Video Game / Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel

Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel is an 2003 action role-playing game developed by Racjin and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 2 console and is the first ever Fullmetal Alchemist video game released. The story penned by Hiromu Arakawa takes place between episodes 17 and 18 of the 2003 anime, when Edward and Alphonse are on their way to Central City after their return from Resembool. However, their train gets derailed by a terrorist group, forcing the brothers to reach their destination on foot. While on their way, they are attacked by chimeras and meet a girl named Armony, who leads them to the town of New Heissgart. Her father turns out to be Professor Wilhelm Eiselstein, an old friend to Ed and Al, and one of the greatest Alchemists in the world with knowledge on catalysts (the study that makes alchemy even more efficient) and researching an artifact known as the Philosopher's Catalyst, which has powers equaling that of the Philosopher's Stone. This Philosopher's Catalyst seems to be directly linked with all the alchemists and military men gathering on the city as well as the berserk chimeras rampaging across the countryside. The Elrics soon stumble into a sinister plot even darker than expected with the good professor at the center of it.

The gameplay is a 3D beat-em-up type where players are in control of Edward and the combat revolves around the use of alchemy. Using a special button, they can transform a variety of objects into weapons, blades, items and other objects as well as equip them with numerous enhancers. It has a role-playing mechanic, allowing players to level up by defeating enemies and earning experience.

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Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel contains examples of the following tropes:

• Abandoned Mine: The Mt. Stoneyard Cave is implied to be a mine with the presence of stray mining equipment and a diagonal elevator shaft, but is abandoned and overrun with thugs and chimera.
• Absurdly High Level Cap: Late 20s to mid-30s is the typical endgame level, but the level cap is 99.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Underground Waterway. It is large and Ed comments that it is well lit, but grumbles at the smell. The sewer water is clean and blue.
• Actually a Doombot: Inverted. Ed is able to transmute a decoy to distract enemies. There is also booby-trapped decoy variant that explodes when destroyed, burning or poisoning enemies.
• Advancing Boss of Doom: The crab boss fought in Mt. Stoneyard chases after you, and is only fought after falling in a pit. Justified due to the hall being too narrow to fight or transmute in.
• Adventure-Friendly World: Plenty of items lying around the environment can be conveniently transmuted into a weapon of some sort. Justified due to Ed having the ability to resourcefully arrange the shape of tools to form weapons.
• Airborne Mook: The Bat and Bee-Fish chimera.
• Ambiguously Evil: Professor Wilhelm Eiselstein. It's said at the start of the game that rogue alchemists are gathering on Heissgart since he intends to create an autonomous alchemist state from Amestris. While this is revealed to not be the case when he is met by the Elrics, there is something really off about him that doesn't make his motivations clear. Turns out he is actually good, but his experiments with the catalyst led to catastrophic results like the creation of chimeras terrorizing the countryside.
• Ambiguously Human:
  • The last encounter with Genz has his entire body replaced with automail, making him look completely robotic. He has to run on gas or he will stay frozen in place. He still bleeds and was sent to the hospital for treatment.
  • Camilla, once her face gets half-cracked open as if it was a mask.
• An Ice Person: Blau uses ice alchemy.
• Antagonistic Governor: General Nemda rules New Hiessgart with iron fist as its appointed military governor, has ambitions to rule his own kingdom and is put at odds with the Elric brothers. His corruption is found at the end of the game and he is thrown in jail for it.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Equipping the Armlet of Penetration will cause you to strike through enemy blocks, at the expense of reducing your attack by 10%
• Artificial Human: Armony is described as an unique breed of chimera that is the fusion between two human beings.
• Assist Character: Alphonse's function in gameplay. He can be commanded to follow Edward, tackle enemies, guard Edward from enemies and use transmuted canons and weapons.
• Attack Its Weak Point: The crab boss is nigh invulnerable from regular attacks, and must be flipped over via Al's tackles or stonespikes to attack the vulnerable underside.
• Auto-Revive: The Amulet when equipped causes Ed to revive back to full health if KOed, but the accessory will perish.
