The Legend of Korra Review
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3, MAC, PS4, Xbox one
Developer: Platinum Games
Publisher: Activision
Price: $14.99 USD on Steam and GameFanShop
[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMllK3IZ3VU”]
Perception Check is a video review series joining Non-Fiction Gaming, see more of Australian Casual Gamer’s videos on Youtube.
The Legend of Korra Transcript:
I’ve never wanted a game to end as much I had The Legend of Korra, and luckily I did not have to wait very long at all. Lets take the avatar’s journey to save humanity from their own selfish and destructive ways, but first, let’s strip all of your elemental powers and leave you with hand to hand combat for the first hour of the game. Elemental combat was the marketing hook for me to have a look at this game and sadly it under performs in a major way.
As someone who does not watch the anime on a regular basis, I was looking forward to be taken in by this great looking story and lore, but all of these preconceptions were shattered within the first hour of game play.
The game starts with more of a tutorial on how to use the four elements in a combat environment, this was nice to get a feel of how the game will work and the different types of enemies you would face throughout the game. I was very wrong; soon after the tutorial all of your elemental powers are gone and you’re left with a brawler with very limited depth and combos.
The lack of explanation towards the gameplay was shocking. Unaware of the changes of the combat styles was frustrating to say the least, trying to complete the game with the slow and clunky earthen style of bending was boring and lacked variety.
The lack of story was mostly at fault, I honestly do not mind a game with average controls and action, but when the story is sub-par and lacking depth, nothing draws the player back in for more.
The only reason I finished this game was to see if it actually got better towards the end, unfortunately that was not the case. No explanations were given throughout the whole game on who certain people are which made for a pretty crappy experience all round.
A Bad Mix of Elements
Repetitive gameplay is to blame for the bad time that was had. The formula for The Legend of Korra must have been something as follows:
- Take a popular franchise
- Make it extremely frustrating for anyone who doesn’t know anything about the franchise
- Take away the elemental powers for a good part of the game until they “deserve it”
- Make the last boss fight impossible
- Make good camera control optional
- Insert random Temple Run game play style when you feel like it
- Millions of units sold
The completely random addition of the Temple Run-like gameplay was just weird. It really had no place in the entirety of the game, it honestly felt like content filler for a game that only has MAX 5 hour of gameplay.
Camera control, don’t get me started on the dreadful camera control, the horrible controls forced me into using a Xbox controller due to having to position the camera during a fight. Playing with a keyboard and mouse is near impossible, this is just bad optimization and not enough foresight to know that if you cannot get something as simple as a camera right, people won’t like your game.
The saving grace of this game would have the be the graphic style, I actually enjoyed the art style through the title, the style was quite similar to the Naruto Shippuden series. The anime cut scenes were nicely done, which added the little depth to the story as they could. I would have liked more of these cut scenes to add that little more depth and story to the game, but the game stuck me with the boring 5 hours that I got.
Overall
{rating}
Unfortunately, I was looking forward to this title, mostly due to wanting to get into the series and watching the anime. The lack of story and progression into “the real game” was quite slow and pretty crap to be honest.
The game was made for fanboys of the series and with a whole 5 hours of game play I really can not recommend this to anyone, fanboys or otherwise.
The Legend of Korra is currently available on PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One, PS4 and Mac
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