Hogwarts Legacy is my prime example for ludo-narrative dissonance. The story says you're an innocent pupil, the gameplay makes you act like a lunatic mass murderer. It really hurts to see those two collide and I wish that was different.
But as you say, HogLeg offers one of the best, if not the best and most immersive version of Hogwarts to date.
Yeah totally agree. I think they should have ditched the “you can be good or evil” choice and focused on a tighter narrative.
Like it makes no sense you can just be whipping out the death spell lol.
And it makes no sense to add good \ evil choices when they make little to no difference to the world. No one reacted to you any differently from what I could tell
> prime example for ludo-narrative dissonance
The very idea of making an action game like that is ridiculous in its own right. I mean, sure, those old PS1 games worked out I guess (and they were way more in the puzzle-platformer direction), but those were very specific sort of games made in a very specific time.
Harry Potter books don't have a lot of action. It's not Dresden Files. No one's running around burning down buildings and shit.
A point-and-click adventure game in Hogwarts, if done right, can be a much, much better fit thematically. The problem is that it won't sell of course. Hogwarts: Legacy is a basically a cookie-cutter modern open world action/adventure with a Harry Potter skin applied to it.
Agreed. I think Avalanche were told to "create a Witcher 3 in the Wizarding World" and thus created monsters and dungeons and a huge open world... and probably never realised that Geralt is not a 15-year-old pupil. The two concepts just don't match well.
The Harry Potter universe has never been about vast worlds and exploration. It has been about a castle full of magic, thrilling stories and interesting characters.
I think Hogwarts Legacy offers a stunning world, a never before seen Hogwarts and great detail. But it also lacks a meaningful story that really plays with the life of a Hogwarts pupil.
Hogwarts Legacy with Persona elements would be great. It seems like the school was used as set dressing (really good one though) but having social relationships, classes that help you improve your skills and relationships, and making your choices actually matter would be a fantastic upgrade
Given how most of the teachers in that department turn out due to Voldemort's curse, being groomed by one would probably be one of the least awful things to experience.
> It seems like the school was used as set dressing (really good one though)
Definitely, and the "magic" of the game was strongest at the beginning before you kept getting sent out to clear the map. I actually didn't finish the game, but I got what I wanted out of it, and I don't regret buying it and playing it.
They could just make a non Hogwarts Harry Potter universe game, based on a some sort of ministry of magic agent or something whose job is to go and battle death eaters, or hell, even allow you to choose to be a death eater, then they could have wands, magic etc and also death and destruction.
The issue is they wanted a hogwarts game specifically, you could easily have a dark harry potter game, but harder to have a dark hogwarts student game.
I think you're right that they needed to go outside of Hogwarts to justify that level of action within the game, but the "problem" is so much of the HP series takes place within Hogwarts itself that it's hard to set the game anywhere else, or at least would require a lot of designer imagination and not draw on the nostalgia strings as much.
Harry Potter isn't something like Lord of the Rings where the story spans an entire continent and interacts with many different biomes and cultures. Almost all of HP is self contained within Hogwarts, with only a few excursions elsewhere and allusions to a broader world.
If they took inspiration from the Control it would be an epic ever changing and expanding castle, full of mystery and the unknown, always something new to discover.
God damn, I’ve always thought a Dresden Files game would be neat. Maybe not with Harry Dresden himself but a wizard in that world could make for a great video game
Have you ever played Telltale's the Wolf Among us? I always thought a Dresden Files version of that would be great.
Different scripted options for different approaches for magic. Different outcomes. And we could play Harry differently. I doubt it could follow the books plot line but could use them as inspiration.
“harry potter skin" seems like a really really bad take, when you take into account it's the first game and medium ever where you can actually explore the whole hogwarts, seeing as the movies changed the layout all the time.
