Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game is the latest fighting game from Gameplay Group and Paramount Games Studio. It’s a flashy, fluid, and fun fighting game that pits several memorable and beloved characters from the Avatar series against each other. However, while many parts of the gameplay are engaging and enjoyable, other parts are frustrating and disappointingly bare-bones.
Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game features characters from both Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. This includes the protagonists, villains, and fan-favorite supporting characters. The story mode is told through the perspectives of several characters and explains how characters from both series are forced to interact due to a disturbance in the spirit world that warps their timelines. This event forces three avatars, specifically Aang, Kiyoshi, and Korra, to be pulled into the same timeline.
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What makes the event especially odd is that character relationships have changed significantly, and events from the original series are seemingly undone. Korra is friends with Azula, who’s uncharacteristically close to Zuko and Fire Lord Ozai. Toph is a conqueror who wreaks havoc across several kingdoms, and Sokka is a Guru clad in gold. Nothing makes sense, and everyone is acting strange, something Aang recognizes when he’s mysteriously pulled into this universe at the start of Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game.
Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game brings three avatars together in the same timeline, and chaos ensues.
As players progress through the story mode of Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game, the narrative unravels and reveals that this isn’t just a different universe but a world deliberately created for chaos caused by a spiritual disturbance. The culprits and true goal are eventually revealed along with some fascinating twists.
However, while the narrative is certainly interesting and captures the player’s attention from the get-go, its presentation is incredibly lackluster. The scenes and dialogue between combat sections do not feature cutscenes, and character sprites look the same as during combat.
They don’t have facial expressions or mouth movements, backgrounds are repeated throughout, and there are no body animations. Even during dialogue, the characters are stuck in their combat poses, which makes some scenes unintentionally comedic.
Because of these execution choices, it feels like the story mode was given the bare minimum thought in terms of presentation. The narrative is also nonsensical for most of the story, and it’s clear the humor was the main focus, which is disappointing. Regardless, the humor is at the very least excellent in many moments, especially during scenes with Guru Sokka.
Though the narrative is interesting, the limitations of its presentation are hard to hide.
Narrative aside, Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game features excellent gameplay. Moves, combos, and special attacks are fluid and intuitive. Attacks sport excellent visual effects, and combining special attacks and basic attacks to juggle characters feels amazing and is immensely fun. Additionally, learning advanced moves and ultimate attacks is challenging but rewarding.
However, it’s also worth noting that the Story Mode is incredibly challenging if you don’t get some training done before jumping in. The CPU will not hold back even from the first stage. There are no difficulty options, and no option to retry once you start a fight. What’s more, abilities and actions like some special moves and even ultimate moves are restricted, and your special attack bars are actively locked at the start of the story mode until you level up the current character you’re controlling as you progress.
Players will also need to unlock several moves, abilities, and options for specific characters through Momo’s Bazaar, a shop where they can use points earned after winning fights. The game notably doesn’t point this out, so players will have to figure it out themselves. However, fights can still be won without doing this, but winning fights is more difficult without buying moves and additional abilities.
Purchasing moves and abilities from Momo’s Bazaar is an unspoken necessity for players.
Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game features several other modes including the standard arcade mode, a free training mode, online and matchmaking modes, a tutorial training mode, and more. Most of these gameplay modes are fun and functional, but the tutorial training mode leaves a lot to be desired.
This training mode lets players learn specific moves, but unlike in other fighting games that let them learn each move before merging it into a combo, it only gives players a list of objectives on the left side of the screen and doesn’t tell them anything more. What’s worse is that it doesn’t give players enough time to execute them in order before failing the combo, and sometimes the tutorial doesn’t even reset when you miss an action.
Other than that, the arcade mode works as well as in most other fighting games, but is especially fun in Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game. Players can focus solely on gameplay in this mode, and it is a dynamic way to learn how a character works while still being challenged. Players can also do several combo trials, which are just as fun, as well as local vs mode. Lastly, the online modes sport great netcode and cross-play, which should be the standard for new fighting games, but it’s great to have regardless.
Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game is a solid game that offers great gameplay, but is held back by lackluster features that significantly hinder the experience. Many of these features can be fixed through future updates, but it remains to be seen how the quality of the game will improve.
Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game
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Rating - 6.5/106.5/10
TL;DR
Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game is a solid game that offers great gameplay, but is held back by lackluster features that significantly hinder the experience.