• Awesome, but Temporary: Frenzy mode increases Ed's damage and experience, but it only lasts until you save, use a special, get knocked down, Al getting KOed, or when a chapter is complete.
• Back-Alley Doctor: If Genz is correct, Camilla is one for having successfully replaced his entire body with automail.
• Backtracking: One chapter in the game has you backtrack to Mt. Stoneyard to find etherflowers, to find there are none. Then you backtrack to New Hiessgart to obtain information on where to find the flowers. Upon finding the info, you backtrack to Old Hiessgart to find the flowers for real.
• Badasses Wear Bandanas: Subverted with most of the thug-variant enemies, who are mostly wimpy.
• Bad Boss: Brigadier General Mudi Nemda is verbally abusive to his underlings.
• Bag of Sharing: Ed and Al share the inventory.
• Bash Brothers: Not only the Elrics themselves (though the players only control Edward), but the Alchemy Brothers, a trio of alchemist criminals, qualify as an evil example, since they also run afoul with the protagonists.
• Batman Gambit: Roy gets Ed and Al thrown into the Hiessgart Army Fortress to be imprisoned. However, Roy knew that the Elrics will make an escape, causing a ruckus in the Army Fortress to help Roy make his move. Ed even comments in his cell that he knew it was a Batman Gambit.
• Bat Out of Hell: The Bat-variant chimeras are man-sized bats.
• Battle Boomerang: One of Ed's possible weapons.
• Battle Intro: Most bosses have these, with the battle transition being roaring or attacking the screen.
• Bear Trap: One of the tools in battle can be a bear trap. Instead of hurting the enemy, the enemy will be slowed down with a ball and chain attached to their legs.
• Bee Afraid: The Bee-Fish chimera enemies, which can sting and poison you.
• Big Bad: Camilla, the rogue alchemist in search of the Philosopher's Catalyst.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Brigadier-General Nemda wants nothing more to expand his power and create his own private kingdom. Its clear that he is a Smug Snake who is way over his head.
• Big Boo's Haunt: Wilhelm's Castle in the last chapter, the atmosphere becomes darker and gloomier with animated suits of armor patrolling.
• Big, Bulky Bomb: You can transmute 4 foot tall stereotypical bombs.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Subverted when Brigadier General Nemda arrives in Wilhelm's Castle, saying he will use his Combat Chimera to get rid of the rampant chimera around the castle. But the Combat Chimera only makes things worse by going berserk and attacking Armony and the Elrics.
  • Played straight when Mustang and Armstrong help fend off against the outlaw and army swarm in the start of the final chapter.
• Birdcaged: The Cyan Outlaw and pink Bee-Fish chimera can use alchemy to trap you in a bird cage.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Elrics stop Camilla from claiming the Catalyst for herself and she falls to her death. However, the Catalyst goes out of control and kills both Armony and Wilhelm in a massive explosion, leaving Ed and Al completely heartbroken at being unable to save them.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Ed's unarmed attacks involve him transmuting his arm into a blade.
• Blatant Burglar: The thug-variant enemies in the Underground Waterway wear ski masks.
• Blood Knight: Colonel Genz Bresslau obsesses over his own physical strength and desire to beat the Fullmetal Alchemist. He goes as far as turning both his arms automail, and later his 'entire body' to become even stronger.
• Book Ends: The beginning and ending of the game has Ed, Al, and Armstrong in a train.
• Boss Banter: Roy Mustang says 'It's no use!' when you try to hit him and he sidesteps it.
• Breakable Weapons: The katana, and Alphonse's melee weapons.
• Breath Weapon:
  • Poison: Black Bat chimera from New Hiessgart, Water Chimera boss.
  • Fire: Masked Chimera boss, white Bat chimeras from New Hiessgart Castle, Red Cerberus chimeras from Underground Waterway
  • Water: Water Chimera boss
  • Energy: Ultimate Chimera boss has a yellow explosion/acid breath.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Subverted. Ed gets shocked when the chimeras break out of their tanks in the Laboratory and comments that he needs a new pair of shorts. Al suggest they might be able to find some, in which Ed says he was joking about the shorts thing.
