I've been exhausted with modern gaming focusing on presentation over mechanics but this was a good wakeup call re: how much that stuff really matter. The game feels great to play but no amount of snappy movement tech and mind expanding gameplay depth can cover for Aang's slapshod model and completely busted animations. There's no chance of even remotely buying into the fantasy that you're actually playing as the Avatar here, and thus a lot of appeal goes with that.
The actual cartoonier characters fare a bit better, and the developers seem to get incrementally better and making the most of their low resources with the DLC characters, but none of this feels like enough. Nick has fun interactions and satisfying movement but I ultimately end up going back to Smash Bros every time because that really IS Sora smacking Kirby so hard he gets sent to another timeline. Not a mannequin dressed like him crashing into a guy in a Ninja Turtles suit over and over again until one spontaneously combust. That second fantasy is appealing in it's own way but in a "funny gif on tenor" kind of way, not a "devote hundreds of hours of your life to it" kind of way.
The actual cartoonier characters fare a bit better, and the developers seem to get incrementally better and making the most of their low resources with the DLC characters, but none of this feels like enough. Nick has fun interactions and satisfying movement but I ultimately end up going back to Smash Bros every time because that really IS Sora smacking Kirby so hard he gets sent to another timeline. Not a mannequin dressed like him crashing into a guy in a Ninja Turtles suit over and over again until one spontaneously combust. That second fantasy is appealing in it's own way but in a "funny gif on tenor" kind of way, not a "devote hundreds of hours of your life to it" kind of way.