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Off the back of the success of stories focused on legends and lore in the late nineties and early oughts, such as The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, US kids channel Nickelodeon greenlit and broadcast Avatar: The Last Airbender, the brainchild of frequent collaborators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.
Despite a run of only three seasons, from 2005 to 2008, the show is regarded as one of the greatest animated series of all time, in part due to the strong story, humour, and character development and in part due to how it adeptly handled themes rarely breached in youth entertainment such as war, imperialism, totalitarianism and sexism. Today, Avatar: The Last Airbender is a prolific trans-media franchise which includes the recently released sequel film, Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, and the ongoing live-action Netflix adaptation.
When it comes to the world of video games, however, to say that Avatar titles have fared less well would be an understatement. Hoping to turn the tide is Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game, a hand-drawn 2D fighter. Originally announced on February 15, 2024 by then-developer Maximum Entertainment, only to be informally cancelled later that same year, the game eventually got picked up by Florida-based Gameplay Group International, a studio focused on reviving promising games that had been binned.
The title that has since become Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game seeks to bring the world and the bending arts, in particular, of Avatar to life in a fresh experience which features fast-paced 1v1 combat alongside hand-drawn 2D animation inspired by the visual style of the original TV series. After spending around 13 hours with it, as an avid fan of the show and a casual fighting game enjoyer, I’m of the opinion that Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game has accomplished its aim and is overall a success, but in a way that is more likely to be embraced by the fighting game community than by the Avatar fanbase at large.
This being said, before unravelling Avatar Legends, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the news that Mike Zaimont, the former CEO of Lab Zero Games (Skullgirls, Indivisible) who was accused of past sexual harassment, holds a position as an individual contributor on this game — whether or not you’d like to support the projects he works on is up to your discretion.
Nevertheless, one of the most important parts of any fighting game is its character roster and, in this respect, Avatar Legends delivers a mixed bag. On one hand, having a roster of 12 characters at launch, each with three different variations, is definitely enough considering the smaller price and scope of the game. But, on the other hand, featuring only 12 characters leaves out a lot of Avatar fan-favourites on the table, especially since two out of the 12 characters included are different versions of avatars Aang and Korra, respectively.
“I’m of the opinion that Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game has accomplished its aim and is overall a success, but in a way that is more likely to be embraced by the fighting game community than by the Avatar fanbase at large.”
Making things better is the fact that no one included is expendable (I was very happy to see Avatar Kyoshi here) and that the first year of support for Avatar Legends promises 5 DLC characters. Time will tell to what extent these five characters will be well-received, but, insofar as the existing roster, I was pleased with how different everyone handled. I spent most of my time with the game playing as Korra, a strong all-rounder and my favourite of the bunch.
Besides Korra, Azula and Sokka are stand-outs: the former for having the most interesting stance-like modifier in the game, which shakes up her moveset and demeanour, and the latter for truly living up to his trickster-like fighting style.
Moving on from the roster, it is also vitally important for a fighting game to play well and be mechanically robust, and this is where Avatar Legends earns its keep. In particular, I loved the “Flow” system, which allows players to press and hold just one button in order to fluently move across the stage and dodge enemy attacks in a way that brought that scene from The Matrix to my mind time and time again. The accompanying “Energy” system likewise works well, but it is not as wholly original, functioning, in essence, like the special meter from the modern Mortal Kombat entries.
Otherwise, the last important note about the gameplay in Avatar Legends is that it is beginner-friendly but not at all easy. In my case, I found it very approachable, but it took me a while to even come close to mastering the systems underneath. For example, despite me praising Sokka as being genuinely interesting to play as, it will be a while yet until, if I ever, fully understand his commands and when to best deploy them.
The inherent reward that comes with understanding or trying to understand these mechanics is likely the reason that Avatar Legends has also proven to be a hit with the fighting game community so far, with well-known names such as Maximilian Dood and SonicFox championing the game online.
Unfortunately, whereas Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game is a competent fighter, the game modes present here largely fall flat. The marquee single-player mode is the Story Mode, which is a canon narrative outlined by series co-creator DiMartino in which the three avatars (so far!) somehow find themselves together at the same time and place. Regardless of how interesting this premise might sound, this mode is really nothing to write home about and is just an excuse for fights to take place. No Avatar fan should be picking up this game hoping that the story adds anything of value.
Then, there’s Arcade Mode, which consists of a series of eight rounds of battles per character, all stitched together by some dialogue and lacklustre in-game cutscenes and…that’s about it. More joy is to be found in the Training Mode, yes, really, which is both frankly quite advanced in terms of the settings, even more so when in free practice, and really useful in teaching you how to play any given character by way of the many trials and tutorials made readily available for each character.
There is also a quite expansive Gallery Mode, full of unlockable concept art and music, but any currency I accumulated during my playtime was spent, perhaps unwisely, on unlocks in Momo’s Bazaar in the Story Mode, unlocks which I’m not sure I needed in the first place.
In any case, the key attraction for Avatar Legends is, of course, the versus mode, which, when played online, features proprietary rollback netcode, full cross-play, a ranked ladder and a spectator mode. Now, although I tried, I didn’t get to play the game online, so I can’t speak on whether or not the features above are implemented smoothly, but I did play a few hours of versus mode locally with a friend, shout-out to you, Bernardo, and that’s where the game excels at — bending earth, fire, air and water against friends in Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game is a true joy.
Unlike the gameplay, the presentation in Avatar Legends leaves something to be desired. Starting with how the game looks, whereas the 900+ hand-drawn animations and visual style shine and are reminiscent of not only the original series but also iconic Flash games such as Teen Titans Battle Blitz, the limitations are likewise obvious. For example, during the in-game cutscenes featured in the Story Mode, the character models are incredibly stiff and move as if they are puppets on a string.
Furthermore, in terms of how Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game sounds, everything here ranges from fine to forgettable, which is a real shame. What’s more, no one returns to voice their character for this game, which is a big opportunity missed. I’ve also had some technical issues with the voice acting, specifically in Story Mode, with only some voiced lines playing. I was told that this would be rectified for release, but not knowing whether or not a line was meant to be voiced left a bad impression.
Similarly, three out of the 12 characters available were incomplete in the first of the two builds I played during the review period for this game. These issues were resolved quite quickly, and so, the optimist in me wants to believe that this is indicative of the agile support Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game will receive post-launch, but that is impossible to know at this stage.
When all is said and done, Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game succeeds in being a good fighting game, but doesn’t quite have what it takes to be an easy recommendation for fans of Avatar who don’t play fighting games much. Instead, given its competitive retail price, it compares quite well against recent games in the genre, such as Riot Games’ 2XKO, and is an enticing proposition for anyone looking for competitive play.
The next challenge for Avatar Legends is longevity: will it retain enough of the launch player base to warrant support for the years to come and/or an eventual sequel? I sure hope so.
