When you, like me, are a fan of Avatar: The Final Airbender, the promise of enjoying by way of its implausible story your self is an attractive idea that, shockingly, has but to be really delivered on within the 18 years for the reason that animated present premiered on Nickelodeon. Avatar: The Final Airbender – Quest for Steadiness got down to change that: lastly you and a co-op associate will be capable to relive iconic Avatar moments, like that point Aang needed to save a village from an indignant monster by fixing a sliding block puzzle, or that different time he needed to enter the Spirit World to… remedy a sliding block puzzle. Quest for Steadiness is well the worst adaptation of the collection since M. Evening Shyamalan’s abysmal live-action film. It picks baffling moments from the story to spotlight, fills them with terrible fight and bottom-of-the-barrel quests, and tops itself off with a wholesome coating of jank that leaves followers nonetheless ready for a good Avatar sport to emerge from the ice.
Quest for Steadiness splits Avatar’s three-season story into 18 chapters, every loosely retelling an episode or portion of the cartoon. The phrase “loosely” is doing plenty of heavy lifting there, too, because the occasions of every chapter regularly deal with probably the most mundane elements of Aang’s extremely wealthy journey whereas breezing over lots of the thrilling bits in textual content transitions between scenes or 2D animatics that separate ranges. For instance, the primary stage has Katara and Aang exploring the relatively ugly wreckage of a Fireplace Nation ship the place nothing of be aware occurs till a textual content field on the finish of the stage explains that they set off a entice, noticed the Fireplace Nation attacking Katara’s house, and needed to rush again… by doing an extremely bland Temple Run knockoff the place you acquire cash whereas sliding on an otter penguin.
It’s not an issue for an adaptation to make adjustments to its supply materials in an effort to higher match its new medium, however the scattershot method it’s been executed right here leaves the story fully unintelligible for newcomers and completely unsatisfactory for longtime followers. Big sections of the present are diminished to half-hearted “after which this occurred” exposition classes whereas Quest for Steadiness asks you to finish thrilling missions like delivering fruit tarts or punching faceless bandits for a meager reward as an alternative. Some moments are even instructed incorrectly or out of order, and they’re regularly warped into unusually anticlimactic variations of themselves. Nearly equivalent fights towards Prince Zuko are the boss encounters for 3 of the primary 4 chapters, whereas the combat towards the fierce panda spirit Hei Bai is actually a sliding block puzzle. Sure, one other one.
The combat towards the fierce panda spirit Hei Bai is actually a sliding block puzzle. Sure, one other one.
Reusing the identical mediocre actions is one in all Quest for Steadiness’s favourite methods, with a number of Temple Run-style sections (none of them enjoyable), plenty of recycled enemies and fights, and such a lot of decent-but-thematically-irrelevant block puzzles that it virtually appears like this began as a totally totally different sport that was then retrofit with an Avatar theme. A downright ludicrous quantity of its puzzles are primarily based round the concept no one, together with the literal Avatar, can leap whereas holding a torch. To its credit score, there’s a respectable quantity to do general; it took me about 9 hours to finish all 18 chapters, you’re allowed to revisit them with all of your characters and upgrades for 100% completion after the actual fact, and there are even 19 bonus trials to finish. The difficulty is that piling on extra low-quality content material doesn’t enhance a sport that wasn’t enjoyable to start with.
Squandering the flashy bending powers that scream for a wonderful preventing system, fight is a clunky, button-mashing mess. It’s solely ever extremely simple to spam by way of waves of bandits and evil benders, or irritating because the sheer amount of them and their wildly inaccurate hitboxes causes you to get locked into fixed knockdown animations. Maybe the very best instance of how laughably inaccurate Quest for Steadiness has made itself is that Sokka is by far probably the most highly effective fighter the entire method by way of, capable of spam equally sturdy assaults quicker than any bender, and with a capability in his talent tree that finally makes him completely resistant to knockdowns. I did have to often be considerate with my dodge (whereas not utilizing Sokka), deal with enemies that put shields on others, or use particular talents that offered some crowd-controlling stuns, however the fights are such a one-note jumble your entire time that any subtlety will get waterbended away.
Sokka is by far probably the most highly effective fighter the entire method by way of.
The talent bushes for every of the 9 playable characters are literally a small shiny spot, if a really dim one, letting you utilize Pai Sho items collected from quests to enhance stats and skills – generally with boring statistical bumps, however different instances in additional noticeable methods (like that Sokka capacity). It’s truly a properly tuned development system, making me take into account which character to spend that restricted useful resource on as I went… or it could have if any of it mattered even barely within the precise fight, the place swinging wildly and infrequently utilizing a therapeutic merchandise was all that mattered.
