The Last Airbender (DS) - Review

Book 4: Water. Again.

Console: Nintendo DS

Welcome, for the very last time, to my ‘Avatar Marathon’. What does my Avatar Marathon entail, you ask? Well, it’s me playing and reviewing the 4 Nintendo DS Avatar games from way back in the day SommecallmeJohnny style.

The Last Airbender, the 2010 big Hollywood blockbuster adaptation of the book/season of the show by M. Night Shyamalan, isn’t very good. At all. I don’t think that’s a surprising or controversial statement with how it bombed at the box office. Still, it was a blockbuster aimed at kids in 2010. That means that a video game adaptation came along with it. Out of the 4 games made from the original series, ‘The Last Airbender’ is the only one I didn’t play as a kid. I didn’t like the movie and I didn’t like ‘Into the Inferno’ so I flat-out had zero interest in trying out this game until this marathon.

So, how was it? How was my first experience with this game that I never played and I hadn’t even seen a single screenshot of. Surprisingly, it was all right? I enjoyed it far more than the movie and the previous game, with which it shares a lot of DNA.

Let’s dive in.

The story of the game is an adaptation of the movie's plot, itself an adaptation of season 1. A century after the Fire Nation wiped out the Air nation and proclaimed war on the other nations the Avatar and the Last Airbender, master of all four elements, the 12-year-old Aang, is found by siblings Katara and Sokka in the South Pole. The three go on a journey to the North Pole so that Aang can learn water bending, become a fully-fledged Avatar and bring an end to the war. All the while, the disgraced prince of the Fire Nation, Zuko, is hot on their trail. 

The story is fine. The movie wasn’t very good but the core narrative wasn’t; a result of its source material. You’re led from level to level in a relatively organic way and the presentation, evoking someone telling the story over scrolls, is pretty nice. For a fan of the show, the interest came more from seeing this ´double adaptation´ process than wanting to see ´what happens next´. 

What I find interesting about it though is how it switches protagonists. Aang is the main character of the show and movie but this game puts the focus on Zuko. It´s him you start with and it is him you fight the final battle with. It's certainly a different approach and does make the game different but mileage will vary. The game is called ´The Last Airbender´ not ´The Fire Prince´ after all. 

Zuko really is the game protagonist over Aaag; you start with him, end with him and he gets more moves.

Gameplay wise, the title is an evolution of the Into the Inferno. It has the same touch control movement scheme in which you point to something and you go there. Tick on an enemy and you attack them etc. It´s a simple style that is easy to grasp and makes use of the DS´ big thing, the touch screen, but it´s not the most graceful or precise. You can get some hand cramps and you often find yourself having to tap something multiple times before the game does what you want it to do.

Compared to Into the Inferno, it its more complex though. More expanded. Aang and Zuko, the two playable characters, have lot more movement options than before. Aang can glide while Zuko can do parkour. It´s nothing much but it is nice. It leads to much better and smoother environmental puzzles than before though admittedly they are a lot simpler. Combat is also more involved. You´re basic attack is still tapping on your enemies but you can now get different types of attacks by spending the ‘Chi’ you collect. From a downward smash that you can use to finish off downed enemies to more powerful bending moves. These moves are more window dressing than anything else, you don’t need them to beat the game and are not that varied at all, but something like the downward smash do make defeating enemies a lot quicker.

Oh right, the bending. By pressing the L and/or R buttons you enter the ‘bending stance’. In this mode you, wherever you tap, you send out an air or fire blast. You can use Aang’s airbending to move objects, use Zuko’s fire to light torches etc. It’s the same idea as the bending stance in Into the Inferno but now mapped on actual buttons and you can move your character while doing so, as long as have started the bending once you let go of the L and/or R buttons.

Th boss fights? They’re fine I guess. For kids they’re fun but that’s about it really. They play very similarly: you’re on the touchscreen while the boss is on the top screen. You throw air/fire blast at them to wither down their health until they put up a ‘shield’. At that point you have to break the ‘shield’ but, for example, bounce your fireballs of mirrors (just go with it) to get around the ‘shield’. I would say that each boss fight is basically the same when it comes down to it makes these fights repetitive but there aren’t enough boss fights in the game for this to become the case. By the time you see the pattern, the game is already over.  

Gameplay-wise, the title is an evolution of Into the Inferno. It has the same touch control movement scheme in which you point to something and you go there. Tick on an enemy and you attack them etc. It´s a simple style that is easy to grasp and makes use of the DS´ big thing, the touch screen, but it´s not the most graceful or precise. You can get some hand cramps and you often find yourself having to tap something multiple times before the game does what you want it to do. 

Compared to Into the Inferno, it's somewhat more complex though. More expanded. Aang and Zuko, the two playable characters, have a lot more movement options than before. Aang can glide while Zuko can do parkour. It´s nothing much but it is nice. It leads to much better and smoother environmental puzzles than before though admittedly they are a lot simpler. Combat is also more involved. Your basic attack is still tapping on your enemies but you can now get different types of attacks by spending the ‘Chi’ you collect. From a downward smash that you can use to finish off downed enemies to more powerful bending moves. These moves are more window dressing than anything else, you don’t need them to beat the game and are not that varied at all, but something like the downward smash does make defeating enemies a lot quicker. 

Oh right, the bending. By pressing the L and/or R buttons you enter the ‘bending stance’. In this mode, wherever you tap, you send out an air or fire blast. You can use Aang’s airbending to move objects, use Zuko’s fire to light torches etc. It’s the same idea as the bending stance in Into the Inferno but now mapped on actual buttons and you can move your character while doing so, as long as have started the bending once you let go of the L and/or R buttons. 

The boss fights? They’re fine I guess. For kids they’re fun but that’s about it really. They play very similarly: you’re on the touchscreen while the boss is on the top screen. You throw air/fire blasts at them to wither down their health until they put up a ‘shield’. At that point you have to break the ‘shield’ but, for example, bounce your fireballs of mirrors (just go with it) to get around the ‘shield’. I would say that each boss fight is basically the same when it comes down to it making these fights repetitive but there aren’t enough boss fights in the game for this to become the case. By the time you see the pattern, the game is already over.  

Aang airblasting some Fire Nation soldiers.

Graphically, this game isn’t a looker. It’s a fully-3D game that tries its best to look like the movie, from trying to make the characters look like the actors. An attempt that’s only so-so. Backgrounds are generally nice but bland and the characters are very stiff, square and lack details such as fingers and noses. It’s not a very appealing look if you ask me. The soundtrack and sound effects aren’t great either. A lot of it has been reused from Into the Inferno with only a few new tracks added that they reuse a lot to try and cover up the reused tracks. In this department, the game isn’t only nothing special but outright poor. 

Oh, and one more thing. The box art has this big ‘DSi enhanced’ logo on the front but I can’t tell you what these enhancements actually are. Nothing I played or saw in the game felt like it couldn’t be done on the launch DS. If you told me the only difference between playing this game on the DS and DSi is faster loading times and they put the label on the box for marketing I’d believe you.

Conclusion

The Last Airbender for the DS is better than I thought it would be considering the movie it’s a tie-in/adaptation of, it’s better than the said movie, but it’s still nothing remarkably. Nearly everything it does competently and it builds on the game before, but nothing it does is all that great or remarkable. The story is fine, the gameplay is fine, and the level design is fine. The graphics aren’t fine, nor is the soundtrack/sound design, but those aren’t super bad. Just normal bad. It’s not a game worth remembering or hunting down nowadays but were some of the other Avatar games felt like a drag to finish this one is pretty breezy.