Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora™ is a good game - if you love playing the same game they have been making for over 15 years. You would think that it is "NEXT GENERATION" gameplay... well... let me tell you this - IT. IS. NOT. We came here to experience James Cameron's amazing PANDORA and play as an Na'vi ourselves but what we got was a Far Cry Avatar game with a lot of things wrong with it in the end. Below I will state the pros and the cons.

DISCLAIMER - I have EXACTLY 178 hours on this on Ubisoft. Not all of that time is JUST MY playtime as I shared a subscription with a friend. I just nabbed it on steam today so its in my steam library and FULLY own it now rather than subscribing to play it.

DISCLAIMER 2 - This is NOT a NEGATIVE review. This is a NEUTRAL review. I can't leave a NEUTRAL review so I had to make it negative sadly.

⚫So my first issue is this - Copy-Pasted enemy outposts and facilities. If you notice, almost every single location is the exact same (apart from the zones of course). Nothing has been "James Cameron'd" and this, this made exploring Pandora so... so... pointless? Fruitless? Less rewarding? Say what you will, it's just clear that whoever thought about "Control+C" - "Control+V" was only thinking about lining there own pockets (or are pure lazy).
⚫My second issue was this - How indistinguishable the Na'vi clans are from each other. Imagine this, they are all blue with different TATTOO's on them or "PATTERNS" on their body but one is a TREE clan and the other GROUND clan (for instance) and the names are Boktu and Buktu, both pronounced the exact same... its almost disgusting that they got away with this. It feels like they just, again, copy-pasted the same Na'vi and changed their patterns up, clothes up and names A LITTLE and made them "clans". James Cameron shows us how to make them look different... why can't you Ubisoft?
⚫There are no bosses in Avatar, traditionally speaking of course. I am not kidding. The only thing that is considered a "BOSS" would be the at the very end of the story but... you can kill him instantly by blowing up a gas canister.
⚫You know what a direhorse is, yes? the horse mount -_-. You know what an IKRAN is, yes? Its the flying mount. Well, you get the tutorial mission for the horse on the second zone, and the FLYING mount... why? Who would choose a horse that NEEDS to be manoeuvred past rocks, trees, enemies e.t.c over flying... I mean... what is the point in the horse then?
⚫The ending parts of the story are so spectacular in terms of action but... the first half of the campaign had a much more lasting impression than the end (there are reasons for this I cannot mention due to spoilers)
⚫The main big bad's - RDA's John Mercer and General Angela are he worst "big bads" I have seen to date. You never encounter them. You basically sit on a discord video call with them while they trash talk you. This left a sour taste in my mouth once the credits started rolling.
⚫The weapons/Arsenal you are given, is lacking in so many ways. It is VERY limited compared to Far Cry 6 or Horizon Forbidden West. You will noticeably use the LONGBOW the entire game forgetting that ANY other weapon exists.
⚫Each mission is marked by a recommended level, right. Imagine - Destiny 2 or The division 2s gear level. Avatar has that exact same feature, but what makes this bad you might ask? Well, its completely null and voided. You can go in without gear on and just punch EVERYTHING by abusing your skills. Maybe not on the hardest difficulty as much as easy or medium but... why have that as a feature if it means nothing?
⚫You cannot lure animals to enemy positions to make distractions like Far Cry... why? oh, is it because I have a hacky hacky tool to disable robots and traps? Guess what, you cannot turn these "robots" on each other.... wow...
⚫There are locations in the game that have NOTHING to do on them but collect a singular bit of fruit after spending 30-50 minutes reaching that location. Yeah the areas look cool... but that's about 30 minutes of NOTHING but running to reach... a plant to make food? Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom STOMPS Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora here, AND THAT'S A NINTENDO GAME., or even better, ELDEN RING!!!

⚫Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora™ is a game that let's us explore Pandora, James Cameron's Pandora. From it's illustrious plants and fauna, to the sky islands shrouded in fog.
⚫The hunting mechanic in this game is fantastic! You get better rewards for a "clean kill" - a One Hit Kill - AND, you can PERFECTLY harvest plants? Fauna? to give you better versions of that item to craft stronger, more potent food for yourself.
⚫The HUD. This is a big one for me. If you know how BAD Assassin's Creed: Mirage's HUD was... you will be amazed with this games HUD tenfold. It has nothing there, not even a minimap. Letting you explore YOURSELF without your HAND BEING HELD the entire way. This can both be good and bad as at times, I did get lost trying to find a weapons shop, haha.
⚫The story holds its own up until the very end, and it has DLC to improve on some aspects that the game got wrong or just blatantly abused.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora let's you explore a visually stunning alien world without the CLUTTERED HUD to put you off or break your immersion, but it sadly has many downfalls too, such as the copy-pasted enemy outposts, its one-dimensional combat and an environment lacking in any surprises but in splendor.

This makes Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.... basically a Avatar Far Cry game with no imagination of its own. To put it short, it's a basic shooting adventure that’s more inside the box than truly out of this world.

