Let's Play Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

[Adoochi]

Let’s Play Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones


Sometimes referred to as Fire Emblem 8 (FE 8 for short), Sacred Stones is the last of the 3 GBA Fire Emblem games, as well the second game in the franchise that was released in the west.

How will this be formatted?
Primarily done through screenshots since the game is well suited to it. Some GIFS will be used as well, though not as often. Italicized text will mainly be used for transcribing the game’s dialog. It’s occasionally used for emphasis during my own writing but it should be easy to tell which is which. Bold text will be for describing actions on screen that are important to the scene, but not to the point of including it as a GIF. Non-stylized text is used for my own ramblings.

Do I need to have played the other games in the series first?
Nope! Most of the games in the Fire Emblem franchise are self contained, so don’t worry about missing context.

What’s a Fire Emblem?
The Fire Emblem games are tactics-RPG’s with a long lineage dating back ~30 years. The series is well known for its permadeath system and has been popular in Japan since the 3rd game. It’s recently found success in the west over the last few games, namely Awakening (FE 13) and more recently Three Houses (FE 16).

No, like, what is a Fire Emblem?
Oh. It’s a shield that grants the wielder extra power to combat evil when they have 5 mystical orbs. You typically see it paired with the Falchion (the weapon Marth uses in Smash, though Chrom and Lucina both use a Falchion as well). Neither the Fire Emblem nor the Falchion are in this game though.

What difficulty will this be played on?
Normal. The game features 3 main difficulty modes. Easy and Normal are basically the same, though Easy features rather hand-holdy tutorials for the first 8 chapters or so. Hard adds more enemies to maps, gives them extra stats, and (I believe) lowers XP gain as well. I’m still fairly new to the series, so I’ll stick to Normal mode.

Why this game specifically?
Two main reasons; First is that I just like it, and Second is that it serves as a good game for getting into the series due to its lower difficulty.

Spoilers?
Please refrain from posting spoilers. While the story isn’t amazing per se, I do think it’s enjoyable and adds to the experience (unlike FE 14 Fates).

Link to parts:
Part 1: Prologue https://www.lorg.xyz/forums/viewtopic.p ... p=921#p921

[Adoochi]

Part 1: Prologue


In its despair, mankind appealed to the heavens, and from a blinding light came hope.
The Sacred Stones.
These five glorious treasures held the power to dispel evil.
The hero Grado and his warriors used the Sacred Stones to combat evil’s darkness. They defeated the Demon King and sealed his souls away within the stones.
With the darkness imprisoned, peace returned to Magvel.
But this peace would not last…

For some 800 years, a quiet peace reigned in the absence of the terrible darkness.
The Sacred Stones have been passed from generation to generation.
Nations have been built around their power and their legacy.






These five countries house the power of the Sacred Stones.

In these times of peace, tales of past conflict have drifted into legend, and memories of the ancient dark arts have all but evaporated.
It is now the year 803…
In an instant, the whole of Magvel is threatened by an unexpected atrocity.
The Grado Empire, the largest of the Sacred Stone nations, has invaded the kingdom of Renais under orders from Emperor Vigarde.
A long time ally of Grado, Renais is caught off guard, unable to mount any resistance.
Grado’s forces move quickly, seizing one territory after another.


Grado’s momentum carries its armies to the gates of Castle Renais itself.
Renais will fall…
It is inevitable.


In Renais Castle, a soldier approaches the throne.

Soldier: The castle gate has been breached. Emperor Vigarde’s forces are within the castle walls.

Fado: I understand.

Soldier: The garrison has fallen. We’ve lost contact with Prince Ephraim and can expect no aid from his men. Your Majesty, what are we to do?

Fado: …What else can we do? Order your men to lay down their arms.

The soldier runs off screen.

Meet Eirika, the main character. We’ll get into unit effectiveness later but note that she’s required to have on the field.
Fado: Eirika. Are you wearing the bracelet I gave you?

Eirika: Yes, I have it right here.

Fado: Good. Seth.


Seth, on the other hand, is optional to deploy in most chapters. The dude is one of the best units in the franchise, so I dunno why you wouldn’t.

Fado: Take Eirika and head for Frelia. King Hayden is an honorable man. I trust he will keep you safe.
Seth: Understood. And what of Your Majesty?
Fado: Me? I shall remain here. We have long held Grado among our dearest allies, yet now, they attack? Am I somehow responsible for this? Have I erred in my leadership? Renais is mine to guide… How could I have failed her so?
Eirika: Father, you can’t stay! You mustn’t! If you remain behind, then so shall I!

Fado: Go now, Seth! Ride! Take her to safety!

Seth picks up Eirika onto his horse.

Eirika: Father!
Seth: Forgive me, Your Highness.


Seth rides off screen while enemies begin to surround the throne room.

Fado: Ephraim, Eirika… You must survive.

Seth and Eirika ride out of the castle with another cavalier.


Seth: Franz, ride ahead and bring word of our coming to Frelia. A single rider has better odds of passing unseen by Grado’s men. Convey to the throne all that has happened here and petition for reinforcements.