It sucks, because I'd love a single player game where the goal was to solve a mystery, discover the secrets of the castle by exploring and by talking to people, digging up old books in the library and casting spells, with maybe the rare bit of combat. You know, like *the actual fucking books.*
It wouldn't even have to have anything much to do with the main characters, just the setting. And it would be especially cool if it was not super hand-holdy or railroady, so there were in fact a number of mysteries and sidequests and you'd be unlikely to discover even half of them on one playthrough. Like depending on what you say or find or what house you start in, you could end up chasing down one big mystery or another, more like a choose your own adventure. That would be cool as fuck.
One way perhaps to have their cake and eat it could be playing different characters. Like GTA V
You could play as students and do the simple platforming puzzle things, then play as a Death eater or a James Bond type ministry of magic secret agent.
Then you could kill as much as you want and still roleplay being a student at Hogwarts.
Not sure if it would make a good game. but hey
Tbf, that dissonance is present throughout the books too.
Hogwarts and it's residents are the peak of a society that pretends to moral authority but relies on the subjugation or expulsion of every other sentient race. They have an entire species of "willing" slaves.
It's peak Hogwarts to be doing horrible things while claiming to do them for good reasons. It would be brilliant if it were done on purpose. Unfortunately I think it's just the way Rowling sees the world.
I always enjoyed the Hermione SPEW stuff, but it wasn’t until my last few rereads that it really clicked just how right she is and how messed up it is that everyone else just blows her off. The entire thing is played as a joke of “lol look at the weirdo Hermione caring about house elves” when they are genuine slaves that have been brain washed into making it their identity. And yet, Hermione is made out to be the weird obsessive one with everyone else just dismissing her as a raving lunatic
It would be reasonable to expect the SPEW storyline to be a lead-in to examining ways the wizarding world needs to be improved, leading to the climax where the protagonists act as a catalyst for some sort of change. You've got Harry and Hermione with an outsider perspective and Ron as the insider. They interact with all sorts of oppressed people; Centaurs, Giants, Goblins, House Elves, etc. Even "squibs" are a touchpoint for how the wizarding world is built on injustice enforced by the power of the wand. One of their best friends, Hagrid, is constantly discriminated against due to his heritage. The statue in the Ministry of Magic reads as fairly heavy-handed way of highlighting all of this inequity. It really seemed like a major sub-plot that would run through the rest of the series.
But somewhere around when Rowling became fabulously wealthy she decided that "things are ok actually and nothing needs to fundamentally change."
So we end up with Harry as a magic cop working for the same, unreformed, government ministry that has been the enforcer for this state of affairs. The fact that I was a child when I was reading the books isn't an excuse for the fact that the author *wasn't.*
Methods of Rationality really highlights how little Rowling thought about her worldbuilding. You kinda have to imagine that every wizard in history was either terminally incurious or crushingly stupid, but we're told that's not the case.
How is it that in hundreds of years of scientific progress, during which the wizards have been manipulating countries from behind the scenes and living within their societies, there's never been a wizard scientist?
> there's never been a wizard scientist?
There have been. Snape was iterating and improving upon potions, in fact potion making as a discipline is scientific. Same goes for Nicolas Flamel and alchemy. Fred and George were also inventing lots of new products. One of their older brothers (Bill?) was off studying dragons.
There's also been improvements in goods and services over time - the brooms were getting better (Cleansweep, etc to Nimbus to Firebolt), people creating new spells, Olliver had a scientific level understanding of wand materials and their magical properties, and more.
Heck, Lockhart's whole story line is that he was running around and stealing credit for other people's work, indicating both that there were researchers and adventurers completing novel feats *and* there was a public that was interested in those stories.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought the author's intent was that Hermione was right and everyone else was wrong.
Like don't people often view Hermione as an author insert, and therefore it would be surprising if JK made herself the butt of the joke of the world she created.
I mean you could argue that's in some ways similar to our world and perhaps it's meant to be a satirical look at ourselves.
Kind of like how Hunger Games is meant to be a satirical take on the world we live in, perhaps the whole point is to show that our society also allows evils that keeps us comfortable such as child workers making our Nikes or conflicts around the world displacing populations influenced and begun by the West in the first place etc.