I would like to say this first and foremost - I missed out on the original Yakuza release on the PS3 when I was younger. I never like the looks of it and, to be honest, I never thought I would play it. Oh boy, was I wrong... was... I... wrong.

I got this in 2020. I wanted something fresh. Something I won't be able to beat in a day. Something that would keep me wanting... well... more and that is exactly what I got from playing Yakuza 0. I knew nothing about "kiryu" or "Majima" or the streets of Osaka and Tokyo. I thought It was just a typical "beat 'em up" , Japanese satire game. Again, I was so utterly wrong.

Before I get into anything, first a quick disclaimer and my registered completion time!

100% Complete in 112.6 hours - December 12th 2020

This review is MY opinion, MY own personal experience and MY thoughts. I am brutally honest when it comes to reviewing games. If you do not like my opinion, my time or respect my personal experience, please move on.

⚫The story is PHENOMENAL!! It's set in 1988 with 2 amazing leading characters - Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima who are caught in the middle of a land war between 2 rival clans. This was the birthplace of Goro and Kiryu, who at the time... I knew nothing about. At no point in the story did I loose interest because the writing of the story is just.... AMAZING.... (sorry, I'm not going to spoil anything!)
⚫You get to explore 1988's Osaka and Tokyo. One area as each character. As Kiryu - Kamurocho, Tokyo's Kabukicho District. As Majima - Osaka's Sotenbori. Each area is packed to the brim with detail from top to bottom. This was astonishing to see and for a game so old... it was a marvellous accomplishment. From big bright lights shining the way, to dark, damp and musty little alleyways filled with bikes, bottles, bins, trash e.t.c (lets not forget the thugs!!!)
⚫If you get "fed up" with the story there is tonnes of content to do. For example, running around Kamurocho I found the SEGA building and inside of it had games such as OutRun and Space Harrier... Absolute classics!!! Not only that there are tonnes of other minigames such as Disco, WHICH IS SO FUN, fishing, blackjack, Koi-koi and Mahjong, these last 2 I had a tough time learning but... the game taught me how to play both. There is so many mini-games to be played you will never run out of stuff to do. Some are harder than others but it teach's you and to accomplish 100% you need to learn how to play them.
⚫Now, another note about "side-content" is the substories. When I first heard of the "Yakuza in nappies" I thought to myself "what a dumb thing to have in a gangster type game"... but trust me... it only adds to the experience. The sheer emotions you feel doing these side story's... first it could be anger, then hate, then pity and then you might even start to cry with the reason WHY they are doing what they are doing. I'm not going to spoil anything but trust me... it all makes sense.
⚫Each character has their own locations, as I mentioned above. Now, with that comes two AMAZING mini-games of sort, Kiryu's real estate business in Tokyo and Majimas Hostess bar in Osaka. These mini-games are absolutely fantastic. One thing to note - they require a lot of time to complete and maximise yen (the currency). You meet amazing characters during these mini-games too that will almost make you shed a tear when it's time to move on.
⚫Going to sound like a broken record here but, another thing with each character (I know, I know) is that they have their own fighting styles which, YOU as the player, can tailor each of these fighting styles to each scenario. I sure did. Kiryu has brawler, which works best on smaller enemies. Beast which works best on groups and Rush, which works best on one-to-one combat. Then, Majima has, Breaker which works well on groups, thug which works best on one on one combat and finally, slugger which works best on boss's. They both gain their respective "TITLES MOVES" once you complete Kiryu's Real estate agent and Majimas Cabaret Club Czar. (now I did not know what this was until Yakuza Kiwami because this is a prequel game).
⚫The combat is brutal, well in depth with finishing moves and it just felt great. Don't get me wrong, I have played tonnes of Batman and the combat is not as fluent as the Batman Arkham series but it was more flashy and much more satisfying in my opinion. Funny thing, no one actually dies when you fight them either, just like Batman!!!
⚫I had no issues with the game at all. No lagging, stuttering, freezing, fps drops, crashing e.t.c. Even on my old crappy PC, Yakuza 0 ran so smoothly I was amazed.

⚫I got lost so much in the cities. (but as time went on, I knew them like the back of my hand)
⚫Japanese voice acting from start to finish with English subtitles (TRUST ME, YOU DON'T WANT THE ENGLISH VA'S) but I thought I'd mention this for others in-case they don't want Japanese only VA.
⚫The combat is a tad dated and this continues on to the next few games sadly. Batman Arkham games has much more fluent combat.

Phew... after all of that is said.... I thought I'd hate this game. I thought I'd never play it but after spending 100+ hours learning about the game, the story, Kiryu, Majiuma... I wanted more and with what I was told about the Yakuza series... I wouldn't be let down as this... this is a prequel and I said to myself "If this is a prequel.... damn, that was an amazing prequel".

An Open-world game, packed from top to bottom with detail, mini-games, a perfectly written story, perfectly designed/written characters, amazing Japanese Voice Actors.... I just cannot praise this game anymore than I already have.