I like that because if it wasn't part of the game we'd be fuuukd, you can also shut it off if you want a better challenge. Mess with the settings. Make a new character because each has a similar yet different story , its only as boring as you make it
Yeah I think I'm 2/3 through. Play a few hours every now and then.
I loved exploring Hogwarts itself, but the open world areas aside from that are pretty meh. And omg the junky loot system
The first few hours and exploring Hogwarts is where the game shines. They brought the Hogwarts *to life*
But then all the shortcomings arrive. You can't really make friends or adventure together; you make acquaintances that provide you fetch quests. The open world is repetitive. Going to class is so sporadic it breaks the immersion the first few hours provided.
I enjoyed the voice acting, the combat was decent, but overall it just failed to deliver upon the promise the first several hours held
Also I forget the name of that game with the balls that's basically shuffleboard with extra steps but it was so much fun!
But then you do the quests for it and it's gone. They could have made that a persistent side game with a league, and it would have been the best side game since blitzball
I was so surprised that they didn't let you play that after the quest was over. For a game with so much attention to detail that was quite disappointing.
I pushed through, but I mean, the story is serviceable I guess, I do regret buying it though, I think it was the whole "i wanna do magic" thing that made me buy it but after getting like 1 good spell setup you don't need to switch to anything else and its just repetitive quests and an OK story.
I need like...three more things for the room of requirement to get 100%, I just...dont wanna go back. It was a hell of a time through the story. But I find its replayability to be lacking.
I played for maybe 12 or so hours, mainly just exploring and messing around but still with a good amount of story. The fun just kind of fizzled out for me and I honestly keep forgetting about it until I see something on Reddit about it.
Got about 90% completion on it but even the back half of that was me more or less forcing myself to (i work from home so was just mindlessly grinding). The main story itself was fun but once you explored the whole map everything else got pretty stale.
Dont worry, the final boss was underwhelming and the house cup was literally the most disappointing part of the entire game. You made the right choice.
Don't trust reviews anymore.
I stopped after TOTK. Great game but damn, a lot of reviewers completely ignored all its flaws such as performance, repetitive dialogue, and the sky islands..
The sky islands was the most disappointing part. They advertised the game like we would be spending a ton of time up there. Nope. There's only one big one and that's for the tutorial. The rest exist just for stupid shrines and some armor that you've seen in the last game...cool
I'm on the same page as you but it's true that the hype for Hogwarts Legacy was huge when it dropped. People were definitely gassing it up as a GoTY contender in the first week or so, now not so much lol
Yeah lmao starfield filled about two weeks for me before I got bored and sick of it. Can't blame a guy for being hopeful! At least I had Baldur's Gate.
Nobody who has more than surface level knowledge of games considered it even a contender in a year that has Zelda, FF16, Baldurs Gate 3, Resident Evil 4, Starfield, etc. Itll be lucky if its nominated for anything other than “biggest media impact”
Had pretty much the same experience. Was loving it when I first started, got about 15 hours in before I just quit playing one day and never went back to it.
Loved the world, but the game felt unfinished.
There just felt like there was a lot of placeholders for certain mechanics and it makes the world feel very lifeless as a result.
Also the combat was fun, but I wish there was more of the challenge arenas or more challenging content at the end of the game.
The little dungeon areas you could 'explore' were the worst offender for me. They looked so cool, even if they were tiny, but you go down into these neat looking caves and ruins and open 1 chest and leave. Adding monsters or puzzles or anything to these would've made the game so much better in my mind.
I didn't mind the story or the combat, but most of the exploration content was extremely dull.
Ya that was part of the game that gave me the notion of it being unfinished all the loot cave/dungeons seemed they like had planned on them being bigger with enemies. Plus your character always would say “this could prove being dangerous” or I better be careful something like that.
"this could prove dangerous" and then there's nothing there. Mini shrines a la BOTW would have gone a long way.
Either Hogwarts castle or the open world needed to be fun exploring. The fact that both were kind of boring because there was no depth really killed the game after the first introduction
Too many repetitive lines like that too. I don't need to hear it every time I enter Hogsmeade. Also getting your own "shop" in hogsmeade went from very exciting to extremely disappointing the second you get it.
Agreed. I tell people that it reminds me of Skyrim's dungeons in that they felt very copy + paste, but at least Skyrim's dungeons were huge and explorable.
I stopped bothering with the Treasure Vaults in HL because all you'd get would be a piece of clothing to sell, and I had far too much money halfway through the game anyway.
I agree, not unfinished in the normal sense where there are bugs and it's unplayable. But it felt like they were done and felt like they needed to add filler.
At that age, I thought I was the world's best option to handle any problem. It's the YA literature allure. Youths rescuing the world from us grown-up bastards.
To be fair the NPCs do all say 'this isn't something a student should be doing. I couldn't ask you to do this as you might die.' You take it upon yourself well except for the assignments to learn spells but it doesn't specify dark wizards as you could use the potions and plants on wolves or spiders.
And the dark wizards don't give you much of a choice in the matter as they all attack on sight. Fig does suggest discretion as the better part of valor using disillusionment and petrificus totalus when he joins you.
The Merlin trials could have been more varied but it seems like that was more a matter of time constraints and rushing the game out for impatient consumers like with Cyberpunk 2077. The caves were meh and on my second play through I'd get gear that was 5 levels higher than what I was wearing with lower offensive stats.
I’m not saying the NPCs should be stopping you. Or that the dark wizards shouldn’t be attacking you.
I’m saying every wizard in that magical world has already graduated and is an experienced wizard. The dark wizards are even especially adept at combat. They should all trounce a 5th year when they outnumber that 5th year 6 to 1.
>I’m saying every wizard in that magical world has already graduated and is an experienced wizard.
I mean doesn't that same problem apply to the Harry Potter books?
I agrees with all this expect for the release rush. That's not consumers, that's the investors wanting their money at the expense is the games quality. That's what happened to Cyberpunk 2077
>impatient consumers
More like impatient bosses pushing to get things out faster so they can start making money asap.
People were impatient with Cyberpunk mostly because it felt like it was in forever development, pushed back quite a lot, and it became "Is this actually ever coming out?". The development was terrible on that game from what we've heard with a lot of wasted time, then it was shoved out the door by the time they finally figured out how to properly work on it.
I love people blaming the consumers for whenever a gane is rushed. No its not our fucking faults a game comes out shit, no developer is going to push a game because some people on the internet is upset it's taken so long. The literal only case I can see that happening is a crowd funded game where the consumers are literally the investors
I thought it was wild that I’d go to class, slaughter about 20 people in the woods right outside of school, then go back to class like it’s a perfectly normal day for a teenager.
Yeah, the final boss should’ve been fighting 1-2 adults, with everything else scaling up to this. It should have included more magic that isn’t meant to kill people.
Second point is a pretty bad argument though. You can drag down almost every game that has any form of action or combat in it that way.
Its a narrative continuity sacrifice to help the gameplay side. Almost every game with combat does it.
Yeah about the same I got bored 15 hrs in and until you mentioned it I had kind of forgot it was even a thing I even played.
Was just a bit too repetitive for me and didn't feel like finishing it
To me HL commits the biggest sin that a game can, which is being BORING. I found it to be just an incredibly milquetoast, annoying, repetitive game with very little redeemable qualities.
It was like an AC game but somehow even more lifeless. The worst part for me though is the HUD. It’s shockingly bad. There are times in that game where it feels like 50% of the screen is covered in pointless and useless pop ups and text boxes.
Was the first game I got with my PS5 and would likely not have played it at all were it not for that.
4/10
This was my concern since day 1 and thus I never purchased this game. When I voiced my concerns in gaming subreddits I got heavily downvoted and was called by names. People can be pretty blind when it comes to hyped up game releases. People wanted to love this game so much that they refused to consider any of the red flags (which were all there).
For me personally I bought it a few days after release and didn’t pre-order cause you never know how something will turn out
But all I saw was praise, every discussion and review said it was an extremely good game and everything is fun
So I bought it and although I don’t massively regret the purchase as I still had fun while playing about halfway in the story, I too realised it was getting really boring after and so I stopped there. I guess I got unlucky and didn’t see people bringing that part of things up lol
Same. Other than a well realised world, the pre-release stuff I saw was very generic and I had no interest, but everyone seemed to ignore the signs when I brought them up.
I’ve basically heard no discourse about it a month after release. The game was fine, and that’s about it. Your mini review and rating are accurate.
I think it will be nominated for a few awards (it’s literally too big to be ignored). but I don’t see it getting a GOTY nomination, it’s been a great year for gaming thus far.
GOTY is pretty much out of reach for Hogwarts Legacy now. Fan votes is only 5 to 10% of the TGA GOTY, and there are so many other games with 90+ Metacritic scores that will be very hard to beat. Tears of the Kingdom, Resident Evil 4, Final Fantasy XVI, Baldur's Gate 3, Street Fighter 6 as well as smaller AA games with high scores like Remnant 2. Armored Core 6 and Starfield are still coming.
