In case you, like me, are a fan of Avatar: The Final Airbender, the promise of enjoying via its incredible story your self is an attractive idea that, shockingly, has but to be really delivered on within the 18 years because the animated present premiered on Nickelodeon. Avatar: The Final Airbender – Quest for Steadiness got down to change that: lastly you and a co-op companion will be capable of 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… clear up a sliding block puzzle. Quest for Steadiness is definitely the worst adaptation of the collection since M. Night time 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 an honest 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 a number of heavy lifting there, too, because the occasions of every chapter regularly give attention to probably the most mundane components 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 degree has Katara and Aang exploring the relatively ugly wreckage of a Hearth Nation ship the place nothing of notice occurs till a textual content field on the finish of the stage explains that they set off a lure, noticed the Hearth Nation attacking Katara’s dwelling, and needed to rush again… by doing an extremely bland Temple Run knockoff the place you accumulate cash whereas sliding on an otter penguin.
It’s not an issue for an adaptation to make adjustments to its supply materials with a purpose to higher match its new medium, however the scattershot manner it’s been executed right here leaves the story utterly unintelligible for newcomers and completely unsatisfactory for longtime followers. Large sections of the present are lowered to half-hearted “after which this occurred” exposition periods 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 informed incorrectly or out of order, and they’re regularly warped into surprisingly anticlimactic variations of themselves. Virtually equivalent fights in opposition to Prince Zuko are the boss encounters for 3 of the primary 4 chapters, whereas the battle in opposition to the fierce panda spirit Hei Bai is actually a sliding block puzzle. Sure, one other one.
The battle in opposition to the fierce panda spirit Hei Bai is actually a sliding block puzzle. Sure, one other one.
Reusing the identical mediocre actions is one in every of 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 numerous decent-but-thematically-irrelevant block puzzles that it virtually looks 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 based mostly round the concept no one, together with the literal Avatar, can soar 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 superb combating system, fight is a clunky, button-mashing mess. It’s solely ever extremely straightforward to spam via 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 perfect 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 manner via, capable of spam equally robust assaults quicker than any bender, and with a capability in his talent tree that ultimately makes him completely resistant to knockdowns. I did have to sometimes be considerate with my dodge (whereas not utilizing Sokka), give attention to enemies that put shields on others, or use particular skills that offered some crowd-controlling stuns, however the fights are such a one-note jumble the whole time that any subtlety will get waterbended away.
Sokka is by far probably the most highly effective fighter the entire manner via.
The talent timber for every of the 9 playable characters are literally a small brilliant spot, if a really dim one, letting you employ Pai Sho items collected from quests to enhance stats and talents – typically with boring statistical bumps, however different occasions in additional noticeable methods (like that Sokka capacity). It’s really 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 couple of lure characters – it permits you to dump factors into talent timber of individuals like Suki or the Blue Spirit, who present up briefly solely to mainly not be related once more till the tip of the marketing campaign.)
The way in which through which Quest for Steadiness can also be essentially janky can’t be overstated. It’s not 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 digital camera to utterly reduce off components of the motion. It’s additionally damaged in some hilarious methods: most notably, therapeutic gadgets promote for greater than they value at retailers, 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 type of “How did this make it out of testing?” form of flubs.
The way in which through which Quest for Steadiness is essentially janky can’t be overstated.
What’s notably disappointing is how straightforward it’s to see the bones of what this sport may have been beneath all that grime. It most likely 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 couple of members of the White Lotus recounting the Avatar’s tales, chiming in to supply all these swiftly 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 unhealthy.
If that’d been paired with a sport the place the facet actions have been really 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 manner that revered the supply materials relatively than utilizing it to shoehorn in overused and solely loosely associated minigames, Quest for Steadiness would possibly’ve really fulfilled its promise. It’s not unthinkable that with a bit extra time (most likely much more) the enjoyable may have been discovered right here, however what we acquired as an alternative feels just like the naked minimal required to seem like it is likely to be alright and get it out the door in order that Quest for Steadiness may stay as yet one more lure on retailer cabinets, laying in anticipate well-meaning mother and father who don’t know any higher.
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 actually starting to really feel that manner after enjoying Avatar: The Final Airbender – Quest for Steadiness. This half-baked and wildly inconsistent retelling of the superb TV collection reveals the promise of what an Avatar sport may possibly be, however a baffling alternative of which scenes to spotlight, a clunky digital camera and fight, hilarious steadiness issues, and an overreliance on middling block puzzles and boring fetch quests leaves our seek for the actual Avatar nonetheless desperately out of luck. With extra Avatar reveals and flicks on the way in which, it’s simply downright odd how Quest for Steadiness has managed to reach at this cut-off date as each an unsatisfying entry level for newcomers and a poor technique to revisit it for devoted followers.