For years, people in the Avatar: The Last Airbender fandom have been debating who is the strongest. While some arguments may have merit, we’ve never really known the answer. But thankfully, that question can be answered with PM Studios Inc. and Exa-Arcadia’s upcoming project, Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game. During Summer Game Fest, I was able to go hands-on with it and prove why Korra is the strongest in the universe.
Previewing fighting games can always be tricky. This is because you’re given a limited amount of time to play it. If you’ve ever invested a lot of time in any fighting game, you’ll know that it takes some time to really understand a character and their movesets. To my surprise, that wasn’t necessarily the case with Avatar. In fact, it was easy enough to pick up and understand, yet it presented the challenge I crave when playing these games.
Avatar Legends is a 2D fighting game that is heavily built around movement. Everyone moves as quickly as they did in the show, and closing the gap on your opponent isn’t as hard as it may seem. The second I sat down to play, I took a look at all the playable characters. They consisted of: Aang, Korra, Zuko, Katara, Toph, Sokka, Azula, and Kyoshi. Before landing on Korra, I was given an option to pick from one of three support options for her.
These are extremely important because they drastically change how your fighter performs. In her case, one of them improved her EX follow-up, another allowed her to stay in the Avatar State longer, and the last increased her flow movement, while other characters like Azula had an option to start in her Firelord stance off the bat.
Once I started throwing hands with characters in Avatar, things clicked almost immediately. The game makes it easy to understand. Spamming light, medium, and heavy attacks is a valid strategy after landing one or two in a roll; it’ll automatically chain into a combo. If you want to mix things up, you can easily press any of them in several different ways to create a new combo. Admittedly, this is what I found myself doing at the beginning of everything.
After a few minutes of training, I really started to get the hang of things. Although I wasn’t mastering many moves, I was starting to understand how to juggle opponents in the air and when to use my ultimate moves. Not only did using my ultimate make all the difference in the world, but it was also absolutely beautiful to watch. As you might expect, each move is themed to the character’s background, and seeing them play out brought a giant smile to my face. For example, when Sokka performs, his Kaya will appear and kiss him. In a lot of ways, he enters his own Avatar State and quickly becomes a menace on the battlefield. While others, like Toph, cover themselves with Iron and beat whoever is in front of them.
Another thing I really enjoyed was the game’s Flow mechanics, which reminded me of Street Fighter 6. This is because the second you press the dodge button, a bar will start to drain, and the second it runs out, your character will be exposed. When exposed, you’ll be a lot more vulnerable to attacks, and if someone throws you against a wall, you’ll begin to wall bounce and be open for combos. But if you use it right, the Flow mechanic will parry every attack thrown your way and create a fun animation for you to look at.
Even though I wasn’t able to fully explore this game as much as I would have liked, one thing was made very clear to me. It was made by fans who love the franchise. As I was playing, I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching an episode straight out of the television series. It has so much more to offer, like a Story and an Arcade mode that I can’t wait to try out. It has a lot of great things going for it, and I can easily see Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game becoming one of the games I spend most of my time playing this year upon its full release.
