After being unveiled as the series’ 20th anniversary project, Fullmetal Alchemist Mobile has finally started service in Japan, and only in Japan, unfortunately for international fans. There’s a lot of art floating around that people are talking about ooh’ed and ahh’ed, but what does the game actually look like?
PRESENTATION
After I was less than impressed then Irregular at Magic High School Reloaded‘s general feeling, it seems to me that the production effort and money were allocated to: Fullmetal Alchemist Mobile instead of. Simply put, it’s like playing Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood as a strategic RPG. The cutscenes seem to use the in-game engine/models, and despite the dinky phone I tried the game on, it looks really good on the mobile screen.
Most of the game is also fully voiced, so you can imagine how much that costs. As implied, the game takes place through a storyline that you should know well from the manga and its more faithful adaptation in Brotherhoodexcept you can now control the characters with some non-canonical powers and flashier effects.
The main story chapters are laid out like newspapers, with the main story on the front cover and unfold in separate sections. The earlier chapters are added to a “stack” as you stack the “newspapers” when you swipe the screen to see the different chapters ahead. The home screen also changes at points, such as if Edward and Alphonse are on their way and you’re not currently doing a particular story, they’re chilling on the train to wherever they’re going.
The gacha screen also looks great. You have “coins” to “call” people, via a three digit number using the dial. They then arrive by train and step out of the carriage, obscured in smoke. Nothing stops you from calling 420 every time because why not.
GAMEPLAY
I would simply describe the gameplay as “a bit like” fire emblem and its ilk”. You take your handful of units and move them around the tiled field. As far as I can see there is no such thing as accuracy checks, and direction doesn’t matter as units automatically turn to face their attacker There are ranged attacks and the typical elemental wheel, it’s easy to see if your units have an advantage/disadvantage over others as you get crossed swords for an advantage and a broken sword for a disadvantage.
For the most part you usually play 4 characters and shuffle them around at fixed starting points on the map, with a side story starting to open up to 5. There are synergy effects that remind me of automatic chess where having X number of members of a particular type/faction will grant party bonuses.
Characters have a total of 4 skills, with 3 being their normal repertoire consisting of their normal attacks and 2 active skills, and 1 their ultimate. Some skills have an area of effect, or a single target, which is pretty standard. Friendly fire is not a thing.
For character progression, all characters, even SSR characters, start at 1 star. They don’t need 1 on 1 duplicates to increase their star rank, instead they ask you to feed low rarity characters by increasing their star levels and entering them. You will need duplicates to some extent, this system is less strict at the same time, but also expect to have a lot of low rarity characters around. Increasing the star level is what improves the skill levels.
Characters can be further increased by “nodes” to open. As far as I can tell, you need the material you get by increasing their level caps, and more associated resources to unlock passive bonuses. I know there are “memories”, but in an hour or so you won’t really be interacting with this system. The stamina system is honestly pretty bad even with the frequent level ups. You’d rather spend them on the “side stories” for the material to educate your characters, rather than the main story, I think.
The game uses a seasonal battle pass. The paid track will get you an SSR character, like how to get Lan Fan for the first season.
There is a car fight, but it’s stupid and doesn’t prioritize targets or items that may be on the field. Luckily, if it messes up, you get to rewind to the very beginning of the fight.
GACHA
The rates are 3% for an SSR. Whether or not a separate pool opens for “memories”, it’s not available in the early game. The rate is standard for most gacha games, so it’s fine. There is a spark system where you can redeem the character at 180 draws. A 10-pull uses 10 “coins”, with 10 “coins” equaling 1600 diamonds.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
There is a lot of high quality stuff here, with it being naturally grindy a live service gacha game. I would recommend it as a side game as the beginning probably won’t give you much more so if you are an existing fan who has read or watched the original manga Brotherhood. I’d be curious to see if they ever feature more overt 2003 anime references as I haven’t seen that and so am not familiar with it.
I don’t think I would necessarily stick with this game, but it sure looks good.
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