Diet Platinum: None of the calories, tastes like chemicals.
Alternate Title: A brief review of an even more brief game.
I'll admit, my expectations weren't high when I picked up The Legend of Korra off PSN for $6, but if you've followed my game playing history you should well know that I am someone who engages with the questionable to sate my own foolish curiosity. Sometimes that works out, as with the last game I reviewed. This one? I'd say my low expectations were well met and not in any way surpassed. While it's no Devil May Cry 2 in terms of awful, The Legend of Korra is more often than not just really boring with a hint of frustration sprinkled on top.
To be fair, my expectations for Korra were higher than the average licensed piece of garbage (which... also doesn't really exist in the way it used to), being made by the crazy action game wizards at Platinum Games. They made Bayonetta 2. That game's pretty great. There's a gem of an interesting game in Korra too, but fittingly enough as a $15 downloadable title it's roughly 1/4 the game that something like Bayonetta is, or even the brief but intense Metal Gear Rising. It's short, shallow and clearly must've been made on a miniscule budget. As someone who has never watched The Legend of Korra but understands it's hip with all the kids because lesbians or something, I'm going to take the hot guess that this isn't a very good representation of the source material. The story is... basically nonexistent and seems like it was written by some intern and the little voice acting there is seems phoned in. An old man steals the avatar's powers, she gets them back and fights him. Not exactly what I've heard about the show or saw from The Last Airbender, which I have watched.
From a gameplay perspective though, Avatar seemingly has built-in hooks for interesting combat, what with the four elements and their martial-arts inspired movesets. So the game immediately has to cock it up by not granting you access to all of them until the very end in a hilarious attempt at "player progression" (hilarious because the game is 3 hours long at most). Water has the longest range, Earth is the "slow and strong" type, Fire is the "fast and weak" type and Air is the type you use when you want to kill all of the enemies surrounding you with AOE tornadoes 'n shit. They all have combos that basically boil down to: 1. Pressing Square a bunch 2. Pressing Triangle like twice 3. Pressing Square a bunch and then triangle. You can also hold the button to charge moves and give yourself a short boost with that element. You can dodge with R2 (Korra's dodge animation looking suspiciously like Bayonetta's...) and Block/Parry with L2. If this sounds alright, it just sort of boils down to mashing with the occasional "Mash L2 to counter or R2 to dodge" thrown in depending on if said attack is unblockable or not. There are also literally 4 kinds of enemies: Dudes, Benders, Robots and Spirits, all of whom appear in different colors with slightly different moves and one passably unique final boss. There are also bad minigames, like the one where you ride Korra's snow wolf thing and need to move back and forth to avoid obstacles, or the Pro Bending stuff that consists of also mashing buttons and occasionally countering or dodging. The camera isn't great, did I mention that? It's not. I died a fair number of times because of it getting stuck in a corner or the lock on making it hard to see the enemies I wasn't locked onto.
It all reeks of a budget title done as mercenary work, but of course that's exactly what it is. No amount of sorta decent controls will fix that. I finished Korra in a single sitting (at like 2 1/2 or 3 hours at most) and in the Platinum tradition you're given incentive to replay levels to get more stuff or unlock secrets. I think I'll pass. Those are 3 hours of my life I'm never going to get back (I could've been playing Fire Emblem or something), but nothing about this game is eminently hateable, just... boring and shallow. If you have $6 and need your Platinum fix before that Transformers game they're making (also clearly mercenary work, so don't put your hopes up)... it's not the worst thing in the universe. Not worth your money, but not offensively bad or anything. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to make up for lost time and play some Fire Emblem or something.