Avatar: The Final Airbender – Quest for Stability Assessment

Should 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 actually delivered on within the 18 years because the animated present premiered on Nickelodeon. Avatar: The Final Airbender – Quest for Stability got down to change that: lastly you and a co-op accomplice 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… resolve a sliding block puzzle. Quest for Stability is definitely the worst adaptation of the sequence 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 Stability splits Avatar’s three-season story into 18 chapters, every loosely retelling an episode or portion of the cartoon. The phrase “loosely” is doing lots of heavy lifting there, too, because the occasions of every chapter continuously give attention to probably the most mundane components of Aang’s extremely wealthy journey whereas breezing over most 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 moderately ugly wreckage of a Hearth 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 Hearth Nation attacking Katara’s house, and needed to rush again… by doing an extremely bland Temple Run knockoff the place you gather cash whereas sliding on an otter penguin.

It’s not an issue for an adaptation to make adjustments to its supply materials with a view to higher match its new medium, however the scattershot manner it’s been achieved right here leaves the story utterly unintelligible for newcomers and completely unsatisfactory for longtime followers. Large sections of the present are decreased to half-hearted “after which this occurred” exposition classes whereas Quest for Stability 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 continuously warped into unusually anticlimactic variations of themselves. Virtually an identical fights in opposition to Prince Zuko are the boss encounters for 3 of the primary 4 chapters, whereas the struggle in opposition to the fierce panda spirit Hei Bai is actually a sliding block puzzle. Sure, one other one. 

The struggle 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 considered one of Quest for Stability’s favourite tips, with a number of Temple Run-style sections (none of them enjoyable), numerous 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 completely different sport that was then retrofit with an Avatar theme. A downright ludicrous quantity of its puzzles are primarily based round the concept no person, together with the literal Avatar, can bounce whereas holding a torch. To its credit score, there’s a respectable quantity to do total; 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 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 one of the best instance of how laughably inaccurate Quest for Stability has made itself is that Sokka is by far probably the most highly effective fighter the entire manner by way of, capable of spam equally robust assaults quicker than any bender, and with a capability in his ability tree that finally makes him completely proof against knockdowns. I did have to often be considerate with my dodge (whereas not utilizing Sokka), give attention to enemies that put shields on others, or use particular talents that supplied some crowd-controlling stuns, however the fights are such a one-note jumble the complete time that any subtlety will get waterbended away.

Sokka is by far probably the most highly effective fighter the entire manner by way of.

The ability bushes for every of the 9 playable characters are literally a small vivid spot, if a really dim one, letting you employ Pai Sho items collected from quests to enhance stats and skills – generally with boring statistical bumps, however different occasions in additional noticeable methods (like that Sokka means). 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 entice characters – it allows you to dump factors into ability 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 by which Quest for Stability can 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 digicam to utterly minimize off components of the motion. It’s additionally damaged in some hilarious methods: most notably, therapeutic objects promote for greater than they price at retailers, letting you get infinite cash any time you need and rendering almost all of Quest for Stability’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?” form of flubs.

The best way by which Quest for Stability 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 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 couple of members of the White Lotus recounting the Avatar’s tales, chiming in to offer all these rapidly glossed-over particulars as they do – and whereas most 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 had been really entertaining as an alternative of pointless fetch quests, the place switching between your teammates supplied 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 moderately than utilizing it to shoehorn in overused and solely loosely associated minigames, Quest for Stability may’ve really fulfilled its promise. It’s not unthinkable that with a bit extra time (in all probability much more) the enjoyable may have been discovered right here, however what we obtained as an alternative feels just like the naked minimal required to seem like it is perhaps alright and get it out the door in order that Quest for Stability may stay as one more entice on retailer cabinets, laying in look ahead to well-meaning mother and father who don’t know any higher.