I’ve been a huge fan of Fire Emblem for a long time now but I actually hadn’t played many of the mainline games. I always ended up playing spinoffs and such instead. Well, now I’m getting a look inside and it’s all super nostalgic since Fire Emblem Heroes was one of the first big mobile games that I spent a lot of time on. I played that for hours and hours for 3 whole seasons before I finally stopped. The series has a lot of gimmicks and mechanics that have not really changed so I was able to jump in there. Only one mechanic was not present in the mobile game and unfortunately it’s a rough one. Weapon durability….

So the story starts by introducing us to a princess and prince who proudly serve their kingdom alongside their King. Unfortunately the neighboring country suddenly launches an invasion and the king is murdered. Our heroes must now find out why an allied kingdom would turn traitor so suddenly and see what they can do about all of this. It won’t be an easy fight and they will need to make a lot of allies along the way. One wrong move and the whole world will be lot. The forces of darkness have been prepping for this day for a long time and have the element of surprise on their side after all.

The core gameplay is that of a typical strategy title. You move your units around the board either to get to the capture area or to defeat all opposing fighters. There are 3 main types of weapons, swords beat hammers, spears beat swords, and hammers beat spears. Aside from that you have weapon sub types as well to deal with. Additionally the characters also have different types which factor in as well. So there is a whole lot to consider and like chess, each type has a different amount of movement options. A big deal for the series is also that if any unit dies in the level, they cannot be revived.

They are permanently gone along with any items and equipment they were holding. So you will definitely want to restart the level or rewind when that happens. The equipment actually breaking also ends up hurting quite a lot because it means that you always have to remember to buy more weapons. The problem? It is incredibly hard to earn money in the game and I ended up being broke for a good chunk of it. By the end I got more money and was able to buy weapons for the end but I can easily picture a scenario where I was completely out of funds for the final boss. Now that would have been real ugly.

It also means you can’t just grind EXP the way you normally would because every fight uses more of the durability. So if you get too powerful then you won’t even be able to fight. It’s not like Pokemon where your character will still use struggle to deal some damage. In this game if you run out of weapon durability then you will be dealing exactly 0 damage. So you definitely need to keep that in mind. The menus for switching weapons and all can be a bit clunky too. Takes longer than you would expect.

Ah well, these are technical elements that could be better but on the whole the game does a good job. I do like the gameplay and how tactical everything is. The fact that your allies die forever is also a big one since it forces you to play the game very carefully. A single misstep would really make it game over for you. The game also has some nice quality of life features like being able to turn off the combat animations and speed up the text. I ended up beating the game much quicker than the average completion time online and I think this is the reason why. You are fighting hundreds and hundreds of battles in the game so completely skipping all of those animations is a really big deal.

The graphics are fun though so you’ll want to play a round or two with the animations on. It’s cool how every character gets animations and it also makes the whole war feel a lot more real. Anytime someone lands a critical hit it is also a really big deal for that reason. It can completely change the flow. Additionally the RNG for the turn is decided at the beginning so if someone is going to miss, it doesn’t matter how many times you rewind. That character will still end up missing in the end.

The soundtrack is also solid. Little did I know that the soundtrack would get to be even better for the next one. Fire Emblem has always managed to deliver excellent tracks in its games though so I can’t say that I was surprised at all. The amount of polish and hard work that went into this game is really impressive. It’s no wonder that this ended up becoming a really big franchise. It really did all of the right things. There is also a good amount of replay value in tackling the maps in different ways or trying to win with everyone alive in order to get their epilogues in. It’s not something that would end up tempting me back in but it’s a nice thing to have.

Overall, The Sacred Stones is definitely a fun game. It was really satisfying to finally play through one of these adventures and I do like all of the strategy involved. It really makes you feel like a tactician. The characters were really likable and the story was good. I can see how people would find these games addicting. I do really wish that the game could have just removed the weapon durability concept though. It’s my only issue with the game since I’m the kind of guy who likes to grind early and put myself in an incredible spot to win. Having to watch myself and not play too long just doesn’t feel right. Any game with a level up system should allow you to get as strong as you want if you ask me.

Overall 7/10