u/Events-Bot

Character Notes below! (Per official Avatar Legends Twitter account)

ALL:
-Standardized hurtboxes for knockdowns across cast - they were similar before but slightly off leading to some incongruent behavior, now should behave generally the same.
-Fixed bugs where using certain moves would loop at unintended positions during Wind Summon (Aang/Kyoshi's pushing/pulling wind).

AZULA:
-Removed ability to jump cancel into stand throw from Ignition Step (Run) (F+Flow).

KATARA:
-Fixed bug where she was able to cancel the startup of her Cascading Strike attack series (QCF+ATK) into EX Water Whip Stance (QCB+2ATK).
-Fixed bug where air Water Whip (j.QCB+ATK) and Frigid Snap (j.QCF+ATK) would store improper travel speeds.

NIGHTMARE KORRA:
-Removed unintended Hard Knockdown from Wildfire Splitter (QCB+B).

SOKKA:
-Fixed Boomerang projectile not scaling properly in combos. EX Boomerang still has better scaling for now for cool factor.
-Fixed Boomerang staying active in cinematic supers even if he got hit, causing weird behaviors
-Fixed 10+ Sword Level setting his opponent's size on hit which lead to some hilarious results (enormous characters).

TOPH:
-Fixed weird camera behavior on pulling opponent with Shifting Earth (B+Flow) while she stands next to a Champ's Ring wall near camera corner.

ZAHEER:
-Fixed behavior with Critical Hit ground throw hitting at same time as Ghazan's boomerang.
-Fixed behavior with Ming-Hua losing collision on whiffed throws.
-Fixed ability to restand opponents with j.C if hitting them at same time as Ming-Hua's OTG hit.

ZUKO:
-Fixed Combustion Boost (Upward) (j.Flow) carrying much more momentum than intended

The Avatar Legends fighting game had its (seemingly) final beta this past weekend and while the game was already kinda surprising me with its mechanics and qol features, the thing that gave me the most fun was the "critical hit" system.

The basic gist is that every character, on top of all their general tools, has unique secondary objectives they can try to meet in the match and get rewarded for with advantages in-game if they succeed. Technically this isn't a new invention, recent MK games had a similar system called Krushing Blows, but Avatar takes the step of more deliberately trying to make these secondary objectives feel in line with actually embodying character traits and habits on a more personal level.

Azula, for instance, is a notorious perfectionist, and you're heavily encouraged to lean into that while playing her by pressing an attack button again at *just* the right time during some of her attacks to juice them up for bigger combos... assuming you haven't lost a round. Because Azula is a perfectionist if she loses any one round she transitions into her more insane Firelord personality from the end of the series and as a result she **has no perfect timing opportunities on her moves anymore**, instead you start the round with some extra power, less evasive movement options, and much more straightforward attacks for bigger damage and less subtlety.

Meanwhile if you play Korra, you're incentivized to be (as kindly as I can put it), a bit silly and reckless. The "Fearless" critical hit rewards you for doing, quite literally, running up to someone's face and hitting them with your DP, which if you don't play fighting games is basically just straight high risk low reward gambling even though it's extremely funny if it works. She's also rewarded, uniquely, for being the first person to land a hit when the round starts and, more importantly, landing bending attacks in the order of her Avatar cycle.

Hell sometimes the critical hits are relatively simple and just cute character quirks. The game has a pseudo-parry/dodge mechanic where if you start mediating, and someone attacks you, your character will do some cool little dodges and potentially punish the opponent. But since Aang is a pacifist, you get rewarded for using this mechanic dodge moves several times *but not* attack with a punish after. Meanwhile if you play Toph, and just hold down the button, instead of mediating she gives a character specific insult and takes some of their meter while giving her some instead, but only if you get the full taunt off lol.

There's way more than just these little ones, even among the characters I already mentioned, but I just wanted to appreciate out loud the surprising amount of depth that went into not just the actual fighting but also the character details itself. All this for a sprite-based $30 game in 2026 genuinely felt too good to be true, even if you don't like fighting games I hope anyone else who likes Avatar picks it up later this month, you'll have a lotta fun with it.