Fullmetal Alchemist

This one falls somewhere in between average joe-gamer and otaku experience.

It’s amazing to see the effect anime has had in this country over the last few years. From a time when over priced and sometimes horribly dubbed English versions was all any movie speciality store had to offer to the now “I can’t walk through a GAME without tripping over a Gundam Kiosk” era. It’s definitely been a great ride for fans of the genre which shows no indication of stopping anytime soon. As with the movie biz, the gaming industry is also showing the same appreciation for the anime explosion here by releasing more and more anime inspired games to fill the demand. True this has led to a slew of simply localized Japanese titles. But these Americanized redos are starting to turn a few heads and prove that there is a market for these games besides Japan. Unfortunately this one falls somewhere between the zone of true greatness and the typical gamer once over before trade in.

Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel is based on the anime of the same name which is now part of Cartoon Network’s Toonami lineup. For those of you who haven’t seen or heard about it, I strongly suggest you pick it up at your local store or catch it on TV. It truly is one great series. However, once again the original Japanese version is always better if you have the means to see it (^_^). Taking place in a world with the existence of Alchemy in day to day life, the series follows the adventures of Edward and Alphonse Elric as they search for the Legendary Philosopher’s Stone to correct the mistakes they inflicted on themselves by breaking the one rule of Alchemy: Transmutation of a human being.

Several years earlier, the brothers attempted to resurrect their dead mother using all the exact materials which comprise a human body. Seeing as how this is a huge no-no in the world of Alchemy, the result was anything but successful. Edward’s right arm was torn from him while his brother’s entire body simply disintegrated into nothing before Ed’s eyes. To top things off, the resurrection of their mom didn’t happen either. By sacrificing his left leg, Edward was able to retrieve Al’s soul and bind it to an old suit of armor lying around in their house. Pretty brutal if you manage to catch the original version of the series, but disturbing none the less if viewed through the edited game movie. After being fitted with mechanical prosthesis to replace his lost limbs, Ed and Al set out on a quest to locate the Legendary Philosopher’s stone. Which is said to have the power to make any form of Alchemy work and even negate the golden rule of equal trade. With this Stone, the boys hope to undo all the wrong they’ve done and be made whole again.

Sounds like a great story right? Well too bad the game doesn’t follow it. Don’t get me wrong, the game is based on the anime and has a lot of the characters you would see in the series. But Broken Angel is more of a side story to the whole adventure. Think of it as a lost episode with some all new characters and events thrown into the mix. However, playing the game isn’t nearly as exciting as watching the original series.

Gameplay is setup like your standard console platformer. Free roaming areas (too a certain extent) filled with endless waves of thugs and creatures to beat up or pulverize using a variety of Alchemy techniques. Now since there are two brothers, you would think you could get a choice of characters. Nope. The entire game is comprised with you controlling Edward (he’s the hero after all) with his Faithful brother Al filling the role of trailing sidekick. Now you can control Al to a point. But he mainly spends his time running around beating up mobs around his brother. Your control over him is limited to three commands: Use, Follow, or Tackle. As for the AI, let’s just say Alphonse isn’t too smart in this gamer’s opinion. I swear if I had a nickel for every time Al went running off out of range to fight one particular guy and thus negating any opportunity for an effective team attack I would be a rich man. “Hey Al, I’m still over here fighting that first wave of bad guys!” Anyway, perhaps Square could have solved this problem by simply making this a two player game to begin with.

As for the rest of the experience, I would have to say it wasn’t much of a challenge. Every enemy I encountered with the exception of a few bosses seemed to be incredibly easy to defeat. Not to mention the game has a system of power and skill upgrades that you’re able to access upon completion of a level. So by the time I got high enough, no enemy could escape my wrath. It didn’t help much that each enemy was barely smarter then the AI fueling Al’s rampage.

Now since this story involves the world of Alchemy, and the fact that the Elric brother’s are damn good Alchemist to boot, you do have a fair amount of tricks at your disposal. Certain objects in any given environment (barrels, street lights, etc.) can be transmuted by Ed to be used by him or his brother to dish out the pain. Whether it’s a giant lance for Al or mounted cannon for Ed, the different possibilities make any situation have several different ways to overcome it. By hitting the magic button, brings up a subscreen which allows you to select various weapons to create. Thankfully this process is extremely fast and doesn’t do anything to kill the pace of the action on screen. But if you simply want to progress through the game with your fists, there isn’t much stopping you. Truly a shame if you ask me.

Visually the game looks very well done. I would have loved to see a bit more work done on the surrounding terrains as I progressed through the game, but if loss was needed to make the characters look better I’m all for it. Not to mention the cutscenes show that same great quality we’re used to seeing from Square Enix. If I didn’t know better I would swear they lifted them from the show. But truth be told they were developed specifically for the game. So you don’t get that recycled feeling you get from some other movie and anime based games. Always a plus in my opinion.

Now usually these types of games will only appeal to fans of the series. However this one falls somewhere in between average joe-gamer and otaku experience. But I think watching the original anime is much more entertaining. So to those who haven’t seen it and to those who have, stick with the show. Let’s just hope a sequel of some sort will come along and correct the mistakes with this one. But don’t push this one aside too fast. Give it a shot and see what you think.