Video Game / Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a video game based off the cartoon with the same name. It was released for the Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox, and Microsoft Windows systems between 2006-2007.

A few months after the Fire Nation's attack on the Northern Water Tribe, Aang and his friends continue their journey to help Aang master the remaining two elements. Along the way, they discover a series of machines being made with specific elements in mind. Who is creating these machines and why? The Windows version, rather than follow the same story as the other versions of the game, simply adapted the events of the show's first season.

The game was successful enough for adaptations of the next two seasons of Avatar to be developed into two games: Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth and Avatar: The Last Airbender – Into the Inferno

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This video game contains examples of:

• Ability Required to Proceed:
  • There are some areas and chests where you need other characters to proceed. If it’s a chapter where you get a character, you can come back to the area and open the chest unless you’re at a point where you can’t go back.
  • The final area where you’re saving all of Aang’s friends has to be done in order based off the characters’ abilities.
• Adaptational Villainy: Zuko is a bit more villainous here than in the show. He seems a bit too eager when his soldiers have surrounded Katara and Wei in the first battle. Not to mention him being an Ungrateful Bastard and trying to attack Aang and Haru when they were trying to help him.
• Adapted Out:
  • Instead of Pakku being Katara and Aang's Waterbending teacher, someone named Master Wei has taken his place.
  • We also don’t see or hear of Iroh in the game. We have no idea where he is or what happened to him because Zuko and the other characters never mention him.
• Alternate Continuity:
  • Omashu is identified as the Earth Kingdom capital instead of Ba Sing Se.
  • During the sixth level, Aang and his friends stop at an Air Temple inhabited by non-Air Nomadic residents. According to the map, this is the Southern Air Temple, which was previously shown to be vacant in the first season.
• Ascended Extra: Since he was the most significant character to appear that represented the Earth element, Haru is a playable character in this game despite only appearing in one episode of the first season.
• Badass Normal: Lian is a normal (possibly) Earth Kingdom citizen who's able to make fully functional machines. Unfortunately, she uses those skills to try and end the war herself. Sokka attempts to relate to her using this trope.
• Bears Are Bad News: The boss for the forest level is a large horned bear, which can charge at you and swipe at you if you stand too close to it.
• Big Bad: Lian, The Maker. She is responsible for all the machines you encounter in the game and her mission is to end the war with her machines and kill all Benders.
• Blow You Away:
  • Despite being able to use all four elements, Aang only uses his airbending throughout normal gameplay, allowing him to reveal hidden objects by making tornadoes and giving him special access to the Air Temple area. Justified, as the game supposedly occurs after the end to season one, when Aang only knew air and had only just started to learn waterbending.
  • The Tempest machine flies through the air and shoots gusts of winds to attack anyone bold enough to approach it. It, appropriately enough, starts to appear around the Air Temple, apparently based on old Air Nomad technology.
• Boss Battle: Each chapter ends with the characters facing off with a boss character. The Fortress is the only chapter that gives the player multiple battles (one is an upgraded Boss from earlier in the game and the other is super powerful machine, which requires Aang to defeat twice).
• Bullying the Dragon: Lian really shouldn't have taunted the Avatar, the most powerful bender in the world, after her machine attacked his crush.
• Canon Foreigner: The inventor Lian was created for the game and never appears in the cartoon.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The mini-map in the upper-right corner will inform you of characters you should look out for. Blue means that there's someone or something that will assign you a side-quest, green means you're near a person or a specific location related to one of your quests (green arrows also try to lead you to that person/place), yellow means that there's a merchant/Four Nations player nearby, and red means an enemy is near.
• Combat Medic: Katara is the only character who can heal any of the party members, whether she's controlled by the player or the computer. The player can choose to give her all three of her healing moves or they can supply her with a variety of offensive and defensive attacks.
• Damsel in Distress:
  • The first section ends with Katara being abducted by Zuko and Aang and Sokka rescuing her in the second part. The last half of the game involves Aang saving his friends all by himself.
