Bethany Plays: Ah, Classic Fire Emblem! Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones

Attract cutscene here. (And possibly a flashing lights warning.)

Welcome back to Fire Emblem, this time on GBA! Sacred Stones is probably one of the stranger picks for a full go, but there's a lot of little stuff scattered about that I feel one can make a solid argument in its favour. This game is a wholly stand-alone title (ie no other FE games are set in this world), and it is arguably the first game in the series to include the route-based gameplay made famous by Fire Emblems Fates and Three Houses. Despite not being the most recent title when Awakening came out, it's often called the bridge between classic FE and modern FE, because of other player-friendly gameplay decisions that will come up.

We'll be starting out using the old standby condition All Girls- Sacred Stones Eirika route is quite possibly the best game in the series for an All Girls challenge. Other games often have stupidly hard challenges (FE7 has you solo with an archer for four chapters) or stupidly easy ones (Crimson Flower All Girls is arguably a viable casual strat). When showing Ephraim route, I'll have a less restrictive character list.

Very few people play Easy difficulty, and I feel like it goes unmentioned what it actually does- it's literally Normal Mode, but there's strict "move these characters to these positions and perform these actions" tutorials- if you've ever played FE7 Lyn Mode on Normal, imagine that and you know exactly what I'm talking about.

We'll be playing Eirika route on Normal Mode. There's a semi-famous glitch with the way Normal Mode handles enemies that I almost have to show.

Ephraim route, because of its looser character selection restrictions, will take Difficult mode. Unlike Tellius, Sacred Stones Difficult mode doesn't have new content, but the two difficulty modes play like night and day.

Fire Emblem ancient wars often have dragons involved. Sacred Stones is not like that. It almost doesn't have dragons, but that was perhaps a little too subversive for the times. What are we, Thracia 776?

Title drop! "The Sacred Stones" is a little less esoteric than "Path of Radiance" or "Radiant Dawn", and refers to an actual, tangible thing in the world that we'll be worried about.

Where the Sacred Stones come from is another matter. I also seem to have forgotten that Grado is an actual member of the Five Heroes. Prepare to only hear about one of his friends.

As the only continent with a single story to its name, the name "Magvel" is less used compared to other continents both in-universe and out, but the name does exist.

Welcome to Magvel. Come to think of it, this map is geographical, not political, just on a console that's not powerful enough to show a geographical map any way other than artistically. It does highlight where countries are when they become relevant, but there's no scene like in Tellius where all the countries are highlighted at once in different colours.

Fire Emblem seems to like 800 years.

There are five Sacred Stones, and each Stone has its own nation.

Renais is the home of our heroes, and where we'll be started.

Frelia is a significant ally of Renais, although I challenge the game calling Hayden a Sage. He's actually a Ranger- or Bow Knight, to most other Fire Emblem games.

The land of desert and mercenaries.

Despite the title, FE's interest in evils of theocracies and divine right to rule began later- the worst you could say about Mansel as a person is that he's not got his ducks in a row, but in an affectionate way. Rausten is probably the least dangerous place we visit in the entire story.

And here we have Grado. Renais is also friendly with Grado, but, well, one of these countries had to draw the short straw of being the "villain".

Each nation takes the duty of guarding the Sacred Stones seriously.

Not yet big enough of a nation to sit at the big kid's table. The man pictured, Klimt, is the closest thing to a leader they have, but he is not a King, and Carcino has little in the way of an army, resources, or anything useful in a war. They do have the sort of capital necessary to expand in peacetime, but this is a Fire Emblem game, why would that be relevant?

Which ancient dark arts those might be is relatively untouched on, on account of, you know, no one remembering them.

Counting from Grado's victory, I assume, since it's around 800 years since then.

Time for Plot to start!

Welcome to Fire Emblem classic. The only games that aren't about this are Radiant Dawn (where the "invading empire" was already occupying) and sorta Fates (where the war was going on for a long time beforehand).

