Bringing stability to the 4 Nations is not any straightforward feat, and Avatar Generations gives a extra hands-on strategy to Nickelodeon’s wildly fashionable narrative versus simply watching all of it unfold on TV. The cellular gacha RPG walks you thru the unique storyline from Avatar: The Final Airbender after which some, however whereas the sport enjoys the privilege of an enormous fandom, does the legend of Aang maintain as much as its avid followers’ expectations on cellular, or can we make like Zuko’s meme and say, “That is tough, buddy”?
AVATAR GENERATIONS VISUALS
Avatar Generations options the identical paintings followers of the franchise know and love relating to character icons, story beats, and the menu. In fight, nevertheless, the sport forgoes these 2D kinds for a low-poly 3D strategy, animating the characters together with their completely different bending kinds every time they unleash regular assaults and particular combos in battle.
There’s additionally an cute chibi model that you just get to see when you’re travelling on the world map, which is fairly enjoyable and refreshing contemplating you will get to manage not solely the principle solid but in addition the villains (offended chibi Zuko does look much less menacing even when he is hell-bent on taking down the Avatar).
In fact, for my part, the 3D variations of the characters one way or the other make them look stiff and low-quality, particularly for the reason that animations on the precise present are merely gorgeous. As a fan, I could not assist however evaluate the unique 2D motions to the 3D ones within the recreation, and sadly, all of it simply feels just a little underwhelming, particularly in fight.
THE GAMEPLAY OF AVATAR GENERATIONS
Battles are a turn-based affair, with an auto-fight operate you may toggle on and off as is typical of the style. Surprisingly, regardless of the present revolving across the parts, the rock-paper-scissors nature of fight right here is not dominated by the 4 parts. As an alternative, what gives a much bigger impression on the result of the battle is the character attribute sort, which incorporates Chaos, Thoughts, Peace, Offence and Defence. Positioning your characters can be key right here, which is a pleasing shock.
Specifically, the frontline slot gives a Lowered Injury boon to your hero, whereas the left slot heals your character for a sure share initially of their flip. The precise slot decreases the Superior Ability cooldown time of that character by 1, and the backline slot cannot even be focused by the enemy so long as the character within the frontline is alive. This makes positioning an especially highly effective instrument whenever you’re strategising in opposition to foes.
Characters additionally get a fine addition within the type of Relics and Arts, that are equipable gadgets that supply particular stat bonuses on their very own or in a set.
WHAT’S THE APPEAL?
This brings me to one in every of my predominant gripes with this recreation – the gacha system. It is difficult sufficient for a free-to-play participant to take advantage of their summons, however whenever you add these extras into the combination, scoring a 5-star character generally is a fairly gargantuan activity. Relics and Helps that you may equip – whereas they’ve their separate banners – will also be in the identical gacha pool because the characters, so that you would possibly go for a 10-pull summon with out scoring a single character. To make issues worse, characters have a number of variations, which is simply including insult to damage at this level, for my part.
Working example: I did a number of rerolls to see if I may nab the characters I wished, however in several accounts, I ended up with three Aangs, three Zukos, and two Sokkas. All of them have completely different talent units and appears, however truthfully, ATLA has such an enormous treasure trove of characters other than the Gaang to incorporate – it is only a disgrace that the sport has to resort to those semi-dupes when it may have made use of all the colorful characters from the unique present.
The gameplay right here can be extraordinarily grindy, as you will need to revisit previous locations you have cleared earlier than to earn Journey Factors – you will want these to unlock future waypoints to progress by way of the principle marketing campaign. Vitality system apart, these Journey Factors preserve you from progressing, and it does really feel like a paywall when going again to clear beforehand accomplished phases is not handy in any respect.
It’s because as a way to clear these phases, you will have to assign sure members of your workforce to every location. Anybody who’s busy doing one thing in a sure spot cannot be used to clear a distinct stage; plus, every stage has occasion necessities you could fulfil (e.g. no Fireplace Nation characters, or a required Aang-and-Katara combo solely). This implies you will have to have loads of spare characters that you just every need to stage as much as assist them survive the stage you are sending them off to – however truthfully, how will you have that many characters when pulling them from the summons pool is already a problem in itself?
Being an avid fan of the IP, I wished to like this recreation a lot, particularly since I have been trying ahead to it for some time now. Sadly, the will to like it wasn’t actually sufficient to get me hooked due to the mediocre visuals and the irritating gameplay. Not even the concept of revisiting the present’s gripping story and charming humour may save the sport for me.
In the long run, Avatar Generations is a so-so RPG that, regardless of its daring try at bringing the superb present to life in a distinct medium, nonetheless falls brief relating to participating gameplay. It is perhaps a deal with for followers to attempt for those who’re searching for one thing to quench your ATLA thirst till the following few tasks within the IP come alongside, however for non-fans, it is perhaps greatest to spend your time elsewhere.
