Hogwarts Legacy

Gonna keep this short, sweet, and to the point.

This was an amazing experience! Fun, fluid combat, compelling characters and story, intimidating foes. EXPLORING HOGWARTS. This is a Harry Potter fan's dream game, and as someone who grew up reading the books and watching the movies, I had an amazing time. The only place this game falls short in my opinion is in a few of the missions. Some of them feel a bit tedious, but not overwhelmingly so. It's hard to believe the last game from Avalanche was Cars 3: Driven to Win. You can tell this project came from passionate Harry Potter fans.

This is a game I can easily recommend to any fan of the Harry Potter franchise!

It feels like I've been waiting for this game for more than 20 years. I was ready for it since I read the first books as a child, but technology wasn't ready at the time.

I will not spoil anything, the story is more than decent though nothing extraordinary. However that matters very little. All that matters is that you get to live out your fantasy of attending Hogwarts and practicing magic!

All the locations, be it Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, the Forbidden Forest and the surrounding countryside feel alive in a way you can't even imagine! Through many segments, I was honestly smiling like a small boy out of sheer joy and I'm a grown man. Simply put, if you too have enjoyed the wizarding world, then do not miss out on this experience!

PS: Only reasons I gave it 9 stars and not 10 are because the facial expressions could use a little more work and mainly because Quidditch is missing. If they add that in a dlc, we are talking the perfect game!

One of the biggest games to be released this year is the Harry Potter spinoff Hogwarts Legacy. It came out to some positive reviews and as a fan of the franchise, I thought I would give it a playthrough and even though it took a long time, I have finally finished the game. The premise of the game set in the late 1800, sees a new student join Hogwarts where they have access to ancient magic and must learn to harness it and stop the dark forces.

Characters This game has a main character that the gamer gets to create. I created a male wizard and used him throughout the game, I mostly played as a heroic wizard and chose the dialogue to meet with that. The character is okay, there are a few interesting things about them but I always feel with your own protagonist there isn't enough depth put into them. I never really cared that much about the lead character and the voice acting didn't help at all.

There are so many characters in this game but one in particular stands out and that is Sebastian Swallow. A member of Slytherin, he is easily the best character in this game. His story is fascinating and the voice acting is great, I wanted to spend as much time as possible with this character instead the main story.

Professor Fig is a decent mentor for the main character, he kind of drifts in and out of the game but I thought he had a fun dynamic with the main protagonist and was a nice part of the game.

But the majority of the rest of the cast aren't great, the villain Ranarok is one of the most dull that you will ever see in a video game and is barely given anything to work with. Other class mates and teachers are just pretty dull and I can't really remember any of them or their personalities. I mean they waste the great Simon Pegg who plays the headmaster but is a small part of the game and doesn't really add anything.

Main Story The main story is average at best. It sees the Goblins basically try to take over Hogwarts and steal magic. It is interesting how it looks through the past of the wizarding world and what the characters motivations are but the rest of it is dull. The main character is not interesting enough and the villain is incredibly mediocre with this being a pretty big let down that had potential to be so much better.

Side Content As I mentioned above, the Side Content involving Sebastian is the best part of the game and I really enjoyed it, it had emotion and depth to it. There were a couple of other side activities that worked as well with other students. But there was also others that were a waste of time, the usual fetch quests that seem to be in every RPG are overwhelming here and I skipped the majority of them. Plus why was there no Quidditch, it is one of the most popular thing in Harry Potter but the game creators didn't put it in the game.

Gameplay The strength of the game is that the gameplay is fantastic. It flows incredibly well and allows the player to use plenty of spells that are from the books and films. The battles are a lot of fun and taking advantage of the spells that you learn and develop over the game is really fun. It is where the game thrives and I am happy that they really invested time into making this part a real highlight.

Graphics The game looks really good, it represents the Wizarding World really well. Hogwarts looks just how I imagined that it would, it nails its atmosphere very well and I really liked how the use of spells and design of characters feel natural to this universe that the game is set it.

Overall Overall, Hogwarts Legacy is a good game that does plenty of things right, especially its gameplay and graphics. But it it also fumbles on things too, I think when a game links to a film or book series it needs to have strong characters and story and for the most part this game doesn't have that. I still think it is an enjoyable game worth buying but definitely more of a desire for big fans of Harry Potter.

Rating - 7/10.

I've been waiting for a game like this since I was 10 years old, and it was well worth the wait. Hogwarts Legacy is a fantastic game, that will appease both movie fans and book fans alike. It's a magical game with great characters, an engaging story and a stunning open world. There are some issues that I have with the game, which I will note below, but they do not take away from the enjoyment this game. This is still a game aimed at children, so if anyone is expecting some Elden Ring craziness, you will be disappointed.

The game starts with us getting our Hogwarts acceptance letter and the character creation, with a pretty interesting prologue soon-after. Right off the bat the game throws you in, and you then spend the next 1-2 hours figuring out the controls before you reach the good stuff. I spent more than 30+ hours just on the main story, plus the companion side quests, and barely scratched the surface of the open world.

