Fans of the series will recognize the opening scene of
Avatar: The Last Airbender as the Northern Water Tribe where Aang and Katara are practicing and mastering their waterbending. But where the TV series continues from their to Aang's studies of earthbending under the Blind Bandit Toph, the game plays through an all new adventure that is kicked off by Katara being captured by a strange machine.
The game is broken up into six chapters. Each chapter is a location that we have either seen before (Omashu) or is new to the Avatar universe (The Lost Island). Each location is open ended and lets you roam all over the place. As you meet people, you will be asked to perform quests that could be finding a certain number of crystals or flowers or tomatoes or other similar items. Other missions might be to restore an old sanctuary or help a person create a damn before the rainy season starts. Each location has a main mission that is really the only thing you need to complete in order to advance the story, but if you want to collect all of the special equipment or other goodies, you should strive to get 100% in all chapters.
Avatar is a fairly solid Action/RPG. Your party starts off with just Aang and his airbending abilities, but before long Sokka and his club join the fight. Eventually Katara and her waterbending/healing abilities joins your party and you meet up with an earthbender named Haru.
Each character has a skill tree that, as you level up, lets you master various abilities. These abilities can be offensive, defensive or specific to the character. For instance, Aang has several air attacks, air shields and distraction moves, while Katara can use her water as a shield, weapon or for healing. The only character that doesn't have a special category is Haru, but his defensive and offensive abilities more than make up for it.
Since I just got done playing the PS2 version of Avatar, I couldn't help but notice a somewhat lack of replay value this time around. The joy of exploration and trying to figure out where the next mission would lead me was gone when playing through the Wii version. I found myself thinking, "Okay, when I finish here, I need to move to the North East part of the map to the hidden cave," instead of having to find out exactly where a trail of stolen food would lead me. Now, this might not have been a problem if I hadn't played it through right away and waited a few weeks or months before starting a new game. We shall see when I decide to play through it yet again.