Development
Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel was developed by the Japanese company Racjin and initially produced by Enix, before their merger with Square in April 2003. Development for the game began before that of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime series. Hiromu Arakawa, the author of the original manga, oversaw the story of the game and designed its characters, while Bones, the studio which would be responsible for the anime series, produced 30 minutes of animation. Themes emphasized during the creation of the game include the bond between Alphonse and Edward, as well as the series' basic concept of Equivalent Exchange, which states that "man cannot gain without sacrifice". The developers looked at other titles for inspiration, particularly Square's action role-playing game Kingdom Hearts, in addition to other games based on manga series, such as Dragon Ball, Naruto or One Piece games. The biggest challenge they had to overcome was to try to make the title a "full-fledged" game rather than a simple "character-based" game. Tomoya Asano, the assistant producer for the game, noted that development spanned more than a year, unlike most character-based games.
In Japan, the game was showcased at the Tokyo Game Show in September 2003, the first time that Square and Enix had appeared at the show as a single company. In the United States, the game was showcased at the Electronic Entertainment Expo of Los Angeles in May 2004, with the presence of Asano. For the North American version of the game, the developers made the difficulty level more challenging and aggressive.
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