Game’s Nickname: Seth Emblem / Fire Emblem: The Sacred Seth
One of the main reasons why I decided to go back and do these reviews is because looking back I feel I was too hard on the GBA games. Sure they’re not perfect, but they are better than I initially gave them credit for. Having the misfortune of playing Fates and having my position on Awakening radically altered changed my mindset. The GBA games, by comparison, look amazing and frankly I’d rather play both of those than play the 3DS games again. Sacred Stones may not be the best Fire Emblem game in this series, but it does have its charm so let’s talk about Sacred Stones.
The Plot: So I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this plot. On the one hand it does have it’s fair share of cliches that keep it from greatness. The entire plot is a MacGuffin gathering quest with a sealed Dark Lord that has to be defeated again. Yeah, not the most original thing under the sun. To be fair, there are several Fire Emblem games that have MacGuffins too and most of the final bosses in the Fire Emblem series are either huge dragons or deities of some kind so it’s not like Sacred Stones is the only game to have this problem.
On the other hand, I think this game has a better plot than a significant number of other Fire Emblem games (the 4 Marth games, Binding Blade, Awakening, Fates, Radiant Dawn) but I also think that it’s not quite up to par with Holy War, Path of Radiance, or Blazing Sword’s stories either. What it does have going for it is it’s cast. Because of the fact that this game actually bothers to characterize its cast you care about what happens to them. There are also some good plot twists too and I do think that the story handles the MacGuffin element better than the Marth games handle theirs. The politics in this game aren’t bad, but it leaves room to be desired. The same thing could be said about the game’s world-building.
I think RPGamer summed up the plot of this game the best: “There are a few twists and turns in the story and a few interesting characters as well, but nothing you have not seen in various RPGs before this one…. Overall, the storyline is fairly standard for a tactical RPG and is slightly above average as a whole.” (Source: https://www.rpgamer.com/games/fe/fe9/reviews/fe9rdrev2.html)
The Characters: This game’s cast, much like its plot, is better than the cast of most of the games in the series, but its not the best cast in the series. Eirika comes across as a bit of an idiot with a boring, pacifist approach to war. It’s been a while since I’ve played Sacred Stones but I remember Eirika making some face palm-worthy decisions throughout the game that led to me not enjoying the game. Ephraim is pretty cool even if there isn’t a lot to his character. To quote Caz “Ephraim’s got swag”, I mean the guy makes Lyon jealous of him and Innes refers to himself as Ephraim’s rival and L’Arachel refers to him having a “well toned body” so this guy must be pretty cool.
L’Arachel (how do you pronounce her name bytheway?) cracks me up everytime she’s on screen. She’s like the GBA precursor to Owain in terms of delusional hilarity. Her B support with Ephraim where she completely freaks out at seeing his naked shoulder is HILARIOUS! It’s got to be my favorite support in Sacred Stones.
There is an unpopular opinion I want to get off my chest though: I find Joshua to be a poorly done Levin clone. Think about it: They’re both princes that ran away from their homes except Levin had a more compelling reason to do so while Joshua’s explanation is rather lacking. They’re both characterized by having a carefree personality and they both have distinctive headgear as well. Both of their countries are ruled by single queens whose husbands died prior to the events of the game, both women die and both men are supposed to man up and assume the responsibility of the throne. Joshua also has the Wind affinity as his support affinity while Levin is a wind mage. That’s why I don’t find Joshua’s character to be all that compelling.
Moving on, Lute is a fun character. She’s Miriel done right. Then we’ve also got “General Sean Connery” (to quote Ghast’s review of Sacred Stone’s plot), I mean Duessel. I highly recommend Duessel x Amelia A Support. It’s pretty good. His B and A supports with Knoll are also worth checking out. Honestly, I could probably keep on going but I think you get the point.
Something that this game also has going for it are its villains and boy does this game have some great villains. Valter works as a great bloodthirsty villain, Orson is REALLY creepy and I agree with Ghast that he’s one of the best minor villains in the series. Then there’s Lyon. Lyon works as a sympathetic villain. You understand his motivation and you feel sorry for him. I think the reason why Lyon works as well as he does is because the game gave him a great connection with Eirika and Ephraim. Those flashbacks worked really well at establishing his relationship with the Wonder Twins. Because Lyon matters to Eirika and Ephraim, he matters to us and when you do get around to killing him it’s usually not a happy point in the story.
Overall Summation: This game has one of the better casts in the series. Not the best, mind you, but there are a lot of memorable characters who add a lot of flavor to the story. This game has some good supports too to back it up.
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