Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game

[Maryokutai]

 

Holy shit. I remember when DBFZ was first shown I was hoping someone would eventually do a fighting game with this property. Of course this is getting nowhere near that level of budget, but all things considered I'm happy with how it looks, very reminiscent of older 2D fighting games, with hard keyframes for animations but quite well-drawn character models that could have come out of the show. Caveat being that it's from Nickelodeon so it'll just get dumped without any support and if we're unlucky, without proper voice acting except for the shouts and grunts. But colour me more than intrigued (and please include Kyoshi, it's very timeline-incoherent anyway).

[Maf]

I’ve never seen Avatar so not hyped by the IP but the game looks cool. The way the characters move looks really slick. Maybe it clashes with the background a little bit? Maybe that’s intentional to keep the action readable. 

[Maryokutai]

It's also in line with how classic 2D animation is produced, where the animated parts are placed upon more lavishly drawn backgrounds. Not unlike  the pre-rendered backgrounds in videogames from back in the day. It's a one bird, two stones kind of thing where they retain both the classic look but like you say also make it easily readable.

 

KOF XIII, which this reminded me of a bit as it was the last properly hand-drawn fighter (and arguably still looks better), can feel a bit overwhelming at times in comparison:

 

Spoiler

 

Also worth nothing that the Avatar game is 1on1. Between 2XKO, Tokon and Invincible VS it's nice to see a non-tag fighter on the horizon. Even if, again, I'd presume it's down to budgetary reasons and not much else.

[DANGERMAN]

KOF XIII was a great looking game

[Maryokutai]

 

A bit more footage. It looks very 'anime' in the sense that there's a strong emphasis on movement and converting stray hits into combos. I usually don't like that style of fighting game but just for the IP I'm definitely going to check this out.

 

They also announced a closed alpha which suggests that they take this quite seriously as a project for the fighting game crowd. The alpha will feature the four characters in the thumbnail, which includes Katara whom we haven't seen any gameplay of yet.

[Maf]

Kind of looks like it’s going to be a light weight fighter. I’d be surprised if this game has tonnes of depth. But that’s ok, at least it doesn’t look intimidating like something like 2XKO. I really like the movement and manoeuvrability. All my favourite fighting game characters say fuck you to the floor 

[Maryokutai]

If Bolin makes it in there's solid foundation for a The Floor is Lava achievement.

 

I realise nobody here gets the reference. But it's a good one, trust me.

[Maf]

This is looking really, really good. But hyper complicated. 

[Maf]

At the moment this game is looking like the best fighting game coming out right now. I hope they do more work to improve the animations. Maybe it’s true to the show (never seen it) but the characters don’t animate in their faces very much, the animation in general looks simplistic.

 

That said, mechanically this game seems very deep already. I like fighting games with good movement and, this is that. 
 

My only worry is how crazy the skill ceiling is right off the bat. Playing modern Arcsys games, they start with limitation and more simple ideas and get more complicated with each patch. Avatar seems to be saying what if you can just do everything, all the time, straight away 

 

Can not lie, though. Looks compelling and the videos around this demo has sold me on it

[one-armed dwarf]

People are really hype for this all of a sudden. I have to say that my negative interest in non-James-Cameron-Avatar is a pretty big counterweight, and I feel like some of these animations are missing a few keyframes given how elaborate they are. But the movement and offense looks really fun here, even if Diaphone is trying to make a point by using a particularly busted combo to carry to the wall.

 

It reminds me of Melty Blood a bit, with all the fast air dashing around

 

 

Also I don't get why you'd be worried about the skill ceiling. The best skill ceilings are the ones you can't reach but also where you don't hit a personal plateau miserably short of them. Or something like this. Being able to see massive potential to improve is fun. Well, provided you get matched with people who are on your level

 

They said they would do another alpha relatively soon, probably to capitalise on the upsurge in interest

[Maf]

The flow mechanic looks extremely technical. It makes the fire guy do his air moves backwards for mix ups and stuff. The flow system already looks too big brain for me. 
 

That said since my last post I;ve seen people talk about how broken some of the things in the game are. Which if patched would make me less intimidated. There’s some crazy nonsense in the alpha. Full screen projectiles wall bounce in to 30% combo. 
 

The game looks a bit too heavy on both the complicated mechanics like Flow, and fundamentals like movement and combos 

[one-armed dwarf]

It still feels a bit like putting the cart before the horse to me, worrying about high level optimised gameplay from the best fighting game players in the world when it might be 50 hours before you even encounter someone halfway to that skill level and awareness. I think the skill ceiling doesn't matter at all if the skill floor isn't also high and I don't expect very optimal use of the flow stuff at lower levels. I also feel like fluent movement is a thing that's more immediately gratifying than a big combo or blockstring anyway, so if there's extra execution and pathways to figure out with it then it could be cool and fun to execute on at any skill level. 

 

It's like when I watch pro players at Ninja Gaiden, moving Ryu around in ways that I hadn't even thought about, it doesn't take away from my own satisfaction in my own style of play, even if this is an apples to oranges comparison with the ocean of depth a fighting game has, compared to a single player game. 

 

(this vid is mostly about Tokon but it talks about the 'variations' in Avatar at the beginning and how there are different permutations of each character style)

 

 

I think mostly the hope would be that matches could feel really different from one another, with the way they do these 'variations' on each character. I feel sometimes when playing Strive that the matches kinda feel the same at times, which can be really discincentivising and movement is the big thing in that game that feels bad to me but I've never touched characters like Chipp and Millia, who seem to be the only ones who really get to move in that game. and I know it's the public whipping boy right now, but I feel that even more strongly looking at Tokon

[Maryokutai]

 

Kyoshi is in, I'm sold. I really like this trailer, too, this seems to be the most respectful adaptation of the source material even though it's an anachronistic fighting game. I'm a bit worried I won't like it on a gameplay level because it has that very floaty anime-fighter look to it, but I'll pick this up for sure.

Interestingly they have a voting process for DLC characters. I wonder if that's just about the release order rather than the choice of characters, otherwise that first season is going to take a while to conclude. Not to mention that the results might end up being just the boring popular ones.

[one-armed dwarf]

 

We should get an online room going when this comes out, so me and maf can get beat up by Mary and people can watch

[Maf]

Maybe. Of all the fighting games coming out, this is the one I’m most dubious of/intimidated by to try 

[Maryokutai]

I don't know if I'll be any good at this, it's very anime air-dash-happy territory and I have very little experience with those games beyond MvC3, which I was awful at.

 

Will give it a shot though for sure, I've been asking for an Avatar fighter for ages, have to put my money where my mouth is.

[Maf]

@Maryokutai wait until you play a game where you can jump, air dash and block all in one movement. It’s so much better 

[Maryokutai]

You can do that in MvC, but that kind of movement just never really clicked with me. It's hard to feel 'in control', and the games are very volatile usually.

[Maryokutai]

 

Every character in this game looks completely busted in trailers, I think this will be an interesting title the first couple of weeks.

 

I like how they kept her canonically towering height and brutality, and outside the goofy air run she looks as good as I'd hoped. Will probably be the first character I check out when this comes out.

[one-armed dwarf]

This was supposed to be out now, but got delayed. But there's a beta now for people who pre order.

 

Wish it was an open beta, but I'm tempted to just get it cause I'm already interested anyway