sacred Sacred Stones: The Best Worst Fire Emblem

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Despite its already mentioned issues I find FE8 a solid game overall.

It features a balanced cast, at least average map design and some new things like chosing between two routes and classes for promotion. Hard mode has a few challenging chapters at least, even if Seth could trivialize the game. But without him it's not an easy cakewalk. Maybe it could be a bit longer in terms of chapters. I also like most of the villains. Caellach and Valter play their role really good imo. In general I have no complaints with the character cast at all. I find most them memorable. The story isn't impressing, but that's not the reason why I play FE. The soundtrack is definitely my favorite of the GBA series for sure.  

[Shadow Mir]

16 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

He's saying that if you were to compile a list of all the worst FE games, FE8 would be the best on said list.

 

15 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The problem is that the phrase is a massive oxymoron. "Best of the worst" would have made more sense.

I really want to add to this that calling Sacred Stones the best of the worst is quite a bold statement, if you ask me - I feel it does almost nothing better than other FE games.

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

On 4/10/2018 at 6:29 AM, DB4D said:

And may I mention that the game is EASY. Compared to FE 6 and 7, this game is a cakewalk and doesn't show any real signs of difficulty until really late chapters, where your team will be super buff anyways so it all cancels out pretty much.

well, the fact that we had enemy monsters teams on the world map made it easier to grind exp with main units and promote them earlier.

that wasn't exactly a new addition to the game thou, even Gaiden had enemy units on the map, plus secret spots where it was possible to kill mobs as much as you wanted.

[DragonFlames]

On 4.10.2018 at 8:56 PM, Shadow Mir said:

I would say it's still better than that of Genealogy, where non-mounted units are practically invalidated, and you have Holy Blood and Pursuit to drive further wedges into the cast balance.

I haven't played Genealogy, so I won't judge it, but yeah, that does sound pretty bad. Though I'd argue it's worse in Sacred Stones, because there EVERYONE gets invalidated because of Seth.

On 4.10.2018 at 9:47 PM, fOrEiGn sOUl said:

Unmemorable - I'll give you that, but straight up unlikeable has to be an exaggeration, right? It seems that you clearly missed out on a lot of support conversations because this game has many well written one's. Here's a link if you're interested enough to give this "straigt up unlikable cast" a chance https://serenesforest.net/the-sacred-stones/scripts/supports/

Maybe you'll be able to convince me how lifeless characters like Dozla, Ewan, Tethys and L'Arachel are?

Keyword being "sometimes". I find not all of them unlikable - in fact, the unlikable ones are in a minority, but it's still very noticeable regardless. I just don't feel this certain something I feel when I look at other games' casts. Sacred Stones' cast just doesn't speak to me the way others do. And I know that there are good supports there, I got a good laugh out of the Lute/Ross support, for example and Tana/Cormag is a good support as well, but... The cast in itself doesn't exactly make me want to learn more about them the way say Path of Radiance's or Awakening's did.

I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything here, just saying that Sacred Stones' cast - to me - is one of the weaker ones in the franchise. It's certainly not as atrocious as Fates, overall, but it feels alarmingly similar in parts.
As for the four characters you mentioned:
Dozla seems like a cool dude, but pretty generic.
Ewan is a bratty half-pint that reminds me all too much of Ricken and Hayato, two characters I can't stand.
Tethys is alright, but nothing special.
L'Arachel is annoying and a progenitor of the gimmicky characters of later games (I know I'm probably pretty alone with the opinion of L'Arachel being annoying, but there you go).

[Slumber]

7 hours ago, Fenreir said:

well, the fact that we had enemy monsters teams on the world map made it easier to grind exp with main units and promote them earlier.

that wasn't exactly a new addition to the game thou, even Gaiden had enemy units on the map, plus secret spots where it was possible to kill mobs as much as you wanted.

SS is very easy without grinding. There's always a path to avoid enemies on the map(One of the better design choices in the game), and there's no reason to do them if you don't want to grind.

All grinding does is make using units like Marissa, Amelia and Ewan less difficult and impractical.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Slumber

[gone]

5 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

Dozla seems like a cool dude, but pretty generic.
Ewan is a bratty half-pint that reminds me all too much of Ricken and Hayato, two characters I can't stand.
Tethys is alright, but nothing special.
L'Arachel is annoying and a progenitor of the gimmicky characters of later games (I know I'm probably pretty alone with the opinion of L'Arachel being annoying, but there you go).

