There is enough here to please the fans of this popular anime series but not much to entertain most people.
- Changing things into weapons using alchemy is a great idea
- Decent anime cutscenes
- Passable graphics and music
- Fans might be delighted
Negative
- No voice acting in dialogues, voices found in anime scenes and in battles
- Enemies aren't very intelligent
- Very short with little replay value
Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel is an anime-based game on the Fullmetal Alchemist series. The anime is great, and many shouldn't expect much from these kinds of translations from anime to game, but this isn't a particularly interested game; it's more like a fan service, though it's worthwhile.
The story follows the Elric brothers, Edward and Alphonse. After trying a forbidden 'experiment' the two of them lost parts of their body, Alphonse lost his whole body and became a giant machine while Edward lost an arm and a leg. Anyway, the story starts abroad a train which was hijacked and the brothers are going to take care of it.
Gameplay is interesting though rather tired. Thankfully the ability to transmute items like tables, trees and most items found in the background environment. You can't change it to whatever you want. You can choose from the 2 promoted. It' easy to create a bomb, weapons for Ed and Al, cannons and Ed's clone. Edward is the only playable character and Alphonse is just a support character. Edward has a default weapon, but by transmuting things you get new ones which break after some use. Most of the time you will give orders to Al to tackle or pick up weapons. His Al needs a bit of assistance because he tends to remain back. Press R1 when far away to call him. When near press the R1 to tackle. As simply as that. The weapon types vary a bit. While Al weapons consist of lances basically, Ed can find Boomerangs, bow and arrow and swords or course, but there are others.
Disappointing enough there is simply not enough voice acting. Most of the game is fulfilled with dialogues and no voices. Fortunately there are some decent looking anime cutscenes which really catch the look and sound of the anime series. These are voiced. There is a lot of talking by Edward in battle. When he picks up an item he usually say thank you, and calls his brother (which is younger yet taller). Music gets rather repetitive after some time, but not awful.
The artificial intelligence is not always up to standard. Enemy movement is a bit awkward. Plus, not always attack when you give them the chance. And their difficulty is not very hard unless you get surrounded by a bunch of ugly chimeras. Bosses aren't much fun, they tend to last long but luckily these battles aren't frustrating. Al intelligence could have been better though he gets his job done, he could be used as a shield.
The graphics engine isn't impressive, not as the anime cutscenes or the anime itself but not bad. The environments don't feel empty and there is some variety between them. The character models are excellent. The camera is fine; it's not fixed and can be moved easily. Multiple enemies obscure the camera.
It's a surprisingly good game, for an anime-based game. It may be an RPG, but certainly not quite as good as most of the RPGs on the PS2 today. But for an anime-based video game is a good achievement, the Broken Angel serves up well as a fan service and anime fans. But those who are looking for a solid and deep RPG shouldn't bother with this game.
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Graphics = 7.5
Decent looking graphics. Environments are varied and nice. Enemy variety is good enough and character models are fine. Level design is good and no glitches.
Sound = 6.8
In battle voices are basically the same from the anime series. The lack of voice acting in dialogues hurt though, but the battle music is decent enough but gets repetitive.
Presentation = 7.6
The anime cutscenes which are decent enough to help the game in different ways. The main menu could have been better. Production values are good but you can't help at feel that they could have been a bit better as well.
Gameplay = 7.7
Turning items into weapons to use against enemies is a neat idea. Combat gets shallow and the AI is a bit weak. Great variety of enemies and weapons to use.
Camera / Controls = 7.4
Good thing that the camera isn't fixed. Controls are just fine.
Story = 6.5
Good story but with the help of voice acting could had been fleshed out better. The cast of characters from the anime is here. The game is way too short, even for an RPG.
Difficulty = Easy
Thanks to the weak AI, the game is simply. The basic combat is easy to get use to and there is time for some experiments in battle. Just be careful of the bosses. Something you might end up doing in bosses, just keep doing the same thing.
OVERALL = 7.2 / 10
Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel is an expectable game. There aren't many things wrong, but certainly what's good here could have been done a bit better. Expectations about these kind of games aren't always high, but this is one of those games that exceeded that expectation which makes it worth playing for any fan of anime and obviously a must-play for the series fans.