Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy

Hey, let's browse the shelves, shall we? WHOA, alright! Come quick, look here, another game for the Nintendo DS that slips in a 'DS' subtitle! How clever and original! After you're done being blown away by the sheer creativity of sticking two completely random words together, flip the box over and you'll be shot in the face with several bullet points tricking you into believing this is a side scrolling beat 'em up. Because it's not. In fact, it's barely a game at all. I knew nothing about the anime series this was based on before flicking the clumsy little power switch on, but it seems the developers were expecting this. They knew I was coming! Licensed games can sometimes be a tad awkward if you're not a cool enough kid to know what they're based on, so perhaps a brief explanation could be a good thing.

Except well, the game attempts to cram the entire fifty one episodes of the anime into this tiny little cartridge. What a tight fit! What a... horrible mess! There's an introduction sequence that makes no sense whatsoever and drags on for far too long, but that's okay, because now we're in a church for some reason and enemies are approaching very slowly! The graphics are decent enough, the music is very musical and I'm ready to unleash everything the back of the box promised me. My 'devastating' melee combat skills, my 'powerful' combo attacks. But wait, there's a punch button and.. and that's all you can do. That's not very devastating, even my grandma could punch someone in a church. Oh wait, if you press the touch screen you can unleash.. a cannon? Yes! Hold the touch screen down and you can even make the cannon increase in size, that's thrilling stuff.

But surely you can unlock all sorts of new moves eventually, because this is the future and that's what our video games are all about. Want to access the title screen? Nope, gotta unlock it! But nobody told Bandai. Punching and pulling a cannon out of your arse are the only things you'll be doing to rid the world of evil. Literally seconds after beginning the level, you'll be bogged down with more story sequences. This is what destroys anything the game ever could have had going for it. You'll spend more time watching the story plod on than playing. For every five minutes of fighting goons, there's ten minutes of fighting sleep. Then when a level is complete, you'll be stuck with another massive heap of text to read and repeated, grainy stills from the anime. Even if you follow it all, the game fails to tell you crucial things. For instance one level begins back in time, with the two main characters as little kids. You need to help them steal a burning fish from a confused mountain man that enjoys walking back and forth like some poor soul trapped in an RPG. All while killing foxes that dare to exist. WHY AM I DOING THIS?

Sometimes you might come across a spiked pit which you can't jump over. This requires more magic! Tap the other side of the touch screen and wow, here's a rock to walk on. Touch it again and wow, here's another one. Keep going, until your mouth becomes dry and you've just experienced the most exciting thing this game has to offer. The few levels that actually are in this game are boring beyond belief, the enemies have obviously all had lobotomies and soon enough you'll realize this game was the cause. As you progress, more magical attacks will be added to your touch screen fury, but they're all basically the same as your cannon.

On top of the story sequences that force you to stop playing in the middle of a level, you'll also have to deal with compulsory touch screen mini-games. Just cleared a room? Great! Connect the dots as fast as you can to get into the next room! Now chop some wood! Once you clear one of these, the game happily informs you it has been added as a 'bonus', letting you torture yourself on them as much as you like from the option screen. Full Metal Alchemist is an absolute joke. It's managed to confuse itself and as a result, isn't recommended to anyone at all. Even fans of the actual anime, considering what you'd essentially be buying here is a stripped back version using still screens and badly compressed voice samples wrapped in gameplay that would make an Atari 2600 laugh. Somehow.

Jam it back in, in the dark.