The Duty of the Silver Knight

Story Epilogue
Well, everyone, it’s come to this. We’ve felled the Demon King and restored peace to the continent of Magvel- or a start, anyway.

So, it’s time for everyone to return home.

Oh, L’Arachel. You are at once exasperating and delightful. You will ever be my favourite healer-type character in the GBA games.


You do that, Joshua. I’d say you’ve seen and experienced enough to be a half decent king for your people.


Ahhh, Innes. My favourite asshole. I don’t think that’s your call to make, buddy, unless King Hayden passed away suddenly while we were at war.


Eirika no
That’s how this whole mess started


I like how Ephraim never outright says what it is Lyon wanted.



This was the last of the story scenes, and screenshots are not an efficient way of showing the Credits. At the end of the credits, however, the game delivers one final punch to the feels…



That HURTS, IS.

The war is obviously concluded, but in-universe, that’s not the end of things. So, what’s going on with our heroes after all this? Let’s ask the character endings.

That makes sense. As for the star of the show…

In other words…

I do not own the rights to this image; it’s a piece of fanart I found long ago. I can’t remember who originally made and posted it, but it sure as hell wasn’t me. Seth and Eirika are obviously copyrighted by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems.​

Evaluation: End of the Game
Game Overs
Over the course of this run, I’ve gotten a total of four Game Overs:

• Chapter 1: Eirika died because I overestimated her dodging abilities that early in the game and poorly predicted the AI’s actions. I take full responsibility for this death, as it was sheer stupidity and overconfidence on my part.
• Chapter 9: Seth died in a desperate bid to save both Eirika and a nearby village, with the SKL and SPD penalty from Rescuing his charge making him a sitting duck for the swarm of enemies that overcame him. This is sadly a kind of death inherent to a Solo Run; it could have been avoided if I’d had a healer or more units to clear a path with me.
• Chapter 17: Despite essentially being Clutchphraim for most of the chapter, Ephraim failed to dodge the magic attacks of enough Druids that he ended up dying in Chapter 17. This is partially my fault and partially due to the RNG not being fond of me, but mostly my fault for not planning ahead better and bringing more throwing weapons.
• Chapter 18: Seth died due to Gorgon magic after having been turned to Stone, rendering him unable to dodge and increasing the CRIT rate of anything that attacked. I call complete RNG shenanigans on this death and do not take responsibility for it, nor do I hold it against Seth. The displayed Hit Rate of that Stone spell was 15%; taking into account True Hit, that’s between 4 and 5%. That should NEVER have happened.

Regardless of my bitterness over that last one, all in all that is not a bad tally. It’s certainly a lot better than most of my Fire Emblem game runs on high difficulties. Hell, I’m currently playing Awakening on Lunatic and I’ve gotten four deaths on the current chapters alone! Admittedly, as I’ve said in the intro to this project, Sacred Stones is criticized as the easiest game in the series, and Eirika mode is easier than Ephraim mode.

That doesn’t take away that this has been a great run, with three great characters.

Rank 1: General Seth of the Knights of Renais

Unsurprisingly, the majority of enemies were defeated by Seth. His stats are not the highest of the three characters- in fact, in more than one stat, he came out the lowest. However, I think the point of the project has been made; given enough experience and maybe a handful of stat boosters, Seth can carry a Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones game file from start to finish, owing to his unparalleled availability, high bases, and acceptable growths. One could argue I owe part of his good performance to his support with Eirika, but in a way even that is part of him.

In other words, don’t let his archetype fool you; Seth is your man if you need a reliable horseman for your Sacred Stones run.

Rank 2: Her Royal Highness Princess Eirika of Renais

Beating Seth and Ephraim in Speed and in Luck, and receiving Support bonuses from them both, Eirika has definitely served as this run’s dodgetank; which is great, since it kept her safe while Seth did the heavy lifting. She didn’t cap her level, but I think her Level 20/15 stats speak for themselves; as a Lord, Eirika may start out a little shaky but she will always end up as one of your strongest units. Her support with Seth served me well, too- we saw how much of a difference it really made during Chapter 16.

Rank 3: His Royal Majesty King Ephraim of Renais

Ephraim may have ended up as the lowest-ranked out of the three characters, but that’s because his availability was half of what Seth and Eirika had. Ephraim was my best unit this run stat-wise, excepting Resistance where both Eirika and Seth have him beat. Much like Eirika, he wasn’t meant to do the heavy lifting and mostly had to be able to take care of himself, so I haven’t given him enough EXP to cap his level. There’s not really much to say about him here that I haven’t already said during the last evaluation and in Eirika’s bit; level up your damn Lords even if they don’t look like much at first. Unless the Lord in question is an RNG-screwed Eliwood, they WILL give the Final Boss a run for its money.

Final Words
Well everybody, that settles it. This is the end of The Duty of the Silver Knight, my Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones project. I had great fun doing this, even though I’ve quickly come to detest Screenshot Duty, and I hope a few people on-site have gotten enjoyment out of reading it. If you did enjoy it, but have never played it for yourself, I want to strongly recommend picking it up: there exist ROMs of the Japanese, American, and PAL versions of the game (I formally can’t help you there because they’re technically illegal) but those of you who own a Wii U can get this game, as well as its predecessor Blazing Sword (just Fire Emblem in the West) on the Virtual Console for like… five to seven bucks.

It’s definitely worth buying and playing for yourself. Because of my chosen medium, you’ve missed out on Fire Emblem’s great music, for one, and I’ve only shown one of the many ways in which it can be played. The series has great replayability on account of the huge roster. You can use different characters each run; I personally like using the royals and their respective partners, but I could see a Mage-only run or Lord-only run for Sacred Stones. And while you’re at it, make sure to get supports I didn’t! They really help you get to know the characters you’re using and who knows, maybe a character you didn’t think twice about will really grow on you. Since grinding is possible in Sacred Stones (unlike the majority of the games where you’re dependent on Arenas for that), it’s also very easy for newcomers to get into.

I know I will keep playing the game even after this, but publicly speaking, this is the end of Sacred Stones for me. I have a thread open where I’m taking suggestions for my next Fire Emblem LP: be sure to check that out and drop me a line if you haven’t already.

Until then.

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