But first, the bad stuff: The biggest, major issue I had with the game is the controller hotkeys. I played this on Xbox, so I am not sure how this fares on the PC, but the right arrow on the depad brings up your spell selection screen. This was a very poor choice on the creators part, as you also use that same key to scroll through different ability profiles, when you hold down the right trigger. This caused several frustrating moments, especially when you are in some epic boss battle, and are taken out by the spell screen.... They should have changed it to the right bumper, since you only use that for one option, an option you barely use. That's it, thats the biggest issue I found with the game.

The minor/major issues I found is that your character, isn't your own. If you were expecting to have your own personal Harry Potter story, you will be disappointed here. The main character is mostly scripted, and you only control some of their dialogue. Also, on the character screen, you are asked if you are a witch or a wizard, but this means nothing, as you are always referred to as *They or *Them. This is rather annoying since they aren't taking into account that you are a witch or wizard but referring to you as binary. They may have done this to prevent some select minorities from complaining, but this is in the 18th century, those groups did not exist. But those moments are sparse and didn't affect the overall enjoyment. I was also disappointed you only got to choose from 2 voices, male and female in the English accent. Since Hogwarts takes place in the UK, we should have had options for a Scottish, Welsh and Irish accent. But like I said, this isn't your own personal character. Even you try to be a ruthless Slytherin, like myself, the character always acts nicely, and politely. No. I did not want this. I want to shape the personallity, to choose to be cruel. It takes away from the immersion, when you are being all kind and caring, then blasting people with the killing curse. So I just told myself, my character is just putting on a show, that he actually hates everyone. Apart from Sebastian, but more on that later.

Some of the characters have very stiff movments and facial animations. While the character models themselves are fantastic, often when in conversation, the mouth is the only thing that moves. This could be a bug. There are some bugs here and there, but the bugs are very, very minor and I had a perfectly smooth playthrough.

The main villain. The goblin central villian is very underwhelming. He only appears several times througthout the entire game, and only interacts with your character a few times. This is not very compelling for the main threat to the school and wizardkind. I was expecting way more. While the scenes he appears in are pretty good, they never leave any kind of impact.

Lastly, the loot. Oh God the loot. What happened? You could be in an ancient tomb, filled with spiders and all sorts, fight your way through mobs, solve puzzles and what do you get...... clothing. Really, no joke, clothing. You telling me I fough a troll to the death for gloves?! There should have been so much more than that.

Now for the good stuff.

The puzzles are very well done, as well as exploration. The puzzles aren't irritating to solve, thankfully, since I hate puzzles in video games.

The flying controls are great, as well as other creature controls (no spoiler).

Graphically, this game is breathtaking. Wow. As someone who lives in Scotland, they nailed the look of the highlands. The open world, everything looks remarkable.

The music is also brilliant. It is so good, that if you told me it was composed by John Willians, I would have believed you. It is just perfect.

The story is also really, really good. The story is surprisingly long, longer than I was expecting. There are 4 total acts, and each act is roughly 10 hours long, if you decide to do the main side quests as well, which I would encourage everyone to do.

The characters. The big one. There are several central characters, and 4 companions. One of them, a Ravenclaw, is very underused and only comes with you on a few missions. The Hufflepuff and Griffindor companions are both great, and their missions are also very well done. But the highlight comes from the Slytherin companion (and my house). Sebastian is the best character in the game, and his side missions are some of the best in the entire game. They are fantastic, and often take away from the main story, because they are that good. I hope we see more of him in future installments.

I know this was a very long review, and I apologise, but this was a game 10 years in the making. While it has some problems, it was well worth it. It's one of the best games in years, with great characters, story and everything magical. If you see anyone getting bullied for playing this game (if you know why, you know), I encourage you to purchase and play this game. It is the perfect prequel to Harry Potter, the one we wanted. Can't wait for my second playthrough, to explore more of this world.

9.5/10.

Hogwarts Legacy was an incredible game that lived up to the hype. From the moment I loaded it up, I felt like I had been transported into a magical world of adventure and exploration. The graphics were stunningly realistic and brought Hogwarts to life in ways that no other game has ever achieved before. Every mission felt unique as you encountered new challenges while exploring this captivating world filled with secrets and surprises around every corner.

The gameplay was also top-notch, allowing players to customize their character's abilities in order to find success during battles or puzzles they may encounter during their journey through Hogwarts Legacy's story mode campaign missions or side quests. The controls were intuitive enough for even novice gamers, yet still provided some challenges for veterans who wanted a bit more depth out of the experience when playing on higher difficulty levels.

Unfortunately, though there is one glaring issue with this otherwise masterful title - its lack of online features such as co-op play or photo mode which would have made it much more enjoyable for those looking for an immersive multiplayer experience with friends from across the globe. Despite this setback however, Hogwarts Legacy remains one of my favorite games released so far in 2023 due to its beautiful visuals, engaging storyline, varied gameplay mechanics, and overall level design.

RL.