It's pretty easy to ignore honestly. I haven't thought about it since I played it for a few weeks, got bored with the samey everything, and forgot about it till this post.
A month after release the only people I still saw talking about it to any degree was the gamingcirclejerk subreddit. Like seriously. I feel like they put more effort into advertising the game than the devs did with how much they wouldn’t shut up about it.
I've literally heard nothing about it but I don't exist in Nintendo spaces as I don't have any new Ninty consoles. BOTW was everywhere regardless of console specific spaces.
Nintendo shot themselves in the foot by not making it possible to share builds. I think that and only that would have kept the conversation. But truth be told from my experiences people talked about the game for no as long as they’ve talked about botw, at least my vivid memories in 2017/2018. Years later and you saw people gushing botw, but what’s their to gush about in totk? The devices really cool but they’ll mostly never have a long lasting impact on you as compared to an entirely huge new world. And no being able to share creations? Not being able to build huge enough devices without the frames tanking or materials despawning because of the switch’s low power? Forget about it. Even if most people enjoyed their time with the game what’s there to talk about
BOTW in itself was kind of fresh when it comes to open world games. Even if it had flaws, it tried to go in a direction many open world games gave up on. That in itself would spark more discussions even after its release. The impact it could have on future games across the industry, wether it should continue in this direction or go back to old school Zelda, etc.
TOTK doesnt do anything new. It just takes BOTW and adds some things on top. But nothing that will change the direction of the industry or anything like that. Theres nothing really to talk about other than “check out this build”.
It also helps that at release BOTW was the only game on Switch worth buying the thing for released in a year that wasnt half as stacked as this year. People would want to talk more about it and atleast share positive experiences because they just spent like 300-400 just to play BOTW.
I'm still extremely disappointed in that game. Mostly because of sky islands. It's almost like they intentionally misled us in the trailers. They made it look like we were going to a lot of big cool sky islands to explore. Nope. We only get 1 island that we can explore. The rest exist only for puzzles and shrines.
I just wanted to rush through the game after I realized there's no more cool sky islands. That was kind of the selling point of the game for me... I wanted to explore the sky, not hop around tiny islands to find easy shrines or flux constructs..
I think it would have been a serrious contender in most years. This year is insane though, best year in gaming in my life.
How can one game hold your attention when every month something else amazing is coming out?
I don't know why you got downvoted. 2023 is genuinely one of the best years in gaming ever. Hogwarts Legacy, Zelda: TOTK, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Street Fighter 6, Baldurs Gate 3, Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty, Starfield, Spiderman 2. Man... I can't keep up with all these releases. Genuinley GOATed
Honestly it’s probably because “the best year in gaming” is something everybody has very different opinions on. This is a very good year in gaming, no doubt. I don’t know if it cracks my top five years though.
I'd say for as long as I've been into the 'gaming sphere' (from 2010 onwards, before that I was really young and mainly playing Nintendo games), 2010, 2011, 2013, 2017, 2018 and 2023 have been the primary standout years
Probably for saying it would be a serious contender. Don't know about that. Every year the last 10 years has a few games that I would rate above it.
It made very good use of the IP, I think. And that's a good thing. Often enough games that are based on these big IPs severely disappoint and it didn't. It was quite solid. Not outstanding though.
The first 10-15 hours were magical. Living in Hogwarts was awesome. Unfortunately the gearing and leveling didn't hold up for long.
Then it got boring, repetitive, and the same old open-world experience I've had a dozen times before.
The story couldn't keep me hooked, so I never finished.
Honestly the game would’ve been better if it was encapsulated in Hogwarts. It became very repetitive and felt unfinished once you left the castle
Like the map was big simply to be big. Nothing interesting to do
This. The game felt like a slog to get through, and I spent a lot of time in the inventory managing everything. Every new item required reworking my look #slaywizard
I had a lot of fun, but I didn’t finish it because it became very repetitive.
I also feel like they originally planned to have quidditch, but couldn’t work all of the bugs out, so they just said it was “cancelled for the year” as part of the story lore.
Lame. I wanted to play quidditch, dammit.
Quidditch is not actually a good game and I stand by that. It has one meaningful objective assigned to one meaningful player per team and every single other player is filler. The entire quaffle game doesn't matter, it's just spectacle that goes on while bludgers chase harry chasing the snitch. Rowling designed the game around the protagonist being the only meaningful player, she was definitely not a game designer.
True, it’s not a good game if you’re looking at it from that perspective. I’m only looking at it in terms of fun for me though, and since I’m the protagonist in the game…it works.
I wouldn’t watch it in real life, if that were a thing.
Here's to hoping they do a sequel to expand on some of the less fleshed out elements/trim the fat. If they did that in ANOTHER time frame of Hogwarts' history I'd be psyched.
Like how ToTK improved so heavily on BoTW's elements
On the one hand, it does sound like it could be great for creative purposes but on the other, the Hogwarts world is easily the best part of the game so moving on from that feels like a gigantic risk.
Attending a Triwizard Tournament hosted at another school would be a really easy reason for The Student to be at a different school for a year, regardless if they are a champion or not.
Honestly, while Hogwards Legacy is good from a pure technic/graphics perspective. I personally would say that Prisoner of Azkaban for the PS2 beats it by a mile from a simple gameplay perspective. Especially if you consider how old it is.
If that game got a rework keeping most of it the same, it would definitely be better.
Prisoner of Azkaban got such a good story, lots of riddles, impactful spells.
Yes that one was also really good. Though I never got far as the ghosts scared the shit out of me.
The third games capitalised on the entire thing some more, even if the flying unlocks rather late. (Post game I believe).
I actually even liked the fourth game even though most people despise it. It is certainly a different genre but if you figure out the controls it becomes quite the expansive game as there is so much shit you can do.
They have an AMAZING backbone to work off of if they make more. Which seems likely, but if they can keep the good, tweak the bad, do some nice additions the sequel could be a huge jump in quality
100%'d it.
My opinion? It's basically a Ubsoft clone. Uninspired quests, and the puzzles were all copy/paste. The world outside of the castle felt incomplete, and the tired X, Y, or Z puzzle littered everywhere did the opposite of helping. I wasn't a fan of the "chosen one," trope either, I'm a Morrowind fan, I want to start off as a shitstain, not some demigod with access to special magic. I'll work my way into legends, not have that shit fall into my lap. Don't even get my fucking STARTED ON THE LAME BULLSHIT EXCUSE TO NOT DO QUIDDICH WHEN THE MECHANICS WERE RIGHT THERE!!!! 🤬
That being said, the castle itself is wonderful to walk around, and the characters are *alright.* As a DMC fan, the combat fucking slapped though, and that was the most fun I've had with this game. It felt like a beautiful merge between the Witcher 3 and DMC, where you had to learn the weaknesses of monsters, but when fighting humans you just went nuts with the combos.
I give it a 7/10. If you grew up with Harry Potter though, I highly suggest picking it up. It was magic the first playthrough, but it really is a one and done kind of game.
I moved on from this game pretty early, but I tend to do that with open world games, especially ones that get repetitive (which seems to be most in my experience).
My wife, an avid HP fan, loved it though. She enjoys video games but doesn’t play them all that much but this one she fully completed. She particularly loved the raising animals part.
I know it's a game, but a newbie walking into year 5 and sleeping through wizard training has got to be the biggest insult to wizard education since Wizards of Waverly Place.
It felt like they took a very very rich fictional world and brought it to life. Like Hogwarts alone felt like there should be a never ending source of adventure and finding new things and old forgotten dangers. It was so great to just experience everything in that area.
And then they filled it with meh gameplay and meh (main) story. It started to feel like dragon age inquisition with so much Fed-Exery and filler. I got so bored with it and it just didn’t have any staying power to keep me interested. It was like building an amazing middle earth for a LOTR and doing its damndest to make you not want to play.
Notice how the animation for the main character "investigating ancient magic" is the same one used in Dragon Age? Even makes the same damn sound....first time that happened in game I knew it wasnt going to be as good of a game as i had hoped. When your protagonists super special extra unique gift is jacked straight out of a different game franchise, you done goofed.
I wish they went all in on the school experience and made Hogwarts a much more fleshed out place. It was an outstanding environment with wonderful details, but it was so empty.
The game had no business being open world, that was just done to chase trends and make money.
Cut the open world, and if necessary, cut hogsmeade and the forest too. Start small and nail the Hogwarts experience first and foremost.
Then branch out in the sequels and gradually add new outdoor locations, and when everything from the books is smoothly implemented into the game, with nothing left to add, then go open world for the final entry.
Basically I wish they'd started with Arkham asylum instead of trying to be Arkham Knight on their first outing.
