Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth
Score: 95% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: THQ Developer: THQ Studios Australia Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 Genre: Action/ RPG
Graphics & Sound: Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth is the second Avatar game to come out, and while the last one didn't actually follow the plot of the show (it was more like a side plot, or alternate to the second season), this one repeats the events of Book Two: Earth almost verbatim. I have to say, I rather enjoyed the graphics of this game. This game could have gone in a couple of directions. It could have been a side-scrolling action game or even a 3D style game, but instead it presents a really pleasant 2D, isometric experience with characters so large and full of detail that there is absolutely no doubt as to who is who or what is what. Before I popped the game in, I was expecting some group of chibi-Avatar characters to run around the screen, but instead, I found characters that took up at least a quarter the height of the screen and were generally well defined. This was very pleasing, plus the various locations you go to (Omashu, Ba Sing Se, etc.) either look just like their TV series counterparts or feel enough like them to be overlooked. As for the game's audio, most of the conversations take place in word bubbles, but whenever a piece of dialogue comes straight from the show, you hear the original sound-clip. This did two things for me - not only did it help strengthen the relationship to the license, but it also made me take notice of how much more happens in this game than in the series.
Gameplay: Like I said, Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth follows the events of the second book in Aang's adventure. He has already mastered Air and Waterbending and now he must find an Earthbender to teach him his next element. After leaving the Northern Water Tribe, Aang will travel into the Earth Kingdom only to find that not only is Omashu controlled by the Fire Nation and his old friend King Bumi has surrendered, but he will eventually find the Earth Kingdom's capital, Ba Sing Se, under siege. During the Aang, Sokka and Katara's travels to the heart of the Earth Kingdom, they will meet a blind Earthbender named Toph who, because of her inability to see, uses the ground and vibrations to know what is going on around her. The young girl joins their group and starts to teach Aang what he needs to know in order to Earthbend. Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth will have you and one other character running around various cities performing random fetch quests in order to progress the story. While navigating the locations, you will run into enemies. When this happens, the screen blacks out and you will have to fight the enemies that have appeared. After all the foes are defeated and you've collected whatever they've dropped, you can resume trekking through whatever location you were in. So, let's say you were in the occupied Omashu and you see a Firebender approaching you. When he comes in contact with either you or your companion, the screen will go black, and you will find yourself surrounded by two or three enemies. At first I was annoyed at this. I wasn't sure I liked the fact that I had to stop my running around just to do some fighting, but eventually I came to accept it, and besides a few times when it got repetitive, I didn't have any problems with it. As you fight, your characters level up. Eventually they will learn more bending (or in Sokka's case, weapon) skills that take increasingly more Bending Points. For instance, Aang's Air Blast takes only one point, while his Tornado takes all four. These points are displayed around the portrait of the character you are controlling and you can watch each point slowly rebuild over time. There are even a few mini-games sprinkled here and there throughout The Burning Earth. The first one you encounter and probably one of my favorites is the one where Katara has to help the wounded in an Earth Kingdom outpost. You do this by tapping all of the bandages on the patient. As you tap them, they fly off and when all the bandages are gone, the patient leaves and you get the next one. At first this starts off with large, easy to hit bandages, but eventually you will have to take out layers of bandages, small bandages scattered all over the body or even the occasional fully bandaged soldier. They offer nice distractions to the game and really keep it from getting too repetitive.
Difficulty: There isn't a lot to Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth, and thus, the difficulty isn't all that high. I found that I rarely died, and those times I did, it was because I simply forgot to give the food to my characters and not because I didn't have anything to heal their HP. If there is one thing this game is, it's generous with the health. It seemed like a major percentage of the dropped items were the healing foods you give your characters, so there never really was a question of not-enough supplies to actually heal my characters. If anything, I would have liked the boss battles to be just a bit more of a challenge. As it was, I found myself simply going up to them and button-mashing, or occasionally bending, at them. No real strategy was ever necessary because even though there were definite patterns in the enemies' movements, there was no real need to work around those patterns. It was far easier to just go in and pound at them, making sure to pause occasionally in order to heal my characters. Basically, I found the game just a bit too easy, as would probably any experienced gamer. Younger kids, on the other hand, might find it to be a bit more challenging.
Game Mechanics: Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth's mechanics are fairly standard. The D-pad is used to move your characters around the screen, while (A) is to block and (B) is to jump. The (X) button is used to activate your character's currently selected bending power or (in Sokka's case) special move. Normal attacks are done with the (Y) button. There are two ways to switch which bending skill you want to use. You can either tap it at the top of the touch-screen, or you can use the shoulder buttons to cycle through them. I found that, in the heat of battle, tapping the desired skill was the fastest way to go, but then again, I also found myself rarely switching skills while in a fight - if that was done, it was typically done outside of a fight. You can also switch which of the two characters you are currently playing as by tapping that character's picture on the lower screen. Again, this is a quick way to change characters while in a fight, especially since these portraits take up a majority of the screen real-estate on the touch-screen. The Burning Earth is just a fun Action/RPG title that really does the series justice. All of the events shown or just hinted at in the series comes through loud and clear in this handheld package. Quite frankly, I enjoyed the DS version of this game better than the Wii and PS2 versions.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
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