Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

Like, do Branching Paths.

I think I talked about this last week, but kind of like Sacred Stones.

Yeah.

But, again, like, I fucking love Fortune's Weave, though.

I had that one.

I had Sacred Stones.

Played through those.

Mm-hmm.

Ah, just the going around on the world map and the running around in dungeons and stuff has just felt kind of weird to me, but in a good way.

Yeah, so the map thing reminded me of Fire Emblem Sacred Stones.

Yeah, I didn't play that one.

Yeah, so that one, you actually did have a map that you could travel around, and it had some towers that, like, challenge towers you could go into to, like, level grind and whatnot.

Again, dungeons came in...

They were first in Fire Emblem Gaiden, but the way this game operates them is much more similar to Fire Emblem Echoes, which is the remake of Gaiden.

And then Fire Emblem Sacred Stones, again, also has that explorable map.

It took some of these really good concepts that have been in Fire Emblem before and really flesh them out in a fun way.

I will play this for the next eight years just in time for the next Fire Emblem to come out.

Yeah, I'm like, I mean, I'm not a Fire Emblem person, though I've played Sacred Stones back in the day, and I enjoyed that a lot.

And I've always been like, one day I'll get to Three Houses, but it's the longest game in the world.

And I wouldn't play this without playing Three Houses first, because that's just who I am.

Yeah.

So Fire Emblem Fortunes Weave is the newest Fire Emblem game in a long series, long series of Fire Emblem games of which I have been playing for a long time, mostly since Fire Emblem came stateside, which I think was Sacred Stones or Blazing Blade.

It was just called Fire Emblem in America for a while.

But one of those GBA ones, whichever one came first, I grabbed.

And like, I wouldn't be surprised if eventually they did like a, here's a alternate Fire Emblem game that is just like the GBA style stuff, you know, like a more focused and smaller tactics game like that.

And so like in a way, yes, it is a culmination, but I think it is kind of running off in the direction that Three Houses put forward in the first place and trying a lot of new stuff.

Like, you know, I think you would be hard pressed to look at this game, comparing it to, you know, Sacred Stones or something like that in the GBA and be like, yeah, they both have tactics, but like, holy shit, there's a lot of stuff in Fortune's Weave that is not present in those early games.

Which is not a bad thing, but it's just different.

funny how one move can drastically change the feel of some of these levels.

I remember doing that in Sacred Stones on the GBA.

I got up to the last level.

No, it wasn't the last level.

But for me, I don't think that quite applies.

That shouldn't apply to Nintendo because they have such an audience that would be willing to engage online with throwback stuff like that.

So I'm like, I was playing the new fire emblem and I'm like, okay, why doesn't Nintendo actually make a sacred stones like fire emblem that they could, they could turn around in a year or the same with like a, a super Mario bros game made in the vein of, let's say Sonic mania or the, the same with Zelda.

Like, I think they would do well to have one of those out every so often, but maybe they're worried it would dilute the IP, but I don't think it would.

Which it seems like they included this turn-based thing to speed things up, because it's not particularly deep, you can literally hold the plus button, and the game will auto-complete it for you, and that's it.

I think it's a nice idea, because it does speed things up, but it leads me to ask, well, you were just saying, you know, you have the skirmish-style maps, or, like... they're kind of the equivalent to just random encounters in the same way that they are in the dungeons right when the ones that are on the map screen i mean the world map yeah there's similar things in like awakening and sacred stones but those maps are what the ones and echoes in the dungeons kind of used to be so maybe those should have just been skirmishes as well i think right uh like the the turn-based thing as well i don't know it's it's strange but It just...

I don't know.

Like, I don't hate those things.

And there is a nice...

I have no idea what her story is or her character is because she has no supports with anyone on my team, but she's a character that I'll remember of being a core part of my crew because of her performance on the battlefield, right? And I think...

even if we don't get loads of support conversations with these random characters i do think they can still have that kind of fun story element to them um which which is fun uh so yeah um how have you found like promoting units and that sort of thing because i think i've never been the biggest fan of the modern approach of oh anyone can be anyone you know if you're just a magic person you can be a spear person if you want if i just reclass you here and change your stats up a area um i tend to like the more sacred stones approach ultimately which is like you have some choice but you still have to choose a route and a path or there is a predetermined path basically for what this character is going to end up being based on their their class position um i have found i'm a bit concerned about like the class options like there's an orneas rider class at the end of the advanced chain that is black magic only and i'm like well kai uses spears so i'm not going to make him an orneas black mage am i so what other option do i have to make him and it feels like There are certain classes that are better off just not going any further than specialty, which is weird because it feels like I should go to advanced.

But this has been the case in past games as well with Three Houses.