"No Sympathy for Fullmetal"

For the unenlightened, Fullmetal Alchemist was an anime that followed two brothers who were trying to create the Philosopher's Stone in order to regain what they had lost. Most gamers know of the previous Fullmetal Alchemist games. Even fans of the series found them to be poorly made and none of them rated above mediocre. The same is true for Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy. Its a fairly basic adventure/fighting game with a few extra features that seem thrown in just for kicks.

Plot 6/10
The game follows the same storyline as the show. That being said, there are no surprises for fans. What's worse is the developers cut out alot of material. The story is extremely short and can be beaten in just one sitting. Most players can probably beat it multiple times before their DS battery dies. Now that is short. Cutscenes are aplenty and some are animated with the original voices of the characters, but once again if you have seen the series then it is nothing new and you'll probably prefer to just skip them.

Graphics 5/10
The game has some fairly nice visuals some of the time (most of which are the cutscenes), but when I compare it to other DS games out there they don't really stand out. There's no real detail in the character sprites and there's no destructable environment or items that can be used. Transmutations don't look that great either.

Gameplay 2/10
Wow is the gameplay God Awful. You play as Edward, and sometimes Alphonse, running around and mashing the A button to punch or kick. Enemies are extremely easy to beat and when I say easy I mean you can get through most levels without taking damage at all. They just sorta stand there or jump around shouting "hit me!" The touch screen is used for transmuting. At any given time you can do 2 different transmutations depending on which character's skills you are using and one the 2 is always a wall. The transmutation can be increased if you have enough symbols collected. This makes taking out bosses easy. One of the bosses died with only 2 hits from Ed's cannon. There are a number of traps to get through in the game, but they are more annoying than anything else. It's basically the only time you're forced to transmute walls or destroy things with your cannon. Thankfully there is a hard mode, but you must beat the game in order to unlock it. Character mode is also unlocked upon completion of the game, but its just more of the same.

Extras 6/10
The sad thing is I spent more time playing with the extras then I did with the actual game itself. As you play through you can unlock mini games which range from Arm Wrestling to trying your hand at drawing transmutation circles. They can be quite entertaining in short bursts if you're looking to kill some time.

Final Score 4/10
I don't really recommend anyone buying this game unless you are a die-hard fan of the show and must have it for your collection. Either borrow it from a friend and play it for the day or don't bother it all. It's too short of a game to be worth the money.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/07