It feels like an impossible task to try and create a game that lets you really experience being in the world of Harry Potter. But I have to say that, as a first attempt at the kind of game meant to deliver the day-to-day feeling of being a student attending Hogwarts, this game does a very good job and any one who is a fan of this universe should check it out.
With that being said, I can’t help but feel like I was disappointed with several parts of this game. There’s tons of stuff to do, but none of it gets much further than being “good.” Some of the best parts include the combat, which is pretty fun and feels satisfying, but never more than some basic combos. The main story and a few of the side quests are pretty decent as well - I would argue that a side quest including a Slytherin classmate named Sebastian is even better than the main story itself - but the main story is a standard affair of good vs evil. Above everything else though is Hogwarts itself. The school is incredibly recreated, it’s amazing to be able to walk around the entirety of the castle. It’s really breathtaking and so much can be done with it in a world filled with magic. It makes for a great environment with lots of interesting places and secrets.
However, this changes when you finally step out of the school and into the open world. The map in this game is HUGE, and the content in that open world is dreadfully uninspired and tedious. So much boring, slow, simple busy work that’s there to do nothing else but pad play time. Side quests in general can also be skipped, I found them largely boring outside of ones involving your main companions. I flat out skipped most of them and can’t say I regret it. The dialogue options within those quests feel superfluous almost every time too. What you decide matters only in a very few select moments. I would have much preferred a tighter, better quality experience that was confined within the school - a smaller open world would have really benefitted here and the capabilities of what can be done within a place like Hogwarts could have been all they needed. A more compact open world like in the Yakuza series would have been great. They could even include key areas like the Forbidden Forest or Hogsmeade as their own explorable locations, but the massive, boring open world we were given felt like a waste of resources that could have been put towards something like better facial movements or more cinematic cutscenes.
Ultimately, I understand what they were trying to do here: They wanted to hit a lot of the key beats people were looking to recreate when playing a game like this - the sorting ceremony, going into Gringott’s, casting spells, attending class, flying on a broom, customizing your own living area…there’s plenty here and everyone is bound to find something they enjoy. But none of these things feel like they go incredibly deep. It’s possible this could have been done to appeal to Harry Potter fans who don’t usually play video games, but it feels like a missed opportunity in some ways.
Trying to give a player the chance to live the life of a Hogwarts student is a huge undertaking and I applaud the developers for what they were able to pull off. But this boils down to just being a decent open world game with a, admittedly very shiny, coat of Harry Potter paint on it. Bigger isn’t always better and this game would have absolutely benefited from a smaller scale and more concentrated focus.
With that being said, I can’t help but feel like I was disappointed with several parts of this game. There’s tons of stuff to do, but none of it gets much further than being “good.” Some of the best parts include the combat, which is pretty fun and feels satisfying, but never more than some basic combos. The main story and a few of the side quests are pretty decent as well - I would argue that a side quest including a Slytherin classmate named Sebastian is even better than the main story itself - but the main story is a standard affair of good vs evil. Above everything else though is Hogwarts itself. The school is incredibly recreated, it’s amazing to be able to walk around the entirety of the castle. It’s really breathtaking and so much can be done with it in a world filled with magic. It makes for a great environment with lots of interesting places and secrets.
However, this changes when you finally step out of the school and into the open world. The map in this game is HUGE, and the content in that open world is dreadfully uninspired and tedious. So much boring, slow, simple busy work that’s there to do nothing else but pad play time. Side quests in general can also be skipped, I found them largely boring outside of ones involving your main companions. I flat out skipped most of them and can’t say I regret it. The dialogue options within those quests feel superfluous almost every time too. What you decide matters only in a very few select moments. I would have much preferred a tighter, better quality experience that was confined within the school - a smaller open world would have really benefitted here and the capabilities of what can be done within a place like Hogwarts could have been all they needed. A more compact open world like in the Yakuza series would have been great. They could even include key areas like the Forbidden Forest or Hogsmeade as their own explorable locations, but the massive, boring open world we were given felt like a waste of resources that could have been put towards something like better facial movements or more cinematic cutscenes.
Ultimately, I understand what they were trying to do here: They wanted to hit a lot of the key beats people were looking to recreate when playing a game like this - the sorting ceremony, going into Gringott’s, casting spells, attending class, flying on a broom, customizing your own living area…there’s plenty here and everyone is bound to find something they enjoy. But none of these things feel like they go incredibly deep. It’s possible this could have been done to appeal to Harry Potter fans who don’t usually play video games, but it feels like a missed opportunity in some ways.
Trying to give a player the chance to live the life of a Hogwarts student is a huge undertaking and I applaud the developers for what they were able to pull off. But this boils down to just being a decent open world game with a, admittedly very shiny, coat of Harry Potter paint on it. Bigger isn’t always better and this game would have absolutely benefited from a smaller scale and more concentrated focus.
AppleTStudios
11 months ago