There was a time early on in this game where I really enjoyed it. Early on, you're met with a faithful rendition of Hogwarts, and little nooks and crannies with secrets that can be solved by the new spells you have aquired, reminiscent of the early 3 Harry Potter games that were Zelda clones back in the early 2000s. If it stayed that way and the game was designed around that methodology, we could have had a true classic on out hands.
Instead, what we got was the most blatant mesh of corporate intervention I've ever seen in a game. Right off that bat I ask myself: why is there a simplistic diablo-esque gear systen in a game about a wizard school? Why is 3/4ths of the map made up wilderness that no one cares about? Why do we unlock spells by doing fetch quests, and why are these spells not more well integrated as tools outside of combat as well as within? These were questions I asked myself when I was actually enjoying the game, mind you. Over the course of the game you'll get more and more feature creep when you add in 10 additional collectable types, a lockpicking mechanic midway through the game that is unbareably slow the more you use it (which will be frequently), confusing 3D maps that you have to wait for an animation to either access or back out of, and a shall we call it Pokemon raising/breeding minigame where you "save" animals from poachers by capturing them and taking them away from their families for zero reason.
Many of these decisions to me read as corporate wanted to please everyone in the wake of the author who shall not be name's twitter comments, but when doing so they inevitably made the whole game very unfocussed and at times a huge slog. There's also the weird aspect of how strangely multicultural this place out in rural scotland during the 1800s is. It's somehow more diverse than how it is in the 1990s when the main series takes place. Mind you, this aspect doesn't really hurt the game, it's just extremely noticeable and kind of goes into what I was referring to about the game feeling very corporate.
I haven't even gotten into the story yet either. They start off with some fairly interesting ideas surrounding ancient magic and how hogwarts ties into it, but ultimately ends up feeling like another chosen one story except with basically irrelevant villains and a lot of unexplained things (why is the MC coming in as a 5th year? Hell if I know, they never explain it). On top of that it just kinda... ends. With little to no fanfare.
This is one confusing game, but the ultimate tl;dr is that this is probably the most mixed bag of a game I've ever played. AAA devs, please, stop trying to make games into by the numbers open worlds. If they went in a highly polished Zelda clone direction, or even grabbed some aspects of Persona this could have been a far better game.
Instead, what we got was the most blatant mesh of corporate intervention I've ever seen in a game. Right off that bat I ask myself: why is there a simplistic diablo-esque gear systen in a game about a wizard school? Why is 3/4ths of the map made up wilderness that no one cares about? Why do we unlock spells by doing fetch quests, and why are these spells not more well integrated as tools outside of combat as well as within? These were questions I asked myself when I was actually enjoying the game, mind you. Over the course of the game you'll get more and more feature creep when you add in 10 additional collectable types, a lockpicking mechanic midway through the game that is unbareably slow the more you use it (which will be frequently), confusing 3D maps that you have to wait for an animation to either access or back out of, and a shall we call it Pokemon raising/breeding minigame where you "save" animals from poachers by capturing them and taking them away from their families for zero reason.
Many of these decisions to me read as corporate wanted to please everyone in the wake of the author who shall not be name's twitter comments, but when doing so they inevitably made the whole game very unfocussed and at times a huge slog. There's also the weird aspect of how strangely multicultural this place out in rural scotland during the 1800s is. It's somehow more diverse than how it is in the 1990s when the main series takes place. Mind you, this aspect doesn't really hurt the game, it's just extremely noticeable and kind of goes into what I was referring to about the game feeling very corporate.
I haven't even gotten into the story yet either. They start off with some fairly interesting ideas surrounding ancient magic and how hogwarts ties into it, but ultimately ends up feeling like another chosen one story except with basically irrelevant villains and a lot of unexplained things (why is the MC coming in as a 5th year? Hell if I know, they never explain it). On top of that it just kinda... ends. With little to no fanfare.
This is one confusing game, but the ultimate tl;dr is that this is probably the most mixed bag of a game I've ever played. AAA devs, please, stop trying to make games into by the numbers open worlds. If they went in a highly polished Zelda clone direction, or even grabbed some aspects of Persona this could have been a far better game.