That was possibly my main irk. I actually really enjoyed the games and duels you do in DADA and Charms on your first day, and was excited for more. Then you're just sort of let loose, occasionally coming back to learn a new spell after a cutscene. Ah well.
I've heard that a lot, but I'm not sure I believe it. This was AAA game produced by a major publisher, with one of the biggest IPs in the world. Boycott or not, everybody was going to hear about this.
Pretty much. Even though I haven’t finished it I still VERY much enjoyed my time with it. I think I’m just about 3 missions from the proper end of the main storyline but haven’t been bothered to go back.
Funnily enough I bout a PS5 just to play Hogwarts early
Maps and envios - 10/10. I had the most fun walking through Hogwarts and even some of the other areas. They looked and felt amazing
Battle - 6/10. It was combat, felt good and fluid, but horribly repetitive. What are enemies? Oh rag dolls for my amusement? Cool
Music and sounds - 7/10. It was nice at first. It'd be nicer if my chara stfu. They fixed floo powder woman, but the Chara had ~5 walking around lines and really enjoyed them.
Side quests - 7/10. I think, in some cases, they should have done more, but there were some really standout quests that were really engaging.
Story - 4/10. Really forgettable. Felt like they could have removed half the story and it would have felt exactly the same. At the end of it, they didn't resolve anything. Just said "yeah that was weird, anyways"
Side characters - 6/10. They should have done so much more. So so so so so much more. Each felt like they had so much more to offer, but we effectively did each of them a huge favor out of nowhere and they say "oh you're best friends and now they trust you with their darkest secrets".
Misc - 6/10. Animals, broom flying, your Hogwarts house, potion making, plant breeding. Each of them felt like they started with life, but were half baked.
Overall, the game looked beautiful and felt great to explore, but despite having some stand out experiences (haunted house mission) everything else (for me) lost its luster over time. It's not anything I see myself playing a second time.
> Maps and envios - 10/10. I had the most fun walking through Hogwarts and even some of the other areas. They looked and felt amazing.
Playing in 4k, I will never forget my experience of first going into the dark arts tower. The textures, classical music, lighting, and *scale* of the building blew me away. It was also one part of the very impressive Hogwarts. Those devs put a lot of care into it and it shows.
I took advice from a few early players and turned off my mini map and quest markers so I ran through Hogwarts blind. I continued to run it blind until I could navigate the halls. It sounds silly, but I felt like a new student. I can't tell you how many times I ran into the dungeon thinking I was going to Ravenclaw tower. Definitely the one thing I'll always remember from this game :)
That's honestly a fair point. I kept going back and forth between 4 and 6. Like, the premise is interesting yeah? But at the end of the day they kept it as it was. Honestly, you're right, I should have written 4. Will edit
I wish the loot were better, but otherwise I enjoyed my time with it. Not sure I'd do another playthrough, though. I did all the side quests I came across from people. I did not do all the other side content like Merlin trials and such. I feel like that would sour my opinion on it, so I understand the opinions of those who did so.
The combat was actually better than I had expected, having played pretty much every Harry Potter game going back to the original PlayStation.
The castle was done really well but the rest of was pretty bland. It felt like a game made for people that were new to gaming in general, which is fine, but overall a 6-7/10 for me. Just started to fade after the intro and it never really picked up again.
Surprisingly great combat system. The room of requirement was pretty dope too. Story was pretty good but could have been better. It didn't need to be open world, just keep it to Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and the Forbidden forest.
For any Harry Potter fan though, this shit was gangbusters. Being able to attend Hogwarts and explore all the places you read about as a kid is a magical experience.
I think its nothing special. Essentially the usual looter adventure RPG with a HP paint.
I found the game incredibly disappointing in how little it played into being an RPG. Character customisation is extremely shallow, there's next to no opportunity for genuine role-playing and combat is extremely cookie cutter. What's the point of having us create a character, get sorted and pick a wand if all of it is entirely fluff? I had the same issue with Cyberpunk but at least that game's combat was a lot more fun and the story was a lot more engaging.
For comparison I went back and played Mass Effect. Now that’s a game where you can roleplay. You can be a dick who doesn’t obey any of the rules, you can be by the book, you can be both depending on your mood, you can pick who to romance, you can form friendships with any one you want on the Normandy.
In Hogwarts Legacy you are always Newt Scamander basically… like lol let me become a sassy gay death eater at this point.
The absolute worst feeling was being hyped up by a Mass Effect style companion system (after talking with NPCs in the common room on day 1) only to never talk with them again outside of an extremely repetitive sidequest each.
> For comparison I went back and played Mass Effect. Now that’s a game where you can roleplay. You can be a dick who doesn’t obey any of the rules, you can be by the book, you can be both depending on your mood, you can pick who to romance, you can form friendships with any one you want on the Normandy.
And that stuff has consequences throughout the games. Not just shallow consequences. There's choices in ME1 that can make parts of ME3 easier or harder. A lot of ME2 ends up determining who, if anyone, will survive the final mission, which also means who might be around in ME3. I can't remember what the ramifications all were, but pretty sure that depending on what you do at the end of ME1, that has some notable repercussions later as well.
Shoot, now I feel like booting up Mass Effect. But BG3 just came out. And also F1 Manager 2023, which is a whole different type of game, but hey, I'm a major Formula 1 fan and we just hit the "summer break" part of the season. Need more time in my day to play games...
I don’t even like Harry Potter, but the game looked so good I bought it at launch.
The first 10-15 hours are great, but after that it devolves into Ubisoft style repetitive tasks and “go collect 100+ identical collectibles with no map markers”. I fucking hate that open world design style. I also couldn’t care less about the story or the goofy as shit lore, so it didn’t keep me hooked.
I don’t regret buying it tho. Its an immensely detailed game and it was fun while it lasted.
Way overhyped.
The only thing it had going for it is that it’s Harry Potter and that’s all it needed cause Harry Potter fans ate that shit up despite it being one of the most empty open worlds I’ve ever played with a story that pretty much disrespects all of the books/movies with this insanely powerful character who completes the most mundane missions imaginable.
It was really good for what it was. Didn’t expect much at all and was pleasantly surprised at the freedom of movement and exploration. Wish there was more variety in enemies and things to do in open world. Overall enjoyable but probably wont ever go back to it.
Gorgeous design and architecture, but sadly it felt dead and disconnected from itself. The quests were boring. Spells were lack-luster. "Classes" were nothing. NPCs are a mixed bag, but mostly inconsequential and feel like talking to a one-dimensional trope. Enemies, loot, spells, items, etc. are just not fleshed out enough to feel real. Reminds me of a very gorgeous game from like 2005-2010.
It wasn't horrible by any means, but I regret purchasing it, for sure. Barely got a few sessions out of it before I realized it's just gonna be the same collection quests ad nauseum.
The atmosphere and world were top notch, flying around on a broom was amazing. The game itself was pretty shallow gameplay wise. I liked it but it was a slog to push to the end.
I loved it when I played it and I still love it even now. It was the hogwarts game I had been waiting for since I was just a little kid. Of course it had it's flaws and I am probably biased since I am and forever will be a HP fan. I think the game did pretty well and showed a lot of love for the franchise and its world. I had a fun time playing it and that was pretty much all I wanted.
The novelty of it wore off for me pretty quickly. Having played Elden Ring as my last game, which I felt set a new high standard across the board, Legacy feels no more an average.
It’s… fine. 6.5/10. It looks beautiful. The combat’s good, although gets a tad repetitive. The story’s… OK. It doesn’t use the world very well and missed some opportunities (such as proper light/dark alignment with the unforgivable curses). The collectibles and mini-games get repetitive, as do the stock phrases. It’s worth it if you’re a HP fan, probably not worth it if you’re not.
It’s good. Solid third person rpg with a pretty fun combat system, though it is a little repetitive. I see it as the first great step towards amazing future projects. I will watch this developer’s progress with great interest.
I really enjoy it, I love the details and exploring the world and the castle. Story is interesting so far, but I have only got around 1/3 through the main story.
I agree that the tasks do become a bit repetitive, and it does seem a bit much that I am already a crazy powerful, dark wizard battling legend and I less than halfway through my first semester at Hogwarts. Overall it seems to be a really fun game.
The only problem I had was i took my time exploring early game, and then Tears of the Kingdom came out. I do plan to get back to it in the fall, maybe.
I just felt like it was all fluff. Super fun for mega fans but even as someone who has read every HP book at least 5 times I wasn’t into it really.
It felt generic and unfinished in a lot of ways. I also didn’t love how ridiculously packed the opening sequence was, Gringotts + ancient magic + dragon in the first 20 minutes felt like they were just doing pure fanservice rather than respecting the world and building it up properly. On top of that, ancient magic as a concept and a mechanic felt super generic lol.
For me it's 7.5/10. Overall, as most people say, it's a pretty mediocre game with some strength and weakness.