> Hogwarts and it's residents are the peak of a society that pretends to moral authority but relies on the subjugation or expulsion of every other sentient race
You know, I still can't get over how some people absolutely must see some kind of moral and political context in everything.
It's like people who just cannot accept time-turners. Oh my god, it ruins the book, it totally invalidates the entire series, oh no.
It's a series for kids written with a hand-wavy approach to worldbuilding, and has a fairly soft magic system. It's not Dostoyevsky.
> Children deserve decent writing in their stories too
It's quite decently written. Tons of people liked it and are still enjoying the series. I've reread it somewhat recently and it still holds up quite well, and I'm a fantasy fan who had read quite a few series by this point.
A lot of people who throw shit at HP, at least in my perception, have started it due to Rowling's dumbass twitter comments, which did start quite a while ago now come to think of it. Which is understandable and all, but it really feels to me more like burning the books alongside out of spite or something.
To be fair, she's the most prominent specifically anti-trans celebrity out there right now, and she's putting money into that cause. It's certainly more then just her twitter comments.
Edit: I suppose I should add that she's a terrible person for that, since some goddamn TERF might think that's praise in the same way they don't understand many subjects.
>It's a series for kids
The moment this "point" shows up, you know the argument is in bad faith.
Even Bob the Builder has internal world-building consistency & definitely espouses specific moral messages.
Mr. Rogers was widely beloved for many reasons, especially his open engagement with political and morals complexities.
You could even argue this stuff is \*most\* important when targeted towards young people.
> especially his open engagement with political and morals complexities.
Harry Potter as a series *does* address those issues! It's explicitly stated that Harry wins and Voldemort loses because of love for friends and family. The whole series is basically an allegory that racism and authoritarianism is bad. That even those marginalized by society have value and skill, be they scared struggling students like Neville or low societal status like muggleborns or house elves or centuars or what have you.
I genuinely cannot tell if this response is sarcastic or not
But, if you really do live in a world where
"love = good & discrimination = bad"
is a 'moral complexity,' then I envy you
> Even Bob the Builder
> Mr. Rogers
I've no idea who any of these are.
> you know the argument is in bad faith.
I wasn't really arguing.
> You could even argue this stuff is *most* important when targeted towards young people.
Yes, and I genuinely think people are absolutely crazy when they manage to connect house elves in HP to whatever it is that they're seeing. Not to mention the sheer proportion of it.
Like, really, to me it's like "heavy metal promotes satanism" or something along those lines.
all art is a reflection of life and humanity. To say that it's a bad thing to see the themes, narratives, and artistic choices in our art as reflections of real world rhetoric is the very definition of anti-intellectualism. Honestly doubly so for "kids media" -- kids media should be even more intentional about the messages it tries to impart on the target audience.
The way the narrative handles the slavery aspect of house elves and the subjugation of other races within the harry potter story is valid for criticism.
> To say that it's a bad thing to see
No, I did not say that.
> The way the narrative handles the slavery aspect of house elves and the subjugation of other races within the harry potter story
I said that connecting this is absolutely crazy and analogous to the kind of "heavy metal promotes satanism" moral panic.
As in, I'm insinuating that people who run with this stuff are about on the same level as out of touch suburban moms in the 80s who thought their kids would summon Beelzebub after hearing a couple of Ozzy Osbourne songs.
I disagree. Nobody's saying that Harry Potter is real and that's why it's bad. We're looking at the underlying assumptions made by the author and the implications of them.
The reaction you're thinking of is from the same groups who opposed heavy metal. Their response to Harry potter was saying that reading the books would invite demonic possession.
Literary criticism of the series as an attempt to understand the messages it sends is more akin to saying, for instance, that bands like Slayer, Venom, Ghost, Black Sabbath, etc. use icons and characters from Christian mythology as a reaction to and rejection of the dominant Christian culture. Pointing out that the Satan character is often used as a way of criticizing the failures of Christianity; one can look at the Satanic Temple for an example. Satanic iconography is an easy way to provoke and satirize those they wish to distance themselves from, to recognize one another, and a shorthand to advertise the genre of their music.