• Bubble Gun: The bubble wand weapon, which does not hurt enemies but stuns them by immobilizing them in a bubble.
• Bulletproof Vest: The Bulletproof Vest accessory reduces gunfire damage by 25%.
• Carpet of Virility: The shirtless thug-variant enemies in New Hiessgart have a tree-shaped blonde patch of their chests.
• Character Portrait: Characters conversing will show as portraits, even characters with no in-game models like Wilhelm, Nemda, Hawkeye and Pastor.
• Cherry Tapping:
  • The plastic hammer weapon always deals 1 damage.
  • Equipping the accessory Armlet of Debilitation will cause non-alchemical attacks to deal 1 damage.
• Clear My Name: Military Man and most of his lackeys are accused of a crime they did not commit, which is why they want to run to Hiessgart.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Items are highlighted with special glows according to who can use it: red for Edward, blue for Alphonse and green for both.
  • Rot, Blau and Gelb (German words for red, blue and yellow) wear red, blue and yellow.
• Combat Resuscitation: Ed can revive a knocked out Al to help him get up faster. Al will still get up if left alone though.
• Combination Attack: Ed and Al's specials.
• Crash-Into Hello: How the Elrics meet Armony. She is climbing a mountain in search of an etherflower and upon slipping she lands rump-first into Edward's face.
• Crate Expectations: Crates aren't breakable traditionally, however you can transmute them into a useful weapons.
• Crosshair Aware: Enemies using alchemy will show an alchemical symbol. If it involves targeting you, such as placing you in a birdcage, the alchemical symbol will follow under you.
• Crutch Character: Al is tankier and stronger than Ed at first, but Ed will surpass Al as the game progresses. This is partly due to players usually spending bonus stat points on Ed rather than Al.
• Cut and Paste Environments: The train level has the scenery looping.
• Damage Over Time: When you are hit by the poison status.
• Deadly Gas: The Water serpent chimera boss has a purple poison gas attack.
• Degraded Boss: The Crab Chimera is first fought as a boss, then later as an enemy.
• Difficulty by Region: The English version of the game, according to Wikipedia, has increased difficulty.
• Dirty Cop: Hiessgart's military police is privatized to serve the local corrupt Brigadier-General.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Gelb uses earth alchemy.
• Disney Villain Death: After being defeated, Camilla stumbles due to her face being ruined and falls from a precipice.
• Draw Aggro: The holder equipping the Cologne item will attract enemy attacks. It is typically equipped to Al as he can be revived easily.
• Drop the Washtub: One of the tools Ed can use is a stack of washtubs that stun enemies by landing on their heads.
• Dual Boss: Roy Mustang and Armstrong are fought together.
• The Dog Bites Back: The ringleader of the train hijacking at the start of the game, Military Man, gets thrown from the train by Genz, the leader of the hijacking. Thought to be dead, Riza Hawkeye reveals in an epilogue report that Military Man survived and is testifying against Genz.
• Eat the Bomb: The behemoth chimera is meant to be defeated by making him swallow the bombs.
• Elemental Weapon: Ed can imbue the sword, spear or dagger with the element of fire, lighting and wind respectively to make this.
• Equipment Upgrade: Ed can transmute some weapons twice to upgrade them.
• Escort Mission: The etherflower-finding mission has Armony follow you. Fortunately, she cannot be hurt.
• Evil Smells Bad:
  • The chimera encounter in Hiessgart, outside Eiselstein’s old house, is preceded by a comment about a smell.
  • Edward was able to guess an office belonged to Nemda because of a ‘pork-like odor’.
• Experience Booster: Fighting frenzy mode when active increases EXP by 1.2, as well as several accessories in the game can provide EXP boosts.
  • The Alchemy Guide increases EXP by 50% for enemies defeated by alchemical attacks.
  • The Combo Guide, Ultra Combo Guide and Flurry Guide increases bonus EXP granted from long combos.
  • The Tall Boots and Training Manual boosts EXP by 3% and 5% respectively.
• Experience Penalty: The Flurry Guide item halves EXP gained by defeating enemies (however, it doubles bonus EXP from combos)
• Experience Points: Defeating enemies nets Ed and Al experience points.
