Customer Reviews

Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Highly recommend this game if you can't get enough of the anime. It plays the same story as the anime series (watered down of course). Fairly easy gameplay, there are mini games to play and unlock, and you can play other characters once you have beaten the game in hard mode.

Some may wonder about drawing the transmutation circles. It's not an overly done process in the game. One way it is achieved is when you have to open certain doors a screen will appear and you have to hit these dots around the circumference of a circle as they light up in order. Another method of transmutation circles is that a specific pattern appears in which you have to trace in the alloted time.

Very good game overall. The voices are taken from the anime as well as the images. Plays like a fusion of manga and anime.

Only problem with the game is that during some parts when your reading from Al's journal, the pictures are small. After seeing some of the nice images there are in the game, it seemed like they just threw them in there.

Characters have certain alchemic abilities that you can use once you play the character with any other player. You don't have to draw circles to do this alchemy, just hold your stylist to the touch screen and charge your achemy depending on how much energy you have. You get alchemic energy from defeating enemies and collecting their "orbs".

Having recently been introduced to the series, I was anxious to play a game based on the show. Instead of picking one of the console games(like my friends advised me to)- I decided to pick up Dual Sympathy to play first. Lately, I've been more into playing handheld games for some reason. Thinking I was picking up a game that would be more RPG in nature since the anime is extremely storydriven and less fighting, I was surprised to find out it played more like River City Ransom or Streets of Rage but with alchemical abilities to further progress you in the game. It sort've reminded me of the first Naruto Ninja Council game somewhat, except with the Fullmetal Alchemist license & a little more storyline. The story itself follows the cartoon series which follows Edward and Alphonse Elric's journey to find The Philosopher's Stone which gets them into some hairy situations. Overall, I liked the game. It looked a heck of a sight better than most games like these on the DS and was pretty much a solid game. However, there were a few things that annoyed me about the game. For instance, it was too short a game. While there are little added extras to make you replay the game again, it still isn't enough. I left the game wanting more. Second, the story got confusing at certain points(Thank God I knew the storyline from the show or I would've been lost). Thirdly, I left the game feeling that the developers could have did more with the game by being more daring and creative with the use of the touch screen for the alchemical abilties. What use I did have of the touch screen was somewhat boring to me after awhile(as I've seen it used like this before).

Personally, I feel reviews on the game will be mixed at best. Although it was a good game to me, it will probably be a huge disappointment to hardcore fans of the show.

This game at normal mode a few difficulties. It's very stylus active and you have to be on your toes because you're being timed. It's a very short game though so i was disappointed when I saw the credits. It follows along the story perfectly. It couldn't have been longer and more eventful. They should've added in the movie at the least. It sums everything up at least.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy is the 2nd DS title that I've bought, and I'm really happy with it!
I always loved the anime, and I came across this game while looking for some "lesser known" DS titles that I could try out, so I bought this one and I'm glad I did!
If I had to describe the game play of Fullmetal Alchemist DS, I'd decribe it as, "a combination of MegaMan X & Captain Commando." It's side scrolling and jumping remind me of MegaMan X, while the platforming and fighting reminds me more of arcade street brawlers like "Captain Commando" & "Double Dragon"
Now mix that game play formula with the story, voice acting, and animation of Fullmetal Alchimist, and you've got the main idea of this game.
Fullmetal Alchemist DS is a very fun game to play on the go, so don't be afraid to take it with you on road trips and vacations.
Besides just the fun of the game itself, there are quite afew in-game mini games that you can unlock and play later when you don't feel like playing the main game, they're all pretty addictive.

Pros:
Nice graphics, voice-overs throughout, compeling story with convincing charecters, great for road trips, appeals to fans of both RPGs & old-school arcade games, easy & responsive touch screen interface, lots of special features to unlock, addictive mini games, hard to put down, great for fans or new-comers to Fullmetal Alchemist.

Cons:
Although you play through almost the entire storyline of the anime, certain exciting parts weren't turned into levels, (i.e. you never get to fight Scar as Edward & Alphonse) skips some of the interesting scenes from the anime, (i.e. you never get to see the scene when Edward escapes from his prison & goes after Cornello, it skips over it completely and appears as though Ed was never captured) normal story mode is pretty short.

50/50:
The voice acting sounds a little scratchy on the DS...
Playing this game will make you wanna watch the show really bad...

Overall:
Although this game has it's fair share of pros & cons, I say that the pros outweigh the cons. I had an anormous ammount of fun playing this game, and I recommend it to anyone who's a fan of RPGs, old-school platforming brawlers, and of course Fullmetal Alchemist!

I am a huge fan of the shows, which caused me to buy this game the first second I could. Overall its a fun game. Here are pros and cons regarding the game.

Pros:
-You can play as a variety of characters from the show incuding Ed, Al, Mustang, Izumi, Armstrong, and Scar.
-You inheret different Alchemic abilities as you play the game more and more
-The graphics in the game are stupendous and very cool
-You can play a variety of bonus mini games

Cons:
-A lot of the stuff you get in the game, are just bonus items. The game only lasts 20 minutes depending on how fast your play, but the more you play the more bonus stuff you get. I personally didn't enjoy that fact.
-The Stylus use in the game is pretty awkward. You use the touch pad to use your alchemic ability. So if you're fighting an enemy, you'll have to stop kicking and punching to rush your right hand and stylus onto the touch pad to use Alchemy. It isn't that bad really. Its just awkward.
-I was hoping for a different side of the story like the direction of the other PS2 FMA games, rather than the tv show storyline. This game only follows through with the storyline of the movie.

