Mitchell Dyer

Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy (Nintendo DS)

There are plenty of television shows or films that love to rake in as much cash as they possibly can. Merchandise, toys, and video games are among some of ways to make some extra quid, but sadly the video game renditions rarely turn out as much quality or entertainment as the content it’s based on; there is absolutely no exception with the side-scrolling-beat-’em-up adaptation of the fantastic anime in Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA) Dual Sympathy. This game really justifies the theory that you absolutely can’t make decent video games of licensed products, especially if your final product is something gamers would have seen in 1995.

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The core gameplay of FMA: Dual Sympathy (The subtitle has no meaning save to be an acronym for ‘DS’) is a very simple and painfully old two-button combat system. The two methods of attack (and all general moving around, excluding the left/right d-pad running) are “Jump”, and “Punch”. You can combine these two to create aerial attacks which prove fairly useless, as well as create three hit combination attacks. As Edward Elrich, shining star of the anime series, you’ll utilize this aged system to dispatch of some familiar and not-so-familiar baddies. To mix things up and to have an excuse to inconveniently use the touch screen, Ed’s alchemy powers are primed for tapping in the bottom corners of the bottom screen. A variety of alchemic powers are unlocked as you progress, as they’re acquired after meeting key characters in the storyline like Roy Mustang or Louis Armstrong. These characters, however, are few and far between in the story itself. This is stunning since the series relied so heavily on character development and the effects they had on the main characters, Edward and Alphonse Elric (who is briefly playable, once).

The way the narrative is displayed in the game is absolutely incomprehensible, and considering how the DS game spans all 26 episodes of the series, it’s literally painful trying to follow it. The most hardcore of hardcore fans will be baffled as to why certain key elements were excluded from the game. Certain deaths are never mentioned, meetings ignored, and some of these are brought up very briefly in the final moments of the story. It makes it very confusing, and anyone who has not seen the entire series in full (multiple times, even) should avoid trying to watch the cinematics, which consist of an image from the anime on the top screen, text on the bottom screen, and a whole lot of reading. There’s so much reading in this game that you’ll find yourself skipping every single break between combat if you dare to play the second time through. The text, if you are masochistic enough to read it all, will break up the games pace entirely. Ten, twenty, sometimes thirty minutes without any kind of gameplay is not worth the watch, especially when all it does is confuse you. Half the time, the only gameplay in the stage (of which there are 10) is a single mini game or one fight, like the Fullmetal VS Flame chapter that fans of the series will recognize. These short levels here make for great portable play, however it makes little to no sense why the breaks between short levels are huge, and will follow with a fifteen minute beat-’em-up stage. The pacing in FMA:DS is as ridiculous as the story it tries so hard to convey. It will just make you angry trying to advance through the three hour (tops) adventure.

Visually and audibly FMA suffers as well. Using sprites overtop a still frame scrolling background is reminiscent of a sub-par Super Nintendo or other 16-bit era game. While it’s colorful and detailed, there have been other DS games in this same manner that have succeeded in every way by slightly improving on this. The audio is all MIDI, except for the odd voice over ripped from the anime, but even those sound like they were spoken in to a tin can. The annoying background music likely isn’t anywhere to be seen in the series, but hey, I could be wrong – the tunes are just bad enough that you can’t tell what it’s actually trying to sound like… A simple MIDI rock riff will overlap a one note drum beat while what might be a piano sound effect chimes away at rocket speed. It doesn’t suit the universe in any way, and if it’s supposed to be a rendition from the show, I don’t recognize it.

The only thing FMA:DS has going for it is what equates to lackluster fanservice, and some nostalgic sidescrolling action… There are better ways of acquiring both fanservice and nostalgia than shilling out $35.00 for this utter waste of time. Unlockable characters, hard mode and alchemy are the only things you’d play through this short, easy pile of trash again, but let’s be totally honest, you’re not going to. In fact, don’t play it once. Or ever.

3/10