Quest for Balance is the Lego Star Wars of Avatar: The Last Airbender

polygon.com:

The next long-awaited Avatar: The Last Airbendervideo game is almost here — but it’s not exactly what people might expect. Considering the Avatar franchise’s playable history, that might be a good thing.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: Quest for Balance retells Aang and his friends’ adventures from the original Nickelodeon cartoon, even turning some pivotal moments in the show into levels, such as the Fire Nation invasion of the Northern Water Tribe and team Avatar’s time in Ba Sing Se. But the developers at Bamtang Games designed the game specifically to appeal to younger players who might not be as familiar with the show as some seasoned fans. Remember, the original Avatar series is now 18 years old!

But the actual gameplay makes Quest for Balance less of a straight Avatar: The Last Airbendervideo game adaptation and more a playful riff akin to the Lego Star Wars games. The mechanics are focused on exploration and puzzle solving instead of combat, something that the developers felt was both appropriate for the intended audience and reflective of a core part of the show.

“In the series, Aang’s determination to not use violence unless it is strictly necessary is part of his identity as an Air Nomad,” lead designer Carlos Salazar tells Polygon, “and that’s reflected in the game.”

There is still combat in the game, and Salazar acknowledges that the bending abilities’ martial arts inspiration is a huge appeal of the franchise. But the team took a different approach to the fights in order to make them accessible to younger players and more fitting to Aang’s pacifist ways.

“Our combat situations require players to identify weaknesses in their opponents and choose which bending abilities or moves they should use to defeat them,”