Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

   Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is a tactical role-playing game for the Gameboy Advance from 2005. It's the eighth game in the Fire Emblem series, and the second to be released outside of Japan. The story is that the main character, princess Eirika's homeland of Renais is invaded by neighboring country and former ally Grado, led by Eirika's childhood friend. You must solve the mystery of why Eirika's friend is invading Renais.
   The game starts with an introduction and a cut-scene. The story impressed me and the graphics were fine. After Eirika is rushed away from the castle by Renais knight Seth, the first battle begins. You control each character individually, and meet the objective of each battle. The controls worked well and the gameplay made sense. The first battle was easy, but there was a good difficulty arc. During the next battle you get some new characters. Your army continues to grow throughout the game, but if one of your characters dies, you can't get them back, and if Eirika dies you have to start the level over. Also there is a limit to how many soldiers you can have on the battlefield at a time. After a long time I finally beat the game. It was very satisfying, and the story wrapped up nicely. There is nothing you can do other than the main game, but the story is compelling enough to replay every now and then.

SCORES

Gameplay-10 The controls are great, the fighting works well, and there's a good amount of challenge.

Graphics-5 During the cut-scenes the graphics are good, but during gameplay they aren't.

Replayability-5 No extra things but compelling enough to replay.

Size-9 Many levels that take lots of time and thinking make for a large game.

OVERALL SCORE: 7.25