Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Curse of the Crimson Elixir – Consumer Guide

According to the ESRB, this game contains: Blood, Language, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence

Parents should probably be careful about letting young children play this one. There's a stone that gets its power from human blood and a teenage boy with a chip on his shoulder and an expansive vocabulary. ("You bleepity-bleep BEEPs!") No one ever veers into s- or f-word territory, however.

Gamers who like strong stories and interesting characters will have plenty to like in Fullmetal Alchemist 2. While the story isn't as complex as some other Square-Enix RPGs that shall remain nameless, it's well-plotted and the interactions between Ed and Al Elric are always fun to watch.

Interested parties who haven't seen the Fullmetal Alchemist anime should give Curse of the Crimson Elixir a shot. Though I wasn't very familiar with the anime before playing it, I could easily follow the story. In fact, I liked the story so much that I started watching Fullmetal Alchemist.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing gamers get partially forgotten by Square Enix, unfortunately. While the in-game dialogue has captions, the cutscenes ("movies") that come directly from the anime do not. Other than this problem, there aren't any significant auditory cues.

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Tera Kirk

Tera Kirk grew up in a small Nebraska town called Papillion. Although she has a nonverbal learning disability that affects her visual-spatial skills (among other things), she's always loved video games. Her first game system was a Commodore Vic-20, which her mom bought at a garage sale for $20. With this little computer Tera learned to write Mad Libs in BASIC, to play chess and to steal gold from Fort Knox.

But then a friend introduced her to the seedy underworld of the Mario brothers and she spent her saved-up birthday and Christmas money to buy a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Her mom didn't like the Nintendo at first, but The Legend of Zelda changed her mind. (When Tera got Zelda II: The Adventure of Link one Christmas, she suspected it was as much for her mother as for her).

Though she graduated from Agnes Scott College in 2002 and recently learned how to find the movie theater restroom by herself, Tera still loves video games. Far from being a brain-rotting waste of time, they've helped her practice spatial skills and discover new passions. Her love of games like Kid Icarus and The Battle of Olympus led to a degree in Classical Languages and Literatures. She thinks games have a place in discussions on disability and other cultural issues, and is excited to work with the like-minded staff at GameCritics.com.

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