REDUX REVIEW:

It's yet another 2k game! NBA2K23 honestly feels a lot better than 22 and 20 overall. They added a neat little feature to MyLeague and brought back the Jordan challenge which are both cool.. kinda. The MyCareer is fucking stupid but that's common 2k shit.
What really disappoints me this time is the shooting. If you aren't getting greens EVERY SINGLE TIME you are probably missing.. so that sucks. It's a little better if you're just messing around with friends on Semi-Pro but bleh. I did get the greens on a lot of jumpers down so it's not... terrible... i guess.

2k is always pretty fun if you have someone to play with. This game is no different. Not amazing though and $70 is INSANE!

i got it 70% off :p

I played Hogwarts Legacy, so you don't have to
ᵇᵘᵗ ᶦᵗ'ˢ ⁿᵒᵗ ˡᶦᵏᵉ ʸᵒᵘ ʷᵃⁿᵗᵉᵈ ᵗᵒ ᵃⁿʸʷᵃʸ

Yes I know, I'm stupid for buying this game. I went back and forth between buying it or not for quite some time. Harry Potter was my childhood and some movies still bring comfort to me today.... but yknow.. fuck J.K. Rowling and all that. As you can tell, I ended up buying (pre-ordering) the game. I kinda regret it the next day but I'll get to that later. I'm going to review the game as if the author wasn't an issue but I don't recommend it purely based off that alone.

To enjoy this game whatsoever you NEED to actually like Harry Potter itself.. like LIKE LIKE it. Without that, then don't even come near this game LOL. Anyways,
ˢᵖᵒᶦˡᵉʳˢ ᵃʰᵉᵃᵈ ᵇᵘᵗ ˡᶦᵏᵉ ᶦᵗ'ˢ ʲᵘˢᵗ ʰᵒᵍʷᵃʳᵗˢ ˡᵉᵍᵃᶜʸ ʷʰᵃᵗᵉᵛᵉʳ

In Hogwarts Legacy you play as your own custom character who is starting as a 5th year in Hogwarts. The character customization itself looked pretty good in the trailers but.. it was very underwhelming. All you could do was choose from presets and their wasn't much variety in the hair. Your basic attire are the robes to whatever House you're placed in but there's quite a bit to find later in the game. That being said... after not very long all the clothing you find is more or less the same. Usually they just end up being recolors of clothing you never wore to begin with. Despite that I still had some nice outfits/various Hufflepuff uniforms to wear. Continuing with customization, you get to make your own wand! How awesome is that! Well it is actually pretty swag. The wands you get are all pretty basic but you can find slay handles throughout the world. More options for your gear include choosing your own broom and a few mounts which are pretty neat.

The gameplay in Hogwarts Legacy was okay. I can defos see it being boring to most people but I liked using the silly spells I know! Speaking of spells though.... there are so few. This is a spinoff game from a series all about magic like?? You really have less than 30 spells... and not even one of the most well known from the original series?? It's wild. We may not have Expecto Patronun, or many others, but this game does let us learn the Three Unforgivable Curses which is really cool!
Onto the enemies in this game... um they kinda suck LOL. There is SO LITTLE VARIETY with the enemies it hurts. Throughout most of the game you're fighting Goblins, shitty Dark Wizards, and spiders with an occasional zombie (?) or troll in the mix. I just got painfully bored of fighting some of the enemies after awhile.

The story.. exists! The player character is able to wield some sort of ancient magic and we're sent on a wild goose chase to keep it safe. Along the way we learn of Ranrok, a Goblin, and his partner Rockwood, a Dark Wizard. Here comes... problematic part #2. The Goblins are very weird as antagonists!! Literally a fucking day after pre-ordering the game, I learn of the famous Goblin stereotype and like.. wow! It made me realize how bad it was that these are the guys I will have to fight against the whole game, especially after learning their motive for rebelling. Like sure, they're breaking through towns and killing but cmon. I felt so guilty having to kill goblins most of the time ugh. There's also a handful of characters who have.. very weird dialogue about the Goblins!! Literally the second most important character in the game, Professor Fig, sounds lowkey disgusted when they're mentioned it is so weird. Oh and speaking of PROFESSOR FIG.. HE JUST LIKE FUCKING DIES FOR SOME REAOSN. LIKE LOL. We are literally just.. staring at eachother until a debris falls onto him like wow. My character didn't even react and it wasn't obvious he was even dead LOLLL
Well.. outside of that the story is very whatever anyways. Like if we replace Goblins with something not weird the main plotline is still so bleh. They just did an awful job making me care about any of these "Keeper" characters and the Witch who caused all this. The climax was so lame and the final fight itself SUCKED. Like omg what was that fight. Literally ripped right out of some JRPG but really bad and out of place... like this is a wizard game??
EDIT: I forgot to include this before (some fucking how) but there's literally a transphobic character in the game LOL. She isn't terrible though. Like I've seen worse...... still very distasteful to me.

The main story isn't great but there are many side quests to do with long plotlines of their own. Most of these are pretty lame too... there's just not really a reason for me to care about any of them and the missions weren't great. There does happen to be one exception to this though, Sebastian Sallow. Honestly there isn't much great writing or some shit in this either it's just actually kinda neat. You get to learn all the Unforgivable Curses throughout these as you help Sebastian try and find a cure for his sister Anne, who was cursed by a Goblin. This plotlines fun, I enjoyed it more than anything else but it didn't end up being crazy either. The climax to it was whatevs and we never got a great conclusion to the Anne story at all... but hey atleast I learned how to kill people in one blow!

Exploring Hogwarts/Hogsmade as myself was the best part of the game by far. It was so.. magical (sorry) to me. As I said earlier, I always dreamed of exploring Hogwarts like this as a kid and I finally got it. The castle is beautiful. I get giddy thinking about it! ANDDDDD then there's the rest of the world LMFAOO. Wow! The map is so fucking big yet there is like NOTHING fun to find whatsoever!! The Forbidden Forest was extremely underwhelming and the only thing the rest of the map has going for it, is it's beauty. I barely spent any time at all in that second area by the sea.. zzzzzzzzzz puts me to sleep.

Oh yeah I also wanna take a second to talk about the beasts. THE PEOPLE BEHIND THIS GAME CANNOT DESIGN BEASTS TO SAVE THEIR LIIIFFFFFFFEEEEEEEEEEEE. Maybe it they already existed in Rowling's creations, that would make sense. THE LORD OF THE COAST?? REALLY???? UGLY ASS MF!!!!!!!

I regret buying it but I still had fun with Hogwarts Legacy. I was just a huge Harry Potter fan growing up (loser) so being able to be my own Witch and explore the places I loved for years was really fun to me. The game itself really is not great though. Most side quests are boring, the main plotline kinda sucks, the combat is just okay, and the world outside Hogwarts is bland as fuck. I do not see the appeal of this game at all if you don't like LOVE Harry Potter.... and I honestly don't recommend it to huge fans either.

Fuck you J.K. Rowling for... so many things! Do not buy this game! Don't be dumb like me!!!!

it's just simply the greatest game of all time.

i'm not surprised at all that plarium games was able to make yet another banger. the characters are amazing, the story is compelling, and the mechs are arenaing.

during my time playing the game i think i reinvented the entire meta game. i'm sure the community will remember me as the greatest arena mecher of all time.