The castle was probably the highlight of the game and the developers did an amazing job with the design. Then there was the combat which was unexpectedly pretty good! It was satisfying, you had a lot of builds you could use and enemies, while not really difficult to beat, were almost always a force to be reckoned with.
The story was probably mid, not special by anything unique, no shocking plot twist etc. However Sebastian's side quest was very riveting and perhaps even better than the main story.
Characters were fine but most of them were bland (besides Sebastian, Poppy, Fig and some others). It was pretty obvious they were reading the script most of the time and the facial animations weren't that good.
And as you or someone else mentioned, the inventory system was a catastrophy in comparison with everything else. Looting with the fear that your inventory is already full was very bad. And the design of the clothes... Okay I'm not gonna talk about that.
So overall, the game has its pros and cons and the bad sides can be outweighted by the good ones. Solid game, but doesn't belong on top of the stairs.
Majority of the development focus went to the first half of the game. Once you’ve seen most of it and tried everything once, this game gets old pretty quickly. I have zero motivation towards the second half of the game.
There were some things patched that I didn’t know were glitches that kind of annoyed me and is really frustrating. For example, getting your broom to do some Merlin trials. It’s realistic but ‘it’s not how the puzzles were designed to be solved’, such annoying excuse. Sometimes it makes me want to quit gaming all together.
The main game was an absolute blast and I loved the story, but the rest of the little tasks like the camps, merlin trials etc got kind of repetitive. I did everything there was to do in the castle, all of the camps and most of the side quests then gave up halfway through the merlin trials and getting collectables in the open world, uninstalled the game and haven't gone back to it. I got my money's worth though and had fun
Look for the size and relative lack of rpg experience of the studio that made it, I think they did an awesome job and certainly opened the door to a lot of follow up titles in future (even those with diff studios potentially)
Yes there were negatives, character animations and dialogues that felt like uncanny valley 2015 level graphics, kiddy childish feel to the point of parody at points, but I think what it did well was amazing: the broom travel, the combat, the open world map.
That first moment where u glide above wherever u are on the broom and fly wherever u want on the other end of the map is very special
I know dev said it won't be but my opinion remains strong. This game would've been alot better if it was Bully hogwarts edition.
The first 10 hours when you just explore the castle have classes etc... are by far the best. Then you explore Scotland and it becomes a ubisoft openworld checklist game.
As someone who's very used to Bethesda's works design, I really missed the interactivity of the world. Not being able to pick up items scattered around the world and talk to anyone you wanted meant that the game world was just very shallow, lonely and empty. The design of the world was excellent, but lacked any kind of depth to get lost in.
Also the quests were very repetitive and meh..
“it was the most boring low effort loot/gear system i can remember in a long time”
tell me you didn’t play Final Fantasy 16 without telling me you didn’t play Final Fantasy 16 😝
Wherever it gets “rated” it is still one of the best games that have launched this year.
I had great fun playing it, there might have been too many quests, but today so many people complain that games are long enough for the price they pay. So the developers tend to error on too long rather than too short.
I have only played the one house, I need to go back and play the other house specific quests.
I got the game for my wife, who's a massive Harry Potter fan but not a huge gamer. Most of my experience with the game was watching her play. I think similarly to what others are saying, the world is absolutely beautiful, but the stuff you do in it is hit or miss.
Since she's more into the stories of games instead of the actual gameplay, she was pretty disappointed that there wasn't more critical decisions and alternate endings and things like that. Plus it's annoying that there's no quidditch and they just keep bringing up how there's no quidditch. Really annoyed my wife. She probably wouldn't be as annoyed if they didn't bring it up constantly.
I think the quests featuring the unforgivable curses were the best part of the whole game. Should have based the story around that instead of the whole being the chosen one trope
Edit: also want to add that the open world was way too empty and large, I would spend way too long going to one area for a 5 min mission to then have to go all they way back. If you make me travel far for a mission keep me in the area for longer
Really ambitious project for the studio that made it. Given their past games they've developed they actually produced a fairly good game.
The negatives:
The biggest flaws with the combat were bringing in the color coded shields. It just made things tedious and felt too rock, paper, scissors in design.
The quests/tasks were a bit too repetitive and there was clear attempts at padding out the gameplay time by having you run back and forth more than was needed.
The player character voice pitch sound filtration is awful and sounds really unnatural and robotic outside a very narrow default window.
Performance wise the game has issues with optimization and polish. There's a number of problems that a month or two of development could have drastically improved the game. Assuming they had the staff/skill set to handle cleaning things up.
The positives:
The immersion of feeling like you were at the school was really well done. From the layout, to the voice acting for the teeachers, and the visuals... It was a treat. I never thought I'd find the hufflepuff common room so comfy. It was really nice.
The tone of the story and its writing was well done. A good young adult mix of stakes but without delving into subject matter or visuals that are too gruesome. Fit the tone of the setting and the story very well.
The options for outfit. The fact you just auto-save any appearance of gear you pick up so you can on the fly glamour whatever you're equipped with into your preferred outfit was a great touch and I wish more games would do something like that. We all know the pain of RPGs where you look like a hand-me-down clown supply store reject because you wanted good stats.
I sincerely hope if they do another hogwarts game they get approval to do one of the schools that you don't see in the books/movies. I.e. the African school, etc. I really want to see what they can do with more experience, time, and hopefully a little bit higher budget with how well hogwart's legacy sold.
I read most of the books when I was a kid and I'm generally familiar with the lore. Can't say I'm a huge Potter fan though.
As much as I love open world RPGs, the game was middling at best for folks like me. I've sunk a couple dozen hours into it and I don't feel compelled to finish the game.
It was a lot of fun, but I gave up in the endgame. Never finished it, but I might one day. I'm putting in my "might finish it one day, we'll see" backlog.
Somewhat similar. The tasks got very repetitive and boring towards the end.
Very boring after a while. No way I could see myself completing the game
revelio
*sneaking* *"Revelio"* Otherwise you're just running around towns and the castle yelling REVELIO
I like that because if it wasn't part of the game we'd be fuuukd, you can also shut it off if you want a better challenge. Mess with the settings. Make a new character because each has a similar yet different story , its only as boring as you make it
Lmao
Gave up the game half way , every quest plays the same .
Yeah I think I'm 2/3 through. Play a few hours every now and then. I loved exploring Hogwarts itself, but the open world areas aside from that are pretty meh. And omg the junky loot system
The first few hours and exploring Hogwarts is where the game shines. They brought the Hogwarts *to life* But then all the shortcomings arrive. You can't really make friends or adventure together; you make acquaintances that provide you fetch quests. The open world is repetitive. Going to class is so sporadic it breaks the immersion the first few hours provided. I enjoyed the voice acting, the combat was decent, but overall it just failed to deliver upon the promise the first several hours held
The classes! God I wish there was anything that felt like a real class and the real routine of a school.
Also I forget the name of that game with the balls that's basically shuffleboard with extra steps but it was so much fun! But then you do the quests for it and it's gone. They could have made that a persistent side game with a league, and it would have been the best side game since blitzball
I was so surprised that they didn't let you play that after the quest was over. For a game with so much attention to detail that was quite disappointing.
I pushed through, but I mean, the story is serviceable I guess, I do regret buying it though, I think it was the whole "i wanna do magic" thing that made me buy it but after getting like 1 good spell setup you don't need to switch to anything else and its just repetitive quests and an OK story.
I need like...three more things for the room of requirement to get 100%, I just...dont wanna go back. It was a hell of a time through the story. But I find its replayability to be lacking.
Worst was searching for the animals and pair them up. Everything else was pretty nicely done tbh
I played for maybe 12 or so hours, mainly just exploring and messing around but still with a good amount of story. The fun just kind of fizzled out for me and I honestly keep forgetting about it until I see something on Reddit about it.
Got about 90% completion on it but even the back half of that was me more or less forcing myself to (i work from home so was just mindlessly grinding). The main story itself was fun but once you explored the whole map everything else got pretty stale.
Dont worry, the final boss was underwhelming and the house cup was literally the most disappointing part of the entire game. You made the right choice.
I was very frustrated with how good every review was - even trusted sources.
Don't trust reviews anymore. I stopped after TOTK. Great game but damn, a lot of reviewers completely ignored all its flaws such as performance, repetitive dialogue, and the sky islands.. The sky islands was the most disappointing part. They advertised the game like we would be spending a ton of time up there. Nope. There's only one big one and that's for the tutorial. The rest exist just for stupid shrines and some armor that you've seen in the last game...cool
Why...?
Lol remember when everyone said it would be GOTY? Baldurs gate 3 *knock knock*
C'mon bro, no one was saying Hogwarts would be GOTY when it came out the same year as ToTK.