Any yet nothing of it proves what makes them so lifeless (which is a ridiculous statement in itself). Of course this cast has it's flaws like any cast we've seen so far - no doubt in that. Just because I dislike the majority of certain cast, I could never argue that it's lifeless since that would be a straight up lie. It's very difficult to read through such dramatically huge statements, when the reasoning behind these are pretty poor. At the end of the day it comes to personal preferences. (the comparison between Ewan and Ricken/Ricken 2.0 I find very odd, as Ewan has ideas he shares and he's very interested in his environment instead of focusing on his appearance/demanour.)

Thanks to your response I do have a better understanding in your reasoning behind that first statement.

 

 

[DragonFlames]

59 minutes ago, fOrEiGn sOUl said:

Any yet nothing of it proves what makes them so lifeless (which is a ridiculous statement in itself). Of course this cast has it's flaws like any cast we've seen so far - no doubt in that. Just because I dislike the majority of certain cast, I could never argue that it's lifeless since that would be a straight up lie. It's very difficult to read through such dramatically huge statements, when the reasoning behind these are pretty poor. At the end of the day it comes to personal preferences. (the comparison between Ewan and Ricken/Ricken 2.0 I find very odd, as Ewan has ideas he shares and he's very interested in his environment instead of focusing on his appearance/demanour.)

Thanks to your response I do have a better understanding in your reasoning behind that first statement.

No problem.

You're right, lifeless was probably too extreme a term to use here. You'll have to forgive me for that. It was just the first word that came to mind when I typed my original post.

[Soviet Cut]

The main problem with FE8 is its characters. There are very few bad characters in FE8, those being Ewan and Amelia and that's because they are trainee units. Gilliam can also be considered one mainly because of his bad movement stat, Marisa because myrmidom and Neimi if you don't grind in the Tower. The game gives you a bunch of good characters to play with, like Seth, Franz, Vanessa, Tana and Duessel/Saleh (they are still okay if their route wasn't selected), Ephraim is pretty strong by himself and even though Eirika isn't the best lord around, she's so overshadowed by almost everyone that it rarely matters. This game also features Branch Promotion, which helps a lot of the characters because some of them can get horses (Lute, Ewan, Neimi, Gerik (though his promotion path is debatable), Ephraim and Eirika, even Gilliam can get 6 mov as a Great Knight) and some classes get better promos. Garcia as a Hero is obviously better than Warrior, because swords and speed, Tana and Vanessa can fix their con problem a little with Wyvern Knight, which also gives them Luna as a skill, Arthur can go Bishop for staff rank (he gains C upon promotion), Cormag can get more speed as a Wyvern Knight and Ewan and Knoll can go summoners for free exp every turn, but this doesn't mean they are bad in their other promotions. The game is also very short chapter-wise, its chapters tend to be small and alright, unlike the other two GBA games filled with winding corridors (mainly FE6) and ambush spawns (FE6 again). The only "hard" chapter in FE8 is Pirate Ship, and mainly because L'arachel likes to play around the ships and be ORKO'ed by monsters. Also there is no ranking system like the others, nor gaiden chapters, which is quite sad. I bet FE8 would be more challenging if the characters had bad growths (like FE6). Since I've only played the GBA ones and Thracia (still playing, though) I can't give a very complex opinion about it, but I hope you find this reply sort of helpful.

[Shadow Mir]

On 10/5/2018 at 12:09 AM, Necrofantasia said:

It features a balanced cast

Balanced how??? I would call bullshit on this because Marisa exists.

12 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

I haven't played Genealogy, so I won't judge it, but yeah, that does sound pretty bad. Though I'd argue it's worse in Sacred Stones, because there EVERYONE gets invalidated because of Seth.

Fair point. And even ignoring Seth, you have crap like Marisa...

[DragonFlames]

9 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Balanced how??? I would call bullshit on this because Marisa exists.

Fair point. And even ignoring Seth, you have crap like Marisa...

And Ewan. And Amelia. And Neimi. The list goes on and on.
Truthfully, I still like using Neimi, though, if only so I can have an excuse to bench the Takumi prototype.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

12 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Balanced how??? I would call bullshit on this because Marisa exists.

She's underleveled, but not as untrainable as some other late and low joining units from other games thanks to low difficulty.

2 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

And Ewan. And Amelia. And Neimi. 

