I’ve heard of Avatar The Last Airbender, but have never seen it. I know that it is a somewhat popular TV show and had many spin-offs… including a not-very popular film.  As I’m not really well versed on the IP, I’m the perfect person to review Avatar The Last Airbender: Quest for Balance from developer BamTang Games and publisher GameMill Entertainment.

Team Avatar is back! Relive the epic adventure of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender series, as you play as Aang and his 8 friends to explore the most unique locations from the series, solve challenging puzzles and experience the most heart touching moments of Aang’s story.

As I know pretty much nothing about Avatar The Last Airbender, I can’t tell you how faithful and accurate this game is to the source material. This is actually a good thing as it means that I can judge it purely on its gameplay. Well, the first thing that hit me with Avatar The Last Airbender: Quest for Balance was how much it felt like an early LEGO game, only without the charm, personality or gameplay. You wander around linear levels, but with just a touch of exploration. Solve rather bland and ‘seen them all before’ puzzles and get involved in fights.

The levels are devoid of any real depth. The combat mechanic is atrocious, very stiff, button-mashy and messy. There are endless runner-type sections that feature some awful collision detection. Overall, this is not a pleasant experience. I played about 5 hours and just could not take any more. Life is too short to play and review bad games.

There’s an upgrade system. Earn skill tokens and spend them on increasing your damage, defence and such. All very basic and mundane stuff. There is really nothing here in Avatar The Last Airbender: Quest for Balance that is enjoyable and everything just feels like a cheap cash-in of a popular IP, in a hope that fans will be stupid enough to hand over money for this mess.

With a £40 price tag, this game can just get right in the bin. As I said at the start of this, I’m not at all familiar with the Avatar The Last Airbender IP, I couldn’t tell you if this game is doing the show justice or not. I can’t tell you that, if you’re a fan of the show, this game will put a smile on your face. All I can tell you is that, from a gameplay perspective, this is crap and should be avoided. The cell-shaded graphics are quite nice though.