Go back to school with your Mac, iPhone and TUAW
GameDaily
Add to: My AOL, MyYahoo, Google, Bloglines
Joystiq presents

DS Fanboy Review: Fullmetal Alchemist Trading Card Game



Fullmetal Alchemist: Trading Card Game on the DS suffers from its source material on two different levels. First, the original property, Fullmetal Alchemist, doesn't really lend itself to a card game. Fullmetal Alchemist, for the uninitiated, is a show about two brothers who attempt to use alchemy to revive their dead mother, but fail and accidentally maim one brother and trap the other brother's soul in a suit of armor. Then they have adventures!

The card game, then, revolves not around simple competition with adversaries, as would be expected of card games; or rather, it does, but altercations are treated in the card game's "storyline" as ancillary to the goal of locating the powerful alchemical relic, the Philosopher's Stone, and fixing their bodies. Perhaps, then, FMA was not the ideal choice of properties to translate into cards.

Second, the DS game suffers by being such a faithful translation of said card game, which, to be blunt, is far too complicated to be worth attempting. The DS game makes valiant attempts to streamline the process and teach the game, but every person on Earth who has a strong enough interest in Fullmetal Alchemist to learn the card game has done so, and nobody else has any reason to try.




The goal of the game is to discover the Philosopher's Stone by gathering nine clues to its location. Each Location card carries a "Clue" value. Both players vie for these Location cards, which also set the rules for battle. Players recruit allies (from their deck) to aid in their search and in battle.

Each round of gameplay consists of six phases (seriously.) A few of those phases are divided even further. The phases dictate when you draw cards, recruit allies, level up your characters (again, seriously) and initiate battles. Your success in any of these phases is determined by aggregating numerical stats found on each of the cards in ... some way. A big jumble of mysterious icons tracks these numbers on the side of the screen, but it's pretty hard to remember which stat Red Circle With Fangs tracks versus Stopwatch Thing. This becomes less of a problem as you get used to the game, of course.


The game's tutorial mode valiantly attempts to lead the clueless player through a full round of gameplay, but it just isn't explicit enough. You'll feel fairly confident when learning how to operate the interface, and you may even grasp the basic concepts of gameplay ... until the game starts. In my case, as soon as I entered my first card game, I was lost. The tutorial was of no help, because it was at the "You try!" stage in its instruction. I tried. I tried to try. But I just lacked the knowledge to advance the game in any way. My confidence in my own faculties forces me to believe that other players would experience a similar roadblock.

For their part, developer Magellan Interactive did a good job of putting the card game into the DS. If you can somehow manage to get over the initial hurdle of not understanding what the hell is happening, the game offers nice features that assist with the card game. You can select from a number of pre-made decks, each associated with an FMA character, or you can build your own decks and save them. You earn more cards through victories in story mode. In addition, there is a "Fantasy Mode" in which all 500 cards are unlocked. Perhaps most importantly, the game features online play.

If you're an avid player of the Fullmetal Alchemist card game in real life, this is an easy decision. Buy this game. It has all the cards available after only one purchase, so you're free from the tyranny of boosters. Also it's got online play, so you may finally be able to find some other crazies out in the world to play it with. Not to mention it automates gameplay and keeps track of what phase it is and how much Leadership you have and all that stuff.

It's difficult to recommend this game to anyone else. It is possible to play the game, eventually, but you need strong motivation to learn, which, for most of us, is not contained within the gameplay itself. You may as well go the easier route and actually learn to transmute metals into gold.

Final verdict: 5/10
(Final verdict for existing FMA card game players: like a million/10)

Related Headlines

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Gaming to Go!We debate the hot topics!

This Month's New Games

Name Date
Bleach: Dark Souls
Oct 6
Legend of Kage 2
Oct 6
Crash: Mind Over Mutant
Oct 6
Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals
Oct 6
My Japanese Coach
Oct 14
Korg DS-10
Oct 14
Naruto: Path of the Ninja 2 Oct 14
FIFA Soccer 09 Oct 14
Populous Oct 14
Rock Revolution
Oct 14
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Oct 21
Theresia
Oct 21
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows Oct 21
Away: Shuffle Dungeon
Oct 21
Tornado
Oct 21
Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon
Oct 21
What's Cooking? With Jamie Oliver Oct 21
MySims Kingdom
Oct 28
Ninjatown Oct 28

