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| From: Nintendo
Category: Video Games
List Price: $29.99
Buy Used: $13.99
You Save: $16.00 (53%)
New (22) Used (19) from $13.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  52 reviews
Sales Rank: 2666
Platform: Game Boy Advance
ESRB: Everyone
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 5 - 20 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 5 x 4.8 x 1
MPN: agb p be8e
Model: GANIN 045496735203
UPC: 827307902628
EAN: 0827307902628
ASIN: B0007ZSHOY
Release Date: September 8, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Average story, challenging and fun. June 11, 2007
I really enjoy strategy games. It was a mistake to play on Hard, because it was too difficult. There is very little room for error, so you can lose some characters easily. Still, I enjoyed this game and recommend it to strategy fans.
 Nintendofan June 10, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I really like this game. It's fun, but some levels will get tedious because you will have to redo them several times to win. I like the fact that you can revisit locations even after you finish the chapter. Splitting the storyline in the middle gives a good reason to replay the game.
 Solid but not groundbreaking gameplay. May 21, 2007
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is a tactical role playing game. The gameplay is similar to the Advance Wars series, but the setting is a standard fantasy world. Basically, you move a variety of units across a terrain board to fulfill a specific goal and complete the mission.
Some players may find the long sections of dialogue tedious, but the exposition is designed to explain the plot and provide motivation to finish the missions. Unfortunately, this makes for a linear storyline and at least in the first few hours of gameplay, the player has no freedom to deviate from the setup.
The job system is not nearly as deep as that in Final Fantasy Tactics or even FF Tactics Advance, but there is some growth and weapons customization. Players may be annoyed by weapons breaking after a certain number of strikes. Also, because of the rock/paper/scissors system, a normally powerful character might struggle with a lesser enemy simply because the wrong weapon is equipped.
The battle map graphics are good and fairly clear, although the character sprites are small and sometimes hard to distinguish. The music is better than average. I have not completed the game, but guessing at the number of hours it takes to complete, Sacred Stones is probably a good value.
Overall, this is a solid game and if you like tactical RPGs you will enjoy it.
THE BEST May 2, 2007
this has to be my favorite gba game of all time. it kinda stinks though that if a guy dies. he dies and he does not come back. i sugest that you also buy an a gameshark so that you can make sure your guys live to see tomorow. overal great plot and storyline. i just love it.
My first favorite Strategy RPG. February 24, 2007
I will admit that, overall, the strategy-RPG genre has been very hard for me to get into. My first entry into the genre was with Tactics Ogre on the Gameboy Advance, which I thought was merely O.K., yet not enough for me to keep (that says a lot, since I rarely get rid of games). Final Fantasy Tactics on the PS1 I found rather... unbearable, to be quite frank, since it seemed to me to require more tedious power-leveling (e.g. beefing up your character's strength) and less strategy.
Considering these views I had of the genre, it's easy to see how I could be apprehensive about getting another one, not to mention I wasn't too keen on Advance Wars either (which actually shares some similarities to Fire Emblem, including the same developer). Suffice to say, I was pleasantly surprised twice over!
For those that don't know, Fire Emblem is, at its core, a turn-based strategy game in which you control a small army to complete certain objectives, which of course means you'll often fight your way through plenty of enemies. Initially you start with your main character, which in this game is Eirika (you have the option to switch to Ephriam after a handful of missions). As the game progresses, more and more characters will join your group--some automatically, some after you talk to them with the right character (the game will sometimes drop hints about who should talk with who by using dialogue)--which each have strengths and weaknesses of their own. For instance, in what has been dubbed the "weapon trio," there is somewhat of a "rock, paper, scissors" format. In this case, sword beats axe, axe beats lance, and lance beats sword. Bear in mind that it isn't nearly as simple as that. This only determines the initial advantage one has over the other, but a character's strength can be enough to go against the grain of this. Not to mention there are a few other items that have their own unique properties that are more or less effective depending on what they are used against, but the game does an extremely good job of telling you all these nuances and even has a guide handy that is accessible during missions with quick, concise info. In fact, pretty much anything you can highlight with the cursor has a quick access help topic associated with it that's as simple to use as pressing the R button--everything from getting info on ally or enemy units, right down to something as dumb as finding out what certain terrain does.
Being able to learn the ins and outs of the game in such an easy manner is certainly a good thing, because there is one aspect of the game that is unrelenting and brutal. If you lose one of your characters, they are gone forever. Granted, you do have the option of not losing them... IF you don't mind starting that particular mission all over again. It seems like a perfectionist's nightmare, yet I didn't have that must problem with that aspect. If you're think you might be worried a lot about losing characters, start the game on Easy. The game will still provide a challenge without being overly gruelling (well, the last battle will still be pretty hard). However, for those who are a bit more confident, the game offers up Normal and Difficult settings, the latter of which I've heard can be especially brutal.
Now, as far as visuals go, it's a bit of a mixed bag, but at the very least it's functional. The maps, which are setup in a chess-like grid with a bird's-eye view, are clear and concise. However, they lean a bit on the simple side, including how things are animated. Still, I actually prefer this setup compared to something like Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics. One of the better parts of the visual presentation are the little attack animations that happen when two units fight each other. The game "zooms in" on the units, producing two characters that attack, the animation of which is insanely smooth and quite impressive (some of the critical hit animations drive home just how devastating the attack is, in a way surprisingly good for an E-rated game). The funny thing is those animations are entirely optional. They can be disabled through the menu, or you can even assign the game to allow animations for only specific characters that you chose.
Sound, like the visuals, is also more functional than spectacular. The sound effect are geared more as a secondary way to tell you what's going on on the screen, which, despite being simplistic, adds surprisingly well to the effect. The music also blends well to the game, though I found a few tracks to be especially good in their own right.
Oh, on a side note, there's one thing I really loved about this game in the technical aspect. It has one of the best quick save systems I have ever seen. The game sports a normal save system in between missions, but during missions it has a unique quick save feature that is so good that it saves automatically when you turn off the system. Seriously! No buttons to press, no menus to dig through. Just power off the system and you'll be able to start again from that same point (unless you decide to erase the save). Ironically, this save system is annoying in a way that is clearly intentional. If you ever get one of your characters killed and power off the system at that point, you'll find that upon starting the quick save that it saved right before that specific enemy unit's action, meaning you are left with two options. Either proceeding on without that character or restarting that mission from the start. It's harsh, but you didn't expect them to make it easy, did you?
So, here's my summary of the pros and cons.
Pros:
+ Simple, yet surprisingly in-depth strategy gameplay.
+ Game eases you into the controls, which will become second-nature quickly.
+ Great cast of characters, representing some well balenced classes with their own strengths and weaknesses
+ Challenging, yet rewarding.
+ Smart AI that tends to target weaker characters, making you think.
+ Surprisingly intelligent dialogue despite the broad audience (the fact that it's rated E).
Cons:
- Can be a bit of a perfectionist's nightmare
In short, I recommend it to strategy fans out there.
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