Review #746: Avatar - The Last Airbender(Nintendo DS)

 Ain't no stopping this licensed-game bender any time soon!

 Avatar The Last Airbender released on multiple platforms, each major line(PS2/Xbox/Gamecube, PSP, DS, Advance) getting their own version. The Gameboy Advance entry was a delightful puzzle game, but the DS? Oh boy, the DS got an RPG! It's not as complex or as involved as your Final Fantasy, but we've got dungeons, herb mixing, real-time battles, experience points, the whole shebang!

 While I haven't seen the series(yet) I did the least amount of research required to figure out that this game follows its own original story set between Season 1 and 2, and it follows Aang, Katara, Sokka and.... and Haru, which I even I know isn't a series regular, as they seek to stop the rise of the machines that are laying waste around the world. The game takes about 12 hours to complete, and is divided into chapters, each chapter taking place in its own map. There are sidequests to be found if you search deep enough, which will reward you with bonus stats or even bonus special moves.

 The basic gameplay loop is very simple, at the start of most chapters you'll want to make your way into the chapter's town in order to speak with NPCs and figure out where you really wanna go, and then it's just getting from designated area to designated area. Along the way you may come across enemies, touch them and you'll initiate a battle which takes place in real time. Y is your basic attack, X uses chi-special moves(Chi refills over time, but depending on which special move you used last it may take longer), B blocks and Y is a bender-styled defensive move, such as Aang flying or Katara covering herself in ice. You can swap characters at any time, but the CPU will take over whichever three characters you aren't using.

 The AI is pretty dumb. Rogue Galaxy kinda dumb. They love getting themselves killed, and there's nothing you can do about it. Healing items are hard to come by, particularly at the beginning of the game, and there are no Inns or places in which you can fully recover, so you'll be relying on dying and continuing, since every character gets healed up to a third of their total maximum health. This worked quite well for me, since CPUs are only useful as meat shields, taking attention away from you, and they don't even use their special moves. I played most of the game as Aang, but I switched over to Haru every now and then, or Katara if only to revive fallen allies. You see, Aang has a three hit combo and Haru has a two hit combo, making them actually fun to use, while Sokka is stuck to single hits with his club and Katara attacks with a weak little projectile. In what's an ironic twist of fate, Katara is actually useful during some of the poorly designed boss fights in which attacking from afar is actually the best way to approach battles. Look, fighting normal enemies is alright, it's pretty fun actually, but some of the boss fights are very poorly designed, like the very first boss that can pretty much go through your attacks and has a very generous range on his attacks.

 Most times you finish an encounter, the enemy will drop a minuscule amount of money or, perhaps better, a healing item. But you have to be careful, as you have a very limited inventory capacity. Thankfully, you can rely on your infinite continues in order to save up on healing items. Learning Herb combinations is paramount to maximizing your inventory space. Lastly, the game features 2-D sprites running over 3-D background, which isn't too bad, but the camera can be a bit bad sometimes, particularly on the one mandatory stealth segment.

 As a whole, Avatar the Last Airbender is pretty fun. It has a few very annoying moments that stand out, mostly a few boss fights, but the rest of the game is pretty decent. I'm just surprised they managed to make such a decent RPG out of Avatar. Hopefully the sequel has better bosses and makes Sokka and Katara more fun to play as.
 7.0 out of 10