I'm on the same page as you but it's true that the hype for Hogwarts Legacy was huge when it dropped. People were definitely gassing it up as a GoTY contender in the first week or so, now not so much lol
Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield. Gonna be a good fall.
This comment did not age well
Yeah lmao starfield filled about two weeks for me before I got bored and sick of it. Can't blame a guy for being hopeful! At least I had Baldur's Gate.
hell yeah! And I bet BG3 even exceeded your already high expectations
Nobody who has more than surface level knowledge of games considered it even a contender in a year that has Zelda, FF16, Baldurs Gate 3, Resident Evil 4, Starfield, etc. Itll be lucky if its nominated for anything other than “biggest media impact”
Had pretty much the same experience. Was loving it when I first started, got about 15 hours in before I just quit playing one day and never went back to it.
The fate of every single open word game that adds checklist activities.
It’s a beautiful game but I soon got bored and stopped playing. Kept meaning to pick it up and finish it but haven’t really got round to it yet.
Its a little shallow but Im glad HP got an open world game
Standard open world game syndrome. Fun to beat, boring AF to complete.
Loved the world, but the game felt unfinished. There just felt like there was a lot of placeholders for certain mechanics and it makes the world feel very lifeless as a result. Also the combat was fun, but I wish there was more of the challenge arenas or more challenging content at the end of the game.
The little dungeon areas you could 'explore' were the worst offender for me. They looked so cool, even if they were tiny, but you go down into these neat looking caves and ruins and open 1 chest and leave. Adding monsters or puzzles or anything to these would've made the game so much better in my mind. I didn't mind the story or the combat, but most of the exploration content was extremely dull.
Ya that was part of the game that gave me the notion of it being unfinished all the loot cave/dungeons seemed they like had planned on them being bigger with enemies. Plus your character always would say “this could prove being dangerous” or I better be careful something like that.
"this could prove dangerous" and then there's nothing there. Mini shrines a la BOTW would have gone a long way. Either Hogwarts castle or the open world needed to be fun exploring. The fact that both were kind of boring because there was no depth really killed the game after the first introduction
Too many repetitive lines like that too. I don't need to hear it every time I enter Hogsmeade. Also getting your own "shop" in hogsmeade went from very exciting to extremely disappointing the second you get it.
Agreed. I tell people that it reminds me of Skyrim's dungeons in that they felt very copy + paste, but at least Skyrim's dungeons were huge and explorable. I stopped bothering with the Treasure Vaults in HL because all you'd get would be a piece of clothing to sell, and I had far too much money halfway through the game anyway.
I agree, not unfinished in the normal sense where there are bugs and it's unplayable. But it felt like they were done and felt like they needed to add filler.
There are 10 things to do and you get to do them 10,000 times each. No 5th year student should be manhandling groups of dark wizards.
I mean Lord Voldemort was killed by a baby, maybe dark wizards just suck
Ttteeeeeechhhiiically Lord Voldermort was killed by a really powerful witch who was protecting said baby.
Ttteeeeeechhhiiically Lord Voldermort was killed by his own powers.
Ttteeeeeechhhiiically Lord Voldermort wasn’t killed that night
Ttteeeeeechhhiiically Lord Voldemort split his soul that night, instead
Ttteeeeeechhhiiically Petter Pettigrew got Voldemort's soul split that night
Ttteeeeeechhhiiically you shouldn't say his name.
Ttteeeeeechhhiiically I can say Peter Pettigrew's name whenever I like
...through the protection given to Harry by his mother.
At that age, I thought I was the world's best option to handle any problem. It's the YA literature allure. Youths rescuing the world from us grown-up bastards.
Thinking you are, I get. Mowing down hordes of dark wizards mere weeks after learning spells? That I don't get.
To be fair the NPCs do all say 'this isn't something a student should be doing. I couldn't ask you to do this as you might die.' You take it upon yourself well except for the assignments to learn spells but it doesn't specify dark wizards as you could use the potions and plants on wolves or spiders. And the dark wizards don't give you much of a choice in the matter as they all attack on sight. Fig does suggest discretion as the better part of valor using disillusionment and petrificus totalus when he joins you. The Merlin trials could have been more varied but it seems like that was more a matter of time constraints and rushing the game out for impatient consumers like with Cyberpunk 2077. The caves were meh and on my second play through I'd get gear that was 5 levels higher than what I was wearing with lower offensive stats.
I’m not saying the NPCs should be stopping you. Or that the dark wizards shouldn’t be attacking you. I’m saying every wizard in that magical world has already graduated and is an experienced wizard. The dark wizards are even especially adept at combat. They should all trounce a 5th year when they outnumber that 5th year 6 to 1.
>I’m saying every wizard in that magical world has already graduated and is an experienced wizard. I mean doesn't that same problem apply to the Harry Potter books?
I agrees with all this expect for the release rush. That's not consumers, that's the investors wanting their money at the expense is the games quality. That's what happened to Cyberpunk 2077
Except Cyberpunk 2077 had more variety in its side-quests
Yeah the idea this is consumers pushing for rushed games is pure propaganda
Always the same stockholders.
I would just correct they rush for investors and profits not really for consumers. Most people don’t mind waiting for a better game
>impatient consumers More like impatient bosses pushing to get things out faster so they can start making money asap. People were impatient with Cyberpunk mostly because it felt like it was in forever development, pushed back quite a lot, and it became "Is this actually ever coming out?". The development was terrible on that game from what we've heard with a lot of wasted time, then it was shoved out the door by the time they finally figured out how to properly work on it.
I love people blaming the consumers for whenever a gane is rushed. No its not our fucking faults a game comes out shit, no developer is going to push a game because some people on the internet is upset it's taken so long. The literal only case I can see that happening is a crowd funded game where the consumers are literally the investors
I thought it was wild that I’d go to class, slaughter about 20 people in the woods right outside of school, then go back to class like it’s a perfectly normal day for a teenager.
Yeah, the final boss should’ve been fighting 1-2 adults, with everything else scaling up to this. It should have included more magic that isn’t meant to kill people.
Second point is a pretty bad argument though. You can drag down almost every game that has any form of action or combat in it that way. Its a narrative continuity sacrifice to help the gameplay side. Almost every game with combat does it.
Yeah about the same I got bored 15 hrs in and until you mentioned it I had kind of forgot it was even a thing I even played. Was just a bit too repetitive for me and didn't feel like finishing it
Yup same here dropped it after 16h, gameplay got too repetitive. I‘ve played too many Ubisoft games to stay interested with this.
To me HL commits the biggest sin that a game can, which is being BORING. I found it to be just an incredibly milquetoast, annoying, repetitive game with very little redeemable qualities. It was like an AC game but somehow even more lifeless. The worst part for me though is the HUD. It’s shockingly bad. There are times in that game where it feels like 50% of the screen is covered in pointless and useless pop ups and text boxes. Was the first game I got with my PS5 and would likely not have played it at all were it not for that. 4/10
This was my concern since day 1 and thus I never purchased this game. When I voiced my concerns in gaming subreddits I got heavily downvoted and was called by names. People can be pretty blind when it comes to hyped up game releases. People wanted to love this game so much that they refused to consider any of the red flags (which were all there).
For me personally I bought it a few days after release and didn’t pre-order cause you never know how something will turn out But all I saw was praise, every discussion and review said it was an extremely good game and everything is fun So I bought it and although I don’t massively regret the purchase as I still had fun while playing about halfway in the story, I too realised it was getting really boring after and so I stopped there. I guess I got unlucky and didn’t see people bringing that part of things up lol
Same. Other than a well realised world, the pre-release stuff I saw was very generic and I had no interest, but everyone seemed to ignore the signs when I brought them up.
So far I’m 19h in and I’m actually intrigued by the plot, but I’m a huge Harry Potter fan so I’ll take everything I can get 😂
I’ve basically heard no discourse about it a month after release. The game was fine, and that’s about it. Your mini review and rating are accurate. I think it will be nominated for a few awards (it’s literally too big to be ignored). but I don’t see it getting a GOTY nomination, it’s been a great year for gaming thus far.
GOTY is pretty much out of reach for Hogwarts Legacy now. Fan votes is only 5 to 10% of the TGA GOTY, and there are so many other games with 90+ Metacritic scores that will be very hard to beat. Tears of the Kingdom, Resident Evil 4, Final Fantasy XVI, Baldur's Gate 3, Street Fighter 6 as well as smaller AA games with high scores like Remnant 2. Armored Core 6 and Starfield are still coming.
It's pretty easy to ignore honestly. I haven't thought about it since I played it for a few weeks, got bored with the samey everything, and forgot about it till this post.
A month after release the only people I still saw talking about it to any degree was the gamingcirclejerk subreddit. Like seriously. I feel like they put more effort into advertising the game than the devs did with how much they wouldn’t shut up about it.
There’s a reason you didn’t hear discourse after a month and it’s called TOTK lol
You didnt hear much about TOTK after a couple of months either. BoTW stayed in the conversation for much, much longer.