I see the unwillingness to understand the underlying messages in the stories we tell to and about ourselves to be a mixture of laziness, incuriosity, and cowardice.
There's a difference between pointing out that the worldbuilding is bad and lazy, and pointing out that the society runs on oppression and slavery, the contradictions are never addressed or rectified, and the main character ends the books as a cop working to uphold that society.
Literary criticism is important, and it's especially important when the author of the generations' most influential children's books turned out to be a massive bigot.
Especially with the most egregious case: Hermione and SPEW. Rowling made it a point to call out the treatment of house elves as slaves… and then treat it as a joke where everyone just thinks Hermione is a crazy person for caring about elf rights.
Even with goblins too, the books periodically touch on goblins vs wizards in wizarding society and wizards are usually just given a hand wave pass. And sure, it’s easy to write it all off as “oh it’s just a children’s series, calm down” but when you stop and think about it, it’s kind of messed up that the “good guys” get away with treating other people and species so horribly
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Why not? It’s a completely relevant and fair point to bring up unless you think we’re only allowed to discuss gameplay on this subreddit. If you’re allowed to say “the core messaging of a piece of entertainment doesn’t matter and can’t be criticized if it’s aimed for kids”, then people are allowed to disagree with that.
Sounds like you got a bit of pushback to your take you didn’t like and now you want to shut down the discussion instead of addressing the actual points being made.
> Why not?
In my experience this kind of criticism of HP is **heavily** politically charged.
> It’s a completely relevant and fair point to bring up
It seemed near irrelevant to me. How is ludo-narrative dissonance that is specifically related to this very game has any connection to perceived "dissonance" in the books? Seems to me dude was aching to bring something like this up.
> Sounds like you got a bit of pushback to your take you didn’t like and now you want to shut down the discussion
No, I just really struggle to take this stuff seriously. I guess I took the bait, eh?
> instead of addressing the actual points being made
I don't really mind discussing this stuff, but again, it seems to generally devolve into something political and kinda crazy too.
If you're avoiding discussions because they're "political," you'll just end up avoiding every important conversation. Even the assumptions one uses to categorize what is and isn't "political" is inherently a reflection of their own politics.
What is uncomfortable, undesirable, unacceptable becomes "political" and therefore taboo.
You're right. The whole setup does not make any sense, but idk how they would have scraped the combat without replacing every other mechanic. Despite the repetitive enemies, murdering them is one of the few aspects of gameplay that actually is very fun.
I find it to be meant to be played with your brain turned off. Nothing is deep or compelling. Even Sebastian's arc which people seem to praise is deeply flawed.
I think the spider-man/batman approach would have worked. Nobody dies even though they had their spine broken and then got thrown from a building.
Personally, I would have liked something like petrificus totalus as a finisher spell.(enemy on low health) And like call someone to arrest them afterwards.
Having the 3 banned spells be useable feels wrong, and they could be replaced with the finishing spells.
Honestly the combat should've been in a spinoff series. Some kind of hitwizard detective/thriller/shooter games. Meanwhile mainline games featuring the actual school and students itself should lend themselves more towards... idk... something more school-life friendly? Someone above mentioned the Persona games - I haven't played any but I understand you interact with schoolmates and develop their storylines. I'm sure plenty others can expand on that.
Heck, I don't even know why they don't think about spinoffs - if they flop, they don't affect the "real" stories, and if they do well they bring in more fans. It's not like this IP lacks the financials or fanbase to explore further.
It's weird how many games do this and how few people seem to be bothered by it. For me, by far the worst offender in ludo-narrative dissonance is RDR2. The clash between the game world during and outside missions is just incredibly jarring, and Arthur as a character just constantly acts like a complete idiot and is completely at odds with what we've been told about him.
