we're just rolling with the rhythm

We don't have time for fun and games with a war going on!

Like all good franchises, Avatar has several series-based video games available. Since I've got a Nintendo DS and I'm not afraid to use it, I thought I'd check them out and consequently lose many, many hours of valuable time which could've been spent finishing this site in a much more timely manner.

I make these mistakes so that you can learn from them.

Here's the 411 on the three main Avatar games released for Nintendo DS. Unfortunately, I haven't yet discovered a way to screencap my own DS, so the images below were ganked from GameFAQs.com. You'll note they are severely lacking in Zuko-ness, but they at least give you an idea of how adorable everyone else looks.

Avatar: The Last Airbender
THQ
2004



STORY:
Immediately following the end of season one, Katara, Aang, and Sokka are caught up in a plot by the Fire Nation to create an army of bending machines. Tracing the machines back to the Earth Kingdom, Team Avatar, joined by Haru (who is sexyfine), travel across the world to figure out who's making the machines and why.

PLAYABLE CHARACTERS:
Aang, Katara, Sokka, Haru, Momo.

OTHER CHARACTERS:
Zuko, Bumi, Appa, Tyro, Pakku.

GRAPHICS:
Nothing special, though the pixilated versions of our heroes are pretty cute.

GAMEPLAY:
Unoriginal and weak. A collection of unexciting random battles, fetch quests, and boring plot developments. Requires the player to spend a fair amount of time leveling up just to defeat bosses. Healing items are often hard to come by. Basically if you've ever played an RPG, you've seen all this stuff before, and seen it done better.

COOLNESS FACTORS:

• The original voice actors lend their voices to the game.
• More difficult bending moves are learned by repeating kanji stroke order on certain scrolls.
• Our heroes = pixilated adorableness. ("Tiny Zuko, you're so cute!")
• It is possible to corrupt Aang and co. by addicting them to gambling (AKA the minigame Four Nations).

VERDICT:
Severe lack of Iroh and only minimal involvement of Zuko, which is extremely disappointing. Katara is made into a damsel in distress almost immediately (one of the most insulting RPG tropes of all time), though as a playable character she's quite strong. The plot isn't very interesting or emotionally intense, and the whole game can be played fairly quickly without reason to replay. I do appreciate that they got the original actors to do the voices, but the writing is subpar, and the story doesn't even begin to live up to the usual series standards. Also, Sokka is disturbingly weak as a fighter. You can definitely miss this game and live.

RANDOM NOTES:
Inexplicably, Pakku's name in this game is Master Wei. No, I don't get it, either.


Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth
THQ
2006



STORY:
Follows the storyline of Book Two: In an effort to learn earthbending, Aang and co. travel to the Earth Kingdom, where they find the Fire Nation is already wrecking havoc. Meanwhile, Iroh and Zuko lie low as fugitives from the Fire Nation, and Zuko's crazy sister Azula tries to take down the Avatar and conquer the Earth Kingdom of Ba Sing Se.

PLAYABLE CHARACTERS:
Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko.

OTHER CHARACTERS:
Iroh, Bumi, Azula, Mai, Ty Lee.

GRAPHICS:
Slightly better than the first game, but again, nothing special. The menu pictures for Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph are pretty adorable.

GAMEPLAY:
Similar to the first game, though this time you can only have two playable characters in your party at a time, and you don't get to choose which ones until you're sidequesting near the end of the game. Bending moves are essentially what they were in the first game. New sidequests are somewhat more interesting than before but have very little bearing on the actual story or characterization with the exception of the collecting cabbages quest, which nets you everyone's last bending moves.

COOLNESS FACTORS:

• Toph and everything about her. Fabulous bending, snarky commentary, all around kickassery. Even if the rest of this game were totally lame, it would be worth playing just for Toph. Um. If you love Toph as much as I do.
• Finally a chance to play as Zuko, though it's only a minimal and extremely annoying minigame.
• Several Iroh appearances of awesome. 'Nuff said.
• A chance to fight Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee. Cathartic and actually somewhat challenging, particularly Azula.

VERDICT:
Better than the first game, certainly, but still disappointing. Zuko's storyline is severely diminished, which belittles all of his Epic Struggles of season two (I guess the game makers never played any of the Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy games and therefore had no idea you can actually do characterization in an RPG). Many of the scenes which would've been fun to play—the Zuko and Katara bending fight, anything with the Blue Spirit, Iroh kicking some butt—are either skipped entirely or part of non-playable sequences. If you're a pretty diehard Avatar fan, it may be worth your time to check this one out, but don't go into it with very high expectations.

RANDOM NOTES:
The vast majority of the dialogue is ripped directly from the show, which is either very clever or very lazy. Also, possibly because of the way the scenes were cut, Aang comes across as being very self-involved and annoying rather than the goofy, troubled kid we know and love. At least they still make Sokka clever and funny.


Avatar: The Last Airbender: Into the Inferno
THQ
2008



STORY:
Follows the basic outline of Book Three: Aang, supported by Team Avatar (now including Hakoda, Suki, and Zuko) struggles to master firebending in time to confront Firelord Ozai before he takes over the world.

PLAYABLE CHARACTERS:
Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko.

OTHER CHARACTERS:
Suki, Hakoda, Azula, Mai, Iroh, Ozai.

GRAPHICS:
Not sure why, but they decided to go with super deformed versions of the characters this time (see images above). That makes everyone cute, I suppose, but I would've preferred the pixelated stuff we got in the first two games (What? I like pixels!). Chibi-fying the cast makes it feel like the game designers were trying too hard. Otherwise, nothing special in the graphics department.

GAMEPLAY:
Lots more to do with the stylus now, and the bending is much more advanced--you actually drag the element (earth, air, fire, water) to make it do things. You can also draw out a trajectory for Sokka's boomerang, which is pretty cool. It would've been nice to keep basic movement delegated to the control pad, though; having to do everything with the stylus leads to some awkward game glitches and occasional cursing.

COOLNESS FACTORS:

• The new method of bending is pretty spiffy, particularly how your party can jump onto a rock and Toph can move it around.
• Unlike the previous games, gameplay is actually somewhat challenging, especially if you bother to collect the white lotus pai sho tiles in each level. This can get a little annoying, however, since there doesn't seem to be any sort of walkthrough in existence, and help with certain problem areas is hard to find on the interwebs. What, you think I actually want to have to figure games out for myself?
• The "Zuko here" speech is noticeably absent when Zuko joins your party, but instead he does a lovely presentation with tiny drawings of Iroh, Ozai, and Mai, which is fairly LOL-worthy.

VERDICT: I didn't care for the chibi versions of the characters much, but the real problem with this game is the complete lack of emotional development of the characters. You're basically just going through the motions of the plot of season three, with a few annoying exceptions (No Zuko/Katara ninja-ing!). The relationships between the characters aren't explored at all, and the stages don't really flow understandably from one to the other. The gameplay is more intricate than in previous games, which makes this one the best of the three, but still probably not worth the money.

RANDOM NOTES:
There's much more Sokka/Zuko bonding in this game than there was in the series, which is cute, but a bit weird.


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