Game Boy Advance User Reviews

The Sacred Stones is that Fire Emblem that, while not the most ambitious or the most complex, has a charm that gets under your skin. It is accessible without being simple, beautiful without being cloying, and flexible enough for every player to find their own **** it is also inconsistent: when it shines, it dazzles; when it falters, it is very noticeable. It has inspired maps and others that feel tedious. It has wonderful characters and others who seem like poorly paid extras. And its grinding system, while convenient, is a double-edged sword that can completely ruin the tactical thrill if you don't know how to hold back.

one of my favorite fire emblem version in gba，I played it for hundred time in childhood

The best 2D fire emblem in my opinion. Fire Emblem as a series is best enjoyed when you can grind your characters level through random battles and optional content and i WILL die on this hill What i like about fire emblem the most shines in this entry. Flashy combat moves despite only having 4-5 pixels, Fantastic and strategic battles that make you think, with the pressure of permadeath if your characters die and a vibrant and colorful cast of allies that may only get 3 minutes of dialog but still live in my brain all these years later. I always struggled to follow the stories in 2D fire emblems. Maybe its my 'books r 4 NERDS!'mindset from my childhood, maybe my diagnosed ADHD needs a voice-over to follow the dialog. But the story is lost to me unfortunately. Even skipping most of the story this game is fantastic and would recommend to someone trying to get into Tactical RPGS.

One of the best games for the game boy advance. Loved the world map and that you can max out your characters. Highly recommended.

Another game that is very solid, but I can't appreciate in its entirety because I am bad at it. I always struggled with classic Fire Emblem and its permadeath...

This is my personal favorite Fire Emblem game. I might be a bit biased since it is the game that got me personally into the series, but I just love this Fire Emblem game in particular. Just like FE7, it has great sprite work, amazing music, great cast of characters, etc. I would argue that, of the Fire Emblem games I've played, it has the overall best map design (I can only think of 1 or 2 levels that are iffy). I like how you actually get to have a choice in your branching path (unlike in FE6 and 7 where the unlock requirements for certain maps are very arbitrary and forced upon you). It's also neat that even when the two paths converge, there are still differences in the story and maps between the two. It's also nice that every character in the game is accessible despite which route you pick, since the two characters that show up on each route during the split will join you when the paths converge. Some argue that the game is too easy, but I think personally that the difficulty is fine and levels up in difficulty at a really nice pace. However, if you are looking for a super hard challenge, the Hard difficulty is no pushover. I would argue that this game is the best one to introduce players into classic Fire Emblem. A couple small nitpicks is that it is definitely on the shorter side (being around 20 chapters when the average FE game is around 25-30) and that the postgame is a bit on the weaker side (though on the flipside of that, FE games hardly have a postgame to begin with, so having a postgame at all is a plus for those who want it); it's really only a novelty for if you want to collect and use the various Creature Campaign exclusive characters. I have personally beaten the game countless times, fully completed the sound test, gotten every single Creature Campaign character, obtained every single last support in this game (remember this is a game that only lets you get up to 1 A support per run) and completed both the Eirika and Ephraim routes on Hard Mode. This game holds a special place in my heart. If you're either an FE fan who hasn't played this one yet or are someone who is curious into getting into FE and wants to play a more classic game, I would highly recommend playing this game.

Sacred Stones is a slightly easier game than FE7, but it does offer more tangible changes that improve upon the formula from the previous game. The ability to choose which class your characters can change into, stages to train in, post game content, and the addition of skills help make Sacred Stones a more robust title to the predecessor.

I enjoyed this game for what it was , and although the story was simple it was still fun. I liked all of the characters and the challenges the game presented.

I like it! It is different to the one that came before, but I think it is still enjoyable and replayeable... and the sprite animations are nice.

I have so much fun every time I play this game. Everything about it, from the story to the gameplay, is just amazing. I enjoyed every moment while playing this game

Easily the best game from the GBA era of Fire Emblem, at least in my opinion. Despite having a simplistic storyline, the fun characters and map design make up for it greatly. With some of the best villains the series has to offer, I’d recommend Sacred Stones to anyone looking to enter the Fire Emblem series

The Fire Emblem games on the Advance are all so similar they're basically interchangable, If you like one, you'll like them all.

An incredibly accessible and engaging entry among the GBA Fire Emblem games, and arguably the best of all 3. While not offering a groundbreaking story or mechanics, Sacred Stones offers plenty of new features while also toning down the difficulty in non-contrived ways (like adding opportunities to grind). Such innovations, in combination with an above-par story, a branching story and moderately compelling characters, helped this game defy my expectations for what I could get out of a Fire Emblem game on the GBA. While perhaps archaic and dated when compared to modern entries, Sacred Stones is a fantastic Fire Emblem game.