Ewan and Amelia are trainees. They just need chip twice to get a level. 

Neimi isn't underleveled at all. Actually her growths (strength + speed) are really solid for her gender and class. Unironically the best archer in GBA series for me.

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Necrofantasia said:

She's underleveled, but not as untrainable as some other late and low joining units from other games thanks to low difficulty.

You missed the point completely. She's obsoleted by a unit who joins 5 to 7 chapters before her. And worse yet, she joins right around the same time as the best sword infantry unit.

[Soviet Cut]

19 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

You missed the point completely. She's obsoleted by a unit who joins 5 to 7 chapters before her. And worse yet, she joins right around the same time as the best sword infantry unit.

And she's an archer. 2 range, locked into 2 range and bad promotions (Ranger at least gives her a mount).

Guys, seriously, an ancher.

[Slumber]

Marisa is the Oujay of Sacred Stones. 

However, unlike Oujay, Marisa is locked into the worst offensive classline in the game and will never get the payoff of decent utility via consistent 1-2 range weaponry. 

Also, Ewan and Amelia being trainees isn't their only problem. If it was, Ross would get tossed in with them, too. 

Edited October 7, 2018 by Slumber

[DragonFlames]

11 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Also, Ewan and Amelia being trainees isn't their only problem. If it was, Ross would get tossed in with them, too. 

Indeed. My problem with these two is their incredibly late join time for trainees (even worse with Ewan than Amelia) and the fact that both have some serious competition to deal with. Keep in mind that Ross is the only playable Pirate in the game and only has Dozla to compete with as a Berserker. AND he joins around a time where is shoddy bases don't make him a serious liability.
Ewan has Lute, Saleh and Knoll to contend with and Amelia has it even worse: Seth, Franz, Gilliam, Duessel, Kyle, and Forde as well. Though Knoll and Forde are debatable since neither is that good to start with, but they're both so, so much better than Ewan and Amelia, it's not even funny anymore.

[Slumber]

50 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Indeed. My problem with these two is their incredibly late join time for trainees (even worse with Ewan than Amelia) and the fact that both have some serious competition to deal with. Keep in mind that Ross is the only playable Pirate in the game and only has Dozla to compete with as a Berserker. AND he joins around a time where is shoddy bases don't make him a serious liability.
Ewan has Lute, Saleh and Knoll to contend with and Amelia has it even worse: Seth, Franz, Gilliam, Duessel, Kyle, and Forde as well. Though Knoll and Forde are debatable since neither is that good to start with, but they're both so, so much better than Ewan and Amelia, it's not even funny anymore.

And on top of this, you'd expect there to be some huge payoff to using Amelia and Ewan if you stick with them.

But ALL of the trainees have pretty bad growth rates to make up for the fact that they get an extra 9 levels to grow. Meaning they're also some of the most RNG-screwable units in the game. Ross comes early enough that you can try him out and bench him within a reasonable time period if he's getting screwed. Amelia coming by the mid-game and Ewan joining right before the end-game kicks off is comical. It's a big risk to invest in either of them with really no payoff, and they're far and away the most poorly handled trainees in the franchise.

SoV lets the trainees promote into any classline AND every unit is deployable in that game. Fates and Awakening give the trainee units Aptitude, which gives them some of the best growths in the game on top of the extra levels.

Amelia and Ewan are just bad units with no real redeeming qualities, besides their characters if you're into that.

Edited October 7, 2018 by Slumber

[DragonFlames]

15 minutes ago, Slumber said:

And on top of this, you'd expect there to be some huge payoff to using Amelia and Ewan if you stick with them.

But ALL of the trainees have pretty bad growth rates to make up for the fact that they get an extra 9 levels to grow. Meaning they're also some of the most RNG-screwable units in the game. Ross comes early enough that you can try him out and bench him within a reasonable time period if he's getting screwed. Amelia coming by the mid-game and Ewan joining right before the end-game kicks off is comical. It's a big risk to invest in either of them with really no payoff, and they're far and away the most poorly handled trainees in the franchise.

SoV lets the trainees promote into any classline AND every unit is deployable in that game. Fates and Awakening give the trainee units Aptitude, which gives them some of the best growths in the game on top of the extra levels.

Amelia and Ewan are just bad units with no real redeeming qualities, besides their characters if you're into that.

Agreed. And even then, their characters aren't really anything to write home about, either.