Another epic, memorable adventure awaits in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, the follow-up to 2003's similarly excellent strategy RPG, Fire Emblem. The previous game was actually the seventh in a series that had long since established itself in Japan, and at last made it to these shores. That makes The Sacred Stones the eighth Fire Emblem title, though it features an original, completely self-contained story and is equally well suited to new players as well as returning fans. Those fortunate to have played previous Fire Emblem games will find a comfortably familiar experience in The Sacred Stones, which features its own huge cast of unique characters and some noteworthy twists to the formula. However, most of the play mechanics, animations, and sound effects are the same as before, and therefore maybe not quite as impressive as they used to be. The game itself is outstanding overall, though, for all the reasons its predecessor remains one of the best Game Boy Advance games available--it, too, offers a lengthy, rewarding, thought-provoking experience that truly makes you feel as though the decisions you make, waging one exciting battle after the next, carry serious consequences.

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones consists of a series of strategic turn-based battles that are tied together by an elaborate, carefully crafted story featuring dozens of different characters...characters who live and die by your actions. The story touches on many of the same themes as the previous Fire Emblem game, but it's otherwise completely different, right down to the new setting of the land of Magvel. Central to the tale is a new pair of protagonists, the chivalrous royal siblings Ephraim and Eirika. When the kingdom of Grado suddenly and ruthlessly lays siege on its former allies in the kingdom of Renais, Ephraim and Eirika emerge as some of the sole survivors. Forced to go their separate ways, the two of them embark on a quest to muster an army and discover the source of Grado's treachery. You'll get to experience the story from both characters' perspectives, and parts of it even branch off, giving you a different angle on the storyline depending on whose journey you choose to follow.
Much like the previous Fire Emblem, this is a well-written, surprisingly sophisticated narrative featuring plenty of endearing heroes and villains, and no shortage of provocative, morally complex situations. The content isn't so severe that it isn't suitable for younger players, but the point is, Fire Emblem takes itself and audience seriously, though it's not without its occasional moments of comic relief, either. The storyline mostly just unfolds through lightly animated character portraits and accompanying onscreen text, yet this seemingly simple technique works surprisingly well to get the point across. The story is noninteractive and at times quite wordy, so you could skip right past it if and when you really want to. But, much like the previous game, the entertaining turn-based combat and the rich story of The Sacred Stones combine to form something much greater than the sum of these two parts.
The turn-based battles that form the basis of the gameplay in Fire Emblem have more in common with strategy games like Advance Wars than with other strategy RPGs like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. In any given battle, you'll control a limited number of units--usually about a dozen--as you attempt to solve your mission's objective. That objective generally involves strategically battling against superior numbers of enemy forces. During your turn, you get to move all your units in any order, and if you wish to make them attack their foes, you're given an estimate of the results of that exchange before having to commit to the fight. When one unit attacks another, the game cuts to a little animated sequence showing the combatants exchange blows. If one unit runs out of health points, it's gone and out of the fight, and can usually be presumed dead. Don't think outsmarting your foes will be easy--the artificial intelligence in Fire Emblem is quite good, so you can look forward to your enemies exploiting any weaknesses in your defenses, such as by focusing their attack on your weakest forces. To make things really interesting, the game features tons of different character classes, each with their own distinct specialties. You've got knights, archers, cavaliers, priests, thieves, fighters, mercenaries, shamans, and many more to work with, including some exotic classes like pegasus knights and wyvern lords.

Fans of Fire Emblem should immediately recognize almost all of these, though a number of new high-level classes and enemy units have been added since the last game. As in the previous title, you must actively use your different characters in battle to make them earn experience points, and as they increase in levels, they noticeably begin to grow more powerful. Later, you'll also be able to upgrade them to a more prestigious character class that's much more effective. Actually, one of the significant changes in The Sacred Stones is that it gives you a choice when you upgrade most of your characters. In the previous Fire Emblem, your cavaliers could become paladins. Here, they can become paladins or great knights, the latter of which is one of the game's new classes.

