Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora |OT| Why isn't Legend making this?

[nnodley]

It's massively underrated by critics, imo.

It's absolutely gorgeous. Gameplay is pretty fun, movement is fluid.  Story is good but not the best.

[Legend]

This is the worst writing I've ever experienced. Worse than I feared lol.

Yet almost everything else is amazing. You actually feel like a powerful giant alien and the world is so immersive. I'm hoping that as I move out of the tutorial the restrictions and bad writing will decrease. I just had the game finish its opening credits (a few hours of gameplay).

[Horizon]

I have put 25 hours in so far and I am loving it. You're right the story is just whatever but the open world, combat and exploration are just awesome.

[nnodley]

Yeah the writing is pretty meh

Most of the protagonist voice acting is pretty meh too

[Legend]

Is there no way to play audio logs while doing anything else? Pretty lame.

The plant collection stuff is pretty cool. I don't think the dialogue writers understood Avatar, but the gameplay team nailed it. Just so many tiny details that make you really feel like you're on Pandora.

I took out a level 5 gas facility while level 3. Very fun. I got to try my first rocket launcher which was very helpful. Also I love how the mechs have multiple ways to approach them.

[nnodley]

Is there no way to play audio logs while doing anything else? Pretty lame.

The plant collection stuff is pretty cool. I don't think the dialogue writers understood Avatar, but the gameplay team nailed it. Just so many tiny details that make you really feel like you're on Pandora.

I took out a level 5 gas facility while level 3. Very fun. I got to try my first rocket launcher which was very helpful. Also I love how the mechs have multiple ways to approach them.

Yeah the gameplay and world is what's carrying the game. Just running through the jungle at night with the bioluminescence is so cool.

There are way too many dumb pointless side missions that I just have no desire to do.

[Legend]

It really is crazy how non Avatar the writing/plot is, compared to how perfectly Avatar the gameplay is.

I just learned you can hit leaves to slow down your fall, like in the first movie. And I just found plants that are from the Avatar land at Disney World. They did their research.

I'm about to get my ikran. Might do some more sidequests first.

[Horizon]

It really is crazy how non Avatar the writing/plot is, compared to how perfectly Avatar the gameplay is.

I just learned you can hit leaves to slow down your fall, like in the first movie. And I just found plants that are from the Avatar land at Disney World. They did their research.

I'm about to get my ikran. Might do some more sidequests first.

The mission to get your ikran is one of the best

[nnodley]

The mission to get your ikran is one of the best

Loved that mission so much. It's been fairly meh story wise after that. Such good gameplay and traversal though

[Legend]

Yeah I loved that mission. Didn't sprint, just walked everywhere so I could enjoy the atmosphere. Music abruptly stopped from time to time and the actual bonding was odd but other than that, 10 out of 10.

I named my Ikran Carol since it felt like the most human name. Jake Sully named his Bob if you didn't know.



Flying is a little awkward but it's so great after so many hours on the ground. I just entered a time sensitive point of the main mission, so time for me to ignore it and do all my other quests.

[Legend]

Just made it to the second region.

It really really sucks how trash so much of the writing/story is. This could have been an incredible time to see a new side of Pandora not shown in the films, but instead it mostly comes across as "fan fiction" from non fans. Like the writers hadn't seen the movies but heard it was a Pocahontas ripoff and they thought that was all they needed to know. On one side quest a Na'vi said something like "I see everything in the forest" and then the music swelled so she could say "I see you." Yeah that's a line from the movies but that's definitely not how it's used.

The player character is also so annoying. I wish this was an rpg with dialogue choices but just having a silent protagonist would be a huge upgrade.


I'm sure lots of yall are used to adaptions not understanding/caring about their source material, but this is the first time its been so bad for me  
At least it's a video game and the gameplay side is pretty authentic.

[Legend]

Made it to the third region!

I'm glad the game has an info panel for everyone because I have no clue who most of these names are.

[Legend]

Done!

What a complex game to review. Gameplay is like a 9/10 but the story is a 1/10 (or -5/10 if you are an Avatar nerd).

I swear the writers must have not watched the movies, or actively disliked the movies. I hated how speciesist/arrogant they made all the na'vi.

Spoiler for Hidden:

<br>I was team Teylan the whole game. These navi sucked. Even the human bad guy must not have been that bad since he wore your bracelet every day (joking, but it sure is &nbsp;funky storytelling for him to be wearing it at the end)<br><br>and wtf is an avatar body doing wreathing in pain on a hospital bed? The human can unplug at any time. Smaller note but I couldn&#39;t even find a link bed for that avatar.<br>

Hardly any of the na'vi felt like na'vi. They're just humans in blue paint that act like humans and deal with human issues in modern human ways.

The two new regions were all but creatively bankrupt imo. Not like there's a lot you can do with a plains region, but it's just Earth Africa with a blue coat of paint. I was so excited for the cold region but it was just Northern California. I got so bummed when I noticed all the redwoods. The forests of Avatar aren't 100% original but when I went back it was like night and day with all the creative alien things. Like I love the weird silver snake tree things.

It feels most of the new stuff introduced is just lazy fan fiction. The menu at Animal Kingdom is more alien than all the cheeses and what nots in the game.



Gameplay wasn't perfect, I dislike that even the big bases repeated, but it was pretty dang good most of the time. Just so fun to play as a na'vi. Loved finding rocket launchers although they really screwed up my stealth attempts  

Also really cool how some of the story missions went super deep into bases yet it was still all seamless. I don't think I've ever played a game that has blended an open world sandbox with linear story levels so well.


I played in "exploration" mode and most of the time that was pretty fun, but it's literally broken for some missions. "Go East from X to find us!" when the game actually wanted me to go West, or "Go to the coordinates" when there are no coordinates. Even when it'd say a specific location name, I'd have no way to search for that location by name. I'd just have to check every single settlement (I quickly learned to temporarily switch to "guided" mode and not waste my time).



When the credits finally rolled, I felt free. I skipped a lot of side missions towards the end so maybe I'll return just since I liked the gameplay so much, but it won't be for a while.

Also maybe it was just me, but the credits are kinda broken. They kept having random flickers and shifting sidways. Then once it got really dense with legal writing, it'd lag and half the screen would be black until the text popped in.

[nnodley]

I'm on final mission i believe. I'm kinda ready to be done with it. Gameplay is so good which makes me not want to stop. But man the story and side missions are pretty boring and soul less.

[Legend]

One thing I forgot to mention is that it was such a lost cause to not have more na'vi language in the game. The one part it's spoken was great. Makes funky writing not sound as bad too.

(from The Way of Water)