Overall fun game. Definitely recommend it. Also if you loved the show, I wouldn't hesitate at all to buy it! Great Great game.

I don't normaly like ds games that are based off a tv show but this one was really fun to tell the truth!! I would definitely recommend this not just becouse i'm a huge fan of the anime but becouse it's actually a really fun game.

This game is so much fun. Its not so dificult but you have to really concentrate in order to pass is. How you can use characters in the story mode could have been better each one on their story line, but having to kill the humonculus is very fun. Not perfect but so much fun.

Fullmetal Alchemist : Dual Sympathy DS is in essence an active version of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime. Fans of the show will love it - but people new to the world might become quite lost.

The gameplay is in essence a fighting game with some magic thrown in, wrapped up by a VERY dialogue intensive storyline. The main characters are a pair of brothers, one with metal parts, the other in a full robot body. They run into a series of bad guys that they need to take on. In each case as they move from room to room they tend to have to finish off all the bad guys they see before the room "releases" and allows them to move along to the next area. Big "GO" arrows help to guide the way.

The magic is often in the form of puzzles. Use walls to get over spikes. Use guns to take down enemies. You need to figure out which combination of spells will get you past the current obstacle.

I'm not religious, but religious people might have a problem with some of the dialogue, where the characters are ridiculing God and saying their science makes them God like creatures.

Also, a portion of what they say just makes no sense at all. I don't mean in a "suspension of disbelief" manner but in an actual "sentence A does not lead to sentence B" way.

Still, cartoons are not really meant to be evaluated seriously. They present an interesting world, give us some fun thoughts to ponder over, and show how characters learn and grow over time.

If I look at this game from the view of an anime fan who loves the series, the dialogue gets a bit excessive compared with gameplay. It scrolls by VERY slowly, and clicking doesn't help much. You are stuck ... reading ... at ... a ... snail's ... pace ... which drives me insane. They should have been able to handle that better.

And even given the really slow dialogue, the game itself is relatively short. So they almost were trying to beef out the game's length by talking really slowly.

I'll give it a 4/5 for avid game fans. They really should have gotten more gameplay and less tedious exposition.

Not a big fan of anime, I didn't know what to expect of the game to be completely honest with you. I just thought anime spin-offs on console games always turned out decent.

FMA is mediocre at best. Once again, I ventured to an EB Games and saw it on the shelves, and saw that my collection lacked this title. The cover looked great, so I bought it... at $29.99. I really need to stop doing that.

I have no idea how the story goes, so it was entirely new to me. That in itself is one of the few pluses that this game gets from me. The graphics are nice too, almost like reading a comic book on your DS.

But there it is, reading a comic book on your DS. That's what the game felt like to me. I doubt that my statistics are entirely accurate, but if you play the game, you'll know what I mean. The game seriously feels like it's 80% story, 20% gameplay. The balance is horrible, and halfway through the game, I gave up reading the text and found myself constantly pressing the A button to hurry up and get through it.

The movements are entirely analog, so when the need for the stylus arrives (when you have to inscribe the alchemy symbols), it's stupidly inconvenient, annoying, and awkward. Yeah, it's a cool function I guess, and they had to integrate the touch screen somehow. But they manage to make a poorly made game even worse by having you scramble for your stylus to pull off the symbol inscriptions in time.

I guess I expected more, mainly because of how much I paid for it.

Once again, price indicatorrrrrrrrr. $29.99 initial retail, now approximately 17 bucks according to Amazon.com. Don't be surprised if it falls more, as this will easily be a forgotten title in the long line of DS game production.

When I first bought this game, I had high expectations for it and was very excited to receive it. I mean, being such a popular series, the video game should be awesome, right? However, when I opened the game and played it through, I was disappointed.

Almost all of the game is cutscenes and story--it was almost like rewatching the series, but it a very condensed version. Much of the story was cut out, and if you bought it without having prior knowledge of the plot and characters, you would be quickly lost. Many characters have no introduction and yet seem to be pretty major in the storyline, while others are only mentioned briefly in dialogue. Some of the characters have their original voice actors saying some lines, but these are few and far between, and the lines often sound forced and rushed. What's more is that several times the voice actor says only a snippet of the line of text that you read.

The cutscenes last so long that I can honestly say that I was a little surprised when it got back to gameplay, since I was spending so much time reading the story that I totally forgot this was a game and not a show. The gameplay itself is a little stale--you beat up a whole bunch of baddies and chimeras, only to have another cutscene interrupt gameplay for a period of at least five minutes. When you first start playing, there is no tutorial, so you have to figure out how to do everything yourself, which can be quite confusing. There is a selection of mini-games that you have to play through before you can unlock for free play, and these actually have more variety when it comes to playing than the story mode. You don't even get to play through most of the best parts, such as my personal favorite, Ed's State Alchemist exam. The majority of boss battles are against the Homunculi.

The game contains artwork from the anime series, which is neat to look at, but these are only still-shots and are on the top screen, having nothing to do with the pixel characters you play as.

Playing through the whole game, I probably only spent three or three-and-a-half hours in total, two-thirds of being cutscenes I had to sit through for the majority of the game.

Overall, I only recommend this game if you've either read the manga or watched the first anime series, and if you want to play for a while as Ed, Al, or some other characters. If you've never really gotten into the series, I suggest doing your homework before picking up Duel Sympathy, or you'll be confused in no time.