The exact degree of hostility between the invader and the invadee differs from game to game. Renais and Grado might be the most friendly of all such nations.

Apparently Fire Emblem is like Advance Wars in that you need to jump up and down on the castles with a soldier to capture places.

Ephraim has gone and buggered off somewhere, incidentally. What he was doing before the invasion is an unanswered question, but he suddenly has to change gears.

Interesting that we get a General, Mage Knight, and Wyvern Knight converging on Renais. The generals of Grado all use distinct classes, and thus we know this is Vigarde, Selena and Valter, respectively, despite these being pretty generic images.

And we have Fado and Eirika on defence. Although the choice to have Fado using the Peer class says a lot about his odds of making it out of this mess alive...

We're screwed.

In the world of GBA Fire Emblem, soldiers wearing blue armour are playable, red armour are hostile, and green armour are friendly. Renais is probably the one instance in the trilogy of generic blue units. We won't get to play as these guys, though.

Uh oh.

There's "our backs are against the river" and then there's "we're about to get pushed in".

Ephraim has a reputation of being ridiculously OP within the setting of Magvel, and I think the main cause is lines like this: Ephraim has been stranded behind enemy lines, with no warning that his surroundings are about to become hostile, and our impression of the situation is that he is a potential source of relief. Panic mode about lost contact with Ephraim was long before now.

Fado declares surrender.

And as he does so, turns to his daughter, Eirika. By her unique sprite, you can tell this will be our main character.

The dark realisation that this might be the last time these two see one another.

Eirika has a bracelet from her father, and this is also going to become plot relevant. Remember this.

Eirika has her bracelet at the ready.

Seth is going to be Eirika's escort to safety, and a major character in the story. His job will be playing tactician. He's... he's by no means incompetent, but he's no Soren.

Vigarde's sudden and nonsensical turn shocks Fado, but he maintains his faith in Hayden to not go the same way. He's got more faith than I do, but I assume he's basing his decision on the fact that Frelia hasn't capitalised on Grado's rush in any way.

Also known as certain death.

A valid question, but perhaps this isn't the time to find out.

Fado's certainly taken this personally. This is not an unreasonable reaction, but it is ultimately the incorrect one- it is not Renais that is at fault, but Grado, and questioning the leadership of Grado should focus on this direction.

Fado understands that, if he remains to ask these questions, he is going to die in the attempt, and deems Eirika too precious to allow the same fate. Someone must stand and do something about Grado, after all, and it's certainly not going to be Ephraim!

Seth grabs Eirika and enforces Fado's will.

He leaves alongside this other horse unit. This kid is also a character we'll meet in a bit.

At any rate, here come the red units.

Shamans, Druids, Paladins, Great Knights, Mage Knights, Vigarde, and Lyon. There is a Great Knight general named Duessel, but considering neither of the Mage Knights have a ponytail, I think we're meant to assume he's not one of those guys.

Fado prepares for his death. Since stationary GBA units always face the screen, Vigarde and Lyon have humourously turned around after stepping in front of Fado.

Seth and Franz have escaped the castle. I find the destroyed house sprites on this map interesting, since no gameplay map uses those for mechanical reasons.

The cavalier is Franz, and his job is to go get help.

This sounds like as good a reason as any.

We'll see how that turns out for him later.

Seth begins to explain his plan to Eirika, although what that plan is is quickly interrupted.

Enemy soldiers! The Wyvern Knight is the named character this time. Seth also pushes his sprite in front of Eirika's before we switch back to conversation.

Eirika has a voice too, you know. I'm playing the vanilla game, because I feel it is only appropriate to judge the story as most players experienced it and how IS sees it for future content, but I would be remiss if I did not mention the existence of the fan script Fire Emblem: Restoration Queen. The script has its flaws, particularly in regards to one of Eirika's Big Moments, but I think the tone and purpose of the script is well and truly set when you get to this scene and Valter addresses Eirika directly. The writers of the patch certainly thought so too, since it's one of the lines they advertise.

