Don't Buy This Game.

These were the first thoughts in my head as I went out of my way to buy the game last Friday. I knew that buying this game was a sign that I was supporting the developer and giving them the okay to keep doing what they’re doing and also commending Activision on a job well done taking my money. What you get here is a game that has a whole universe of potential gameplay idea, but lacks the creativity and passion to do so.

   Gameplay

What you get here is a clone of Fire Emblem that has Korra off on her journey to track down an old man who has taken away her bending and now she must find him to find out why. The group of characters that join Korra on her revenge mission are as follows: Mako, Bolin, Tenzin, Kya, and Lin. The only other character you meet from the show is Varrick who apparently is okay with giving the Avatar yacht rides to the south pole without saying a word. . . ever. The game has you moving around a grid generic goals such as get to the orange dot or defeat the boss. I tried to use strategy in the beginning, but after about five missions that was no longer a requirement. As long as you match the appropriate bender to the appropriate enemy losing is extremely difficult. Sometimes enemies won’t even attack or move even if they are standing right in front of you. The gameplay sort of changes this with the addition of spirit battles, but that is more of a palette swap in enemies than anything else. In these sections the dark spirits will respawn after three turns if the main goal has not been met. If the mission is to defeat all dark spirits, you’ll be fighting the same enemies time and time again until they are all down. It’s repetitive and a problem up until the last moment when Korra learns how to spiritbend. These moments where Korra relearns her lost bending powers are the best in the game, but that is also because they are quick, easy, and simple. These moments require some thought to solve, but the thought process is like the trial and error of a maze; fun to finish, but no sense of challenge.

   Presentation

While gameplay is mediocre, what’s there shines in comparison to how the game presents itself. The lack of effort is evident as soon as you put the game into your 3DS. A generic water (or air, or fire, or earth) sound effect plays with The Legend of Korra logo and the best 3D model of Korra that you will unfortunately never see in the game. It only gets worse as the audio sounds extremely compressed when used with headphones, as if the cartridge could not handle “all the content” put into this game. There are 21 levels over 7 areas and a completely useless sparring mode if you want to max out the character levels (which you will without even trying). The music is all from the show, so while it is top notch, it doesn’t fit with what’s supposed to be happening in the game. Animations during the 3D battles are slow, ugly, and can be turned off in the options menu. The short animated cutscenes range from comic book clip art to choppy imitations of the show. At least the characters look decent on the grid where the game takes place during its NINE HOUR RUN! Character dialogue can be summed up like this,

Korra:                                    “I can’t bend this element”

Character with said element: “Sentence of inspiration”

Korra:                       “I know how to [insert element here] again”

|                                                  [Rinse and repeat]

There’s also no story to keep you interested in playing till the end. Here’s a summary:

•         Start with probending tournament.
•         Bad guy takes bending away in shady part of town.
•         Korra has to relearn bending through constant battles and sentence of encouragement.
•         Huge battle.
•         Huge battle again.
•         Bad guy defeated.
•         End with probending tournament.
•         Winner never announced.

If you were still expecting a real ending, sorry to disappoint.

   Conclusion

The worse quality of this game is that it could have been better.There was no reason to cut voice acting and compress sound to add in 3D battles that would not even be up to the standards set a decade ago during the start of the DS era. The Avatar universe deserves more than just a stereotypical licensed game, but that is exactly what you’ll get with The Legend of Korra: A New Era Begins, a bland, lifeless, repetitive game that offers no incentive to keep on playing after just one press of the A button.

Gameplay Footage

  Overall Score

  3/10

  Positives

•                +2D character models look okay

  Negatives

• 　　　　  -Nothing happens story wise
• 　　　　-3D Animations
• 　　　　-9 HOURS OF REPETITIVE REPETITION
• 　　　　-No reason to play it... at all