Dynasty Warriors Advance is set during the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history, which lasted roughly from AD 184 until AD 280. The Han dynasty ended, leaving three individual kingdoms of Wu, Wei, and Shu to spend the next century fighting for control of China. Many famous generals, such as Cao Cao, Cao Ren, Liu Bei, and Lu Xun, made their mark over the years by claiming victories in battles that literally shifted the balance to one side's favor. In Dynasty Warriors Advance, you can pick one of 13 famous generals and lead their troops through the entire era, possibly altering China's history in the process.

Once you choose a general, you'll find yourself in the first battle--Hu Lao Gate--staring at a map populated with castles, supply depots, and character icons. Gameplay is split into two phases: a strategy phase and an action phase. Neither is very complicated. The strategy phase works just like a board game. There are red and blue character icons situated on the map. The red ones represent your allies, and the blue ones are the enemies. You can move your own general one space per turn, while the CPU takes command of all of the other icons, both ally and enemy. When you make contact with an enemy, the action phase is initiated. This is where the magic happens. Your lone general is thrust onto a battlefield and you have to eliminate groups of enemies in real time by mashing the attack buttons. You can run around, dash, activate booster abilities, and perform different attack combos by keying in various combinations of the A and B buttons.

Even though the premise and gameplay sound esoteric and highfalutin, the console Dynasty Warriors games have no problem making the whole concept seem approachable and interesting. And that's because battles in the console versions resemble the kinds of thousand-man skirmishes you'd see in movies like Braveheart or Troy. Often, dozens, if not hundreds, of soldiers are displayed all at once. This sense of scope and scale is electrifying, especially considering how you can wander the environment and pick fights with lone captains or entire clusters of swordsmen. The GBA game, by contrast, can only display seven characters onscreen at any given time. As such, battles on the handheld lack the scope that battles on the console have.

And that's really the problem with Dynasty Warriors Advance--so many cutbacks were made to cram it onto the GBA that it's missing most of what made the console versions so enjoyable. Let's say you enter a battle against 50 enemy soldiers. Since the game can only display seven characters at once (including your general), it means that enemies come out six at a time. Battles drag on longer as a result, and, worst of all, the GBA game is that much easier since crowd control is never a challenge. Meanwhile, the sprites themselves are small, bigheaded, and poorly animated. Watching Cao Cao wave his sword around chunkily like Samurai Tailor in a classic 1970s Saturday Night Live sketch is hardly awe-inspiring. Not only do the flat, top-down environments obviously lack the scale that the large 3D environments on the consoles have, but they're also pretty bland. Except for a random wave motion or torch flame effect here and there, there's nothing going on in these woods and villages. The same holds true for the audio. If not for rock music constantly playing in the background, all you'd ever hear are the same metal clashing and groaning sound samples over and over again.

Beyond the technical cutbacks, there are numerous gameplay cutbacks, too. The GBA game has fewer kinds of enemies than the console games do. In Dynasty Warriors Advance, you encounter the same three enemies constantly--swordsmen, spearmen, and archers. The absence of flame-throwing juggernauts and captains on horseback is a real downer. You also can't do things like hire bodyguards or specify which officers accompany you into battle, which were two of the console games' nicer features. At least the arsenal of weapons and boost powers are still mostly intact. Each general specializes in three weapon types and has a set of six different boost powers that can be used to enhance attributes such as strength, speed, and combo effectiveness. There are approximately 250 weapons to find throughout the game, which, along with the leveling that occurs for killing soldiers, can turn your rookie general into a one-man army in no time. None of this matters, though, because the enemy artificial intelligence has also been greatly diminished. Standard enemies rarely attack or block, and CPU-controlled captains are only slightly more difficult because of their increased health and damage output. Basically, the action sequences in Dynasty Warriors Advance have been reduced to pure button mashing.

If you don't mind that Koei designed Dynasty Warriors Advance as an outright button masher, you might just get your money's worth out of it. The three campaigns each have six individual stages, and each stage can last more than an hour with all of the map moves and battles involved. That's a good 20 hours of gameplay even if you only play through the three scenarios once. The game also includes a free mode, which lets you revisit past stages outside of the campaign mode, and a challenge mode, which offers endurance, time attack, and treasure hunt-style objectives.