  • Aang and his friends encounter someone called the Maker who is being forced to make machines for the Fire Nation. Subverted as Lian is the real Big Bad and she manages to escape while Aang and his friends dealt with the Jailer.
• Dishing Out Dirt: The Stomper is a machine that crashes into the ground to create shockwaves of dirt and rock. In doing so, it replicates the powers of an Earthbender through pure technology.
• Doomed Hometown: The gang's temporary home in the Water Tribe is of course doomed to be attacked (again) and largely destroyed by the Fire Nation. Buildings you've seen are scorched, statues have been toppled over, and huge boulders litter the street after their attack, but worst of all, Katara is missing, forcing Aang and Sokka to leave the comforts of the city.
• Double Weapon: The Fire Nation Warden wields a staff with flames protruding from both sides, allowing him to use either one as a source for his firebending attacks.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The art-style does not resemble the one in future games. It's much more cartoony.
  • Unlike the two licensed games which follow it, most versions of this game tell an original story set after the show's first season. The PC version and the other two games Burning Earth and Into the Inferno are content with simply re-telling the stories of the seasons they're based on in an abbreviated form.
• Easing into the Adventure: The game starts you in the safe, welcoming city of the Northern Water Tribe, where the sidequests are all about helping old ladies find supplies and the main mission is just to find a student who went off-track. The enemies aren't murderous soldiers or deadly machines, just some wild dogs that go down in a few hits.
• Easily Forgiven: Haru forgives his friend Yuan after he nearly helped Lian with her Bender genocide plan.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: For the second phase of the final boss, you can control Aang in the Avatar State and finally use elements besides air.
• Even Evil Has Standards: If you listen to some of the Fire Nations soldiers in the "Amongst The Enemy" section, one of them will say that he thinks that putting young girls in jail is wrong, even if they are Waterbenders. Despite this being a hint about Katara's whereabouts, it shows that not all of the Fire Nation is evil.
• Evil Chancellor: Bumi’s counsel turns out to be a double agent aiding the Big Bad. He believes that he is part of something big that will be beneficial for his nation and is willing to go behind his king’s back to try stopping Aang and his friends from continuing their mission.
• Extranormal Prison: The first part of the Maker's lair is filled with cages and traps meant to contain benders. Waterbenders are kept on rocks floating on lava streams hot enough to evaporate water, earthbenders are kept massive steel cages with no stone in sight, and firebenders are separated from everyone else by a massive river.
• Eyepatch of Power: The second boss sports an eyepatch that distinguishes him from other firebenders. Alongside his short grey hair, it gives him an air of experience in combat that goes well with his firebending superiority.
• Final Solution: Lian blames Benders for being the cause of the war. She plans to rid the world of them and replace them with her machines.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Each level has a certain amount of treasure chests, which can be uncovered by a specific character. The treasure chests often contain a set item for one of the four characters, which can increase their stats and give them regenerational abilities. You can either buy a map for each area or you can input a code, which will provide you with all of the maps.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: For the Air Temple section, Aang is separated from his friends while he goes to destroy the machines in the Avatar Sanctuary.
• Making a Splash: The Soaker shoots out water like a firehose to damage the player. It appears to be imitating the powers of a Waterbender, another disturbing example of machines potentially replacing humans.
• Mini-Game:
  • Each area will have a game called "Four Nations" available. It's a tile game where you have to match up the top tile with the same one. The goal is to either use up all of your tiles or stump your opponent with a tile they don't have.
  • The Focus Moves kinda act like this. You have to hit certain buttons in order and it has be done as they enter the circle. If you fail to hit them, you'll have to do it all over again.
• Motive Rant: Lian gives a big speech before the first Ultamatton Boss Battle, trying to justify her plan to get rid of Benders. She also tries convincing Aang one last time to work with her by saying that the Benders she's abducted for her machine can be a full Avatar and end the war.
• Not Me This Time: Instead of the Fire Nation being the Big Bad, it's someone completely different responsible for creating a host of machines kidnapping and replacing benders. Yes, the Fire Nation forced her to make machines for them. However, they interfered with her plan to end the war her own way.
