When Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game (a title I believe is still a work in progress) was teased several months back, I think many people wrote it off as a simple IP fighting game property and nothing more, but it’s really blown people’s expectations out of the water, and after a few early previews it’s now become a hotly anticipated fighting game. Speaking of which, a firebender is our next character reveal in the Fire Nation princess herself Azula.
Azula is a fascinating character because of some mechanics unique to her, but from what I can tell she’s a hyper rushdown focused character between her multiple airdashes and hyper aggressive air game, but it should be noted that the first thing she does is throw out a floating fireball trap akin to Ash Crimson from King of Fighters, or even a Departure portal like JP from Street Fighter, and manually set it off to catch Aang during his air dash. Some of Azula’s specials also leave a trail of fire on the ground that enhance the effect of following special moves that go across the trails. Li and Lo, one of her support character choices, also enhance and extend the length of her trap specials. All of this leads me to believe that round 1 Azula is more trap focused than anything else.
You might notice I had to specify round 1, because if Azula loses a round she enters Firelord Mode, which is basically a superpowered version of Azula that actually is an insane rushdown machine with wild combos and new, unique specials. Should you pick the Ursa support character Azula will lose her mind and always be in Firelord Mode.
These unique gameplay approaches, as well as some special interactions with just Azula such as Zuko redirecting her lightning back at her, or Aang redirecting her lightning into the sky, really show that Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game has some mechanical chops behind it as well as genuine love and passion for the source material put in. I’d definitely keep an eye out for this game as it nears its release on July 2nd, 2027, and is currently available for preorder on Steam.