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jediuser · 2 years

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Nick games review: The Legend of Korra (PC)

Pros:

Korra looks nice and animates fluidly

Different bending styles look cool and feel distinct

Pro bending is a nice diversion

Music and voice actors are taken directly from the show

Cons:

Weak story with a bland villain and virtually no characters aside from the lead

Lousy camera, lousy lock-on system

Barren level design

Little incentive to vary attacks or fighting styles

Dull (and sometimes plain frustrating) endless runner sequences

Grueling boss fights

I'm going to get this out of the way right away: I am a hardcore Avatar fan. The show was one of the few things to hold my interest in Nick during its waning years in the mid-late 2000s. This one had it all: terrific animation, memorable characters, and a meticulously crafted lore that was easy to get lost in. So, when they announced a sequel would be coming starring the next Avatar, Korra, I was anxious to see what came next. And when it did, I was...somewhat disappointed, to be honest. The first season of the show was certainly hit-and-miss, filled with brilliant animation and intriguing villains but also burdened by pointless love triangles and deus-ex-machina endings. But once past that initial hurdle, the series starts to pick up, and by season three it becomes every bit as awesomely cool as its parent series. So, when I learned the video game adaptation was being helmed by Bayonetta developer Platinum Games, anticipation reached a fever pitch. I mean, the game had the perfect license and the perfect developer, so what could possibly go wrong? The game has to be an intense, frenetic beat-em-up that does the series proud, right? Right?

Honestly, the story wasn't at all what I was expecting. And by that, I mean I was not expecting such a dull, shallow plot. I suppose it would have been unreasonable to expect the same quality of storytelling as the show, but at the very least I was hoping for a fun little piece of filler in between the real meat. So, here's how it goes: After a pro bending match, Korra comes across a creepy old man who strips her of her bending powers, she slowly gets them back, chases him throughout various parts of the human and spirit worlds, and, um...that's it. The animated cutscenes through which it's told are nice, but the cutscenes themselves have absolutely no substance to them. There's no humor, no surprises, and hardly even any characters apart from Korra herself - Mako and Bolin are literally thrown away in the first few minutes, and fan-favorites Asami and Tenzin are absent entirely. The only character who is present at all is Tenzin's spirit-savvy daughter, Jinora, who shows up on occasion to provide hints. If you count the menus, Iroh himself also has a cameo as the proprietor of the shop where you buy items, which is a nice touch, but not enough to forgive the udder lack of a proper tale.

But a lackluster story can be forgiven if the gameplay were up to snuff, and in this regard, the game makes an OK first impression. The game throws you straight into the action, with Korra using her bending abilities to fight off a seemingly endless legion of angry spirits. These first few minutes are pretty nice, letting you switch between each of Korra's powers on the fly, getting a feel for how each one of them works. After this crazy opening, the game throws you into its first minigame, pro-bending, the fictional sport in the show where you compete with the opposing team to try and knock them off the other edge of the arena. It's obvious the devs put some effort into making it feel authentic, and the spit second timing involved in countering your opponents blows while throwing some of your own certainly makes for a well-paced little minigame. It isn't deep enough to hold your interest for more than a few matches, but as pleasant diversion to spend a few minutes with it does its job just fine.

Sadly, once I was thrown into the first level proper, things immediately took a turn for the worse. Korra, having lost her bending, was thrust into a bland-looking series of alleyways where she had to fight off hordes of enemies without bending. Seriously, who the f*** thought this was a good idea? The only reason anyone wants to play as Korra in the first place is to use her awesome bending moves. Perhaps this would be excusable if the level were well designed, but it's not. You simply run around a series of alleyways beating people up with our fists, which unfortunately sets a precedent for the rest of the levels in the game. When you get your first bending style in the game's next level, you start to breath a sigh of relief, as things do start to get more fun. Before that, though, you have to deal with the game's third and final level type, the endless runner sequences where you ride Korra's polar bear Naga. There more or less your basic endless runner sequences, where you simply push left, right, up and down to avoid obstacles as she runs toward the end of the level. At best, they're perfectly OK, if uninspired. At worst, the trial-and-error nature of some sections make them downright annoying. Later levels try to mix things up by throwing in boss fights that let Korra use her bending while riding, but I found this only made them even more frustrating.