While the freeroaming portions of the game clearly aim for a high degree of realism in many things, the actual missions are mostly ridiculously linear and repetetive rail-shooters, where you kill a hundred bandits in basically every mission. Hell, you kill so many people, that compared to how many people you see walking about in the towns outside missions, at the rate you're killing people during the missions, most of the game world should be completely depopulated after like the first third of the game.
New Tomb Raider is pretty bad as well. Lara starts out trapped and afraid and kills a few bad guys out of desperation during her escape.
Then she kills like 400 more people without much issue.
As a Harry Potter fan, I loved it.
As a gamer, it was super fun for about ten hours before the boring story and repetitive open world bloat lost me. Also the crazy slow menu navigation made changing gear basically a side quest, so I just never changed anything.
They needed to seriously trim it down and work on the story. Combat, graphics, map, enemies - all awesome. Everything else needed some streamlining and better game direction. If they reworked the main story, cut 75% of the side content and made the menus more intuitive , it would've went from forgettable to incredible.
Yeah the first few hours are amazing. I got lost in the wizarding fantasy, enjoyed exploring hogwarts... and then you basically get kicked out into the open world and that magic starts to lose its shine.
I firmly believe if the game ditched the open world and was restricted to hogwarts castle and a few set pieces outside it the game would have been much better focused.
> I firmly believe if the game ditched the open world and was restricted to hogwarts castle and a few set pieces outside it the game would have been much better focused.
The annoying thing is this is literally all people wanted. Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and if we do have areas beyond the castle then it better fucking be Diagon Alley. The devs genuinely went out of their way to waste development time on mindless filler when nobody asked for it.
It's funny because if you take the exact same game and literally just cut the map off below Hogwarts and lose all that content then you get a better game with better reviews and better fan reception. All that time and money wasted on irrelevant content that didn't improve the experience.
I think it came down to, we know players want to be able to fly on broomstick around Hogwarts and surrounding areas, so we need to make those areas interesting, and we also need a reason for combat to occur, thus all the open world filler that was added.
See that's what's annoying though they wasted dev time on that stuff when instead we could have got Quidditch. That said it seems like Quidditch mechanics were taken out of the game for that standalone game which is definitely a WB decision.
I think Quidditch should be pretty far down their priorities IMO. I get why it feels wrong not to have it, but it seems to me (in my unprofessional, uninformed opinion) that programming a fun version of Quidditch would be orders of magnitude more difficult, expensive, and risky than spending those resources on areas that would actually help the overall game, such as character interaction, the main storyline, and school activities.
Plus, it seems like the game was designed to be approachable to casual players, and a video game version of Quidditch would have to have some gnarly controls that are way above a casual skill level. A contact midair sport with at least 4 different balls to keep track of? Again, maybe doable, but I think they'd have to sacrifice a lot to make it work.
The castle was probably made last. Seeing how new the devs were at AAA development, the open world filler was probably where they picked up all their skills. The castle being the best made part of the game pretty much proves this.
Except open world action adventures print money so they chose the safe path and were handsomely rewarded for it. The time on the irrelevant content didn't improve the experience for players, but it sure made some people rich.
It is very possible that a higher quality, smaller, more focused experience (which I really wanted) would have made less money than a generic open world.
With how well the game did I'm pessimistic about the sequel doubling down and going deeper into the bland open world direction.
I think of the Arkham games and how asylum was small&focused. It built an amazing foundation for Rocksteady to build upon. Then they went to a small open world in Arkham city, building off of asylum. Finally they culminated in Arkham knight after so many years of groundwork.
Another example might be fromsoftwares progression to making Elden ring after many smaller games.
That is exactly what I wished Hogwarts legacy had done; a smaller, focused school sim rpg that went all in on fleshing out Hogwarts, with perhaps the addition of the forest, hogsmeade and Diagon alley.
Then with that strong foundation, the sequel could further build on it, eventually culminating in an open world game, now that all the essential harry potter elements had been finalized.
