If you’re on our site, you probably didn’t find us by mistake, you’re an otaku. If you’re an otaku and you’ve never heard of Full Metal Alchemist, then you’ve been living under a rock for the past 7 years. Fullmetal Alchemist is a wildly popular manga by Hiromu Arakawa that’s published by Square Enix (yep, them again.)

Over the course of it’s popularity it’s spawned 2 TV series, a feature film, a series of light novels and drama CD’s, and seven games (four of which have made it stateside.) I found this gem hiding in a GameStop for $8 used and thought I’d give it a try (after all, I am an Ed Elric cosplayer.)

Unlike the Square Enix produced games from the PS2, which play out like an action RPG (ala Kingdom Hearts) this DS game was produced by Destineer and FUNiMATION and published by Namco Bandai. As such, it plays out much differently. The controls in the game are very simple and retro. Walking is controlled by the D-Pad, and attacking and jumping is controlled by 2 buttons (A & B or X & Y.) The option to run is retro as well and activated by doubletapping the D-Pad in the direction you want to go.

The gameplay is fairly simple. It’s a side-scrolling beat ‘em up game. Ed walks into an area, bad guys appear. A counter in the upper left hand corner tells you how many are left, while the enemy you’re currently fighting’s HP is shown in the upper right. When enemies are defeated, they drop orbs which turn into the symbol on the back of Ed’s jacket. But wait, this game is based on FMA, so where’s the alchemy? All alchemy is done via the touch screen with an attack and defense alchemy provided by 2 buttons. Throughout the game you will gain other alchemist’s abilities and be able to use them like your own, but you can’t supercharge them like your own. By holding down the alchemy button you can supercharge them with the orbs you grab from your fallen foes.

After beating the game, you’re given the ability to play on hard mode (or as I call it, arcade mode, because if it were in an arcade, it’d be a quarter muncher!) as well as character mode, where you can play as Alphonse, Izumi, Mustang, Armstrong and Scar (each of which plays radically different from Ed) giving the game a ton of replay value for such a short game (you can beat it in 3-4 hours on the first playthrough if you don’t skip cutscenes.)

For being retro with a twist, I give the gameplay: 9 / 10.

The graphics are also fairly retro. We’re looking at hand drawn sprites here (flash animators, take note if you want to do an FMA parody.) Very high quality animation on them as well. The supercharged alchemy moves are awesome as you get a tiny little cinematic of your character every time you use them. The cutscenes in story mode are high quality graphics pulled straight from the original tv anime. The audio, as this game was co-produced by FUNiMATION, is also pulled straight from the dubbed version of the show as well.

Graphics: 9 / 10
Audio: 10 / 10

This is a great game that flew under the radar and whether you’re a fan of the beat ‘em up genre or FullMetal Alchemist it’s a must play. It’s got plenty of replay value and the challenge does warrant replays. If you can find a copy of it, new or used, I suggest getting it.

Overall I give it a 9 / 10.

FullMetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy was developed by Destineer and published by Namco Bandai for the Nintendo DS on December 12, 2006. The ESRB rated it T.