Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game review for Nintendo Switch

System: Switch
Release date: July 23, 2026
Developer: Gameplay Group International
Publisher: PM Studios

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, Avatar fans looked forward in harmony to the under-development fighting game based on the four nations of the series. Then, everything changed when Maximum Entertainment cancelled the title. Only Gameplay Group International, a dev team of experienced fighting game creators and long-time Avatar fans could resurrect the project. Two years passed. and before we knew it, the long-sought after title was finally in our hands. A lot of people were wary of the game being trusted with an upstart indie studio, but I never lost hope. I believe this game will please Avatar fans across the world. Why am I so confident in this game’s quality? Let’s talk about the plot of this game’s story mode.

The overall story of the game was outlined by series co-creator Michael DiMartino and scribed by Time Hedrick, who has written lots of episodes for both the original series and The Legend of Korra. Here, we open with Avatar Aang having woken up to an unfamiliar setting, where his friends don’t remember him and Avatar Kyoshi – an Avatar that had preceded Aang in the lineage of the position – still walks among the living. At any one period of time, only one Avatar is supposed to be alive. Puzzled by these developments, Aang senses that even the chi and energy of the world he’s found himself in feels off, and sets out to figure out what’s going on. He soon discovers that no person he knows is acting as they are supposed to; Toph Beifong is out for world domination, Sokka is a sage with power that can even match the masters of the four elements, and Fire Lord (now Phoenix King) Ozai is a man earnestly trying to keep peace between kingdoms to create a better future for his kids, Zuko and Azula. As the story progresses, we learn more about why timelines are seemingly converging, why nobody is acting in-character, and who the true perpetrators of this cataclysmic event are. 

The story can be seen as quite fanfic-like, but personally, I really enjoyed it. It is almost voiced in its entirety by the cast of the game, save for a few short scenes with NPCs, and seeing characters who would ordinarily not be paired up interact with each other like Korra and Azula, Zaheer and Aang, and Sokka, and Kyoshi is very entertaining. Although cutscenes play out with in-game sprites and artwork rather than fully animated scenes, the voice acting does a lot to hook you in and it really works. The whole scenario reminded me of the first Hyrule Warriors’ story where characters from different points in time teamed up and interacted with each other. Its very charming, and sells the value in a concept like an Avatar crossover fighting game. The story progresses in the book format of the TV shows via a mission select encompassing over 25 chapters. Once beaten, any previous mission can be selected so if a particular scene or fight was particularly enjoyable, players can choose it freely after completion. 

Alongside the dedicated story mode, short stories also play out in Arcade Mode with each fighter going through their own unique storyline, albeit not voiced this time around. Aang gets in a bunch of fights trying to help Momo lose a bit of weight from overeating, Toph participates in a multirealm fighting tournament to prove she is the strongest earthbender across all time, and Sokka pits himself against vastly superior fighters in order to test his skill with a sword and surpass his Master Piandao. These are all fun little plots that have some fun in-character jokes in the text boxes and add nice flavor to what would otherwise be a basic arcade mode ladder.

Fans will notice after playing the story and arcade modes after a while that the fighters in this game do not feature their original TV actors. If players were hoping to hear Dante Basco as Zuko or Mae Whitman as Katara will likely feel disappointed at first, but as a long-time fan myself who was hoping the original voice actors would return, I was pleasantly surprised to find the new voice cast playing these characters do a spectacular job. Vivian Vencer does an absolutely outstanding turn as Toph, who doubles as the game’s menu and match announcer, and as someone who has seen the original series a half-dozen times the whole way through, I could not differentiate Suzie Yeung’s performance of Azula to Grey DeLisle’s original portrayal. She sounds almost identical. I sincerely hope that players that are returning fans to the franchise give this new cast a fair shake, because they really do an admirable job in what must have felt sincerely difficult performances to live up to. 

To delve into the gameplay a little deeper, Avatar Legends is a 2D 1v1 fighting game where the goal is to get the opponent’s health bar to 0, akin to something like Street Fighter or Fatal Fury. Avatar, however, is a four button fighter; light, medium, heavy attacks and a dedicated flow button make up these four. Attacks change based on if your fighter is standing, crouching or in the air.