I have this ported on WiiU rather than on GBA. What a fantastic game. FE done right. Story, combat. OST is amazing. Easy 10. Loved it straight away.

A game that continues with respect to its previous release. Its larger mapping takes away the weight of the story. Despite not reaching the level of its previous installment is still one of the best games of the GBA and one of the best of the series as such.

Más de lo mismo que el anterior Fire Emblem, para lo bueno y para lo malo.

The was my first Fire Emblem game, back in the day, and it still holds up really well.

Absolutely love this game. Defined a good part of my childhood. The handheld versions of fire emblem have their own unique charm.

Una genial entrega a la saga, pero no una de las mejores. Comparándola con el juego justo anterior (al cual más se parece) pierde parte del encanto. La historia es buena, los personajes son buenos, pero no es un juego que resulte tan rejugable como el anterior. Es posible que esto sea debido al mayor tamaño de algunos mapas, que aunque hacen de estos muy disfrutables una vez, no incitan tanto a repetirlos especialmente cuando pueden costar dos horas completarlos (y no olvidemos que la dificultad no es moco de pavo y el permadeath).

my favorite Fire Emblem game , and has many unique features from Fire Emblem Gaiden has just done it right

One of my all-time favorite games. I love this game biasly. Absolute brilliance and grace in story telling as well as gameplay.

Best FE game. Stay mad, FE7 babies LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Esta saga en GBA tiene una sencillez y fluidez que ha perdido en entregas más modernas que son más vistosas pero no tienen tanto carisma, este título en concreto combina eso junto con poder seleccionar las promociones de las unidades y personalizar un poco más tu ejército, incluyó clases nuevas, dos caminos a seguir y una especie de torre de combate que hace que no se limite solo a seguir la historia y listo

This is a great tactical RPG from when Fire Emblem was still a great tactical RPG series. With two branching stories, the level of replay-ability instantly doubles to see the events of the game from two different points of view. The customization of units has a little more depth this time around, due to being able to select one of two classes upon a class up. As with the earlier Fire Emblem games, the plot is thick and rich, interesting well designed characters, and geopolitical conflict that moves the narrative forward. If you love tactical RPG games, don't pass this one up, there are a lot of extras and unlockables to achieve even long after the game has been completed!

While it may not have as good of a story as fire emblem, it more than makes up for it by providing a world map where you can grind, a cast of good characters and retains the same charm as of the other fire emblem game on GBA, one of the best strategy rpg as well as one of the best in the fire emblem series.

So you will know what type of gamer is writing this review, I'll list three of my favorite games. Danganronpa Fire emblem Atelier Totori THE GOOD: GAMEPLAY: Fantastic gameplay, loads of fun. There are a lot of recruitable characters, I would say about thirty in game. You can recruit some in the endgame as well. Support conversations during battle delve into their personalities. I'll delve more into gameplay further down in this review. MUSIC: Music is violins and trumpets and keyboards mostly. Nothing stands out as great as far as the games music. STORY: Story is good but not great. Intriguing at certain moments but mostly a very average storyline. GRAPHICS: Graphics are what you would expect from a gba game GAME LENGTH: Lots of gameplay time. I spent about 65 hours in this game but that includes the bonus content such as recruiting the extra characters after completion of the game. THE BAD: There wasn't anything bad to list about this game in my opinion. IN DEPTH REVIEW: The gameplay is strategy based. You first prepare your army such as picking the recruits you want to take into battle and equipping weapons and healing items to them. Each recruit can have five items on their person at a time. You can scan the level beforehand to see which recruits are best for the level and also see the enemy's items and also to see if there are any recruitable characters on the level. Some recruits can be missed and not recruited if you do not talk to them with a certain recruit. You can also change your recruits starting position before you begin the level. To actually play the level, you must meet the requirements to beat that level. Most of the time the requirements are to kill all enemies. To do this, you move your units around a grid based level. Attacking enemy units or retreating when necessary. Enemies also come for your party so building a defensive wall is important at times. The weapons you combat with matter in this game, swords are better against axes, and lances are better against swords. Magic also has its weapon triangle guidelines. There are also archers in this game and healers. A couple of special units as well such as a dancer which can give one unit an extra turn during one of the players turns. I'll list some character classes, Troubadour: a units with great movement that can heal only. Knight: a unit with little movement range but great defense. Archer: a unit who has an extra attack range but cannot attack back when in close combat. Mage: a unit who can attack one or two spaces away with magic. Cavalier: a horseback unit that can use lances and swords. Thief: a unit who can open chest and steal certain items from enemy units. Can also attack but not very effectivly. Units can change class after reaching level 10-20. The advanced class has many bonuses including an extra 20 level ups the recruit can obtain and sometimes the recruit who changed class can use extra weapons or magic or staves. Every recruit has two classes to choose from when they change class. Each with their unique strong points. When a recruit dies on the level, you LOSE that unit PERMANENTLY. This is the Fire Emblem way. There are arenas in this game on certain levels that let's you fight for money and experience. You can max a recruit or all recruits at these arenas but your unit will be forever lost if you die in the arena. You can suspend on levels and then soft reset the system to save your progress so you will not waste hours at the arena when a unit dies. Simply load the suspended data and restart your progress from that point. I spent many hours at the arenas, it was one of the things I liked most about this game that isn't in every Fire Emblem title. SIDE NOTE: Also, this game is rare now and most copies for sale are very expensive. I lucked out and got a copy that works from **** for about 20 dollars. Most copies were in the 100 dollar range as I recall. That just shows how great this game is I suppose but I would recommend this game at the 100 dollar price tag. That how great I think this game is. You will likely play it more than once so you could put over a 100 hours into this game which equals out to a dollar an hour to play. Not to bad. Also, the other Fire Emblem titles are very expensive as well except for Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates which were released rather recently. That wraps this review up, hope it helps.