Franz: U-Understood!


We’ll discuss Franz’s combat usefulness when we actually get to use him.

A quick cut to the battle map shows Franz riding away, before quickly cutting back to Seth and Eirika.

Seth: Princess Eirika, we must—Quickly! Behind me!

Seth moves in front of Eirika to protect her from the incoming Wyvern Riders.


Obvious Bad Guy: Well this must be my lucky day. You’re a dead man. The wench goes with me.
Seth: Never!


I really need to find a better way of handling gifs

Cut back to the battle map, Seth groans in pain as he runs off with Eirika.

Obvious Bad Guy: Such terrible wounds, and still he holds to his duty?

Yeah dude, Seth is a bro.

OBG: How entertaining. Fly away, little man. Fly away. Try to outrun death. More time to savor the hunt… and the kill.


Seth: Princess Eirika! This way! I can see no more of Grado’s men. If we’ve made it this far, we’ve surely earned a moment’s rest. Please forgive my grabbing you so…brusquely earlier.
Eirika: Don’t be foolish, Seth. If it weren’t for you, I would have never have made it out of the castle.

That line always sounded a bit weird to me. I wonder how much time the localisation got?

Eirika: You are the reason I’m still alive. You have my gratitude. And whoever that man was, he was clearly after me… It’s my fault that you received such a grave wound. Allow me to treat it, I—
Seth: Your Highness, I can’t allow an injury like this to be an obstacle.

Damn right, Seth. There isn’t any fatigue system in this game, though in Path of Radiance (the game after this one, and the one featuring Ike) has the Biorythym system, which sort of resembles a fatigue system. That game was in development at the same time as Sacred Stones. The whole reason this game got made in the first place was to be something Intelligent Systems could develop quickly and cheaply for some extra cash flow since Path of Radiance was taking longer than expected.

Seth: We have more important matters to attend to. We must press on to Frelia. We must fulfill His Majesty’s wishes.
Eirika: …I wonder how my father fares alone in the castle. Do you think he’s safe? And what of my brother on the Grado front? We’ve heard nothing of him for days.
Seth: King Fado and Prince Ephraim are both valiant and brave men. I doubt even the might of the Grado Empire can hold them in check. More important to me, Your Highness, is that you look to your own safety. How sad the two of them would be if something were to happen to you. We must reach Frelia to ensure the day of your happy reunion.
Eirika: Yes, of course. You’re right. Until I’m reunited with my father and brother, I must not despair. Come, Seth, let us go.


Seth: Once we cross that bridge, we will be in Frelia, near Border Mulan. Your Highness, I won’t lie to you. This will not be an easy ride. Please, take this rapier. If something should happen to me(spoilers;it won't)you must continue to Frelia, alone if need be.



(Don’t worry, we’ll break down weapon stats a bit later)

The Rapier is a recurring weapon throughout the series, typically being one of the starting weapons of the main character. In this game, it functions like a slightly better Iron Sword, hitting a little harder, being a bit more accurate, and coming with a +10 to crit. The main selling point is that it deals effective damage against horseback units and heavily armoured units, and that it provides double weapon XP compared to an Iron Sword. There are some drawbacks compared to an Iron Sword, however. First is that only Eirika can wield it. The other is that they’re hard to come by, so if it breaks, there goes an advantage that Eirika might have over other units. Still, it’s a useful early game weapon, especially for raising Eirika’s weapon rank, and should be taken advantage of.

Suddenly, enemies!

Villain of the Week: You there! Renais dogs! Where do you think you’re going?
Seth: Grado’s men… Stand back, Princess Eirika.
Eirika: It’s all right, Seth. My brother has taught me something of swordplay. I will stand with you.


Finally.

Let’s start with the basics, shall we? Each turn is separated into two phases; Player Phase and Enemy Phase. Player Phase is where you get to move your units and perform actions, whereas Enemy Phase is the same for the enemy. Each player phase, every one of your units can move a number of tiles up to their MOV stat (modified by terrain effects), and then perform one action of your choice. The three main actions are: Attack, Use an Item, and Wait. Note that you’re free to see a battle preview (such as hit rate, damage, crit, etc) or look at your inventory without using your action. Once the action is confirmed, it’s executed immediately. There is no way to undo an action once it’s performed, so think first.


When you select a unit, any tile they can move to is highlighted in blue, and any tile they can attack is highlighted in red. You can also select enemies to see their own movement and attack ranges, which is super convenient. A couple of important details:
First, diagonals count as two tiles away.
Second, allies cannot pass through enemies, and vice versa.
Third, (most) allies and enemies can hit any tile that is one away from them (ie: directly above, below, and to the sides).
Finally, two units cannot occupy the same tile (under normal conditions).



We need to kill all the enemies to clear the chapter (commonly called Routing), so let’s bash some skulls in.

