Review — Hogwarts Legacy
Ultimately, this is an incredible game that I had way more fun with than I thought I would. I believe it’s because of two things: First…
Ultimately, this is an incredible game that I had way more fun with than I thought I would. I believe it’s because of two things: First, there is a relatively good game underneath it all, with fun combat, and interesting gameplay mechanics, and second, because it is extraordinarily faithful to the source material. For fans of the Wizarding World, this is something that I would highly recommend you to play as I’m certain there will be something for you to love here.
For those just looking at Hogwarts Legacy as a game, I might recommend you pass on it. Without the context of and appreciation for the world-building established in all of the other works of media that have built this franchise, you likely won’t enjoy your time, and the spectacle moments just will not hit as hard. Players in this category I also imagine will be less willing to put up with some of the game’s more tedious moments.
Those two paragraphs are THE most important thing any review of Hogwarts Legacy could tell you, and I hope it helps you decide whether to play it or not. That being said, my personal thoughts are below:
That said, just about everything you’ve ever wanted to do in the Wizarding World is here for you to do. You can cast a wide variety of the franchise’s most popular spells, be placed by the sorting hat, get selected by a wand, ride on majestic beasts, fly on a broomstick, learn the dark arts, drink potions, tend for magical creatures, attend classes, explore Hogwarts and more. It feels like before they made this game, they sat down and discussed everything that makes the Wizarding World what it is and strung together gameplay and narrative through as many of those points as they could. In that sense, the story at times feels weak and some of its moments can feel forced. But, it’s hard to care about that when all I’m doing is smiling on the other side of the computer screen because the kid from my childhood has waited a long time to be able to experience the wizarding world of Harry Potter in ways I didn’t even realize I wanted.
Combat is pretty straightforward. There are several different types or colors of magic, that break correspondingly colored enemy shields. You can counter magic with a shield of your own but also have a dodge for uncounterable magic, the likes of which are specified by a red or yellow sphere over the player character’s head. You can access 4 spells at a time but can unlock space to quickly swap to 3 other sets (for 16 easily accessible spells at any given time). Beyond the specific casts, like the age-old expelliarmus, you have your “basic cast” which is just… some kind of flavorless magic. In addition to these, your character has “chosen one” energy and can access a form of ancient magic, which allows you to be able to obliterate anything with several variations of an ultimate move.
While some Wizard-game lovers will certainly say there are not enough spells and that they did not have enough interactivity with each other and their elements, I genuinely thought the included amount is enough to have a lot of fun with! I enjoyed figuring out combos of spells and assigning them to my quick slots for easy access.
One thing about combat that I particularly enjoyed is the strange juxtaposition between the player character being a nice student and some kind of War Wizard. You wouldn’t think your character would get into the heat of battle and use ancient magic to call lightning from the sky to not only kill the enemy but explode their bodies into a cloud of dust. It’s crazy because one moment my character will be like, “Unforgivable Curses? Like the ones that kill people? People that do that are evil.” And then five minutes later, I am probably killing goblins in the most horrifying way possible, cursing them, exploding them, using unforgivable curses on them, etc. As I said though, I was SO here for that power fantasy, and I thought the juxtaposition was really funny, but narrative purists would probably hate that inconsistency between your character as some kind of Battle Mage, vs. lowly new student.
One last note about the power fantasy. I absolutely learned avada kedava, the kill spell. It is, exactly as you would hope it would be. It is the kill spell. You get it, pretty late game, but let me tell you, there was nothing more satisfying than seeing a boss troll enemy with three pools of a health bar and a big ugly nameplate go down with a single avada kedava. Euphoric power fantasy. So glad that exists here. It kind of wraps into my earlier point! They truly let you interact with some of the most notable aspects of the franchise — the killing curse included (but Quidditch not included, I’m afraid).
Consequently, it also includes some of the more cliche parts of the IP… being the chosen one for example. The whole story revolves around you being a very special person, which, only comes around every hundred years or something like that. Then you follow a villain and his goons before they can get to a bunch of ancient magic that can be used as a weapon to turn the tide of what is essentially a good vs evil war. Pretty standard stuff. There are points of the story that certainly pop, there are great emotional beats, and there are some genuinely boring lulls. Overall though, I was relatively curious as to how it would all turn out so I stuck with it until the end. I also followed through with all the major side-quests as well.
While the writing is a bit dry, it’s the fact that Hogwarts Legacy looks and plays like the best game from two console generations ago that hurts the story the most. Interaction between characters is typically simple shot / reverse shot camera angles, facial animations lack expression, and after an expression, they sharply return to their default of no expression. Skipping through dialogue as fast as I could read it was certainly the way to go unless it was fully animated anyway. Semi-related note, while the game does make it seem as though there is a morality system there is not. For example, you can request people pay you more for completing quests, or use unforgivable curses, but that doesn’t affect your character or the world in any noticeable way. It’s a slight bummer to realize your actions have practically no consequences, especially in a world where there are such things as “Unforgivable” actions… but I digress.
The true bane of Hogwarts Legacy is unfortunately the vast amount of collectibles. We have here a really fun, 30-hour game. But if you want all the collectibles it’s at least 60 hours. When you start finding these at first it’s very novel. You’ll do a little something here and there on the map, and have a little fun with the short puzzles. Then you’ll unlock a different kind of activity a little later. And a different one after that. And a different one beyond there. All fun for a bit, of course. But then you’ll realize that there are not just 5 or 10 of these in the open world. But 15. 20. 30. All to complete for each type. I spent a handful of long play sessions on my couch, SteamDeck in hand (a fantastic way to play, by the way), TV droning in the background, focusing on NOTHING but completing these Ubisoft open-world fillers, and I barely made a dent in these activities. I would tell you ‘Hey, don’t do them altogether’, but when the game locks inventory space and actually useful upgrades behind some of these… it’s hard to bat an eye. A fantastic inclusion for those who wish to spend a hundred hours in this world, or kids who don’t have money for their next single-player gaming fix, but for me, I certainly hit a point when I realized I was at my micro-puzzle limit, and I B-lined the rest of the major side-quests and story missions. Don’t really feel compelled to return for those, honestly.
If you liked this review, consider reading the full version on my website. Thanks!
Originally published 24 Jul 2023 at https://www.backloggd.com.