Bandai managed to dispel most of my doubts about crossing over with anime and video games with the ambitious (and highly entertaining) .hack project. Even still, I gave a sidelong glance when I saw Square Enix was attempting something similar with the series Fullmetal Alchemist at E3. Despite the fun I had with the early build at the show, and understanding that it would land in .hack//SIGN’s old time slot on Cartoon Network, I held off on judgement, still remembering how burned I was from Viewtiful Joe. So now we have the show running on Adult Swim, with the first game released at the same time as the first DVD of the anime. Maybe unfair, but how does it stack up compared to .hack, the standard it will inevitably be measured against?
Okay, the quickie recap of the series’ basis for anyone who avoids Adult Swim on Saturday at midnight. In a world where alchemy is a hard science with predictable results, two talented young alchemists, brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric, attempted to revive their dead mother. However, such alchemy on human subjects is forbidden and quite dangerous -–the resulting accident destroys Ed’s left leg and Al’s entire body. Sacrificing his own right arm, Ed binds Al’s soul to a set of armor, and gets auto-mail (apparently, cybernetic was an overused adjective) replacements for his limbs. Together, the brothers now seek the legendary Philosopher’s Stone, the only object capable of restoring them to their original bodies.
Beyond my ability to write copy for the PR department of any anime company looking to hire, we’ve set up that the Elric brothers are out for serious power – which obviously gets them neck deep in trouble. Fortunately, you really don’t need to know much beyond that to get into the game. Of course, the instruction booklet gives you much of that information, and the game establishes all of this right off the bat. If you have absolutely no exposure to Fullmetal Alchemist before (which I could see as possible, if you don’t get Cartoon Network or feel like watching Adult Swim on Saturday night, you stinking heathen), you can still leap in fairly quickly. Granted, you won’t get some of the finer details (they don’t get into Ed’s desperate attempt to save his brother), but you can quickly divine what’s going on.
The game takes place early in the show’s run, as Ed and Al are accompanied by Major Armstrong of the State’s military (guess who the State gets to fight? Not that it comes up in game, but if you said the Empire, take a bow for knowing your Japanese entertainment clichés). After an incident on a train, the Elric brothers are derailed near the town of Hissegart. That just so happens to be the home of Professor Eiselstein, one of the Ten Alchemists (note the ominous capital letters) is working on something along the lines of the Philosopher’s Stone. Of course, it turns out that there are plenty of lowlifes in the area, many chimera (alchemically-produced beasts, nearly as bad as human transmutation), and bizarre research. Naturally, it’s up to the Elric brothers to solve questions surrounding the area.
Though this is based on an anime series, this is meant to be a side story in the middle of the series, so sadly the characters stay pretty static throughout the story, and there really isn’t any character development as the story progresses. Ed is just as short-tempered and callous at the beginning and end, while Al is just as innocent, deferential, and protective of his brother. Moreover, as you’d expect, the tale ends not with Ed and Al finally restoring themselves to their complete bodies, but with clues about the Stone and lessons about how power can corrupt. If this was an episode of the anime (it has roughly that much plot), this would be tossed off as one of the weaker “filler” episodes. But yet, since the game is supposed to fit into the story cleanly, it can’t end any other way. It certainly has its silly points, and we are thankfully free of the villain claiming they’re “just like” the Elric brothers (dialogue so cliché that Ed makes light of it early in the show – for once not acting as the straight man). However, if you’re hoping for any significant advancing of the series’ plot, look somewhere else. This isn’t .hack, where the two stories are intertwined.
For the game itself, it’s mostly a 3D beat-‘em-up, but with some differences to set it apart from its brethren. You always control Ed, but Al is there for almost the entire game, beyond the simple intro and a couple puzzles without opponents. You spend the game wandering from point to point (revisiting several areas multiple times), trying to clear through punks, enemy alchemists, and nasty chimera trying to solve the riddle of Eiselstein’s Philosopher’s Catalyst. And, of course, pounding the enemies into submission. For the most part, solid if nothing new.