Compared to the console Dynasty Warriors games, Dynasty Warriors Advance is a watered-down imitation. On its own, it's a fairly generic and very repetitive button masher. Suffice it to say, if you already own another version of the game, you're better off sticking with it.

Another epic, memorable adventure awaits in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, the follow-up to 2003's similarly excellent strategy RPG, Fire Emblem. The previous game was actually the seventh in a series that had long since established itself in Japan, and at last made it to these shores. That makes The Sacred Stones the eighth Fire Emblem title, though it features an original, completely self-contained story and is equally well suited to new players as well as returning fans. Those fortunate to have played previous Fire Emblem games will find a comfortably familiar experience in The Sacred Stones, which features its own huge cast of unique characters and some noteworthy twists to the formula. However, most of the play mechanics, animations, and sound effects are the same as before, and therefore maybe not quite as impressive as they used to be. The game itself is outstanding overall, though, for all the reasons its predecessor remains one of the best Game Boy Advance games available--it, too, offers a lengthy, rewarding, thought-provoking experience that truly makes you feel as though the decisions you make, waging one exciting battle after the next, carry serious consequences.

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones consists of a series of strategic turn-based battles that are tied together by an elaborate, carefully crafted story featuring dozens of different characters...characters who live and die by your actions. The story touches on many of the same themes as the previous Fire Emblem game, but it's otherwise completely different, right down to the new setting of the land of Magvel. Central to the tale is a new pair of protagonists, the chivalrous royal siblings Ephraim and Eirika. When the kingdom of Grado suddenly and ruthlessly lays siege on its former allies in the kingdom of Renais, Ephraim and Eirika emerge as some of the sole survivors. Forced to go their separate ways, the two of them embark on a quest to muster an army and discover the source of Grado's treachery. You'll get to experience the story from both characters' perspectives, and parts of it even branch off, giving you a different angle on the storyline depending on whose journey you choose to follow.

Much like the previous Fire Emblem, this is a well-written, surprisingly sophisticated narrative featuring plenty of endearing heroes and villains, and no shortage of provocative, morally complex situations. The content isn't so severe that it isn't suitable for younger players, but the point is, Fire Emblem takes itself and audience seriously, though it's not without its occasional moments of comic relief, either. The storyline mostly just unfolds through lightly animated character portraits and accompanying onscreen text, yet this seemingly simple technique works surprisingly well to get the point across. The story is noninteractive and at times quite wordy, so you could skip right past it if and when you really want to. But, much like the previous game, the entertaining turn-based combat and the rich story of The Sacred Stones combine to form something much greater than the sum of these two parts.

The turn-based battles that form the basis of the gameplay in Fire Emblem have more in common with strategy games like Advance Wars than with other strategy RPGs like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. In any given battle, you'll control a limited number of units--usually about a dozen--as you attempt to solve your mission's objective. That objective generally involves strategically battling against superior numbers of enemy forces. During your turn, you get to move all your units in any order, and if you wish to make them attack their foes, you're given an estimate of the results of that exchange before having to commit to the fight. When one unit attacks another, the game cuts to a little animated sequence showing the combatants exchange blows. If one unit runs out of health points, it's gone and out of the fight, and can usually be presumed dead. Don't think outsmarting your foes will be easy--the artificial intelligence in Fire Emblem is quite good, so you can look forward to your enemies exploiting any weaknesses in your defenses, such as by focusing their attack on your weakest forces. To make things really interesting, the game features tons of different character classes, each with their own distinct specialties. You've got knights, archers, cavaliers, priests, thieves, fighters, mercenaries, shamans, and many more to work with, including some exotic classes like pegasus knights and wyvern lords.

Fans of Fire Emblem should immediately recognize almost all of these, though a number of new high-level classes and enemy units have been added since the last game. As in the previous title, you must actively use your different characters in battle to make them earn experience points, and as they increase in levels, they noticeably begin to grow more powerful. Later, you'll also be able to upgrade them to a more prestigious character class that's much more effective. Actually, one of the significant changes in The Sacred Stones is that it gives you a choice when you upgrade most of your characters. In the previous Fire Emblem, your cavaliers could become paladins. Here, they can become paladins or great knights, the latter of which is one of the game's new classes.