• Optional Stealth: The game has a sneak mechanic where the characters start to tip-toe and don't aggro enemies unless they're close to them and in their line of sight for a while. This is useful for moving past high level enemies and a few sections where guards are keeping you out of forbidden areas, but for the most part, you can just get through the game by beating everyone up.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Aang and Sokka steal a couple of soldiers' uniforms in order to get inside the prison to save Katara. Shockingly enough, none of the guards think it's suspicious that there's a young boy with blue arrow tattoos among their ranks.
• The Pig-Pen: The two short soldiers you have to steal uniforms from only change out of them because they are comically smelly and their commander orders them to take a long, long shower.
• Playing with Fire: Fire is the only element no player character can use, but it's still represented through the many enemies who shoot fire throughout the game and even the game's first boss, a massive machine that shoots lines of fire from its central engine.
• Plot Tailored to the Party: Clearing obstacles to progress through the game often requires character-exclusive abilities that one of the characters in your party will have at the time. Don't expect to find any obstructions earthbending could clear before getting Haru and be surprised when throwing a boomerang turns out to be helpful as often as controlling the very air we breathe.
• Running Gag: Sokka can't seem to stop thinking about food, even in important situations.
• Samaritan Syndrome: A majority of your side-quests involve helping other people. This requires you to go out of your way to do small tasks for random NPCs before resuming your main adventure. You have to get some of these tasks accomplished before a certain point in the level where you're unable to complete the side-quest.
• Save Point: These are in the form of blue swirls on the ground. When entering a boss area, the swirl will be red and a text box will confirm if you want to enter the Boss Battle.
• Save the Villain: Aang attempts to do this for Zuko in the last part of the game. Rather than accept Aang's help, Zuko lets go and floats downstream. He survives, though.
• Sequel Hook: The game ends by cutting to Zuko emerging from a river, still fuming from his near encounter with the Avatar, ready to hunt them again.
• Ship Tease: The final cutscene implies that Katara and Aang like each other, much to Sokka's disgust.
• Shock and Awe: In a nod to Book 2, a couple late game firebenders are able to shoot lightning out of their hands for massive damage.
• Sidequest:
  • You'll get a variety of side missions in each area you travel to. You'll have to talk to everyone to see what your objectives are. It's recommended that you do what you can before you proceed with the plot, otherwise you may miss the opportunity to get the task accomplished.
  • Each level will have a Momo sidequest available. You'll have a limited amount of items to find in the area and they change each time. It's recommended that this task be completed first since Momo won't be hurt by any of the enemies and it takes less time to find the items.
• Spared by the Adaptation: While other versions end with Lian crushed by her own machine, she is still alive in the PSP and DS versions, while the Game Boy Advance version leaves her fate ambiguous.
• Taking the Bullet: Katara manages to shield Aang before the final boss can get a hit on him, but seriously wounds herself in the process. This causes Aang to go berserk.
• Ungrateful Bastard: In the final section of the game, Aang and Haru try to help Zuko escape from the machines' fortress. What does he do to repay them? He tries attacking them. Even when Aang shows him kindness, Zuko still can't give up his personal mission to capture the boy for himself.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: While the gang is busy fighting off the Fire Nation warden, Lian busts out of her cage and escapes before the gang can question her about her rampant machines.
• Villainous Breakdown: Lian has a massive one in the final battle, believing that she can end the war with her machines. When Aang refuses to join her, she declares that her machine is more of an Avatar than him and attacks him and his friends.
• Wacky Sound Effect: The game's cutscenes are filled with cartoony sound effects that punctuate whenever characters jump, get hurt, or do something wacky. This happens within seconds of the game's first cutscenes, as a separate effect plays each time Aang skips as he's walking away from Appa towards the Water Tribe.
• Walking Spoiler: Lian, since she's the one behind the machines' attacks.
• We Can Rule Together: Lian proposes that Aang join forces with her to be a part of her machines and end the war. Unfortunately, her bargain also includes killing his friends in the process.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Lian wants the war to finally end. However, her means of doing so involve kidnapping three Benders and destroying the rest of the Benders with her machines.