(The primary playthrough additionally has a number of entice characters – it enables you to dump factors into talent bushes of individuals like Suki or the Blue Spirit, who present up briefly solely to mainly not be related once more till the top of the marketing campaign.)
The best way wherein Quest for Steadiness can also be essentially janky can’t be overstated. It’s not probably the most buggy sport I’ve performed lately, however to say its edges are tough can be to overstate how a lot they’ve been sharpened into edges in any respect. The controls are an unsatisfying mess, and it’s not unusual to get caught on geometry or for its inflexible digicam to fully lower off elements of the motion. It’s additionally damaged in some hilarious methods: most notably, therapeutic gadgets promote for greater than they price at outlets, letting you get infinite cash any time you need and rendering practically all of Quest for Steadiness’s breakable objects and hidden treasure chests pointless within the course of. It’s a kind of “How did this make it out of testing?” type of flubs.
The best way wherein Quest for Steadiness is essentially janky can’t be overstated.
What’s notably disappointing is how simple it’s to see the bones of what this sport might have been beneath all that grime. It in all probability wouldn’t ever have been nice, however not all of its concepts are ill-conceived. Whereas the 3D animations are just about horrible all through, the 2D animatic cutscenes are literally fairly cute. The entire thing is framed as a number of members of the White Lotus recounting the Avatar’s tales, chiming in to supply all these unexpectedly glossed-over particulars as they do – and whereas lots of the voices appear to be soundalikes, the handful of moments the place conversations are voiced actually aren’t dangerous.
If that’d been paired with a sport the place the facet actions have been truly entertaining as an alternative of pointless fetch quests, the place switching between your teammates offered attention-grabbing bending playstyles as an alternative of various flavors of the identical button mashing, and the place this legendary story was retold in a method that revered the supply materials relatively than utilizing it to shoehorn in overused and solely loosely associated minigames, Quest for Steadiness would possibly’ve truly fulfilled its promise. It’s not unthinkable that with a bit extra time (in all probability much more) the enjoyable might have been discovered right here, however what we received as an alternative feels just like the naked minimal required to seem like it could be alright and get it out the door in order that Quest for Steadiness might dwell as one more entice on retailer cabinets, laying in look forward to well-meaning mother and father who don’t know any higher.
“However It’s a Children’ Recreation”
Each time we give a sport a baby might theoretically get pleasure from a harsh overview, one sort of remark inevitably reveals up: “Properly, this sport is supposed for teenagers, they don’t care if it’s easy/has ugly graphics/controls badly/and so forth. You’ll be able to’t maintain it to the identical customary as grown-up video games!” That argument can form of appear affordable at first look, nevertheless it’s not one thing that makes a lot sense if you actually get right down to it.
First off, we dwell in an period when it looks like one million new video games come out every day and Nintendo alone makes kid-friendly bangers a number of instances a yr. Why ought to anybody accept some overpriced and underdeveloped licensed tie-in sport when there’s such a wealth of implausible choices accessible? Why ought to a nasty youngsters’ sport get a cross on obvious points that no gamer with any expertise ought to tolerate? Isn’t that simply making the most of youngsters?
On high of that, the truth that younger youngsters won’t but admire the distinction between a superb sport and a nasty one simply means they’re nonetheless studying. Because the mother and father of budding avid gamers, it’s our job to information them to high-quality video games in order that they know what they need to count on once they begin spending their very own cash on them – to not point out the irritating and inconsistent nature of this one isn’t notably “child pleasant” anyway. Give your youngsters good video games!
Apart from, you understand what else is made for teenagers however was created with such a excessive stage of sophistication, artistry, and clear ardour that it may be appreciated by adults and children alike? Avatar: The Final Airbender.
We haven’t fairly been ready 100 years for an Avatar sport that lives as much as the potential of the present, nevertheless it’s definitely starting to really feel that method after enjoying Avatar: The Final Airbender – Quest for Steadiness. This half-baked and wildly inconsistent retelling of the wonderful TV collection reveals the promise of what an Avatar sport might possibly be, however a baffling alternative of which scenes to spotlight, a clunky digicam and fight, hilarious stability issues, and an overreliance on middling block puzzles and boring fetch quests leaves our seek for the true Avatar nonetheless desperately out of luck. With extra Avatar reveals and films on the way in which, it’s simply downright odd how Quest for Steadiness has managed to reach at this time limit as each an unsatisfying entry level for newcomers and a poor option to revisit it for devoted followers.