As adventure games go, Back to Stone doesn't do much to bust out of the "fight monsters, fetch items" formula. The game's lone gimmick is that you play as a man who can transform monsters into stone blocks. Those stone blocks, in turn, can be pushed around and used as platforms or to activate floor switches. Basically, the developer has come up with an interesting way to enable the same block-pushing mechanic we've seen in countless similar games. However, while that's nice and all, it doesn't make the act of pushing blocks more enjoyable, and it sure doesn't change the fact that Back to Stone is a bland dungeon crawl with some serious shortcomings.

Unlike other adventure games that gradually give you new weapons and abilities to use, Back to Stone doles out its entire limited arsenal within the first couple of missions. Your character has a single punch attack, which turns most enemies into stone. You can also unleash a powerful energy blast, although you don't often get the chance to do so because you need to collect crystals to recharge it. Your character turns into a full-on demon when he's low on health, but that's barely reflected in the gameplay. When you're a demon, your attacks become stronger and certain non-player characters won't talk to you. Each dungeon has its own diverse menagerie of monsters. While they all look disturbing, only a few actually make an effort to chase you or assail you with magical attacks. Most just crawl around within a small territory and dish out damage if you somehow run into them. The larger "boss" monsters located at the end of certain dungeons do have intricate attack patterns, however. Those battles are an exciting change of pace from the otherwise mundane act of turning tiny monsters into stones and then pushing those stones around to make the platforms or activate the switches that will get you through an area.

Being able to turn monsters into stone blocks is a cute gimmick, but it doesn't inject any new energy into the block-pushing mechanic that has been done to death in so many similar games through the years. Stones can be used to safely traverse electrified floors or change the orientation of rotating platforms, or placed into preordained spots to produce crystals or unlock doors. Some stones are unbreakable. Some explode and clear away any nearby monsters. Ramps and arrows in the environment let you launch stones over bottomless gaps. Back to Stone definitely delivers some clever puzzles involving the pushing of stone blocks. Regardless, pushing blocks around gets boring after a while. Instead of giving you a periodic break like other games would, Back to Stone will just keep taxing you with one block-focused puzzle after another. The game is a long one compared to other adventure games, taking roughly 10 hours to complete. Most of that time, though, is spent moving stone blocks around.

In terms of presentation, Back to Stone is inconsistent. Every good aspect seems to be tempered with a negative. For instance, while the music is haunting and intricate, there aren't many sound effects other than some punches and the demonic roar that happens when your character runs low on health. As for the visuals, the variety of enemies and environments is great, and the character animation is more fluid here than in a lot of other GBA games. Unfortunately, each enemy has only one or two different movements, and the graphics are heavily stretched. It's as if the game was initially being developed for a system with a smaller screen and then transitioned to the GBA midway through the development cycle.

The isometric view also causes problems at times. Since the environments are tilted to fake a three-dimensional sense of depth, it can be difficult to line up jumps and to position blocks properly. Too much of the game's trial and error is a result of the perspective, causing you to misjudge open air for solid ground. Thankfully, such mishaps usually aren't fatal. If you fall off a ledge, for instance, your character will reappear on solid ground with only a touch of health deducted. Or if you place a stone in the wrong spot, it'll eventually dissolve and you can go transform another monster into a useful statue. Password markers are scattered liberally throughout each dungeon, which is both good and bad. On the one hand, you can always take a break and return to your game whenever you need to. On the other hand, you have to stop and jot down a 10-character password every minute or so if you want to keep tabs on your progress.

It's nice to see that developers are still producing original games for the Game Boy Advance. Unfortunately, Back to Stone is a bland, sloppy adventure game that doesn't bring anything original to the formula apart from a novel twist on the same block pushing we've been doing for years.

Size ± 36 MB : Download here

If you like it, buy it