battle again, or restart the mission from scratch and hope you fare better the next time. An auto-save system prevents you from cheating these rules, too. This design decision may seem a little too hardcore for some, but it ultimately helps make you feel that much more attached to the proceedings and committed to making good decisions during combat. It's also a uniquely interesting and surprisingly personal experience to have to decide which, if any, casualties are acceptable. Some missions can be quite tough--if you lose a trusted comrade on your way to victory, do you move on, content that the sacrifice was not in vain? Or do you try again, certain that there must have been a way to prevent any losses? For what it's worth, you can meet new companions in almost every mission, so there's definitely room to suffer some losses along the way.

Apart from the new character classes, the differences between the previous Fire Emblem and The Sacred Stones are pretty subtle. In the previous game, you actually played as a tactician character who traveled with the story's protagonists, and who enabled a second-person narrative structure--the characters would address you directly at times. That's no longer the case here, which is a change that has no gameplay consequence whatsoever but does alter the style of the storytelling a little. Also, in the previous game, your stash of supplies was handled by a traveling merchant character, whom you needed to protect in battle just like any other character. That's gone, too, and instead, the system is abstracted such that your main characters now have direct access to your army's supplies. There's also a new overworld map that you can travel around. Usually you'll use it just to move from one mission to the next, but it helps make the geography of the game feel a little more alive, and does invite you to visit a few locations off the beaten path. You can even get into random encounters with monsters here, which is actually one of the reasons why this Fire Emblem is a little easier than the last one. When in doubt, you can always get yourself into some more fights and level up a bit before diving into the next mission.

Like its predecessor, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones offers a ton of content and lasting value. The main story mode will take you as long to finish as any good-sized RPG, but on top of that, there's plenty of reason to go back through it multiple times. The nature of the gameplay is such that you'll want to focus on building up a core group of characters during the course of the campaign, so you could easily play through a second or third time while adopting significantly different tactics than you did the first time. Also, as in Fire Emblem, certain characters have affinities for each other and it can be interesting to watch their own little side stories unfold as you make them fight alongside each other in battle after battle. Multiple difficulty settings (available right from the get-go), the branching storyline, and extra options including a link battle mode allowing up to four players to pit their armies against each other further help make this a game that could last you for many dozens of hours.

The only real knock against the game's presentation is that it's so similar to the previous game's. The little cutscenes showing the different units battling each other still look fantastic, featuring impressive, meticulously animated attacks and imaginative character designs. When a unit scores a critical hit, the attack tends to look so powerful as to make you wince. These cutscenes are quick and exciting, but you can opt to strip them out if you're pressed for time or have grown tired of seeing them after many hours of play. The overhead maps remain clear and easy to read, and the game's dozens of different characters each has his or her own animated portrait, which really helps give the cast a lot of personality. At a glance, the game's anime-style artwork may not look particularly special, but the consistency of the art style and the subtle expressions on all the different characters' faces do a lot to create a believable, memorable world. Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones also features a brand new musical score that does a great job of emulating an orchestral sound while also driving the tone of the storyline, and the sound effects of battle remain just as good as the visuals.

Fans of the first Fire Emblem need to track this game down without delay if they haven't already done so. For that matter, pretty much anyone else suffering the drought of new Game Boy Advance releases would be wise to pick this one up. This is a first-rate strategy game combined with a first-rate role-playing game that fans of either style of gaming ought to really appreciate. One could easily assume that a portable game such as this couldn't live up to the depth and quality of a full-blown strategy or role-playing experience on consoles or the PC, but in that case, one would simply be mistaken.