• Expy:
  • Camilla is physically based on Lust with the voice of Envy as they share a voice actress, but her personality and motivations are similar to Dante in the 2003 anime.
  • The nameless pastor of Hiessgart resembles Father Cornello, only slimmer and bearded.
• Eyelid Pull Taunt: Armony does this with both eyelids to Ed when he's mad at her for falling on him in Mt. Stoneyard.
• Eyepatch of Power:
  • Rot who is one of the Outlaw brothers.
  • Camilla, though it is just a mechanical sight and not because she has one eye.
• Fake Memories: Professor Eiselstein instills this into Armony, to make her think that she shared a childhood with her 'older sister Selene' when it turns out she IS Selene.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Despite being an Alchemist himself, Professor Eiselstein refuses to teach his craft to Armony, who instead asks Edward to teach her in secret. Turns out he has good reason for doing since she is the Philosopher's Catalyst.
• Fat Bastard: Brigadier General Mudi Nemda.
• Fight Woosh: Most battle intros for the bosses transition to gameplay with this.
• Find the Cure!: Armony turns out to not have much left to live and turns out using alchemy only deteriorates her condition. Her father has been experimenting tirelessly with the Catalyst in hopes of saving her life.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: You can imbue certain weapons with Fire, Wind or Lightning element for certain perks.
• Flipping Helpless: The Crab Chimera boss has to be flipped on its back using stone spikes to render it vulnerable.
• Floating in a Bubble: Enemies hit by the bubble wand weapon are subjected to this.
• Floating Platforms: Found in Wilhelm's castle.
• Forced Level-Grinding: The difficulty will spike after the train level, where enemies start to take many hits and dish out tons of damage to the player, forcing you to level grind to cope.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss:
  • Camilla will run away a lot when you fight her.
  • Roy Mustang as well.
• Ghost Town: Old Hiessgart, where the inhabitants have either been evacuated or killed. The only remaining human inhabitants are just thugs in the outskirts.
• Giant Enemy Crab: The Crab boss and its demoted boss variants.
• Giant Flyer: The Flying Chimera boss is a gigantic gryphon-like chimera.
• Giant Mook: The Goat-Gorilla and Crab chimeras
• Good Shepherd: The nameless Hiessgart pastor is a kind and helpful old man, in a stark contrast to Father Cornello in the manga and anime. Almost as if he was created to be Cornello's Good Counterpart.
• Glass Cannon: The Glass samurai when equipped turns Ed into this. All his stats are reduced by 90%, but allows infinite katana use, which is typically instant kill most of the time.
• Great Escape: After killing Nemda's Combat Chimera that was rampaging Hiessegart's castle, the Elric brothers get thrown into prison by Nemda. He would actually have them executed, but Roy Mustang intervenes in their behalf, he has them arrested for court martial later. Rather than wait out their sentence, they opt to break out.
• Ground Punch:
  • Ed punches the ground if he wants to create a stonespikes or rockblockers.
  • Genz has an interesting variant where he punches the ground and extends claws underground to rise up underneath his foes.
  • Armstrong can also punch the ground to send a wall of stonespikes.
• Guns Akimbo: Hawkeye.
• Heavily Armored Mook: The living armours, and the turtle-squid chimeras.
• Healing Checkpoint: Saving at checkpoints restores your health to full.
• Healing Herb: Some herb items can cure status effects such as Weapon-banned and alchemy-banned.
• Healing Potion: The elixir items.
• Hit Points: Ed and Al have their health as hit points.
• Homing Boulders: Armstrong can punch boulders so hard that it carves into the shape of an arrow, and homes on to you.
• Homing Projectile:
  • The Turtle-Squid in Underground Waterway's explosive shells.
  • Genz 3's fireballs.
  • Armstrong's rock arrows.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Doubly subverted with the final boss against Roy Mustang and Major Armstrong; it may seem like this at first glance, since they lack a health bar and take forever to die, and getting beaten by them leads to the final ending, it appears your defeat is scripted. However, with the high enough level and patience, you can defeat them, but the ending you receive is the same.
