Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy

I had been looking forward to this game somewhat before its release, it being billed as a Double Dragon-style beat-em-up game, with the added bonus of the anime series' alchemy abilities. Unfortunately FMA:DS underdelivers in almost every way, save for a fun main game, which curiously you must unlock by finishing Story Mode.

Initial reports of export copies expressed great dissatisfaction with the fact that the game's story mode follows the script of the anime, and no more, but this was not something I really cared about. However, as I played it, the significance of these reports became more apparent; the majority of the game's running time is spent in "cutscenes" that relay this story, rather than actual game playing. And I hesitate to call them cutscenes at all, because the scene is almost always static, subtitled with the dialog next to animated faces (and with infrequent voice-overs). I don't mind the story being the same one I've heard before, but I do mind it being the main focus, time-wise, of the game, and being implemented so poorly.

The actual game, as played in Story Mode, is not dissimilar from your garden variety side-scrolling fighting game of yore, except in one crucial aspect: variety. There are very, very few moves at your disposal, which makes the fights more of a button-mashing challenge than anything else, even in some boss encounters. The lack of alchemic options is fairly disappointing, as all you have is a selectable offensive move (most of them are remarkably alike) and a single defensive move.

Here I should point out that the controls for this game are slightly weird. The B and X buttons will jump, whereas A and Y are for attacking, and alchemy is performed not with buttons at all, but by pressing in the bottom-left and -right corners of the touch screen. Why this was not mapped to the L and R shoulder buttons, which are unused for the entirety of the game, I do not know. As a side-note, the puzzle segments of the game that use the touch screen are juvenile at best, the most challenging of which is a five-step Simon game.

As I complain about the lack of variety in Story Mode, though, I should note that the real winning part of this game - and the only thing keeping it from being completely terrible - is the mode you unlock after completing Story Mode, namely Character Mode. Story Mode limits you to playing as Edward nearly 100% of the time, but in Character Mode you can play through the game again, including some new scenes but without the story sequences, as one of six different characters. Each of them has different alchemy attacks, which are the same ones you could select from previously, but work to greater effect when wielded by their intended master, and each character also has different speeds and attack strengths and weaknesses. So the variety of characters actually rounds out the game pretty well, once you've already beaten it, and the cutscene-less game is actually really fun, though short. It would be absolutely perfect for a wireless multiplayer game, but unfortunately FMA:DS does not have any multiplayer ability.

Graphically, the game is pretty well composed, everything's in 2D but it's well drawn and it all moves fluidly. The music is pretty bland for the most part, as are the sound effects. The voice overs are pretty good some times, but other times can sound grating.

There is a ton of stuff in this game, extra little unlockable bits to fiddle around with, everything from a sound test and image gallery to a "Character Clock" where you can have a selected character's voice used as a (functional, if impractical) alarm clock. There are also a bunch of minigames, and though most of them are awful, a few aren't bad.

In short, FMA:DS has some good going for it (Character Mode), but a great deal of shortcomings. Let me put it this way: it's pretty fun for an anime license game.

Progress: Finished all Character Modes