Valter is the least pleasant of Grado's generals, and that means exactly what you're worried it means.

Seth jumps in to protect Eirika from getting stabbed by Valter, because no matter how much girl power you have, a diplomat (who is currently unarmed, incidentally) stands no chance against a depraved and powerful general.

Cut to battle animations! GBA Fire Emblem has the most beloved animation set of them all. It's a little hard to show why in images, but we'll be seeing plenty of them.

Incidentally, Valter is a Wyvern Knight, to be contrasted with a Wyvern Lord, the series traditional "dragon" rider. To dragon experts, "wyverns" are dragons that have no forelegs. "Wyvern" being used to describe any "dragon" rider is a translation mistake that, if they haven't fixed by now, is just going to stick around being confusing, and we're just going to have to deal with it. Especially since Sacred Stones has both Wyvern Lords and Wyvern Knights.

....Come to think of it, Tellius tried- the dragon class chain is Dragon Rider -> Dragonmaster -> Dragonlord in RD.

This is probably the fan favourite Valter line. It's a really good one, and to say he doesn't top this later is to say little bad about him.

Seth, who is currently carrying a Silver Lance, decides to use a Steel Sword, which has WTD on lances, against Valter, who is in a class that is only able to use Lances.

People would have you believe this is the greatest knight in all of Fire Emblem.

With that said, the Silver Lance wouldn't have been much help. It would allow him to score a 2HKO, but by attacking first, he exposes himself to Valter's 2HKO anyway.

Seth manages to muster the strength to grab Eirika and run the hell away.

Which Valter finds amusing. Of all things.

I wonder if Valter is intentionally letting Eirika go so he can play with his food before he eats it. It'd be a very Valter thing to do.

Seth drags Eirika to the safety of... this canyon.

This is just an opportunity to stop, recoup and think things through.

I presume it's just the act of grabbing her that he's concerned about, rather than any particular concerns over where. Seth is a very classically courtly man, and resists romantic overtures with Eirika where possible.

Eirika accepts that what Seth did was necessary, and bears him no ill will. She also has some amount of crush on him- the reason there are romantic overtures between the two at all.

One thing that's going to become important to think about is that Grado is pursuing Eirika and Ephraim with as much vigour as their conquer of Renais. More so, even- although since they're so close to the latter, might as well finish the job.

Eirika considers his wound at Valter's hands her fault? No, dear, that was all on Seth grabbing the wrong weapon.

Seth... no offence, but healing is a very good idea and you should do it. You're lucky the EXP curve is the way it is.

(Perfect Eirika blink frame.)

That is indeed something you should do, though.

He was surrounded by Grado soldiers. I think not.

Him, on the other hand, could have made it out with cunning and forethought. ~~So he's doomed.~~

Valiance and bravery are for children's tales.

Seth just telling Eirika to be safe for the benefit of Fado and Ephraim. I don't think the problem is isolated to Seth, but Seth certainly gets the bulk end of the "casual sexism" stick. Seth in particular has other problems, and I'm going to be open about my dislike of the guy.

We've got to get to Frelia and safety.

Now then, let's see what's stopping us.

Seth moves forward from the nook he stopped in to announce this. I'm not sure how much of a reference to the mythological Mulan this outpost is supposed to be. It's not particularly girl-powery.

So yeah, remember how I said Eirika was unarmed earlier?

Eirika legitimately didn't have any other sword. Kinda cute they went to the effort, but also kinda weird.

But perfectly timed! Enemies for Eirika to fight!

As much as I joke about Seth's competence or lack thereof, he could take these guys on his own.

But that's not what I intend on doing. For multiple reasons.

Eirika genuinely learned swordplay from Ephraim, which leads to a neat little detail of her animations... definitely reflecting that.