The twist comes with Ed’s ability to transmute objects with alchemy. At any time, he’s able to use the ground to create barriers for protection, and he’s also able to create stone spikes to attack foes with (even when standing on steel – he’s apparently that good). Moreover, you can work alchemy into attack combos, and in fact can clear up some breathing space with the skill. But the real fun comes in using alchemy to transmute the various junk found in each area into various items and weapons to help you out. You get to make duplicates that distract the enemy, weapons for Al and Ed to swing and climb into (creating ballista is a dirty maneuver, and one you’ll end up doing often), and even vehicles the brothers can use to flatten their enemies (literally – one of the vehicles you get to make later on is a steamroller). Part of what keeps the game from becoming stale is that you get a different array of background objects to work with, and consequently different transmuted items, in each level, causing you to consider carefully what to create to assist in battle. Another bonus is that several items can be transmuted multiple times – you can add elements to weapons to cause more damage, turn some objects further into healing items, and most importantly reload the cannons and crossbows you end up creating. The ability to modify the background to suit your needs makes this much more engaging than most beat-‘em-ups.
The only problem is that Al isn’t always under the best control. He almost never tries to dodge, and he has an annoying habit of going for the smaller enemies that he has a harder time hitting. Al will also try attacking the closest enemy to him, which can be problematic if you tell him to jump into a weapon with a damage radius, like any cannon, and he decides to aim at the enemy you’re currently engaging in melee. He’s generally safe with the crossbows, though. Another severe problem is that all of Al’s weapons have limited strikes before they become useless. While I know that he’s much more powerful than Ed for much of the game and could be overwhelming if he got to keep his weapons, it’s a constant frustration to have to look around for new candelabras and umbrellas to transmute into weapons for Al, particularly during boss fights. Having at least one permanent weapon for Al would be nice.
The control is fairly solid overall, although would be much more enjoyable if I could remap the controller’s functions. It would be nice if you could charge up an alchemy attack while unloading a few physical attacks on a nearby foe, but you can only do that by holding the controller at an awkward angle – holding it even more awkwardly if you plan on dodging while doing so. If you simply remapped the controller to put the alchemy button on the left shoulder (switching it with the map toggle button), battle would flow much more smoothly. Beyond that, though, battle flows well, and you don’t have to fight with the game to do what you want. It can be tricky to learn the exact combos to use with each transmuted weapon – each one has its own combo sequence, and it’s fairly easy to accidentally start a different combo if you aren’t attentive. Beyond that, though, the game’s controls are easy to pick up and start with.
The game has some pretty sweet graphics; this represents a huge jump over the initial build at E3, which resembled a first-generation Playstation 2 title. Square Enix decided to avoid the obvious choice of cel-shading and went instead with polygons all around. Square Enix has obviously worked extensively with them; each character looks almost exactly like their animated counterparts, and the lighting is relatively soft in effect and doesn’t strike as off at any point, despite several scenes in which it was quite likely. The animation is quite smooth on all of the characters, so they move more or less as you’d expect. Even the ones that move jerkily, like the more deformed chimera, move in a jerky fashion you’d expect something so haphazard to move.
The game also includes over a dozen animated clips, for those who like the show’s animation. I shouldn’t need to mention that the company who works on the show also handles the game’s anime scenes. However, they are notable because the coding on the game DVD is much nicer than on most video games. Usually, there’s something off on the quality that is pretty obvious in a game, be it washed-out colors, improperly synced audio, or choppy frames. This time, though, the game’s interstitial anime spots look the exact same quality as you’d expect from the show DVDs. If you don’t believe me, compare the scene of the Elric brothers’ attempt at human transmutation (shown twice in game – once in the opening) with the same sequence from the show’s third episode. Without any other indication, you’d assume this wasn’t a game, and let’s give a hand for someone finally getting the encoding for in-game movies correct.
