Hogwarts Legacy review

[Christopher R Taylor]

I picked up this game recently, as I had a little money to spare.  It was a very slow download from Steam for me, for some reason but loads up pretty fast.  The start up screens are very slow; you get a 1-minute Epilepsy warning, then a 1-minute (or more) screen where its checking shaders.  Just a tip, when you are first installing it, you will get a big screen with a zillion options for things like color blindness, then a screen of options, and if you click to adjust the options, you have to go BACK from that screen to then start up the game.

 

Overall the game plays well and has a great feel to it.  Its got the same whimsical feel as Harry Potter, overlaid with a sense of darkness in the background.  So you have odd cute animals and names like Poppy Sweeting and somewhat silly behavior from some NPCs, but also some very dark and tragic storylines.  Very British, in other words.  The world feels incredibly magical and unexpected (for example, one of the ways to get through an area involves having big frog status swallow you and spit you out of another frog statue).

 

The game hits most of the elements you want from Harry Potter: the spells, the setting, Hogwarts Castle which is vast and confusing, butterbeer, flying on brooms, wands, school uniforms and houses, etc.  You get very brief experiences in classes from the books such as Defense against the Dark Arts and Potions, you get flying lessons.

 

There are many, MANY puzzles and minigames, at least a dozen just in Hogwarts alone if not two dozen.  There are doors that open by solving algebra equations cleverly hidden as magical symbols, puzzles that require spells to interact with, puzzles involving catching things, and so on.  The world is absolutely filled with this stuff, and rewards exploration and curiosity very well.

 

The Combat system is really complicated-seeming but easy to pick up and use.  You will find it very interesting figuring out combinations of attacks and flinging your opponents all over the place.  Most of the classics from the books and films are there to play with, and have very proper and fun results.  And yes, you can learn the dark "Forbidden" curses.

 

As for drawbacks, there are some.  The game has a LOT, and I mean a LOT of dialog cutscenes, which are unskippable and lock you up so you cannot access the menu or pause.  The tutorial is very long and is mostly you walking around as Professor Fig talks.  Death happens in the game but is almost casual, your reactions are minimal as you simply don't care (especially the male voice actor is very dull and flat and has odd reactions like they read the lines isolated from the story and didn't know exactly how they were supposed to be responding).

 

The broom flight controls are absolutely abysmal, especially on PC.  The PC port is very weak, and did not in any manner take advantage of the much broader flexibility of keyboard and mouse.  The game engine tends to stutter and blur sections at times on the PC as well.  There are a few bugs, but not many.  One of the most obnoxious things to me in the game is the way the "alohamora" spell works (the unlock spell).  Instead of actually just unlocking doors, it picks the lock, and you have to do a pointless little minigame to unlock the door, instead of, you know, the magic doing it.  There are other minor annoyances, but they don't take away from the game particularly, they're just unfortunate, like how you cannot sit down anywhere, or how sometimes the repeated dialog lines get tedious.  

 

A personal annoyance: your character is the Chose One who can do no wrong.  Literally.  The worst you get is a few lines of critical dialog for using forbidden curses.  You're great at everything you do.  You can literally walk into houses and steal from them.  A curfew is mentioned but it only comes up once in the game and otherwise you can do anything you want.  This is a minor annoyance in a game where it would be absolutely obnoxious in a book or film.

 

There are some bits missing you might want.  You almost never actually attend real classes or learn stuff other than new spells.  There's no Quiddich, which to me is no problem but others might miss it.  There is no romance storyline.  There's very little interaction with most of the world except for very specific things.

 

I haven't finished the main quest, but I have read it is a bit of a letdown, and that a side quest involving a Slytherin friend ends up being more powerful and dramatic.  

 

Overall I can recommend this game, and there's a good reason the thing has sold a kajillion units.  There will be expansions to it that will address some of these little problems, and I expect it to get bigger and more impressive as time goes on.

[slikmar]

Thanks. I have it on my Steam wish list and hope by the time I can get around to buying and playing it that they will iron out some of the porting to PC problems. Seems strange that a game like this, at this point, would fail in some of the ways you mentioned (not sitting down?) but otherwise I am looking forward to it.

[Hermit]

If I get this, it'll be when it's on sale so.. maybe in a year or two Still thank you for the review

[slikmar]

<sarcasm almost always on> I hope this doesn't mean I support her stance on Trans people?<sarcasm never really off>

[Christopher R Taylor]

I finished the game and the ending was satisfying enough to me at least.  There's not a gigantic amount of replay value, but at some point I'll likely start up a new character and go through it again.

[slikmar]

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I finished the game and the ending was satisfying enough to me at least.  There's not a gigantic amount of replay value, but at some point I'll likely start up a new character and go through it again.

I don't replay a lot of games, especially story based, as I am one of those who chase down every collectable/quest my first play through. Only games I can remember truly replaying just to replay (and not to play the harder versions because there is a change - like Max Payne 2) is the Borderlands series. But part of that is playing different characters with different abilities.

[Christopher R Taylor]

An update, I have played through again at a higher difficulty level and it becomes very much harder as you go along.  The main challenge is that you rarely fight one enemy, or even two or three, its usually five to eight enemies at once.  Early on you have very few options for crowd control or stealth, so you have to just take it in the teeth, which can be extremely difficult at the higher difficulty levels (say, "normal").  Compounding this is the way the enemies move.  They can be a long ways off but all of them can rush rapidly up to you, they love to surround and swarm you. 

 

At the lower difficulty levels you get a warning when you're going to want your defense up, but not at higher, and at higher levels the enemies will attack much more frequently and quicker.  Get used to chugging dozens of potions and taking a very long time to fight.

[slikmar]

Well, I play and enjoy the Dark Souls style games, so this type of difficulty not unexpected to me in games. Games with multiple enemies attacking really do need some type of CC other then dodge and run around. Still looking forward to playing it.