• Hydrant Geyser: One of Ed's possible tools in battles can be a fire hydrant, which if hit will fire a rotating pressurized stream of water that hurts enemies. It hurts Ed and Al too, if caught in it.
• Intellectual Animal: The chimera enemies encountered later in the game can use alchemy; able to transmute human objects such as cannons, sawblades, ball and chains, and explosive drones. For reference, using alchemy is the equivalent of holding a chemistry degree.
• I'll Kill You!: One of Camilla's battle quotes has her yelling "I'll cut you up!"
• Impossible Item Drop: Chimera can drop items.
• Improbable Aiming Skills:
  • Instructing Al to use a weapon mount will have him hit the opponent with a greater accuracy than humanly possible due to auto-targeting AI.
  • Brigadier General Nemda in a cutscene throws a rifle which hits Al from at least a hundred feet away.
• Improbable Power Discrepancy: Gator-boar hybrids found at the beginning of the game? Easy. The fat soldiers found later in the game? Very hard.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • Ed can use a shockwave-causing pogo stick, entrapping bubble wand as a weapon or plastic hammer as a weapon.
  • The white-clothed lanky-variant enemies in Wilhelm's Castle use a briefcase, which can function as a bazooka.
• Improvised Platform: There is a gap in Underground Waterway C that can be only be crossed by picking up the wood key items nearby to transmute into a platform.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Treasure chests are found in large amounts throughout the game, some of the locations for them are odd like in a sewer.
• In the Hood: The Outlaws wear hoods.
• Item-Drop Mechanic: Defeating enemies drop items like Elixirs, Elements, Reloaders and Herbs.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: Near the end of Wilhelm's castle, many stairs have to be climbed, as well as some platforms climbed to reach the top of the castle.
• Joke Item:
  • Subverted. The Armlet of Debilitation accessory causes all non-alchemical attacks to deal 1 damage, but it has niche use in allowing you to get easily fill up the Frenzy Gauge without resorting to searching many enemies.
  • The plastic hammer only deals 1 damage; it also has niche use in filling up the Frenzy Gauge and obtaining a high combo on the Flying Chimera boss.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Subverted. Edward can create katanas with the right materials, and it turns out to be one of the most effective weapons in the game on top of being one of the few that can be wielded by him and Alphonse. However, they are very fragile and break shortly after repeated use unlike most blades.
• Kevlard: The fat soldier enemies are one of the most durable enemies you encounter at that part of the game.
• Kill the Cutie: Poor Selene. Also her "sister" Armony in the game's ending.
• King Mook: The Crab boss, as he is the biggest and strongest Crab chimera dealt with in the game.
• Let's You and Him Fight: The Hopeless Boss Fight and Post-Final Boss tend to be this. Ed and Al, who wanted to save Armony from dying, ended up having to fight Mustang and Armstrong, who believed that she can't be saved. Even Mustang knew this will eventually happen.
• Level-Locked Loot: Defeating certain bosses will net you different accessories depending on if your level is above or below a certain milestone.
• Life Drain: Equipping the Amulet of absorption will cause you to heal 5% of the damage that you deal to an enemy.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: Every time you reach a new area, there is a loading screen which also displays the name of the new room.
• Locked Door: A door in New Hiessgart requires a crank to open, and a pink outlaw runs off with it, requiring you to chase him down.
• Locomotive Level: The first level in the game is in a train.
• Low-Level Advantage: Prizes given by bosses may differ depending on if you are below or above a level milestone; certain items like the Cologne are better than the high-level reward for the boss.
• Longer-Than-Life Sentence: In Hawkeye's epilogue report, Mudi Nemda has garnered 145 years in prison, with a pending 200 years to be added from upcoming trials.
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Professor Eiselstein's daughters Armony Eiselstein and Selene. They are actually one and the same due to their father's experiment.
• Magnet Hands: Ed rolls, cartwheels and backflips a ton of times without dropping his weapons.
• Making a Splash: The Water chimera boss.
• Marathon Level:
  • Wilhelm's castle. It is the largest area in the game and has many rooms.