When you select “Attack”, you’re prompted to choose a weapon to attack with. The Silver Lance would be super overkill in this situation, so we’ll just use the Steel Sword.
After confirming the weapon, you’re then given a battle preview screen and are able to select your target. On the right in blue is our unit (Seth), and on the left in red is the enemy (Soldier). Going from the top, we have

HP: The current HP of each unit

Might (Mt): The amount of damage the unit would deal to the other if they hit

Hit: The percentage chance for the unit to strike true.

Crit: The percentage chance for the unit’s attack to deal triple (x3) damage.

Beyond these, we have the weapon icons in the corner. You may notice that the sword we’re using has an upwards arrow

and the enemy’s axe has a downwards arrow


This is the Weapon Triangle. It works like rock-paper-scissors.
Swords beat Axes;
Axes beat Lances;
Lances beat Swords;

Whoever has the advantage (like we do now), gets +15 to their hit, and +1 damage. Likewise, their opponent gets the opposite (-15 to hit, and -1 damage). Keeping the triangle in mind will help you a lot.

So in this case, Seth has 23HP, would deal 20 damage (we’ll explain the x2 in a second), has a 94% chance to hit, and if he hits, he has a 6% chance to turn his 20 damage into 60.


Yeah, he's done for.


Whenever a player unit deals damage or kills another unit, it’ll gain XP. How much XP depends on a variety of factors, mainly the enemy’s level compared to your own, and whether or not you killed the enemy. More murder = more points. Since Seth starts pre-promoted (we’ll get into what promotion is in a later update), the game treats his level as 20 higher, resulting in poor XP gain from early game enemies.


Next, we’ll move Eirika up to attack. As you can see, she’s way worse than Seth. To be fair, that’s not a super fair comparison since Seth is, y’know, Seth. This situation is a really good time to explain two more important combat mechanics (this will be the last major one this update, I swear!).

The first is attack priority. Essentially, whoever initiates the attack gets to strike first, with the defender getting a chance to strike afterwards (if they are still alive). The other is doubling. Without getting into details since this update is already overloaded with information, if your total attack speed is at least 4 points higher than the opponents, then you get a chance to perform a follow up attack after both participants have acted.

In this situation, Eirika would strike first, dealing 7 damage guaranteed (with a chance to crit), then the Soldier would attack and potentially deal 9 damage to Eirika, and finally Eirika would perform her follow up attack to deal another 7 damage with another chance to crit.

That situation isn’t really the reason why I’m not making this attack. It’s because of the bout that would happen on Enemy Phase. The Enemy Phase would start with this Soldier initiating combat with Eirika, and it would play out basically the same as the bout I just described except the Soldier would get a chance to strike before either of Eirika’s attacks. That’s not important because it’ll take Eirika 4 hits to kill him unless she crits. What is important is that if the Soldier lands his attack in the first bout, Eirika faces a chance to get killed during Enemy Phase, and I can’t rely on her landing a crit during the first bout.

As a result, we’re having Eirika wait in front of him.


The Enemy Phase begins, and as expected, he makes an attack on Eirika.


She dodges his attack, so this plan was not needed. Still, better safe than sorry (Note that if Eirika dies at any point, that’s an outright game over).


(apologies for the changing gif speed, still getting used to this)

You may have noticed that last attack Eirika did was a bit fancier than the rest. That was a crit and was literally the only attack out of the four she did this map that had no benefit to being a crit. Always for pleasure.

Oh, and Eirika got a good chunk of XP out of both those exchanges, with the second giving substantially more from killing him, since she’s considered level 1.

All that is left is their leader.


Poor schmuck doesn’t even stand a chance.


He’s got balls, I’ll give him that.

I’ll save your eyes from the brutality that follows.


nvm, he’s just an idiot

Since he’s a “boss” (really?), he gives extra XP, so Seth gets about 20 from murdering this man. And with that, the first map is clear!

wait why did we turn around to kill these people in the first place aren’t we supposed to be running to frelia
YAY POINTLESS MURDER


Eirika: What? Oh, no.. I’m fine, Seth.
Seth: But you look so pale…
Eirika: I’m fine… Fine. …This is war, isn’t it? It’s not at all like the games I used to play with my brother or Lyon. I never thought— I didn’t know it would be this…savage.
Lady you just critted a man out of existence for the lolz what are you on about.
Eirika: Are words useless? Is strength all that matters? It’s so sad… Why would the Grado Empire do this? To what end would they start a war?
Seth: Princess..
Eirika: …Don’t worry, Seth. I won’t give in to sorrow. Let’s get moving. I’m not broken, and I won’t stop until I see Renais restored. I won’t stop until I’m reunited with my father and brother.


Which is it? Are we rebuilding a country or are we meeting people? Man, maybe this script really did need a second pass. Also, I just noticed while transcribing the scenes that the game seems to have a hard on for ellipses.

And that ends the prologue and this update. Later updates shouldn’t be (as) overloaded with information, it’s just that the game needs to set up its pieces and I needed to explain the basic mechanics. There’s still a lot more to the gameplay that we haven’t covered yet, but it should be better paced out from here. Hopefully.

[totallynotlydia]

gold


this takes me back to when forums were cool