Avatar is quite a movement-centric fighting game where combining clean combos in tandem with good flow movement grants the best chance of victory. Super combos can be performed with a directional input and hitting light, medium and heavy attack at the same time, and light attack pressed in tandem with flow allows for a throw attack. Flow has a limited meter, however, and if used too recklessly will fully deplete and severely hamper player movement. Also like Street Fighter, EX special moves are also featured. Each fighter has special moves based on their unique fighting attributes from the series; Aang uses his glider/bo staff in some of his attacks alongside his airbending, Sokka as a non-bender uses his space sword and trusty boomerang to mess up his opponents with a tricky fighting style fit for a tactician, and Korra features all four elements to fill out her brawler-style moveset.

While the roster is full of fan-favorites and some surprise picks like Kyoshi and Zaheer, everyone is fun and feel distinct from each other. At first glance, with firebending masters Zuko, Azula, and Ozai all playable, alongside Korra, Aang and Kyoshi who can also use the element, I was worried that the roster would feel too heavily weighted towards the fire nation, but thankfully there’s enough differences to keep things fresh. Azula has stance switches based on her level of sanity, and Zuko uses his Blue Spirit sword skills in some of his moves.

Alongside the dozen playable characters, each fighter features three support characters that augment the way they play. All are popular characters from the series, and although they aren’t voiced, they do hang around in the background of the stage and have unique animations, in a manner similar to your teammates in the King of Fighters series. Aang has his mentor from childhood Gyatso, alongside his pets Appa and Momo. Sokka has his girlfriend Suki, ex-girlfriend (and now moon) Princess Yue and Master Piandao, Toph has earthbending wrestlers/mercenaries The Boulder, The Hippo and the animal that taught her how to sense things around her as a blind girl, the Badgermole. Each individual support grants a unique trait to the fighter’s gameplay, like access to unique moves, brand new flow techniques and improvement to base kit special moves. 

Online capabilities include basic matchmaking with fellow Nintendo Switch users as the console does not currently include cross-play, along with private lobbies that can be accessed with a special code. Training Mode is here and accounted for, and local vs. against another person or the CPU is also included. A gallery featuring unique art, sketches, music and other cool collectibles is available and can be obtained by completing arcade mode runs or purchasing items from the in-game currency that is earned through story mode progression. The music of the game is really fantastic, and very in-keeping with the otherworldly vibe that the franchise has featured over it’s two decade and a bit existence. 

While the core of the gameplay is spectacularly fun and a very smooth experience, Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game seems to knock it out of the park in some areas and completely swing-and-miss in others. Before airing my grievances with the game, it is worth noting that the team behind the title has already flagged a lot of these issues and plan to fix them in patches and are actively seeking additional feedback, so I have written my review with that in mind. There are minor issues that don’t impact the experience that are barely worthy of mention, but I’ll briefly mention them; in the story mode, sometimes a fighter’s sprite will glitch and a movement animation or attack animation won’t fully cycle, leading to funny instances where someone like Toph is standing on thin air or character sprites move way too close to each other in a cutscene. There are typos and grammatical errors in some of the Arcade Mode runs – I spotted two or three in Toph’s ladder, but these problems are negligible and don’t detract from the experience.

One major issue I have with the game is a lack of a difficulty slider. In the story mode, in the arcade mode and in local vs., there is no traditional easy, medium, and hard difficulty select. There is just one standard difficulty. If it’s too tough for a player and they can’t win, there’s no option to lower the challenge, and vice versa if players feel that they are having an easy time of it. There are also no options for friend lobbies online, which is a serious bummer and something I hope gets rectified in the future, and although there are alternate color schemes for each fighter, there is no dedicated unique costumes or skins. Those hoping to see season 1 Zuko’s ponytail or Aang’s fire-bender disguise from the last season are in for disappointment. Hopefully these are items that can be included as an update or paid DLC going forward.

Training Mode’s UI isn’t brilliant, with dummy settings limited in what they can do, and options quite hard to find and put into action. Holding the four buttons down resets the player in training, but would personally prefer this to be one button press for convenience’s sake. Something like Street Fighter 6’s pressing in a control stick to reset would be a welcome change. The Nintendo Switch version specifically currently holds no way to purchase the upgraded version of the game with the season pass, but the developers have assured players it will be available in the near future. 

While the game is quite unpolished in some areas outside gameplay and drawbacks worthy of note, these are things that can be mended with updates over time. The core here is some of the best 2D fighting fun I’ve played in years, which ultimately is what matters. With a frantic energy full of charm and love for the source material, mastering the elements is far from a pain and I’m looking forward to seeing where this game goes from here. With a season pass of popular fighters like Ty Lee and Uncle Iroh on the way, alongside a free DLC fighter to promote the recent Avatar film, I’m not drinking cactus juice when I tell you this game is worth your time. 

Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game copy provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.