Hogwarts Legacy

Wizarding World weekend starts with this gem of a game. If you wanted a wizard simulator this one is the answer you were looking for. You start the game as your very own Witch or Wizard through a generic RPG character builder. After that you set off with your personal tutor from Hogwarts to start as a fourth year student there. Now they don’t really explain why you are starting as a fourth year, but it is kind of a blessing, look how dumb the kids were in the sorcerer’s stone. On your way to school some dragon shit happens, you find out you can see special magic, and you find out the main bad guy is going to be a goblin. It is at this point that the RPG fuckery starts to take place. You will go to classes, fight a never ending supply of creatures/dark wizards, and collect all of the loot you can to gear up and fight more creatures/dark wizards. You make friends and just have a blast exploring by broom or by creature like a Hippogriff. 8/10 The story was fantastic and found myself engaged in the story almost the whole time. Depending which house, you choose, changes the story for the first three hours of the game, which is the only reason this game is not a 10/10. The first three hours are effectively a tutorial, the like 60 hours after that is the game and it is the same regardless of the house you pick.

This game was a collection nightmare. There were close to a thousand things to collect or visit and it was made worse by the sheer size of the overall map. A good part of the shit you need to get is in Hogwarts but once you left the school grounds boy it got tedious. The stuff you are picking up around the map wasn’t hard to get just far away from each other, and it made for a really long grind, but it was fun almost the whole time. I will admit I was starting to lose it when I got to the 60 hour mark but Platinum’s are worth suffering right? …. Right? The trophies I decided to save for last were the ones you get for getting to the cross over mission with a character for each house. The bulk of my game play I did as a Ravenclaw, I know I’m a fucking nerd for not picking Gryffindor, but haven’t we seen enough of that house already, get off my back. Playing through each houses story arcs was impressive, and I wish more games would do this. 8/10 The grind was long, and it was real, but I had a good time over all.

This game was beautiful. The graphical quality was just stunning, and the environments were such a blast to explore. Hogwarts was massive and every room had its own personality. For a casual player I feel like there was no way you could possibly witness everything there is to see in this game. Being as I am a scum bag and went for this long platinum (not even my longest Platinum hunt) it made me happy that even in late game I was able to find cool stuff to look at. 9/10 This game was close to a masterpiece, my only gripe was on the level loading could get you stuck as you went through doors not a game breaker though.

8.3/10 as a total for this game. It was a blast to go into the world of Harry Potter and explore everything there is to see. The characters were awesome to interact with and the magic felt good to control. It was not a perfect game, but it was damn close. Maybe I’m just sick but a GTA level of freedom would have been neat to explore with this game. Also, for the next game lets walk it back a bit with the fucking collectables. Next time around players are going to be out of the honey moon phase of Harry Potter games and might get a little pissed off at collecting almost 1000 items.