Hagane no Renkinjutsushi : Omoide no Sonata

Fullmetal Alchemist: Omoide no Sonata is a Japan-only Game Boy Advance role-playing game developed by Tom Create and published by Bandai. It launched in Japan on July 22, 2004, as the second GBA RPG based on Hiromu Arakawa's series and the 2003 television anime.

The game tells an original story rather than adapting a single manga or anime arc. Edward and Alphonse Elric, still searching for a way to restore the bodies lost through human transmutation, become involved in a string of bombings aimed at the military. The investigation leads the brothers through East City and other locations while recurring questions about revenge, forbidden research, and the Philosopher's Stone connect the case to the larger concerns of Fullmetal Alchemist.

Winry Rockbell joins Ed and Al as an active member of the adventure, bringing her automail expertise and, later, her own alchemy-based combat options. Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye, Alex Louis Armstrong, Maes Hughes, and other familiar figures appear alongside original characters such as the detective Lute Saxophon and the automail engineer Viola Amore. This mixture lets the game use the anime-era cast while telling a self-contained side story.

Exploration is structured around traveling between towns, headquarters, ruins, and dungeon-like areas; conversations and event clues direct the next step of the case. Players can form parties of up to three characters, search areas for supplies and optional finds, and return to the status menus to arrange equipment, items, and party members. An in-game hint function can point toward the next objective when the investigation stalls.

Battles use an active-time format rather than a strictly turn-based one. Party members choose physical attacks, special moves, items, or alchemy as their action gauges fill, and simultaneous attacks on the same enemy can produce combinations. Characters gain experience and levels, while repeated use of particular companions improves their support relationship, giving the party system a progression layer beyond the main plot.

Its central mechanic is a card-driven interpretation of alchemy. Metal, stone, nature, and darkness cards carry mass, value, and level information; combining them within the system's limits produces new materials, attacks, healing items, and field solutions. Discovering a result records it in Edward's Alchemy Handbook for later use, while Winry's Alchemy Gun develops a separate set of formulas. The same system therefore links experimentation in menus to both combat and environmental puzzles.

Omoide no Sonata follows the earlier GBA title Stray Rondo in both format and continuity, but expands the formula with experience-based growth, a larger role for Winry, and a revised alchemy handbook. It remains a licensed side story from the period when the first anime adaptation was airing, not a retelling of the later Brotherhood continuity.