The Tower of Valni! If there was one beef I had with the first Fire Emblem on GBA in America, it was the leveling of my characters. The Tower of Valni addressed this in such a wonderful way. No matter which characters you took with you in the main chapters to battle, the Tower of Valni made it possible to max each character's level before continuing to a challenging chapter. Also new to the series are the skirmish battles around the world map, which weren't necessary to advance in the story, but good for leveling characted and testing out new strategies. -The gameplay is as addictive as ever. Nothing new added to the series here as you can still plot out your moves and see the odds of success before each battle. You can also see your enemies range of movement during each turn giving a great advantage over deployment. Characters can encourage one another on the battlefield by using the talk command between two compatible characters. However, I did not take advantage of this feature as much and it's definitely not necessary, just a useful tool at times and if you're looking for extra dialogue. -The Story is very memorable, although the dialogue can get to be a bit tedious at times and you may find yourself wanting to skip ahead. It won't take you on any kind of emotional roller coaster of sorts. -The cast of characters are plentiful. Which is necessary as character permadeath is still here, and if you lose one of your favorite characters in battle, it can be a devastating thing to experience. Sacred Stones balances this well as many times, you will get caught off-guard by enemy reinforcements, and if you've spent over 45 minutes on one chapter, getting close to the end and one of your characters die; you have a choice to press forward or start that chapter all over again. It's sometimes a hard choice to make. -The amount of content is incredible, not only will the Tower of Valni make you invest hours upon hours of gameplay, all the while improving your troops, but the skirmishes and the after game content is incredible, not to mention the two paths that can be chosen in the middle of the game. If you want to go back and experience the other main characters separate path, you have that option to play it all over again. This is a classic in the Fire Emblem series and not much can be said in the way for areas of improvement. If you're a strategy RPG fan and a fan **** story, definitely play this game.

Fire Emblem is a tactical turn-based RPG that hasn't been replicated in any other series and is quite unique. Now this series has been made from the NES era all the way till now with its newest addition, Fire Emblem: Awakening. The evolution of game play is more noticeable from the switch to NES and SNES to the Gameboy Advance. That means that some are just glossed over while others become more popular due to timing. Sacred Stones suffers from this same problem. Sacred Stones is a stand-alone game in the series and arguably the darkest of them all. The story is centered on the continent of Magvell which is ruled by several monarchies and political systems. The politics enveloping the land is just a small side-story of the entire game with its numerous sub-plots. The story develops in a depressing manner as the themes of death and loss constantly rear their ugly head each turn. This allows the player to feel ultimate triumph and at the same time melancholy as you see the destruction of lands and people around you. These mixed feelings make you ask questions while at the same time gives you some understanding of the time period. Like all the games before it, once you lose a character they will be dead for good and in this one some scenes are lost through said loss. The story changes and hinges on your ability to keep your allies alive which is an awesome feeling. Evolution wise it came right after the game changers and was the last on the GBA era of Fire Emblem games. While the maps in previous FE games were just for helping you place where you are in the story, in Sacred Stones it is more than that. This time you move around the map by your own volition and enter the chapter when you feel you are up to the task. This map didn't stop there; you had monster encounters, buying of weapons on map, and even challenge areas for the end game. It featured duels against other people as you choose your best units against theirs. If that wasn't enough, it added monsters unique to the game such as Centaurs, Skeletons and more. Now the nuances; this game has a large cast of characters that like most Fire Emblem games don't get much time to flesh out. In the past two titles, they added in support conversations for characters if you took the time to do them. I found that they perfected them in this game since each one allowed you to see sides of your unit you didn't know and allowed some sort of depth beyond the nameless face. It introduced crossroads in classing up units. Every unit had two choices to choose between. If you were a knight, you could either become a general or a great knight. As well as having the three units who could class up twice, this was an addition to the game that allows the player more choice than the past ones. Despite this being an interest road to go down, they ruin it later on with the overuse of this game mechanic. The OST has some of the more memorable songs for myself including the gentle ones like Lyon's theme and the dramatic encounters with a powerful opponent. It made it that much more satisfying as you finally finished off those who did you wrong. Graphics wise its not really different from the other GBA Fire Emblems. The only things to point out is the awesome opening and the ending boss' design. This game was a masterpiece and allowed Fire Emblem fanatics and new-comers a story to get enveloped into and to feel for. It adds onto the previous additions and makes further advances. Even though it was glossed over, Fire Emblem Sacred Stones certainly holds up, even to today's standards of handheld games. Story: 10 Gameplay: 9.6 Sound: 9.5 Visuals: 9.5 Overall: 9.6

