Game #943: Avatar - The Last Airbender The Burning Earth(Playstation2)

  This cover never goes out of style.

 This is the third version of Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth I'm playing and... man, the cover is just SO good. Wish the game was as good as the cover!

 Like the ports before it, this game covers the second season of the show. How good a job it does is beyond me, but I could follow t    he story, albeit you can tell there are some things missing. Like when Katara tells Zuko that she thought he had changed.... in the very first scene they share together. The game lasts about 5 hours, which is as much as a game like this deserves. Oh, and while I found the first game's graphics super endearing, this one removed the cell shading... and the lip flapping. No, really, most cutscenes, the ones done in-engine, have voice acting... but no mouth movement. The previous game had very expressive facial animations, but those are entirely gone, and with the cell shading gone too.... this game looks lifeless.

 Once again, the game offers a lot of playable characters, in this case, Aang, Sokka and Katara return, but they are joined by Zuko, Iroh, Jet, Toph and... Momo, the lemur! I like the increased cast, and while they play exactly the same, everyone gets different animations, and I guess everyone's projectile is different, heck, Jet's a kick. On the other hand, since there are more characters, now the game decides with which two-man group you'll be playing at any one time, and while Zuko gets some fantastic animations he is only playable once, what a waste. You can play the entire game in co-op, and the game offers a very basic bonus VS mode for two players in which you can use any of the eight characters, and I'd never say no to freebies like this, as basic as it is.

 The game removed most rpg elements from the first game, rendering this one a very basic brawler. To be fair, there are a few puzzles here and there, but nothing too hard. That said, there's a sort of experience gauge, and breaking things and defeating enemies may drop XP, every level up lets you allot a new point into Combo, which adds new combos, Ranged, which strengthens your ranged attack and Super, which strengthens your super move. Up to three levels per specialty, and you'll have it maxed long before the game ends. Health can be upgraded by finding barely hidden tokens inside gold chests.

 Stages themselves are pretty easy up to the last stage, when suddenly enemies can go through your health bar like butter. The CPU does an almost acceptable job at helping you, so there's that. Bosses were the hardest part about the game because they can easily go through your attacks and have very few true vulnerable moments. That said, there's nothing stopping you from spamming your projectiles. Aside from that, for whatever reason they introduced QTEs into boss fights. And I hate QTEs.

 Graphics aren't the only area in which production values went down, for you see, the game is super buggy. The first time I started the game the cutscene had no audio whatsoever, but once I restarted the game I could finally hear the characters speak. Another time an enemy model got stuck in the middle of my way because why not, but he couldn't be harmed nor did he move. And what about the time I went to a boss after one of Appa's flying stages and Aang was completely invisible? Another time a character started endlessly respawning over a bottomless pit.

 All in all, this is a tolerable beat'em up, but there's much better on the system. That aside, fans might enjoy this one.

5.0