Not to say the visual presentation is perfect; there are two minor problems with the graphics, although you can at least explain one of them. You can at least explain why many of the enemies are simply palette swaps of the same model. Ah, Square Enix, hadn’t we seen the end of that at the dawn of the 32-bit era? Still, lest you confuse this with the first six installments of either Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy, keep in mind that the animations for each enemy are much more complex. Back then, they just used static characters with slightly different colors. It might be fun to rag on S-E for falling back on their roots, but at least you can understand why, given the overall quality of the animation.
However, I can’t find any rational explanation for what’s been done to Ed’s height. Let’s be perfectly frank: Ed is downright runty. Every single episode of the show, every issue of the comic, and every other discussion in-game makes some mention of Ed’s lack of stature (which predictably launches Ed into an angry tirade, frequently punctuated by a transmutation geared for a fight). This is obscenely obvious when you compare Al (described as over seven feet tall in his current state) to Ed in the animated cut scenes. However, during the game’s action, Al is only a bit taller than Ed, and not appreciably broader, with Ed managing to come about up to Al’s shoulders. At first, I thought this was simply rendering Al too small, but then I compared Ed to the enemies – most of them are about Ed’s size. Either Ed likes to pick on guys his own size (according to the anime series, this would have the fifteen-year old alchemical genius picking on kids at their grade school), or the artists for the game made Ed too large. Considering how Ed’s puny size is discussed more often than the Principle of Equivalent Exchange (the first law of alchemy) on the show, I don’t understand how Ed could suddenly appear to be a reasonable height.
Discussing the game’s sound... to be honest, it’s difficult to say that won’t get tons of detractors. First off, I’ll admit that I think they managed a solid English dub for the series, and they obviously stuck with that for the American release of the game. After all, the show’s producers managed to find the two male voice actors who could convincingly do young voices (Aaron Dismuke deserves special credit for doing Al’s voice well). With that, the timing and syncing of the voice actors is quite strong in the game, down to Al’s apologizing when he accidentally blasts Ed with a cannon. The only disappointment is that they don’t have a wide variety of clips – outside of the well-synced anime sequences, you will hear the same five or six clips repeatedly. I think I’ve heard Ed yell for his brother (done after you ask Al to do anything in the game) one too many times. Basically, if you can deal with the dub, the voice acting in the game is solid, if quite repetitious.
The game’s soundtrack, though, is sadly feeble. The anime series has some solid interstitial music, and I know I’m not the only fan of L’Arc-en-Ciel’s “Ready! Steady! Go!” from the second season of the Japanese show and recycled for the American release. If you like all of that, just get the DVD of the show – it’s all absent from the game. Worse than this omission, though, is that the music is trite and annoying, frequently not fitting the mood of the current area. Before their merger, Square and Enix were both known for some killer soundtracks. On top of this, they worked with a property that had some incredible music. I really wish I could tell everyone why this game’s music is so miserable. You may just wish to keep the television muted until the animated sequences begin to catch the rest of the story, on the off chance you think you’re missing something.
In terms of beat-‘em-ups, this is one of the more solid efforts in recent years. Not quite on the level of the incredible River City Ransom remake for the Game Boy Advance, but certainly one worth picking up for fans of the genre. This is a huge step up in every way from Square’s last effort in the genre (The Bouncer had potential, if you can deal with games that are shorter than a movie at their longest). With the options that you have in transforming the terrain, you can run through several times and pull off different tricks and have much different runs each time. Fans of the series will get a kick out of it, even as they find the flaws in the presentation. And newcomers can jump in and get the point without feeling the need to watch a dozen episodes of a cartoon first. Really, it comes down to the fact that unlike Pokémon, the game is meant to advertise the anime, instead of vice-versa. It’s still fun, but not nearly the trip that .hack managed to be. If this game had managed to seriously advance the overarching plot of Fullmetal Alchemist, this would have been a great romp that would engage newcomers in addition to pleasing fans of the show. As is, this game certainly has the engine to be fun, but didn’t quite live up to its potential.
