As I’ve said, the Avatar Book 1 game tells an original story set after Book 1. To experience the story at the same time as I watched the show, I played this game; M. Night Shyamalan’s movie is an adaptation of Book 1. There’s two angles here: how this game adapts the movie adaptation, and how it follows Halfbrick’s previous effort, the Into the Inferno DS game.

I still have not seen the movie but I know a lot of details by reputation. From what I can tell, there are a few tweaks here to make it a more playable game that also coincidentally (or not) bring it closer to the show, the most prominent being that firebenders are able to create their own fire.

I kept being put off by the character designs, although they have their own consistency. Just because they’re different, they’re not necessarily bad. The Fire Nation army look is pretty cool and I do like Aang’s redesign even if he’s a very dour child now instead of a happy-go-lucky tween. But there’s still dissonance which can’t be helped.

The game frontloads some exposition that is not revealed til later in the show, which bogs it down a bit. But there’s also at least one new “event”, Zuko being trained by some kind of martial arts master called Jiu Jiao (not to be confused with Zhao or Jeong Jeong). That’s the kind of thing I look for, even if it’s simply a tutorial level for Zuko’s abilities.

Speaking of Zuko, he appears to be the primary protagonist, or if not it’s close. Levels alternate between him or his Blue Spirit guise and Aang. The focus on the game as being this dual story is welcome, with Zuko as a sympathetic character rather than a stock villain, just as the show portrays. However, there are a few downsides to the way the story is told, both due to alterations the movie made and cutbacks due to the scope of the game. But on the other hand, the added touches of humour in incidental dialogue are much appreciated.

Still, the game is competent enough as an abridged Book 1. But how is it as a game? Well, I had fun, although it is easy and brief. As I said, it very much builds on its immediate predecessor, the DS Into the Inferno game based on Book 3 of the show, but without the chibi style. As before, it’s entirely stylus-controlled except for the shoulder buttons to enter bending mode, but there’s a bit more of an emphasis on combat than puzzles.

It makes up for having only 2 playable characters with a sort of RPG progression system. You find chi orbs as a collectible or receive them for doing tasks, which can be spent on upgrading the characters’ skills. Don’t bother saving up though because they throw them at you, especially towards the end. There are also health and mana upgrades to find in the levels (there’s no backtracking, but the game actually contains more than you need to max them out). I felt invested in the characters because of this, and despite their abundance these collectibles were a better motivator than the lotus tiles in Inferno.

So it was a fairly breezy time, but I enjoyed the situations the game put me in, even if they were sometimes contrived in a game-y way. Maybe it helped to play along with episodes of the show. The enemies were mostly Fire Nation soldiers of various types, but there were also a kind of spider, as well as a memorable boss battle against Katara as Zuko! It is short but not bad by any means, and it’s the only way to play the Book 1 story on a handheld (if that’s appealing?).

EDIT: I have now watched the movie. So I can say that like the film’s comic adaptation, the game takes aspects or scenes of the movie and handles them better than the film itself did. And indeed tweaks the story in a slightly more show-like direction. Also Zhao in the film stabs Tui in the bag. In the game he hilariously punches the bag. That’s all I wanted to say.