Full Metal Alchemist Full Metal Alchemist:Dream Carnival-PS2

Well, after the dissapointment that we passed on Full Metal Alchemist and the Broken Angel, i thought it was about time to move on to the future. Literally, i found something very interesting that you may all like to hear!

The new installment of the FMA series on PS2 is called FMA Dream Carnival. Judging from my sources, this game is supposed to have the errors that the first FMA game had.

This here is a little preview of what the art for the game box is most likely going to look like (except for the "Press Start" thingy)....

A little bit inside the game:If you've played Naruto: Narutimett Hero (doubt it) you should have a good idea of what to expect from Full Metal Alchemist: Dream Carnival. You have cel shaded characters and multi tired stages to fight on. Each level has a couple of areas you can move in and out of by pressing jump and holding up or down. This allows players to select which plane they want to move on. Being on a different plane allows you to nimbly dodge attacks. All characters have basic punch and kick combos that can be done by pressing the X and Square buttons. Standard combos allow you to launch opponents in mid air to perform aerial raves or even slam an enemy into another screen (aka Dead or Alive). However, you won't need to spend hours to master combos shown in the move list. New gamers will opt to button mash with results of damaging combos while experienced players will use the most effective combo over and over again. The game gets much more interesting when you mix in the alchemy system. Most of the characters in the game are alchemists, which gives them the ability to transmute objects. One of the show's themes, the "you can't get something for nothing theme" plays a role in how you can use alchemy in the game. Spread out the level are transmutable objects like a giant rock, a metal crate, a bunch of bricks or a shiny piece of quartz. If you go over to the item and press circle you'll use the power of alchemy to change a metal crate to something more useful like a cage to trap an enemy for a few seconds. Each character that can use alchemy has different results. For instance if Edward uses his alchemy ability on a wood block he'll gain use of his traditional staff to attack with for a few seconds. If Armstrong uses his alchemy ability on the same item he'll call upon a wooden trap to freeze a player in place. To balance characters like the sharp-shooting and appropriately named Hawkeye who has no alchemy ability Bandai gives them unique abilities. Hawkeye has full use of her guns so she can blast away at players far from where their attacking radius. Each character also has the ability to summon two ultra alchemy attacks by holding R1 or R2 while pressing circle. You can only do this move when your green meter is filled from giving out enemy hits. When you call upon this ability the battle screen moves to the top right hand corner like a picture in picture TV. The main screen flashes to a quick and dramatic animation of the extremely powerful move. The picture in picture is a brilliant idea because while Armstrong is preparing his gold statue attack Alphonse can ready a counter move to prevent damage.

The Kinds of Fighting Modes:Renderware's innovations continue on how they execute the 2 on 2 fighting system. They cleverly designed the game to allow players of mixed levels enjoy the game together. At the start of each round all players are given a full bar of life. Both teams are also given three stars and each star will completely recover life for an injured character. If a team loses all three stars its game over. The brilliance in the system is that the three stars are shared between players. So if you're a new player and you lose a star early on the match isn't over there is still a good chance for the team to win. The three star system also always has every player controlling a character instead of just waiting around if they die. The game also supports all the possible combinations a 2 on 2 fighting game can handle. You can play with a partner against two computers or try your luck with each of you having a computer partner. If you have a multitap you can play with three players or go all out and play with four players.

If you're going solo there are a number of gameplay modes to choose from. There is the ever popular and basic battle mode that teams you up with a computer against two other artificial intelligence loops. Playing through the battle mode allows you to collect different items, some of which unlocks new characters. Probably more interesting to gamers is the scenario mode. The scenario mode automatically teams you up with a computer partner and goes though the series' story. Playing through the different scenarios eventually unlocks more and more characters, which gives the game further replay value.

Speaking of Characters..Who is in the game?:Well, like I mentioned before, you unlock only most of the characters, but don't worry, you're getting goodies, even at the beggining. Some of the unlockable characters will include Greed, or even King Bradley himself (yes..the Fuhrer).

But now I'm preety sure you want to see who the main characters are right? Well, have i got a treat for you. This here is how the main character selector is bound to look like! As you can see, you get the main characters:Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric, Alex Louis Armstrong, Riza Hawkeye, Roy Mustang, Lust, Gluttony, Winry Rockbell, and Scar. But remember, there is a possibility this could change, and they could take out a few characters, and turn them into unlockables...

Also, i managed to got a few screenshots, so you could get an idea of what this game is really going to be like:

Screen 1- Here, it looks like Edward Elric is about to bust up his Special Attack (mentioned above)....

Screen 2- This is just what your casual "Burly Brawl" Full Metal style is gonna look like, promising eh?

Screen 3- Now this may just look like another ordinary fight in the game...but take a look at some of the characters, you'll notice that one of them is quite special. Looking at the right of the screen, you can see none other than Edward Elric's master fighting in the game. So yeah, she's unlockable as well!!

I hope you guys (and ladies as well) liked my report on this brand new game. Oh, I almost forgot the most important question you were bound to have:

US Release:This is directly from one of the developers working on the game:"You can bet on Full Metal Alchemist: Dream Carnival to get a US release date sometime in 2005 after the series gets popularity." In other words, most likely near the summer, or maybe closing to Fall 2005....

Well, hope you enjoyed this little preview i wiffed up for you (what's wiffed?), i saw that almost no site has info on this, so i thought that posting it here could help for you FMA fans. Well, i'm off, hopefuly i'll get some inside info on the other new FMA game, "Full Metal Alchemist 2: The Demon of the Red Elixir" (Also Cell Shaded), which is the continuing story to FMA:Broken Angel.

-Seishin

[edit]There were a few bugs in the pics, so i had to change them. They're kinda small, but their definition is perfect now![/edit]

 

Wow, how very detailed! Its like a Gamespot review. I tried looking for this on other sites, so I guess this is my only source to get some intel on this game.
Thanks for the Info!


-K

 

looks like it would be okay maybe, i mught just try it out. thanks again dude