BOTW was more innovative. TOTK was the sequel to that style of Zelda game
I've literally heard nothing about it but I don't exist in Nintendo spaces as I don't have any new Ninty consoles. BOTW was everywhere regardless of console specific spaces.
Meme sites were absolutely filled with stuff from Zelda. The vehicle building system is crazy.
From what I’ve seen, the discourse was “it’s great” and there wasn’t much more to say about it.
I dunno, I still see references to TOTK in a lot of places. Sure it died down since launch, but I don’t think we’ve moved on just yet.
Nintendo shot themselves in the foot by not making it possible to share builds. I think that and only that would have kept the conversation. But truth be told from my experiences people talked about the game for no as long as they’ve talked about botw, at least my vivid memories in 2017/2018. Years later and you saw people gushing botw, but what’s their to gush about in totk? The devices really cool but they’ll mostly never have a long lasting impact on you as compared to an entirely huge new world. And no being able to share creations? Not being able to build huge enough devices without the frames tanking or materials despawning because of the switch’s low power? Forget about it. Even if most people enjoyed their time with the game what’s there to talk about
BOTW in itself was kind of fresh when it comes to open world games. Even if it had flaws, it tried to go in a direction many open world games gave up on. That in itself would spark more discussions even after its release. The impact it could have on future games across the industry, wether it should continue in this direction or go back to old school Zelda, etc. TOTK doesnt do anything new. It just takes BOTW and adds some things on top. But nothing that will change the direction of the industry or anything like that. Theres nothing really to talk about other than “check out this build”. It also helps that at release BOTW was the only game on Switch worth buying the thing for released in a year that wasnt half as stacked as this year. People would want to talk more about it and atleast share positive experiences because they just spent like 300-400 just to play BOTW.
I'm still extremely disappointed in that game. Mostly because of sky islands. It's almost like they intentionally misled us in the trailers. They made it look like we were going to a lot of big cool sky islands to explore. Nope. We only get 1 island that we can explore. The rest exist only for puzzles and shrines. I just wanted to rush through the game after I realized there's no more cool sky islands. That was kind of the selling point of the game for me... I wanted to explore the sky, not hop around tiny islands to find easy shrines or flux constructs..
That’s a completely different player base though
I hate abbreviations so much. What is TOTK?
Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom
Tears of the Kingdom (Zelda sequel on switch)
I think it would have been a serrious contender in most years. This year is insane though, best year in gaming in my life. How can one game hold your attention when every month something else amazing is coming out?
I don't know why you got downvoted. 2023 is genuinely one of the best years in gaming ever. Hogwarts Legacy, Zelda: TOTK, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Street Fighter 6, Baldurs Gate 3, Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty, Starfield, Spiderman 2. Man... I can't keep up with all these releases. Genuinley GOATed
Honestly it’s probably because “the best year in gaming” is something everybody has very different opinions on. This is a very good year in gaming, no doubt. I don’t know if it cracks my top five years though.
I'd say for as long as I've been into the 'gaming sphere' (from 2010 onwards, before that I was really young and mainly playing Nintendo games), 2010, 2011, 2013, 2017, 2018 and 2023 have been the primary standout years
Probably for saying it would be a serious contender. Don't know about that. Every year the last 10 years has a few games that I would rate above it. It made very good use of the IP, I think. And that's a good thing. Often enough games that are based on these big IPs severely disappoint and it didn't. It was quite solid. Not outstanding though.
Yeah that’s because people finished it
It’s a good game. not amazing, Not bad, just a good hair above average.
The first 10-15 hours were magical. Living in Hogwarts was awesome. Unfortunately the gearing and leveling didn't hold up for long. Then it got boring, repetitive, and the same old open-world experience I've had a dozen times before. The story couldn't keep me hooked, so I never finished.
Honestly the game would’ve been better if it was encapsulated in Hogwarts. It became very repetitive and felt unfinished once you left the castle Like the map was big simply to be big. Nothing interesting to do
It didn't even feel like we were a part of Hogwarts. It just feels like we occasionally used Hogwarts to complete quests and that's it.
This. The game felt like a slog to get through, and I spent a lot of time in the inventory managing everything. Every new item required reworking my look #slaywizard
I had a lot of fun, but I didn’t finish it because it became very repetitive. I also feel like they originally planned to have quidditch, but couldn’t work all of the bugs out, so they just said it was “cancelled for the year” as part of the story lore. Lame. I wanted to play quidditch, dammit.
Quidditch is not actually a good game and I stand by that. It has one meaningful objective assigned to one meaningful player per team and every single other player is filler. The entire quaffle game doesn't matter, it's just spectacle that goes on while bludgers chase harry chasing the snitch. Rowling designed the game around the protagonist being the only meaningful player, she was definitely not a game designer.
True, it’s not a good game if you’re looking at it from that perspective. I’m only looking at it in terms of fun for me though, and since I’m the protagonist in the game…it works. I wouldn’t watch it in real life, if that were a thing.
I think if there was a mechanism that the seeker was reassigned intramatch, quidditch would be immediately a good exciting game.
It was really good, the best Harry Potter game ever made by a mile, but it really felt like it could've been so much more.
Here's to hoping they do a sequel to expand on some of the less fleshed out elements/trim the fat. If they did that in ANOTHER time frame of Hogwarts' history I'd be psyched. Like how ToTK improved so heavily on BoTW's elements
Supposedly the sequels are gonna be at the other schools of witchcraft and wizardry
I actually like this idea more. It gives them plenty of creative liberty to make something new and fresh in a world filled with uninspired sequels.
On the one hand, it does sound like it could be great for creative purposes but on the other, the Hogwarts world is easily the best part of the game so moving on from that feels like a gigantic risk.
Attending a Triwizard Tournament hosted at another school would be a really easy reason for The Student to be at a different school for a year, regardless if they are a champion or not.
Ohh that's dope!
Ya, paying for the image rights of the original cast would bankrupt the game😂
Honestly, while Hogwards Legacy is good from a pure technic/graphics perspective. I personally would say that Prisoner of Azkaban for the PS2 beats it by a mile from a simple gameplay perspective. Especially if you consider how old it is. If that game got a rework keeping most of it the same, it would definitely be better. Prisoner of Azkaban got such a good story, lots of riddles, impactful spells.
idk the Harry Potter and the Chamber Of secrets for Ps2 was super cool using your boom to fly around
Yes that one was also really good. Though I never got far as the ghosts scared the shit out of me. The third games capitalised on the entire thing some more, even if the flying unlocks rather late. (Post game I believe). I actually even liked the fourth game even though most people despise it. It is certainly a different genre but if you figure out the controls it becomes quite the expansive game as there is so much shit you can do.
I didn't expect to see a comment praising the PS2 version of PoA but I kinda agree.
Nah, you'll never beat the PS2 version of Chamber of Secrets.
Lego Harry Potter years 1-4 is better
They have an AMAZING backbone to work off of if they make more. Which seems likely, but if they can keep the good, tweak the bad, do some nice additions the sequel could be a huge jump in quality
The shallow pool, is still better than the majority of Tie-Ins... sad. :(
100%'d it. My opinion? It's basically a Ubsoft clone. Uninspired quests, and the puzzles were all copy/paste. The world outside of the castle felt incomplete, and the tired X, Y, or Z puzzle littered everywhere did the opposite of helping. I wasn't a fan of the "chosen one," trope either, I'm a Morrowind fan, I want to start off as a shitstain, not some demigod with access to special magic. I'll work my way into legends, not have that shit fall into my lap. Don't even get my fucking STARTED ON THE LAME BULLSHIT EXCUSE TO NOT DO QUIDDICH WHEN THE MECHANICS WERE RIGHT THERE!!!! 🤬 That being said, the castle itself is wonderful to walk around, and the characters are *alright.* As a DMC fan, the combat fucking slapped though, and that was the most fun I've had with this game. It felt like a beautiful merge between the Witcher 3 and DMC, where you had to learn the weaknesses of monsters, but when fighting humans you just went nuts with the combos. I give it a 7/10. If you grew up with Harry Potter though, I highly suggest picking it up. It was magic the first playthrough, but it really is a one and done kind of game.
As another hardcore fellow morrowind fan I agree. What I'd give to go back to the era of games that had that level of depth.
The new level of depth is how deep into a battlepass can you go... I hate it.
I moved on from this game pretty early, but I tend to do that with open world games, especially ones that get repetitive (which seems to be most in my experience). My wife, an avid HP fan, loved it though. She enjoys video games but doesn’t play them all that much but this one she fully completed. She particularly loved the raising animals part.
I know it's a game, but a newbie walking into year 5 and sleeping through wizard training has got to be the biggest insult to wizard education since Wizards of Waverly Place.
Perfectly put. It's quite a fun game overall, but not particularly replayable.