  • Hiessgart Army Fortress is also another long level.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The Alchemy Brothers, Gelb, Rot and Blau. Their names are German for "yellow", "red" and "blue" respectively, which reflect off their shirt colours.
  • Major Armstrong, known for his strength, has strong arms.
  • Brigadier General Mudi Nemda, is very moody.
• Mighty Glacier: Genz, Al, Living Armors and Armstrong.
• Min-Maxing: The 'double-edged' accessories will increase a specific stat by 25% but lower all other stats (except Vitality) by 50%.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The chimera enemies.
• Ms. Fanservice: Not only are her looks based on Lust (one of the series' holders of this title), but Camilla's outfit is even more revealing since she bares her abdomen and has some underboobs thrown in for some good measure. Hawkeye to a lesser extent, in her secretary-esque Margot disguise.
• Monster Town: Old Hiessgart is overrun with dangerous chimera
• Monsters Everywhere: Chimera appear in plenty of places throughout the game, even inside a military building and someone's castle.
• Mook Promotion: The military man in the train appears to be a normal soldier, but is fought like a boss.
• More Criminals Than Targets: Despite being actually populated unlike its predecessor, New Hiessgart is practically deserted during gameplay with the only people seen being enemy characters with no actual civilians onsight. They do show up in animated cutscenes, though.
• Multiple Head Case: The two-headed dog chimera enemies.
• Multiple-Tailed Beast: The masked tiger chimera has 2 tails.
• Multishot: There are crossbow mounts that fire multiple bolts.
• Mysterious Woman: Camilla. She first appears to sic a chimera on the brothers while they are taking refuge in the Hiessgart's church.
• New Game Plus: Items and unused bonus stat points are passed on to next new game. And new treasure chests containing art are added to the playthrough.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: At the start of the game, Edward fires a canon at Bresslau in anger after he gets called "shorty", which he dodges and hits the tunnel, causing their train to derail. When they reach New Hiessgart with the intent to return to Central City, they find out that they are stuck in the city until the derailment is cleared.
• No Item Use for You: Certain attacks can cause Ed to drop his weapon and temporarily stop him from using it.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The later part of the rooms in the final chapter have no music, only a chilling ambience, and a lack of human enemies, where they were abundant in the previous rooms.
• Ominous Fog: The fog in Waterway Room C.
• No-Sell: The third time you fight Genz, he is invincible to certain weapons such as the flamethrower, bubble wand, and even wind-enchanted weapons.
• Orphaned Etymology: On the train at the beginning, Ed shouts, "You calling me the 'Guinness Book of World Records' kind of shorty?!" The series takes place in an Alternate History version of 1914, while the Guinness Book of Records, as it was originally called, was first published in 1955. The Guinness brand itself dates back to 1759, though, so it's possible they started their world record-keeping a bit earlier in the Fullmetal 'verse.
• Painfully Slow Projectile: Bullets are highly visible, arrows are slow, but the slowest projectile has to be Blau's ice spikes which are so slow you can outrun.
• Palette Swap: A lot of mooks are palette swaps, such as the soldiers, chimera and thugs.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Hawkeye dressed as Margot is just Hawkeye with glasses and a hairstyle resembling Winry's. It works for a while, though the Elrics say she looks familiar. Alphonse eventually does see through the disguise.
  • Greta is just Camilla with glasses and a labcoat, and not wearing her glasses. Her disguise holds until the climax.
• Pivotal Boss: The Combat Chimera the first time.
• Playing with Fire:
  • Mustang. He doesn't have natural fire powers, he relies on using spark gloves and oxygen manipulation to make the fire.
  • Rot and Military Man as well.
• Point Build System: Levelling up does increase your stats, but it also gives you bonus points to further increase a chosen stat. You can chose to allocate between Ed and Al.
• Posthumous Character: Selene Eiselstein. Ed and Al used to know her when they were Izumi's disciples and she died shortly after their last meeting. Subverted in the fact she lived on as Armony.
• Post-Final Boss: Inverted. Mustang and Armstrong who are fought after the climax final boss, are much more difficult.