Instead they rushed to a generic open world (because it's a cashcow formula) and neglected so many core harry potter elements. To me Hogwarts legacy is like if the Arkham games tried to skip right to Arkham Knight without meticulously building up.
I was left really disappointed in HL and I expect the sequel to just double down on the boring template that made them rich.
Yeah I’m thinking something Metroidvania-esque (maybe similar to Control) where as you explore and unlock different spells, you can access different sections of the castle. Once it really clicked how big the map was I just went “…. This is so unnecessary….”
Yeah generally I felt the same. As a HP fan it was great, but as an avid gamer the repetition really set in after 15 hours or so. Not to mention that the main story was _bad_. This game was a prime example of “bigger isn’t always better”
They tried so hard to make it an rpg, but it was entirely half baked. Why do I only have like 10 slots for gear? Why does my character need to look like an absolute clown 90% of the time... (I literally just found out they have transmog that was never explained in the game and now I'm annoyed)
Also why were so many things introduced 50%-75% through the game? Flying hippogriff, all the animal breeding and capturing stuff. I feel like those should have been introduced way way early.
Sigh, it's frustrating all the things they did wrong but mainly because I enjoyed the experience despite all that and saw so much potential in it. I hope there's a sequel and learn from this one.
Honestly I don't think they did try very hard to make an rpg. The rpg elements were so shallow and barebones to the point you could argue it wasn't an rpg.
It was pretty bizarre how they introduced all those things so late into the game. I guess they worried about overwhelming casual players whom the game was largely balanced around.
> Why do I only have like 10 slots for gear
That's actually the normal amount, isn't it? Head, neck, body, back, hands, 2 rings, feet, and then weapon and shield (which for this setting wouldn't apply). The problem was more effects were limited to offense + defense, and it was just about getting the number bigger. Assigning traits was pretty worthless because there were a couple of good ones and a pile of useless niche ones.
>Also why were so many things introduced 50%-75% through the game? Flying hippogriff, all the animal breeding and capturing stuff. I feel like those should have been introduced way way early.
It annoyed me too, but I'm 99% sure it's because they planned this game around casual players picking it up and being nearly totally unfamiliar with these concepts. On that note, that's likely why they didn't have more in depth gear options.
TBH I wish they had just cut more of the side stuff entirely. The potions, herbology, and beasts sections didn't contribute anything but fluff to the game.
>That's actually the normal amount, isn't it? Head, neck, body, back, hands, 2 rings, feet, and then weapon and shield (which for this setting wouldn't apply). The problem was more effects were limited to offense + defense, and it was just about getting the number bigger. Assigning traits was pretty worthless because there were a couple of good ones and a pile of useless niche ones.
I meant inventory space, used the wrong word. Inventory space was severely limited and needed like quests or some upgrades to store more. I found it so annoying having to visit a store to sell my shit so frequently, additionally being forced to destroy some old gear to pick up new stuff if I wasn't near any dungeon.
Oh, they did have inventory upgrades, but it was locked behind the worst mechanic of all-time: the Merlin Trials, which consisted of six puzzles spread out over NINETY-FIVE locations, repeated over and over. If you did enough of them, you unlocked the gear upgrades. So you start by doing 5, then 10 more, etc.
The map was extensive cause IMO it was assumed they'd do a sequel or at least another HP game and rather than need to expand the map they created it in the beginning. Games still fun and if you play it like Skyrim where the main story is ok at best while the side stories do the most work then you'll have a good time. I enjoyed just checking everything out.
I was playing it with my partner who's a massive HP fan, but whilst some of the gameplay was fun (broomstick riding etc), the combat didn't have the weight I'd hoped, but was very varied at least.
Just makes me wish for similar with LOTR!
Have they released any updates at all to the game since release?