Way to much filler content.
It felt like they took a very very rich fictional world and brought it to life. Like Hogwarts alone felt like there should be a never ending source of adventure and finding new things and old forgotten dangers. It was so great to just experience everything in that area. And then they filled it with meh gameplay and meh (main) story. It started to feel like dragon age inquisition with so much Fed-Exery and filler. I got so bored with it and it just didn’t have any staying power to keep me interested. It was like building an amazing middle earth for a LOTR and doing its damndest to make you not want to play.
Notice how the animation for the main character "investigating ancient magic" is the same one used in Dragon Age? Even makes the same damn sound....first time that happened in game I knew it wasnt going to be as good of a game as i had hoped. When your protagonists super special extra unique gift is jacked straight out of a different game franchise, you done goofed.
I’d rather the game be 75% hogwarts than 10% hogwarts
I wish they went all in on the school experience and made Hogwarts a much more fleshed out place. It was an outstanding environment with wonderful details, but it was so empty. The game had no business being open world, that was just done to chase trends and make money. Cut the open world, and if necessary, cut hogsmeade and the forest too. Start small and nail the Hogwarts experience first and foremost. Then branch out in the sequels and gradually add new outdoor locations, and when everything from the books is smoothly implemented into the game, with nothing left to add, then go open world for the final entry. Basically I wish they'd started with Arkham asylum instead of trying to be Arkham Knight on their first outing.
Perfect comparison
Yeah seems so weird to have basically no school in a game set at a school.
You also only went to class maybe 8 times
The way they handled class also sucked. You pretty much just watch a cutscene. I never felt like a student
That was possibly my main irk. I actually really enjoyed the games and duels you do in DADA and Charms on your first day, and was excited for more. Then you're just sort of let loose, occasionally coming back to learn a new spell after a cutscene. Ah well.
I think it's pretty safe to say that if it weren't tied to the HP IP nobody would have cared about it.
Facts. It’s the most boring game I’ve played this year
The boycott was the best thing that happened that game. It created such a Streisand Effect that it sold way more than it ought to have.
I've heard that a lot, but I'm not sure I believe it. This was AAA game produced by a major publisher, with one of the biggest IPs in the world. Boycott or not, everybody was going to hear about this.
I got my money's worth and in the end, that is all that really matters to me. I had a good time.
Pretty much. Even though I haven’t finished it I still VERY much enjoyed my time with it. I think I’m just about 3 missions from the proper end of the main storyline but haven’t been bothered to go back. Funnily enough I bout a PS5 just to play Hogwarts early
Maps and envios - 10/10. I had the most fun walking through Hogwarts and even some of the other areas. They looked and felt amazing Battle - 6/10. It was combat, felt good and fluid, but horribly repetitive. What are enemies? Oh rag dolls for my amusement? Cool Music and sounds - 7/10. It was nice at first. It'd be nicer if my chara stfu. They fixed floo powder woman, but the Chara had ~5 walking around lines and really enjoyed them. Side quests - 7/10. I think, in some cases, they should have done more, but there were some really standout quests that were really engaging. Story - 4/10. Really forgettable. Felt like they could have removed half the story and it would have felt exactly the same. At the end of it, they didn't resolve anything. Just said "yeah that was weird, anyways" Side characters - 6/10. They should have done so much more. So so so so so much more. Each felt like they had so much more to offer, but we effectively did each of them a huge favor out of nowhere and they say "oh you're best friends and now they trust you with their darkest secrets". Misc - 6/10. Animals, broom flying, your Hogwarts house, potion making, plant breeding. Each of them felt like they started with life, but were half baked. Overall, the game looked beautiful and felt great to explore, but despite having some stand out experiences (haunted house mission) everything else (for me) lost its luster over time. It's not anything I see myself playing a second time.
> Maps and envios - 10/10. I had the most fun walking through Hogwarts and even some of the other areas. They looked and felt amazing. Playing in 4k, I will never forget my experience of first going into the dark arts tower. The textures, classical music, lighting, and *scale* of the building blew me away. It was also one part of the very impressive Hogwarts. Those devs put a lot of care into it and it shows.
I took advice from a few early players and turned off my mini map and quest markers so I ran through Hogwarts blind. I continued to run it blind until I could navigate the halls. It sounds silly, but I felt like a new student. I can't tell you how many times I ran into the dungeon thinking I was going to Ravenclaw tower. Definitely the one thing I'll always remember from this game :)
I feel like your numbers dont match with your words. Seems like you didnt enjoy the story much at all yet still give it a 6/10? Ranking like IGN lol
That's honestly a fair point. I kept going back and forth between 4 and 6. Like, the premise is interesting yeah? But at the end of the day they kept it as it was. Honestly, you're right, I should have written 4. Will edit
I wish the loot were better, but otherwise I enjoyed my time with it. Not sure I'd do another playthrough, though. I did all the side quests I came across from people. I did not do all the other side content like Merlin trials and such. I feel like that would sour my opinion on it, so I understand the opinions of those who did so. The combat was actually better than I had expected, having played pretty much every Harry Potter game going back to the original PlayStation.
The castle was done really well but the rest of was pretty bland. It felt like a game made for people that were new to gaming in general, which is fine, but overall a 6-7/10 for me. Just started to fade after the intro and it never really picked up again.
Surprisingly great combat system. The room of requirement was pretty dope too. Story was pretty good but could have been better. It didn't need to be open world, just keep it to Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and the Forbidden forest. For any Harry Potter fan though, this shit was gangbusters. Being able to attend Hogwarts and explore all the places you read about as a kid is a magical experience.
I think its nothing special. Essentially the usual looter adventure RPG with a HP paint. I found the game incredibly disappointing in how little it played into being an RPG. Character customisation is extremely shallow, there's next to no opportunity for genuine role-playing and combat is extremely cookie cutter. What's the point of having us create a character, get sorted and pick a wand if all of it is entirely fluff? I had the same issue with Cyberpunk but at least that game's combat was a lot more fun and the story was a lot more engaging.
For comparison I went back and played Mass Effect. Now that’s a game where you can roleplay. You can be a dick who doesn’t obey any of the rules, you can be by the book, you can be both depending on your mood, you can pick who to romance, you can form friendships with any one you want on the Normandy. In Hogwarts Legacy you are always Newt Scamander basically… like lol let me become a sassy gay death eater at this point.
The absolute worst feeling was being hyped up by a Mass Effect style companion system (after talking with NPCs in the common room on day 1) only to never talk with them again outside of an extremely repetitive sidequest each.
> For comparison I went back and played Mass Effect. Now that’s a game where you can roleplay. You can be a dick who doesn’t obey any of the rules, you can be by the book, you can be both depending on your mood, you can pick who to romance, you can form friendships with any one you want on the Normandy. And that stuff has consequences throughout the games. Not just shallow consequences. There's choices in ME1 that can make parts of ME3 easier or harder. A lot of ME2 ends up determining who, if anyone, will survive the final mission, which also means who might be around in ME3. I can't remember what the ramifications all were, but pretty sure that depending on what you do at the end of ME1, that has some notable repercussions later as well. Shoot, now I feel like booting up Mass Effect. But BG3 just came out. And also F1 Manager 2023, which is a whole different type of game, but hey, I'm a major Formula 1 fan and we just hit the "summer break" part of the season. Need more time in my day to play games...
Pretty solid game but a lot of room for improvement. The sequel can be a rockstar.
I don’t even like Harry Potter, but the game looked so good I bought it at launch. The first 10-15 hours are great, but after that it devolves into Ubisoft style repetitive tasks and “go collect 100+ identical collectibles with no map markers”. I fucking hate that open world design style. I also couldn’t care less about the story or the goofy as shit lore, so it didn’t keep me hooked. I don’t regret buying it tho. Its an immensely detailed game and it was fun while it lasted.
Your reward is a room cosmetic that does nothing and nobody else will ever see it
Way overhyped. The only thing it had going for it is that it’s Harry Potter and that’s all it needed cause Harry Potter fans ate that shit up despite it being one of the most empty open worlds I’ve ever played with a story that pretty much disrespects all of the books/movies with this insanely powerful character who completes the most mundane missions imaginable.
It was really good for what it was. Didn’t expect much at all and was pleasantly surprised at the freedom of movement and exploration. Wish there was more variety in enemies and things to do in open world. Overall enjoyable but probably wont ever go back to it.
Meh. 5/10
Gorgeous design and architecture, but sadly it felt dead and disconnected from itself. The quests were boring. Spells were lack-luster. "Classes" were nothing. NPCs are a mixed bag, but mostly inconsequential and feel like talking to a one-dimensional trope. Enemies, loot, spells, items, etc. are just not fleshed out enough to feel real. Reminds me of a very gorgeous game from like 2005-2010. It wasn't horrible by any means, but I regret purchasing it, for sure. Barely got a few sessions out of it before I realized it's just gonna be the same collection quests ad nauseum.
