Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Curse of the Crimson Elixir

"Transmutating Has Never Felt This Good!"

By now, if you've followed any anime at all you know what FullMetal Alchemist is. A hit series on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, FullMetal Alchemist is loved by critics and fans alike. FullMetal Alchemist tells the tale of Edward and Alphonse Elric, brothers who are working to correct the grave mistake they made when they tried to resurrect their mother from the dead. In search of a way to create the legendary Philosopher's Stone, a powerful alchemic catalyst capable of giving Ed the power he needs to right his mistakes, Edward joins the military and receives the title of FullMetal Alchemist.

Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Curse of the Crimson Elixir is interesting in that it takes the basic events of the anime series, FullMetal Alchemist, and shifts them around, creating a intriguing new twist on the FullMetal Alchemist series. Both the anime and FMA 2 begin in the same way, Ed and Al are traveling to the city of Lior to investigate a "prophet" known as Cornello whom is using alchemy to trick the townspeople into believing that he can perform miracles. The twist to Cornello's scheme is that he is ignoring the laws of conservation, one of the fundamental keys to alchemy. Cornello is achieving this end by using a small red stone on a ring, which Ed believes to be the Philosopher's Stone. Ed, Al, and a townsperson, Rose, confront Cornello. Cornello appeals to Rose, claiming that he will bring her deceased boyfriend back to life. It is all for naught, however, when Ed demonstrates the harsh consequences that come from trying to bring someone back from the dead. When he and Al had attempted human transmutation a few years back, Ed lost an arm and a leg, and Al lost his entire body. After Ed has a brief skirmish with one of Cornello's chimeras, a monster crafted through the fusion of different animals through alchemy, Cornello flees. Ed and Al give chase and follow him through the many chambers of the temple.

At this point, the game departs from the anime storyline. While chasing after Cornello, Ed and Al come across small black monsters known as Golems. The Golems pose little threat to the young Alchemists, although their existence puzzles the two. They quickly defeat the golems and go back to their chase of Cornello. As they begin to finally draw near to Cornello, their advance is halted once again, this time due to a pretty young woman standing in the hall before them. She reaches her hand out to Ed and gives him a jewel studded ring. Ed quickly inspects the ring, but when he looks up again, the woman has vanished. Who was she? And where did she and the Golems come from?

FullMetal Alchemist 2 is an incredible step up from the previous game of the series. Improving itself in almost every facet, FullMetal Alchemist 2 has gone beyond simply a very good anime based game, instead growing into a great all around game in comparison to any title.

Gameplay takes a major step up from the previous incarnation. Melee action is no longer a simple button masher, instead allowing the gamer to set up simple combinations of alchemy and regular attacks. As the gamer advances through FMA 2, Ed gains the ability to transmute various weapons out of the ground at any time. These work in conjunction with the combination attacks, allowing for stronger, longer variants.

Alchemy itself has changed quite a bit from the initial game as well. Instead of charging an alchemy meter in order to transmute objects, the gamer need only stand near the object and press the alchemy button. One drawback to this method is that the gamer no longer has the ability to choose what the object is transmuted into, but this is overall an improvement. The frequency of tranmutable items and the varying range that Ed can transmutate items into is altogether smaller, but this comes off as an improvement as well. The first game of the series was too often bogged down with far too many items on a single stage. FullMetal Alchemist 2 limits this, making each item more unique and invaluable.

While the overall variety of bizarre weaponry Ed can fashion has gone down, the overall quality has gone up tremendously. Several of the less effective alchemic creations were left behind in the last game. What's left is a smorgasboard of devastating weapons and tools, each as entertaining to use as the last. A few holdovers from the prior game include the massive damage katana and the fast action mini-hammer. FMA 2 also offers an upgraded mini-hammer that does decent damage at the same rapid rate. A new addition to the alchemy lineup is the wrecking ball. Basically a crane with a large spherical steel ball on the end, the wrecking ball is a blast to use on both typical enemy fair and, when you're feeling particularly devilish, on brother Al. Don't complain too much, he oftentimes will do the same thing to you! Albeit it on accident...

Enemies are no longer a walk in the park. Although their basic tactics are little more than grouping up and attacking Ed, their individual attacks are varied and quite dangerous. Enemies range in several different sizes and shapes, and each form of enemy has their own particular attack methods and styles. Smaller enemies in the game come at Ed en masse. Although they are very weak and have little health, they can be quite difficult to target and attack. Larger enemies come generally in quantities of only one or two, do major damage, and have plenty of health. Luckily, they also tend to typically be quite slow and easy to target.

FullMetal Alchemist 2's boss fights are incredibly entertaining and diverse. From the earliest portion of the game to the very end, each boss presents a separate challenge to the gamer. Gamers can strive to simply defeat the bosses with any means possible, or they can attempt to beat the bosses in a near perfect manner, netting themselves bonus points, and in some cases, rare items. While simply beating the boss is all that is needed in most cases to finish the level, the opportunity to gain rewards for perfection gives extra incentive to hone your skills.

FullMetal Alchemist 2's greatest improvement over the prior game comes in it's presentation. Level settings have received lush makeovers, giving the gamer reason to explore in the hopes of finding references to the prior game and to the anime series, as well as typical hidden goody faire. Cut-scenes are still made up of character art over a background, but this has been improved substantially by adding the character models into the background, something that was sorely missed in the first game. The character designs have seen a major polishing up as well, now using cel-shading to detail the many characters. “Many characters” was one of the aspects of the game that surprised me the most. Nearly every major character from the series is brought to life in the game. Hughes, Hawkeye, Scar, Mustang, Armstrong, and Winry all make various appearances throughout the game, some within the game's many cut scenes, and some on the playing field.

These come in a variety of different manners. Most notably amongst these is when Ed and Al are grouped up with cooperative characters, first amongst these being Riza Hawkeye. Although not directly controlled by Ed, unlike Al, Riza follows the boys around and helps to defeat enemies by use of her twin pistols. When fighting, the extra cooperative character many times becomes an invaluable ally.

Plenty of animated scenes make up each chapter of the game. These scenes serve to set up, end, and occasionally to break up the chapters of the game. The quality of these scene is exceptional. Typically, they are heavily laced with humor, action, and sometimes, a heaping helping of drama.

With all this that has been said, I simply can't state my case enough. FullMetal Alchemist 2 is both an example of what an Anime based game should be as well as an amazing job by the game's creators at rectifying everything that was wrong with the first game. More than anything, it seems as if FullMetal Alchemist 2 was the product of the game's creator's sitting down and making sure that they had a good product. In doing so, they created a game that I am proud to have both reviewed and to have played.

Graphics ~ 8/10 True to the FullMetal Alchemist anime series and easy on the eyes. Cut-scenes involving still moving character models can get old, but this remains a marked improvement over the original.

Sound ~ 9/10 Excellent job by the Funimation cast at bringing all of the characters to life. Music was good, if never great.

Gameplay ~ 10/10 An absolute joy. Flattening bad guys is rarely this much fun, unless it's flattening them with a wrecking ball!

Story ~ 9/10 Tieing all of the game's story into the anime's far reaching story is some task, but FMA 2 managed to pull it off.

Replay Value ~ Very good. Along with the already high quality of the gameplay enticing me to take another go around, hidden goodies and unlocked references give extra incentive to take FullMetal Alchemist 2 for a second go around.

Overall ~ 9/10 This title far exceeded my expectations and turned out to be a damn good game. If there were any major concerns, it would be the short length of the game, but that's nothing a second play-through won't fix.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/18/06