My favorite game in the entire series. Fun gameplay that improves on previous entries. Memorable characters that you will find yourself restarting the game for, so as not to lose them. An opportunity to strengthen characters at the Tower of Valni which helps if you're struggling. And lastly, fantastic replayablility seeing as you can have a completely different team that you focus on in each play through. Its easy to pick up and play even for newcomers to the series, I would strongly recommend it

The only problem with this game, its the items to make the promotions, you need to think very smart and pick your favorite characters. But still fun and the choices of histories are great

Great fun. Nice gameplay, great story and very, very addictive. Hard and infuriating when you lose a great unit, but still one of the best strategy games I have ever played.

After the relative success that was Fire Emblem (Rekka no Ken, to be precise), Nintendo decided to release it's successor, The Sacred Stones, in the west as well. And, let me tell you this, it was the right decision. The game's art style is a bit darker than before, and the story is a bit more straightforward than Rekka no Ken's story was. The cast of characters has also been reduced, allowing for a deeper view on each character this time around. Gameplay wise, this game plays exactly like it's predecessor. The only notable differences are special class skills that some classes inhabit, and, most importantly, the world map. The world map feature allows the player to visit shops freely after clearing a certain chapter, and it also grants access to what most people would call training grounds: The Tower of Valni. It allows the player to go through it over and over, thus training your units. This can be used to make the game easier, or to level up characters post-story. Concerning difficulty, this game should be a good one for beginners, as it is a bit easier than other Fire Emblems, not only but also thanks to the Tower of Valni mentioned earlier. The replayability is, as one would expect knowing the franchise, very high. Not only can you continue playing after beating the story (to unlock certain characters, for example), but there are also two main routes to follow the story on. One has to play the game at least twice to get to enjoy all chapters, which could tick some people off, but shouldn't be a big deal, as this game is very addicting. To conclude, the game is one of the best in the franchise, and one of the best games for the system as well. It manages to be absolutely "Fire Emblem" while adding some spice with some small changes and attracting new players that are easily frustrated by the other installment(s). If you own a GameBoy Advance or a Nintendo DS/DS lite and are at least remotely interested in turn-based strategy, this game is a must have.

Amazing game. I was a bit skeptical at first, but when I finally got to play it through the 3DS Ambassador Program, I was floored. This game is addictive as hell! The replay value is definitely strong in this one.

Tenouttaten! Truly the best game I've **** story is well written,the graphics are well done and the game play is superb.With 2 to 3 characters of every class and each character being individual statistic-ly and personality wise,each play through is different and fresh.Amazing

Pretty damn good. I still prefer most of the other games, but this is still well done. The characters don't have AS MUCH life to them, but they're still great.

One of the greatest RPG games I've ever played! Amazing storyline, interesting battle animations and fantastic music as well. This is a must have for RPG lovers!

The game is one of the most addicting original gameboy games I have. Everytime I go on vacation, I always pack my DS and this game. I have gone over the campaign multiple times, on different modes and various challenges and tasks for myself. The campaign is well thought-out and thrilling, and the graphics can definitely satisfy your eyes. Even in 2012 you should buy it, as it is worth every single penny.

Definitely a weaker entry after the absolute masterpiece that was Fire Emblem, but manages to be good on it's own. It's a good entry on the series, but i find the Tower of Valni being more of a con than a pro, it makes the game just too easy. That's more or less what'r wrong with it, the rest is superb. more classes, more things to do. It's great.