• Poor Communication Kills: Wilhelm not telling Ed and Al the fatal consequences of Armony using alchemy, causes them to let Armony use alchemy, causing her to get sick and Camilla’s plans to come to fruition.
• Powerful Pick: One of Al's weapons can be a pickaxe, which is the upgraded version of the hammer.
• Precision-Guided Boomerang: The boomerang weapon will always return back to Ed even if he runs away, and will pass through multiple enemies.
• Random Drop: Enemies tend to drop Elixirs, Reloaders, Herbs, and Elements.
• Random Drop Booster: Equipping the Lucky bag increases enemy drops.
• Rank Inflation: Ranks range from E to S.
• Really 700 Years Old: Camilla, according to Hawkeye’s epilogue report, might be at least a 100 years old due to previous reports of encounters with another ‘Camilla’ entity many decades ago.
• Recurring Boss: Practically every boss in the game is fought more than once, but the biggest example is Major Bresslau, who is fought three times in the game and stronger than before each time.
• Repeating So the Audience Can Hear: How everyone except Ed and Al respond to Blau.
• Replay Mode: Allows you to replay cutscenes.
• Rings of Death: One of the weapons is a metal ring you can throw and it will return back like a boomerang.
• Rolling Attack: The Crab chimeras in
• Run, Don't Walk: Ed and Al always run when they move normally.
• Sea Monster: The Water chimera appears to be a giant moray with many fins.
• Scratch Damage: All attacks dealt to you will deal at least 1 HP of damage. Genz utilizes this in his third form as all attacks dealt to him deal only 1 damage, albeit his HP amount is low to balance it out. Equipping the Armlet of Debilitation or Plastic Hammer will cause all non-alchemical damage to be 1 HP.
• Shows Damage: The tank enemies when low on health flash red, and continue to do so faster the closer they are to death.
• Silent Bob: Blau, everyone except Ed and Al understand him.
• So Much for Stealth: Ed and Al plan to take a stealth approach to escape Hiessgart Army Fortress, but the plan is thwarted when an alarm activates, forcing them to take the violent route.
• Spell Levels: Reaching certain level milestones will allow Ed to level up his rockblockers and stonespikes, which allow him to transmute more.
• Status Effects: Stunned, Weapon-banned, alchemy-banned, and poison. They can be cured with certain herb items.
• Sticky Situation: Tar barrels can be knocked over to slow down enemies, it affects Ed and Al too.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: You don't think the human mooks would stop underestimating Ed and Al, despite them already having a reputation of being extremely powerful alchemists?
• Superboss: The final boss duo (Roy Mustang and Major Armstrong) is fought after the climax boss, though required for 100% completion by granting unique items, is not necessary to win. This bonus boss is the hardest in the game. Winning or losing will not change the ending.
• Super Mode: Fighting frenzy increases Ed's damage, experience and lets him perform a powerful special.
• Super Spit: The mudskipper chimera in the Underground Waterway can spit water at you.
• Sword Beam: The fat soldiers, elite soldiers and Living Armors can utilize this as an attack.
• Sword Lines: When the katana scores a critical hit.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: The Combat Chimera sends out explosive balls that can be transmuted into bombs. The only way to deal a viable amount of damage to him is to get him to use his suction attack on the bombs so they explode in him.
• Tank Goodness:
  • The tank enemies fought in the Army Fortress.
  • The tank vehicles that you yourself can ride.
• Temporary Platform: There is a room in Wilhelm's castle that has floor tiles of different colours. The centrepiece will flash a certain colour and then all floor tiles of that colour will fall down. You are supposed to avoid standing on the centrepiece coloured tiles for too long.
• The Beast Master: Camilla. 3 times she sends chimeras after you.
• The Pawns Go First: The first battle against the Alchemist Brothers has them send his Outlaw mooks after you.
• The Speechless: Blau doesn't speak. Ed and Al don't understand him, but everyone else seems to. Oddly enough, he can still grunt and screams out ‘Take that’ in battle.
• Three-Strike Combo: The basic combo style for unarmed, sword and spear.
