With a controversial creator, a struggling movie spin-off and a miserable Broadway production it becomes very easy to question ones love for the Wizarding World. Now here comes Hogwarts Legacy. While it absolutely feels late to the party it is here to try and live up to the expectations of those asking for it over the last decade. Consider me surprised that a title that released to such thunderous controversy is actually one of the most creatively bankrupt games of 2023.
It is hard not to compare what is here to Rockstar's "Bully" as it is the gold star example of how to properly do a school time setting. Balancing open world activities on a living schedule while providing incentives through gameplay bonuses for attending classes. Rather than work off of that already excellent concept we have an adventure that provides you with a long and tedious checklist of tasks that will keep you busy, but not entertained.
This is because there is a strong artificial presence while traversing Hogwarts and its surrounding region. It feels less like you are exploring the lived in world from the famed books/movies, and more like you are walking the halls of a diorama. Don't get me wrong it looks rather nice and the first time you see your house common room is a real treat. But interacting with students isn't possible. The same looped animation and sound effects repeat throughout the halls. The entire map is filled with these scroll collectibles that further make the world feel like we are on some guided tour through a museum. That outside region of Hogwarts could have been any generic fantasy setting because there isn't anything out there to truly make it feel worth exploring. It's really dull.
That same dullness is in the story as well. There are so many unremarkable and undeveloped characters in this adventure. Only a handful of the side quests feel worth your time and the main plot absolutely has a pacing problem. I think this issue stems from the fact that the game is clearly trying to have its cake and eat it too. Trying to simultaneously tell an original story while also trying to provide all the moments potter heads have wanted to experience in their dream scenario. It is a struggle to get through.
It's also pretty buggy. You're mileage may vary but there were certainly some standout bugs in my playthrough and there were two that really got to me. One where I died as I was killing a boss. Rather than giving me a game over my lifeless body just laid there and my character continued to speak as if his legs still worked. The other was a really horrible audio issue that triggered in the final boss room. Absolute tone killer and left me with a headache.
Finally combat, which is just fine I guess. It never amounts to more than just spamming your abilities on cooldown but I would be lying if I said I didn't find some moves to be pretty satisfying. I actually think some of the bugs contributed to my enjoyment in the combat as there were some hilarious glitched enemy deaths.
Honestly the most annoying thing is me explaining why I have this game marked as Abandoned and not Complete. I beat the main story. I got a "congrats" screen. But I only got 33% of the content done and I gave up on completing the final main quest as it required me to level up 8 more times just to watch a cutscene trigger. Yeah, no thanks. I don't own this game, I borrowed it from my brother and would rather get this returned to him so I could play literally anything else.
I'm not shocked this game sucks. I was planning on rating it a little bit higher but in the process of writing my thoughts out I settled on the conclusion that this game is bad and you shouldn't play it. The Wizarding World IP will need to try a bit harder next time as this adventure suffers from a surprising lack of magic.
TLDR: Much like J.K. Rowling's Disgusting rhetoric, this adventure feels uninspired.
It is hard not to compare what is here to Rockstar's "Bully" as it is the gold star example of how to properly do a school time setting. Balancing open world activities on a living schedule while providing incentives through gameplay bonuses for attending classes. Rather than work off of that already excellent concept we have an adventure that provides you with a long and tedious checklist of tasks that will keep you busy, but not entertained.
This is because there is a strong artificial presence while traversing Hogwarts and its surrounding region. It feels less like you are exploring the lived in world from the famed books/movies, and more like you are walking the halls of a diorama. Don't get me wrong it looks rather nice and the first time you see your house common room is a real treat. But interacting with students isn't possible. The same looped animation and sound effects repeat throughout the halls. The entire map is filled with these scroll collectibles that further make the world feel like we are on some guided tour through a museum. That outside region of Hogwarts could have been any generic fantasy setting because there isn't anything out there to truly make it feel worth exploring. It's really dull.
That same dullness is in the story as well. There are so many unremarkable and undeveloped characters in this adventure. Only a handful of the side quests feel worth your time and the main plot absolutely has a pacing problem. I think this issue stems from the fact that the game is clearly trying to have its cake and eat it too. Trying to simultaneously tell an original story while also trying to provide all the moments potter heads have wanted to experience in their dream scenario. It is a struggle to get through.
It's also pretty buggy. You're mileage may vary but there were certainly some standout bugs in my playthrough and there were two that really got to me. One where I died as I was killing a boss. Rather than giving me a game over my lifeless body just laid there and my character continued to speak as if his legs still worked. The other was a really horrible audio issue that triggered in the final boss room. Absolute tone killer and left me with a headache.
Finally combat, which is just fine I guess. It never amounts to more than just spamming your abilities on cooldown but I would be lying if I said I didn't find some moves to be pretty satisfying. I actually think some of the bugs contributed to my enjoyment in the combat as there were some hilarious glitched enemy deaths.
Honestly the most annoying thing is me explaining why I have this game marked as Abandoned and not Complete. I beat the main story. I got a "congrats" screen. But I only got 33% of the content done and I gave up on completing the final main quest as it required me to level up 8 more times just to watch a cutscene trigger. Yeah, no thanks. I don't own this game, I borrowed it from my brother and would rather get this returned to him so I could play literally anything else.
I'm not shocked this game sucks. I was planning on rating it a little bit higher but in the process of writing my thoughts out I settled on the conclusion that this game is bad and you shouldn't play it. The Wizarding World IP will need to try a bit harder next time as this adventure suffers from a surprising lack of magic.
TLDR: Much like J.K. Rowling's Disgusting rhetoric, this adventure feels uninspired.