At its core, though, the actual combat isn't bad at all. Though it takes far too long to unlock all four bending styles, the game starts to pick up as you gain a new form of bending, and they all look cool and feel different enough that they're fun to play around with for at least a little while: water is the long-range form of attack, while earth is good for brute force beatdowns. Fire is the most traditional kung-fu style brawling of the four, and air (my personal favorite) lets you create cyclones and tornadoes to utterly devastate enemies over a wide area. The counter system, once I got used to the split-second timing that governs it, also works well, and allows Korra to pull off a cool looking move after successfully blocking an enemy, such as a barrage of rock blasts.

The problem, then, lies not with the combat itself, but with everything that surrounds it. Throughout the game, you'll spend most of your time fighting the same few 'men-in-masks' up until the final hours, when you'll instead fight a handful of spirit monsters. This doesn't make for a whole lot of variety in combat encounters, and they don't have any vulnerability to a specific bending style, nor do they boast any special AI behavior like try to stay out of your range. So, once you pick a style you feel most comfortable with, there's little reason to switch out. The camera leaves something to be desired as well. As with any flawed beat-em-up game, it's difficult to get it at just the right angle to see what's happening onscreen, leaving enemies with ample opportunities to get some cheap shots in. The game does have a lock-on system to keep track of an enemy, but when there's more than one on-screen, it's pretty random as to just which enemy it locks on to, so getting the one you want basically requires pushing the button over and over. So yeah, the lock-on system sucks.

And what of the boss fights? Surely Platinum Games, as they've proven time and time again, could at least provide some epic, challenging bosses for us to conquer? Well, scale back your expectations a bit. The handful of bosses you fight over and over are painfully dull, repetitive affairs. Sure, there are some nifty counter moves to be done, but it's not enough for them to rise above the level of 'normal enemies with larger health bars,' and the minuscule damage caused by most attacks make these bosses far longer (and more annoying) than they need to be. To be fair, it's clear a bit more effort went into the design of the final boss, but like the others it drags on for far too long and can't help but feel monotonous. And the stupidest thing about all this? Your healing items, which you will use fairly often, are gone for good after you use them, even if you die and are sent back to an earlier checkpoint. So, basically, if you use up all your items during a particularly difficult boss and still get beaten, you'll have no other alternative than to buy more. I fail to comprehend how anyone could possibly have thought this was a good idea.

At the very least, the game's production values certainly match the series' pretty well. I've already touched upon the pretty animated cutscenes, but the in-game graphics...hold up pretty well. The cel-shaded art style certainly makes the characters look the part; Korra looks just like her animated counterpart, and her distinct animations for each bending style make the battles look cool, at the very least. The enemies look and animate decent as well, particularly the spirits, although they're repeated far too often over the course of the levels. On the other hand, the environments are just plain dull - most of them are just devoid of any kind of life. This does make some sense for the levels set in the North Pole, and the air temple which was empty for a reason, but the usually bustling Republic City is strangely empty aside from some cars driving in the background. Even if you don't factor in the seemingly dead city, traveling seemingly empty corridors gets old after a while, no matter where it is.

The sound, on the other hand, is the one area I could call an unqualified success. While it's disappointing that you hear very little of the show's cast, Janet Varney thankfully doesn't phone it in, even as Korra mostly talks to herself for the majority of the game. Hearing Iroh is pretty nice as well, and the villain, bland as he is, at least sounds suitably creepy. The show's excellent soundtrack is kept as well, and Jeremy Zuckerman's Asian-inspired background music is perfectly suited to the action. Overall, the sound leaves very little to actively complain about.

So, exactly what went wrong with Legend of Korra? Is it that the developer behind HUGELY ENTERTAINING beat-em-ups like Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising didn't know how to make a beat-em-up based on a show that has a character regularly BEATING THE SHIT out of bad guys? Or perhaps their brand of frenetic, intense action calls for a much larger budget than was spared for this game. In any case, this was a very disappointing and at times frustrating experience for this avid LoK fan. For fans of the series, you can rent it, beat it in a few hours, spend a few extra minutes in the pro-bending league, and then move on with your life. Maybe someday someone somewhere will deliver a game worthy of the terrific license, but alas, that day is not today. Better luck next life, Avatar.

Gameplay: 5/10

Graphics: 7/10

Sound: 8/10

Value: 4/10

Overall: **1/2 (2.5/5)

#nickgames #nickelodeon #avatar the last airbender #the legend of korra #platinum games #game review #steam

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