Popular on DS Fanboy

The story
More like it
Nintendo reveals the DSi
News
Lock's Quest review
Reviews
BTS: Cakemania
BTS
G2G: Clubhouse Games
Gaming to Go
Preview: Big Bang Mini
Features
Features
Another Week in ... (50)
Bury the Shovelware (14)
Contests / Giveaways (19)
DS Daily (560)
DS Fanboy Lite (42)
DS Fanboy poll (41)
Friday video (70)
Game Night (156)
Gaming to Go (14)
Items of Import (7)
Metareview (58)
Point/Counterpoint (5)
Promotional Consideration (57)
Show and Tell (71)
The DS Life (66)
What are you playing? (90)
Bits
Accessories (147)
Downloads (67)
Fan stuff (1418)
Features (291)
GBA (129)
Hacks (82)
Homebrew (229)
How-tos (75)
Imports (936)
Interviews (155)
Meta (134)
Mods (17)
News (3314)
Nintendo Wi-Fi (189)
Reviews (191)
Sales (196)
Screens (988)
Video (732)
Rumors (192)

RESOURCES

RSS NEWSFEEDS

Powered by Blogsmith

Featured Galleries

Mario & Luigi 3
Nintendo DSi
Chocobo and the Magic Storybook: The Witch, The Maiden, and the Five Heroes
Shaun White Snowboarding
Show and Tell: Painted love
Show and Tell: It's dangerous to craft alone! Learn this.
Lock's Quest Custom DS Lite
Pixelninja's cosplay
Show and Tell: For the love of a character

 

Most Commented On (14 days)

Recent Comments

Weblogs, Inc. Network

  • Autos
    • Autoblog
    • AutoblogGreen
    • Autoblog Spanish
    • Autoblog Chinese
    • Autoblog Simplified Chinese
  • Technology
    • Download Squad
    • Engadget
    • Engadget HD
    • Engadget Mobile
    • Engadget Chinese
    • Engadget Simplified Chinese
    • Engadget Japanese
    • Engadget Germany
    • Engadget Korea
    • Engadget Polska
    • Engadget Spanish
    • Switched
    • TUAW (Apple)
  • Lifestyle
    • AisleDash
    • DIY Life
    • Gadling
    • Green Daily
    • Luxist
    • ParentDish
    • Slashfood
    • StyleList Blog
    • That's Fit
  • Gaming
    • Joystiq
    • DS Fanboy
    • Massively
    • Nintendo Wii Fanboy
    • PS3 Fanboy
    • PSP Fanboy
    • WoW Insider
    • Xbox 360 Fanboy
    • Big Download
  • Entertainment
    • Cinematical
    • TV Squad
  • Finance
    • BloggingBuyouts
    • BloggingStocks
    • WalletPop
  • Sports
    • FanHouse Main
    • NFL
    • NBA
    • MLB
    • NCAA Football
    • NCAA Basketball
    • NASCAR
    • NHL
    • Golf
    • Free Fantasy Football
  • Also on AOL
    • African-American Culture
    • Cars
    • Games
    • Maps
    • Money
    • Movies
    • Music
    • News
    • Radio
    • Sports
    • Stock Quotes
    • Television
    • Travel

Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in:

PS3 Fanboy
  • GameStop LBP pre-orders also get God of War level pack
  • Trophies: Resistance 2
  • Trophies: Far Cry 2
WOW Insider
  • Maintenance tomorrow - no patch expected
  • Blood Sport: Everything Savage, Hateful, and Deadly
  • Ask WoW Insider: Is PvP gear still worth it?
Xbox 360 Fanboy
  • Mega Man 9 "DLC" arrives this week
  • Silicon Knights 'temporarily' lays off 26 employees
  • RockBand.com updated, order custom merch
Nintendo Wii Fanboy
  • Details on Guitar Hero: World Tour pricing
  • Nintendo Points non-transferable between Wii, DSi
  • Joystiq goes hands-on with Nintendo's Media Summit line-up
PSP Fanboy
  • Two new Dissidia vids teach us how to fight
  • PSP Brite preview reveals battery life and details on firmware 4.20
  • PSP Brite boxart shows direct PSP Store
Big Download Blog
  • Vicious Cycle Software to offer Vicious Engine 2 to developers
  • Tilted Mill reveals Mosby's Confederacy
  • Download: Quantum of Solace Demo
Fanhouse Golf Blog
  • John Daly Comes Up With Another Fail-safe Plan, European Tour in 2009
  • Golf's Winners and Losers of 2008
  • Vijay Out For Two Months With Tendinitis