Easily the most polished and technically impressive Fire Emblem hack currently to date. Depending on your outlook on what makes a game good, it might even be better than the original Echoes. Compared to the 3DS version, Sacred Echoes trades full voice work, higher resolution art, dungeon crawling (which may be a positive or negative, depending on how you like it), and many of the DLC features like pitchforks and the Fire Emblem Cipher units added in Echoes out of the game. In return, you have a redesigned version of Echoes in the GBA engine, with the classic GBA spritework, with a lot of custom animations to match the Echoes designs of a lot of classes. The dungeons are replaced with repeatable maps that contain the loot of the original dungeons, which tend to feel much better in my opinion. They're essentially grinding maps ala the Tower of Valni from Sacred Stones, but they contain Mila statues that you use to promote, just like in the original game, which tend to keep you on par with the enemies you face. Frankly the game is long but it also features casual mode if you don't want to be resetting when you miss a 95%. Which for some reason seems to happen a lot in this game with the changed RNG. Difficult is just fine as a normal difficulty here if you don't mind the game having a bit of bite back. The game is well balanced in general I'd say, though you're certainly expected to use the grinding maps to their purpose if you don't want to be relying on the same units for every combat. Where normal Echoes and Sacred Echoes majorly depart however, are in a few small aspects: normal Echoes very strictly adheres to Gaiden's map design, which is... unpleasant, to say the least. Large, sprawling, empty fields with no chokepoints, interesting set pieces, buildings, or much of anything... Sacred Echoes opts to do away with some of the original Gaiden map design of "being bad and boring" and decides to actually put things in its maps! Crazy! To this end, thieves are also added in as a class special to this game, with two units being given this class, one being a new unit on Alm's side, and Jesse on Celica's side being changed from a myrmidon to a thief. Another new unit was added on Celica's side, as Atlas was changed to an axe using class, new to the game and unique to him. In the place of him, where he is normally a villager, his brother Hyas has been added. The weapons system in Gaiden and Echoes has also been entirely changed, being more akin to the GBA games of having a 5 item inventory. You're forced to carry one generic, unbreakable weapon like the original, and you can equip an extra sub item like a ring or a shield. Then you can carry other weapons and items with you. The weapon triangle as it normally is is in place here, though your basic weapons have no affect on it. It's only when you upgrade to more specialized weapons that they start taking penalties or gaining boosts that it comes into play. In the place of the combat arts seen in Echoes normally, I find this to be a much more rewarding system and more in line with other Fire Emblem games as a whole. Magic still works like in Echoes - it costs HP to cast and doesn't take up any extra inventory slots but 1 to change or equip magic, but on enemy phase, you'll always just have whatever spell you have that can counter equipped. There's a small few changes and additions here and there that I think generally improve the experience. Overall, I really think your opinion on this vs Echoes will be which you value more: gameplay or presentation. Echoes is to date what I would call the Fire Emblem with the most production value behind it - it's absolutely divine how that game looks and sounds, I'd go as far as to call it one of the best looking 3DS games as a whole. Sacred Echoes doesn't have that, being a GBA game. While some of the original CGs and a few new ones are there, they're sadly compressed to fit the GBA's limitations. The music also took a hit, and while the composers for the remixed music had a heavy task to fit in the 3DS music into the GBA, they did their best and added where they could to make up for the lacking audio quality of the GBA.

Do you value your game having more enticing and entertaining gameplay? You might enjoy Sacred Echoes more than the original. Do you think the look of the game is more important than gameplay? Then I believe you'll find the original much more rewarding to play. Personally, I think the trimmed fat of this hack is more for me. There's less faffing about you have to do, it feels like. It can't be understated how technically impressive it is to make Echoes, improve the map design, and fit it all onto a GBA rom. The work of the team responsible can't be understated how much their work and effort paid off to make this happen. They have my utmost respect for being able to recreate the work of a professional development team and being able to spin off on it in a way that I prefer in many ways to the original product. I'd love to see this team back together and working on a fully original hack of their own, as they've definitely proven they have the coding and creative talents to do so.