Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy

Hi there, dudes and dudettes, MH here, working at human transmutation since 2014. Aaah the side scrolling brawler games, the paint drying equivalents of video games, fight enemies, move on, fight same enemies, etc. These games bore me to tears. However being a fan of the anime series of the same name, I was suckered into FullMetal Alchemist Dual Sympathy on the Nintendo DS. 

For those who don’t know the story of FMA, well Edward Elric and Alphonse Elric try to bring their dead mother back to life as they are left orphaned and in the care of neighbours, Winry Rockbell and her Aunt Pinako. They fail, and Edward loses his left leg and Alphonse loses his whole body and Edward brings Alphonse back by sealing his soul in a suit of armour which costs Edward his right arm which are replaced with robotic limbs called Automail. Ed then joins the military and the pair go on the search for the philosopher’s stone, the one item that can restore their bodies. The original Manga spawned two animes, the first which was released long before the manga’s completion which lead it to have it’s own story and the 2nd series Brotherhood which followed the Manga and was 10x better. Sadly this is based off the 1st series going through certain stories as levels. But a lot of these stories are cut out from the game and some are reduced to mere mini games or even worse text based cutscenes. 

The Main game follows the story of Edward Elric in the format of the side scrolling brawler with a difference. On the touch screen below are two buttons, one which creates stone walls which can be used as platforms and the other is an exclusive attack depending on the character being played, Ed’s being a cannon. The two last bosses are Dante, the main villain and Envy the homunculus. While Dante is a brilliant boss fight, Envy is so easy it’s ridiculous and his fight is after Dante’s. 

Beating story mode allows you to play through the levels as other characters such as Alphonse Elric, the Flame Alchemist Roy Mustang, Ed and Al’s teacher Izumi Curtis, the strongarm alchemist Alex Armstrong and the serial killer Scar which ends with a different final boss. Instead of Dante and Envy, you fight the homunculus Pride who in the original manga was Wrath, (it’s complicated) and trust me when I say this, he’s hard! On some levels you are given sidekicks which if you’re playing Ed it’s Alphonse, but if you’re playing Roy Mustang, it’s the gun toting Riza Hawkeye.

There are mini games as well such as log smashing, arm wrestling, run from the boulder which are parts of the main story, but there are some extras such as ‘Whack a Homunculus’ which is whack a mole with FMA characters. These games are single player only and they can get boring quite quickly. In fact this game has no multiplayer what so ever. 

The game has some extras as well such as alarm clock mode using characters from the series’ voices, an art gallery and weirdly a fortune teller. Now while these functions are kind of cool, the game doesn’t take long to beat, in fact I did it 3 hours, not just story, but the character mode as well. But then again this is a 3rd part DS game, which means it’s short and half assed. Don’t believe me, check out these games:

HIDDEN MYSTERIES: TITANIC
This is one of those point and click puzzle games and do you wanna know how long this took me to beat? AN HOUR AND A HALF! NOT KIDDING! Most of the puzzles were easy, only one of them was hard and that kept me busy for 45 minutes, so that says something for the rest of the game.

LEGO STAR WARS 2
THIS STUPID GAME! It wasn’t even finished being made, your character disappears sometimes when you go through levels. It’s full to the brim with glitches!

So to get my point across, just cause it’s a handheld game’s console doesn’t mean you can put half the effort into it. Zelda games are full and awesome, same with Pokemon. So in conclusion if you want a side scrolling brawler, your best bet is the multiplayer ones like Battletoads, The Simpsons arcade, Scott Pilgrim and the legendary Ninja Baseball Batman.

I’d have to give this game a medium rating, it’s not god awful, but it’s so short and unfulfilling, if you see if for a couple of quid, it’s a good afternoon, but don’t go paying a high price for it, it isn’t worth it. I'm The Joel MH signing off!