Review #565: Avatar the Last Airbender - The Burning Earth(Gameboy Advance)

 The only thing that burns here is how much of a joke this game is.

 Avatar the Last Airbender on the Gameboy Advance was dope. Like really, really dope, so I was really looking forwards to this game, plus, playable Zuko. No, I haven't watched the series, but I know who Zuko is and Fire is always cool. I mean hot. But they botched it, like really, really badly.

 This time around the game takes place during the second season of the show, how faithful it is to the series I don't know, but I can tell you that storytelling in this game is bland. I had no idea what was going on most of the time, and the short text-descriptions before each level helped very little to add context to the stages. The game is also on the short side, there're 8 basic stages, and if you get an A rank on each you unlock 4 more plus 'Single Run', which is basically every stage back to back with no breaks. It's not as taxing as it sounds, the game probably lasts about 2 hours which is probably why they went with the obnoxious A rank requirement on the first 8 stages. Not that it matters, since the game has no battery so you must rely on passwords. Lame.

 Remember how you always played as a team in the previous game? Now teams have been reduced to two-man groups, although the playable cast has grown to include Zuko, Toph and Iroh, as well as two stages in which you play as Appa and dodge stuff. New characters should mean more fun and intricate puzzles, but it doesn't. Puzzles have been simplified to the point of silliness, instead opting to throw endless waves of enemies at the player... which is hilarious, since combat is even worse than it used to be!

 To start with, characters that aren't Zuko or Aang suck at fighting or are boring to use. Katara has a weak 4-hit spin attack that deals negligible damage and seems to do more harm to her than to your enemies. Iroh has a single ability, a flame breath attack that needs to recharge, making him lame to play as. Toph has a single ability, shooting quakes that increase in size the longer it travels. It can clear off enemies very easily, but it's boring and unexciting to use. Sokka dashes while flailing his club, but it has no comboability since it pushes enemies away and deals negligible damage. That leaves us with Aang and Zuko, Aang having a two-hit combo and Zuko a three-hit combo, this makes them the only characters fit for fighting, which helps since either character will always be on your team, so you'll spend your time mashing A with the occasional R-button press to use Toph or Iroh's support attack, Katara and Sokka's being nigh useless in combat. Oh, and you gain life points back every time you lose health, making a game over become something of a miracle.

 But, know what? The first game had crappy combat too, even if it wasn't as dumb, but it shined on its brainbusters, and seeing how some characters, like Katara and Sokka, seem built exclusively for puzzles, surely, this game also shines there. But it doesn't. The puzzles are very simple 'figure how to hit all the crystals' affairs. Some you must figure out how to hit under a time limit, some you must figure the right order in which to hit them and some you must figure out which ones to activate and which ones to deactivate. It's very lame.

 I had very high hopes for this one, but they blew it. I can see why they went for a more arcadey-actiony route, as its a better fit for the series, but characters simply aren't much fun to use in combat. And the puzzles, which made the first game so good, were too simple to be any fun, which feels like so much of a waste considering how the various powers and abilities of these characters could've been used. Then there are the smaller blemishes, like having to use passwords and doing such a poor job at telling a story.
 3.5 out of 10