For diehard fans of the “Avatar: the Last Airbender” franchise, there is finally new canon content for events that took place on and off screen during the original show. And if you’re anything like me, you definitely shot up in your chair the second this game released. “Avatar Generations” is a free-to-play mobile RPG and gacha game, or loot games, and the first since “The Legend of Korra” (a painfully difficult entry), that follows adored characters and their journey to end the 100 year war. 

From the start of the game, players are thrown into turn-based combat followed by a lengthy tutorial to cover strategy, character classes, items, leveling, and more. It’s insightful, yet straight to the point, making it tolerable for those who try to skip through tutorial phases. There is a selection of bonuses behind a paywall, but it isn’t necessary to purchase this content to have a solid experience.

The gameplay itself is a little repetitive, as characters retain the same skills and moves even as you continue to level them up. Each character, though, has a different “class” (offense, defense, mind, etc.) that counters, or weakens to others. On top of that, the placement of the characters themselves will have different benefits to the team, so it’s worth taking time to understand the complexities of the combat system. The idea is similar to Pokemon, but on a significantly smaller scale, where you have to understand how to effectively match each type up.  

Players are guided through watered down events from the show for the sake of time, which makes it a little difficult for players who don’t know much about the show to understand the lore. During the gaps of on-screen events are encounters or situations that aren’t essential to know if you want to watch the show or read comics. They’re something simple like Aang, Katara and Sokka saving a town from factions and starvation by working up to fight their leader, or Zuko and Uncle Iroh having to repair their ship while battling pirates.

For a mobile game, the graphics aren’t stellar, but they’re enough to get the point across. There is very little depth during battles, but the artwork for the map and character dialogue makes up for it. Each character on your current team will travel in real-time through the world with their original chibis, and the handfuls of new artwork are enough to excite the entire fandom. Since it stays loyal to many of the original art styles, you can easily tell that it’s an Avatar video game. 

The background music and ambience sounds stay true to what you’d hear during battles in the show, further immersing you into the world of Avatar. However, the game seems to have a small selection of voicelines, and it can get quite tedious hearing Zuko scream, “Teach me the advanced set!” at the start of every turn. I wasn’t expecting luxury, but I wish there was a little bit more personality for the characters.

While “Avatar Generations” may not be an exhilarating game to put all of my time into, I can definitely see myself playing every couple of days to cure my boredom or kill some time. The game doesn’t completely fail to live up to my expectations, but the only reason I haven’t already deleted it is because of how dear the franchise is to me. I look forward to better understanding the intricacies of this game, and potentially branching out to similar games within the genre.