• Toilet Humour: Discussed seeing the Flying Chimera boss, Ed comments that it is so big that it probably can flood a village when it relieves itself. Al is grossed out by the discussion.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Turns out that Armony isn't Selene's sister, she is Selene after having her body fused with the Philosopher's Catalyst.
• Too Awesome to Use:
  • The frenzy potions which instantly enables Frenzy mode, are the rarest items in the game, only about 4 exist in specific chests.
  • The Elixir (X) items too, which heal all HP, are also non-renewable.
• Trick Boss: The ultimate chimera is this to Camilla. He has a lifebar, but dies in very few hits. Camilla doesn't have a lifebar, but is the one that has to be defeated. Camilla can also revive the ultimate chimera.
• Turns Red: Mustang and Armstrong use more powerful attacks the lower their health is. It is advised to defeat them one at a time or risk dealing with both their superpowered moves at once.
• Underground Monkey: Plenty of enemies in the game follow an enemy-type formula.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: When a gator-boar chimera swallows a flower Ed and Al have been searching for, you're forced to get it to regurgitate it. Only Al's tackle will work because the chimera is invincible otherwise.
• Universal Ammunition: Downplayed. The Reloader items exist for either wood (crossbow type items) and metal (cannons or Gatling guns), allows you to refill the ammo of a gun mount. Justified as Ed uses alchemy to transmute the ammo to something compatible.
• Unknown Rival: Major Bresslau to Edward. He is self-entitled as the "Armor-Piercing Alchemist" and says he has been looking forward to match his automail against him in combat. Edward, on the other hand, never heard of him.
• Unstable Equilibrium: Getting higher rank in bosses will net you more bonus stat points.
• Vacuum Mouth:
  • The vacuum tool Ed can transmute invokes this by having the vacuum resemble a mouth.
  • The Combat Chimera can suck up Ed and Al to eat them.
• Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: The Combat Chimera has 6 legs despite resembling a giant frog-rhino.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: The penultimate boss, the 3 giant chimera. They individually have the same stats as before, to make each of them easier, as you're now fighting them all at once.
• Visible Silence: How Blau 'speaks'.
• Weaponized Ball: Ed can transmute a giant metal ball (with a stronger spiked version as well) and hit it to send it hurtling towards enemies like a bowling ball. It can hurt Ed and Al too if they are hit by it when it is moving.
• Weapons That Suck:
  • The vacuum is a non-portable weapon to suck enemies up into one spot, so you can hit multiple of them at once.
  • The purple-shirted and white-shirted lanky-variant thugs from Underground Waterway and Wilhelm's Castle can use alchemy to create a fan to suck up Ed and Al to deal damage.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: If Alphonse is defeated in combat, Edward can restore him back to life without a problem. But if Edward dies, its game over.
• Winged Humanoid: Armony has a pair of small wings on her back that serve as the actual Catalyst, making her the titular "broken angel".
• Why Am I Ticking?: Genz 3 planned to explode upon defeat as a last means of killing Ed and Al. It didn't work because the fully robotic Genz 'ran out of gas'.
• Wolf Pack Boss:
  • On their own, Gelb, Rot and Blau are little more capable than their average mooks. But when they fight as one (specially when aided by their living armor minions), they are a hell of a challenge.
  • This is taken to an extreme at the end of game, when the Combat Chimera, Water Chimera and Flying Chimera bosses are fought together, when each individual one was already enough to be a boss.
• Wretched Hive: Even though New Hiessgart doesn't look like it at first glance, it definitely qualifies: it has become a beacon for outlaw alchemists and terrorists in search of the Catalyst, and the local police serves as a private army to the local Antagonistic Governor. When the pastor describes it as a "shady neighborhood", he is really underselling how bad it is. It doesn't help that the surrounding area is overwhelmed with chimeras and bandits.
• You Did the Right Thing: Ed may have accidentally derailed the train at the beginning of the game, which got him scolded by Al. Fortunately, Armstrong reports that there are no casualties in the train crash. However, the tracks were broken just shortly up ahead, meaning had he not stopped the train, EVERYONE would have died.