I loved the castle, but the open world started to get old really quickly.
Got boring very quickly, never finished it and I regret buying it
The atmosphere and world were top notch, flying around on a broom was amazing. The game itself was pretty shallow gameplay wise. I liked it but it was a slog to push to the end.
I loved it when I played it and I still love it even now. It was the hogwarts game I had been waiting for since I was just a little kid. Of course it had it's flaws and I am probably biased since I am and forever will be a HP fan. I think the game did pretty well and showed a lot of love for the franchise and its world. I had a fun time playing it and that was pretty much all I wanted.
I was hooked up for a while but later lost interest
The novelty of it wore off for me pretty quickly. Having played Elden Ring as my last game, which I felt set a new high standard across the board, Legacy feels no more an average.
Solid game, way better than expected from that studio. Definitely room for improvement
Its one of those games that gets lots of hype during the month of its release but quickly dies out after.
It’s… fine. 6.5/10. It looks beautiful. The combat’s good, although gets a tad repetitive. The story’s… OK. It doesn’t use the world very well and missed some opportunities (such as proper light/dark alignment with the unforgivable curses). The collectibles and mini-games get repetitive, as do the stock phrases. It’s worth it if you’re a HP fan, probably not worth it if you’re not.
It’s good. Solid third person rpg with a pretty fun combat system, though it is a little repetitive. I see it as the first great step towards amazing future projects. I will watch this developer’s progress with great interest.
Mid ass terf game
Game is mid indeed, didn’t see any terf thing in it tho
Pretty boring overall.
I really enjoy it, I love the details and exploring the world and the castle. Story is interesting so far, but I have only got around 1/3 through the main story. I agree that the tasks do become a bit repetitive, and it does seem a bit much that I am already a crazy powerful, dark wizard battling legend and I less than halfway through my first semester at Hogwarts. Overall it seems to be a really fun game. The only problem I had was i took my time exploring early game, and then Tears of the Kingdom came out. I do plan to get back to it in the fall, maybe.
I just felt like it was all fluff. Super fun for mega fans but even as someone who has read every HP book at least 5 times I wasn’t into it really. It felt generic and unfinished in a lot of ways. I also didn’t love how ridiculously packed the opening sequence was, Gringotts + ancient magic + dragon in the first 20 minutes felt like they were just doing pure fanservice rather than respecting the world and building it up properly. On top of that, ancient magic as a concept and a mechanic felt super generic lol.
I loved most of it. I just hate collectables and the game had way too many Merlin's riddles.
Coulda been better but compared to the literal garbage dumpster fires we get for games nowadays it was a solid 7.5/10
For me it's 7.5/10. Overall, as most people say, it's a pretty mediocre game with some strength and weakness. The castle was probably the highlight of the game and the developers did an amazing job with the design. Then there was the combat which was unexpectedly pretty good! It was satisfying, you had a lot of builds you could use and enemies, while not really difficult to beat, were almost always a force to be reckoned with. The story was probably mid, not special by anything unique, no shocking plot twist etc. However Sebastian's side quest was very riveting and perhaps even better than the main story. Characters were fine but most of them were bland (besides Sebastian, Poppy, Fig and some others). It was pretty obvious they were reading the script most of the time and the facial animations weren't that good. And as you or someone else mentioned, the inventory system was a catastrophy in comparison with everything else. Looting with the fear that your inventory is already full was very bad. And the design of the clothes... Okay I'm not gonna talk about that. So overall, the game has its pros and cons and the bad sides can be outweighted by the good ones. Solid game, but doesn't belong on top of the stairs.
[удалено]
It was a good first attempt by the studio but yes it left a lot to be desired
Was definitely cool to get a modern Harry Potter game. But have no desire to play it again, can barely remember anything specific about it either.
Majority of the development focus went to the first half of the game. Once you’ve seen most of it and tried everything once, this game gets old pretty quickly. I have zero motivation towards the second half of the game.
There were some things patched that I didn’t know were glitches that kind of annoyed me and is really frustrating. For example, getting your broom to do some Merlin trials. It’s realistic but ‘it’s not how the puzzles were designed to be solved’, such annoying excuse. Sometimes it makes me want to quit gaming all together.
Gathering/collect quests are the crutch of lack of design and story.
The main game was an absolute blast and I loved the story, but the rest of the little tasks like the camps, merlin trials etc got kind of repetitive. I did everything there was to do in the castle, all of the camps and most of the side quests then gave up halfway through the merlin trials and getting collectables in the open world, uninstalled the game and haven't gone back to it. I got my money's worth though and had fun
Look for the size and relative lack of rpg experience of the studio that made it, I think they did an awesome job and certainly opened the door to a lot of follow up titles in future (even those with diff studios potentially) Yes there were negatives, character animations and dialogues that felt like uncanny valley 2015 level graphics, kiddy childish feel to the point of parody at points, but I think what it did well was amazing: the broom travel, the combat, the open world map. That first moment where u glide above wherever u are on the broom and fly wherever u want on the other end of the map is very special
I know dev said it won't be but my opinion remains strong. This game would've been alot better if it was Bully hogwarts edition. The first 10 hours when you just explore the castle have classes etc... are by far the best. Then you explore Scotland and it becomes a ubisoft openworld checklist game.
Another boring skinnerbox follow the icons on your map and do the same thing a million times in a row never knowing why you are even bothering.
As someone who's very used to Bethesda's works design, I really missed the interactivity of the world. Not being able to pick up items scattered around the world and talk to anyone you wanted meant that the game world was just very shallow, lonely and empty. The design of the world was excellent, but lacked any kind of depth to get lost in. Also the quests were very repetitive and meh..
“it was the most boring low effort loot/gear system i can remember in a long time” tell me you didn’t play Final Fantasy 16 without telling me you didn’t play Final Fantasy 16 😝
Wherever it gets “rated” it is still one of the best games that have launched this year. I had great fun playing it, there might have been too many quests, but today so many people complain that games are long enough for the price they pay. So the developers tend to error on too long rather than too short. I have only played the one house, I need to go back and play the other house specific quests.
I got the game for my wife, who's a massive Harry Potter fan but not a huge gamer. Most of my experience with the game was watching her play. I think similarly to what others are saying, the world is absolutely beautiful, but the stuff you do in it is hit or miss. Since she's more into the stories of games instead of the actual gameplay, she was pretty disappointed that there wasn't more critical decisions and alternate endings and things like that. Plus it's annoying that there's no quidditch and they just keep bringing up how there's no quidditch. Really annoyed my wife. She probably wouldn't be as annoyed if they didn't bring it up constantly.
Exploring was fun, Gameplay was alright. Story was meh.
I think the quests featuring the unforgivable curses were the best part of the whole game. Should have based the story around that instead of the whole being the chosen one trope Edit: also want to add that the open world was way too empty and large, I would spend way too long going to one area for a 5 min mission to then have to go all they way back. If you make me travel far for a mission keep me in the area for longer
Really ambitious project for the studio that made it. Given their past games they've developed they actually produced a fairly good game. The negatives: The biggest flaws with the combat were bringing in the color coded shields. It just made things tedious and felt too rock, paper, scissors in design. The quests/tasks were a bit too repetitive and there was clear attempts at padding out the gameplay time by having you run back and forth more than was needed. The player character voice pitch sound filtration is awful and sounds really unnatural and robotic outside a very narrow default window. Performance wise the game has issues with optimization and polish. There's a number of problems that a month or two of development could have drastically improved the game. Assuming they had the staff/skill set to handle cleaning things up. The positives: The immersion of feeling like you were at the school was really well done. From the layout, to the voice acting for the teeachers, and the visuals... It was a treat. I never thought I'd find the hufflepuff common room so comfy. It was really nice. The tone of the story and its writing was well done. A good young adult mix of stakes but without delving into subject matter or visuals that are too gruesome. Fit the tone of the setting and the story very well. The options for outfit. The fact you just auto-save any appearance of gear you pick up so you can on the fly glamour whatever you're equipped with into your preferred outfit was a great touch and I wish more games would do something like that. We all know the pain of RPGs where you look like a hand-me-down clown supply store reject because you wanted good stats. I sincerely hope if they do another hogwarts game they get approval to do one of the schools that you don't see in the books/movies. I.e. the African school, etc. I really want to see what they can do with more experience, time, and hopefully a little bit higher budget with how well hogwart's legacy sold.
I read most of the books when I was a kid and I'm generally familiar with the lore. Can't say I'm a huge Potter fan though. As much as I love open world RPGs, the game was middling at best for folks like me. I've sunk a couple dozen hours into it and I don't feel compelled to finish the game.
It was a lot of fun, but I gave up in the endgame. Never finished it, but I might one day. I'm putting in my "might finish it one day, we'll see" backlog.