I’ve encountered a roadblock in terms of Avatar games. When I opened the case for The Burning Earth on Wii that I bought ages ago, I found a disc for the first game had been sold to me by mistake. And it was too scratched up to work! So while a new copy wings its way to me, I played the GBA version.
It was a bit of a letdown. I completed it in only a couple of hours—it’s the shortest game on the list so far. Like the other Halfbrick games, you use bending and other abilities for both puzzles and combat. And like the Into the Inferno game in particular, the characters are paired up in different combinations (or sometimes solo) in different levels. In this case, the puzzles, combat, and action-y segments are pretty segmented; you’re either doing one or the other, and moving on linearly, a quite plain structure.
This time, the game is built around a scoring system. Presumably this is to encourage replays of its short length. The upper left number is your score, which also acts as health and is restored by defeating enemies. Beating a string of bad guys (only ever the same three types of Fire Nation soldiers, besides the boss fights) also gives a combo bonus, to encourage proper use of your bending abilities. It’s a fairly complex and neat little system. The upper right is a bonus, which ticks down over time and is filled up by collecting jars in the levels, providing the occasional reward for doing something extra or risky.
The sprites, following the previous game, are adorable, and the environments are drawn beautifully. The weakness of the game is that it’s simply retelling the story of Book 2, but severely cut down. It doesn’t have the novelty of the first game’s new plot, and it’s so fast-paced that you have to be familiar with the show to really get it. It does have the advantage of showing Zuko’s side of the story as well, which the DS version was unable to do. What I look for in adaptations are things they’re able to add to the story or world, but the only thing I noticed that wasn’t an adaptation from the show was a reuse of the armadillo wolves from the previous game; they’re used for puzzles rather than combat, which is amusing.
The characters’ abilities are translated to game mechanics in interesting ways, but the score-chasing structure is just something that doesn’t grab me. Despite the aesthetic strengths of the game, I find myself preferring the DS version in this case. Of course, both cover different content, with the desert and Ba Sing Se omitted here but present on DS, and Zuko and Iroh levels here. It’s just so short though, only 7 levels and one of those is more like a minigame. After playing all of Halfbrick’s other games in the series, this was underwhelming to me.
Time for another Avatar game. See previous reviews. This one also uses the new storyline, albeit abbreviated by removing the “Earthbender training camp” and “Southern Air Temple” chapters. Haru still shows up, in Omashu, but doesn’t join the party. As I expected of Halfbrick (having played their two DS entries) the gameplay is more puzzle-oriented with some RPG elements. Aang, Sokka, and Katara move as a group and you can cycle between them to use their abilities. They all learn new tricks as you go on, to overcome environmental obstacles and the occasional combat.
The spritework is lovely; clean and fluid, with plenty of colour variety. I dare say it’s the best looking of the bunch that I’ve played so far. There are fewer enemy types, both because of cut chapters and the chapters themselves are much shorter. I believe I’ve covered them all in these screenshots. I did notice Yu Yan archers, which do not appear in the other versions. Boss battles also play out differently, more strategic and hence more fun.
While the storyline is the same, it’s cut back significantly. They left in Bumi’s excellently lame joke and most of the important plot points, and there are still some civilians to converse with, but it’s pretty stripped back. It’s a concise way to tell the story and certainly a quicker game to play to experience that story, but missing two locations is unfortunate. However, it does uniquely have a large section set in the Omashu sewers.
I was surprised how similar it felt to the later DS games despite using more traditional controls. The puzzles are thoughtfully designed and can get challenging, especially the brutal chase sequences and final boss. There are also hidden health upgrades off the main path which aren’t too necessary outside said boss, but are a nice bonus to find.
Despite lacking voice acting, sidequests, and some locations, I might recommend this as the best way to play this story. It’s the most polished and fun game experience. I still think fans should seek out the console version though, for its more fleshed out story, and additional characters (and spirits!).
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.
Here it is, the last Avatar game. But guess what, I got one of the Wii ones in a bargain bin so there’s more to come! Haha! This game, unlike the previous two DS installments, was developed by Halfbrick, an Australian studio subsequently responsible for iOS hits such as Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride. They did the first two Avatar games on GBA but the console generation cycle bumped the GBA out of the running and I guess bumped these guys up to DS. Bumped out were the RPG gameplay and the spritework, to be replaced by a stage-based isometric puzzle platformer rendered in 3D.
The comparisons to the DS Zelda are very easy to see. Mostly stylus controls, super deformed art style (although there’s precedent for that in the Avatar franchise), the early 3D polygon look. There’s less combat though and more using bending to solve puzzles in the environment. Much more, in fact, which is welcome after the limited interaction in the last two DS games. As I said, the structure is also level-based, with collectibles to find so you can go back and do it again better. Each is based on an episode, with many skipped of course. Each one also gives you a unique pairing of two characters to use, who have their own skills.
Between levels we have delightful little cutscenes. No voices but some very amusing bits of written dialogue with some visual humour and expression on their huge faces. The collectibles I mentioned are used to unlock characters and costumes exclusively for a volleyball minigame that can be played by DS Download Play (I heard you could use costumes in levels but couldn’t get it to work). It’s not the best motivation for completion but seeing those characters in the cute chibi style was almost worth it.
It’s just so strange to have this game (which is admittedly pretty quality) come after two games in the completely different, more serious, RPG style, especially when the second was bulding well on the first. The shift in gameplay and art style is very jarring, but hey if it gave them the chance to do something interesting with the Avatar license (which it did), then it’s not such a bad thing.
So it was fun. Not too hard to get through, which is refreshing after some bits of the RPG ones which were frankly a slog. Actually some stages were quite long but it tried to gradually ramp up the puzzles as you went on to keep it engaging. I miss wandering around and talking to townspeople but realistically they never had much to say. It’s a tradition for developers to ape Nintendo but this spin on that DS Zelda style worked out well, and its heavy focus on spatial puzzles seemed to fit. It’s certainly pretty unique and that chibi style is cute (I love how the boxart is a takeoff of its console bigger brother. I found a copy for $8 and at that price it’s great for fans of the show. So until I get to the Wii game, I’ll say flameo, hotman! (Yes that’s a greeting but I’m using it to say goodbye ok)