The battle has begun! We're on GBA, this map doesn't scroll very far, if at all. Early maps in FE7 legitimately didn't scroll at all- this won't be a trend.

Princess Eirika of Renais is our Lord, and for an All-Girls run, you couldn't ask for anyone better. Eirika is built like a myrmidon and has all the same downsides (her Strength and Defence can fail you), but she'll be exactly what we need to make it far enough to have other good units to fall back on once she level caps.

Here's Seth, and yes, he hasn't healed that hit he got from Valter. This injury comes up in Supports from time to time, and there has been some question of whether Seth was actually damaged in the long-term due to it. I am here to tell you he was. If this Seth were to fight Valter as we will fight him later (using the same weapons used earlier), he would deal 8 damage on a 55% hit chance and suffer a 23 damage hit on 93% odds. Yes. Seth was just oversold to you in that opening and he still came off looking pathetic.

O'Neill is a tutorial boss. He failed to pick up a personality to speak of and honestly, it won't be too many chapters until we find regular mooks that probably outrank him in the Grado army.

These are Eirika's numbers versus his minions. Thanks to True Hit, that's about 30% to hit, but two of them still kill me.

Seth gives up his extra Vulnerary, but Eirika can't even use that Steel Sword anyway.

He also gets the hell out of dodge. There's no reason to do so other than just not getting the Eirika/Seth Support points, but might as well.

GBA Fighters legitimately do this pose when they land a hit. Promoted animations are usually better than unpromoted ones, but the unpromoted ones have their classics.

...Oh yeah, Eirika is now one hit away from dying. I should be concerned about that.

...Does she actually hit Fighters there? I think she's supposed to hit higher and this is a transitional frame. Regardless, Eirika learned all she knows about swordplay from a man who chose the lance as his calling, and thus knows more about thrusts and stabs than she does swings and slashes. This is reflected in her animations.

Yeah, uh, this could help, but it doesn't.

Eirika considers the merits of attacking this guy from the woods and enjoying an evasion boost, but I deem the risk too great.

A heal it is.

Good call. Granted, this could've missed in the forest, but I'd have to dodge two hits if I did that.

Seth has dialogue to point out that the boss is the only opponent left. This does mean something- he only moves if he's the only guy around.

Unfortunately, we can't reach that forest next to him.

Fortunately, we don't care! He'll come to us and we'll enjoy the same benefits.

"Knights"? We don't have any of those here, just a diplomat and the court fool. At any rate, you're no Warrior, you're a Fighter, and just barely at that.

There is nothing better than a braggart's boss quote followed by a miss.

...No double? Hm. More EXP for me, although this does mean we have some risky choices to make.

To attack, or not to attack? If we get hit twice, we lose, but if we don't, we win a turn earlier. Considering I plan to enjoy the benefits of Supports, turns don't matter, but it's always nice to do the right move.

(A 25% hit is about 12.75% on True Hit, but you try telling the game that when you lose Eirika.)

There's also those 14% odds of a crit. Eirika has a cute crit animation. She jumps back before sliding forth with some kind of super-lunge. Simple, but effective.

Myrmidons beat Fighters.

No Strength stings, but Defence and Speed/Luck is well worth it. Sure, Eirika is probably going to dodge more damage than she blocks, but it's nice to have the insurance.

...Eirika, you just got whacked twice in the head with a thumping big axe!

Oh wait, that explains it.

I think that's just her makeup. Then again, how mechanical injuries translate into narrative ones is really weird. If we took the mechanics at their word, she'd have some huge gashes in her head that she's patched up with pouches of poultice.

With that said, if Eirika did have a head injury, I would not be surprised.

Eirika's never been entirely interested in this whole "warfare" thing- learning to fight is just for emergencies, in case her big brother needs a hand.

There's an element of warfare that games with amusing combat animations just can't portray unless characters talk about them aloud, and even then it often gets swiftly forgotten.