Starting into Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy

Until reading through some early in-game text I'd completely forgotten that Al and Ed are 10 and 11 respectively. So kids that aren't even pre-teens are running around laying the smack down on guys who're wielding curtain rods, knives, and guns. Just like in the hit anime series, y'know?

Because if there's one thing I remember while Fullmetal Alchemist completely mesmerized me when I first started watching it, it's how the brothers Elric battled hordes of enemies. 

To be fair, though, as little sense as the "beat 'em up" genre might make for the game adaptation of a series that complicates its share of fantasy/adventure anime tropes, the text between levels helps. Actually, its being in Al's voice explains the simplifications that help to keep the game's action-driven pace going, too. 

The dialogue on the other hand is merely all right. It's definitely a stark reminder that Ed's much older than his age, and that there's some truth to what a friend of mine (whose music blog you can find here) said on the matter of "subs v. dubs:" (to paraphrase) 'Dialogue always sounds cooler when you can't understand it aurally, since when it's in English it just sounds like the same trite stuff that's in every other show.'

Thus far, the game's relegated the series' alchemy to special attacks and touch screen events. Short of turning the game into an RTS a la Lost Magic, I think that Natsume took the middle road in terms of bringing alchemy into the game itself. For better and for worse, since it seems underused thus far.

Though there's still quite a bit of game left. The game covers the entire original series and I'm hardly through the first 10 episodes (after about 40 minutes of play time). So there's still another 41 or so episodes' worth of game content to go.