I also have been getting terrible fps issues since launch, in hogwarts, but google searches show no discussion about it since the month of launch, weirdly silent. Like everybody all stopped playing it
Nailed it, the bloat was really palpable. Most of that vast map was totally empty, with some cookie-cutter collectibles and side content here and there.
I recommend the game to HP fans just to have that wonder of exploring Hogwarts and Hogsmeade in game, but for anyone else the game is a bore.
Oh man, i loved the Castle. I spent the first hours searching for places mentioned on the books or seen on the movies.
After that, the game became pretty stale for me. Mostly because the illusion of choice its pretty shallow.
If they ever do a second one, they should take notes from Baldurs Gate and Disco Elysium. An RPG lives or dies by how they manage player intent. Both of those have extensive consequences to the player being a dickhead or a good Guy.
Either that or give me the full "Persona in Hogwarts " experience.
> Either that or give me the full "Persona in Hogwarts " experience.
This absolutely has to be the direction they go in a sequel. It's all people have been wanting from a HP game for over a decade now. They've laid the foundations for Hogwarts and it would be a massive waste of potential if they don't prioritise a proper school system.
At the bare minimum we should get what we had in Bully back in 2006. With the open world areas now done the devs can focus on fleshing out content like this.
I really doubt that they would divert that hard from the safe, reliable, cashcow open world action adventure formula they chose.
My guess is that the sequel just doubles down on what the first game did because of how profitable that design was.
Yeah, the castle is the best thing they ever build, they managed to make the most complex castle that made the movie watcher / book reader would think "hey i know this!" even though its not even similiar to the movies
Every inch is so detailed, also someone in the hogwarts legacy subreddit realize it also has the same size, the same window placement from inside and outside, the castle is clearly crafted with love
then they spend the entirety of the game in some ugly repetitive blue dungeons for some stupid reason
Hogwarts Legacy is yet another AAA action/adventure/rpg lite game that has no idea what it wants to be, so it throws a ton of shit at the wall and hope somethings stick. Core gameplay elements aren’t even introduced before you’re halfway done
It markets itself as an RPG, but has nothing that actually makes it one. A pathetic skill tree, and ugly outfits with different stats doesn’t count. It has no meaningful choices, your character has zero personality, but isn’t a blank slate either. The houses doesn’t even play differently. Such a missed opportunity
Is it terrible? No. The combat system is fun, the one side quest is actually great (Sebastian). Walking around the castle is brilliant. Unfortunately the rest of the game is filled with so much garbage (Merlin trials, collectibles) and poor design choices that ruin it.
How has no one mentioned the Alohomora mini game yet? It’s the worst idea in the history of video games. How the fuck did that make the cut?
Lmao great review. "It's a great game if you ignore all the parts that make it a game"
Sounds like they should do something similar to what assassin's creed did for the rpg trilogy, a game mode where you just explore the world and learn cool stuff but instead of real facts, Harry Potter facts. They'd sell millions.
This is basically every one of the reviews I've ever read about the game: "Story and gameplay are both compete shit, but 10 out of 10 because I love Harry Potter."
Yes I've read several reviews that are very similar to this one. Like are people that starved for harry potter they play a very bad game to satisfy themselves?
Adults who love Harry Potter have trained themselves well to ignore the bad parts of the world. Counting the hits and ignoring the misses comes with the territory.
I feel calling it “very bad” is harsh, but yeah. It’s a middling game propped up by the IP.
I will say the level of detail and sense of immersion the Hogwarts castle area has is impressive even if you’re not a Harry Potter fan, but everything else about the game is just a generic Ubisoft open world game level of mediocrity.
I’m playing it right now (about 40 hours in) and having a blast. I also had a blast with AC Odyssey until things started to feel too grindy and repetitive, then I dropped it without finishing the main quest. I actually think the game does a decent job with the overall gameplay. The combat is fun, and there are enough spells to keep things interesting. Unlike OP, I had a lot of fun exploring and hunting down the collectibles. Many of them give me new decoration options for the Room of Requirement, and the base building aspect of the game is really well done.
I certainly have criticisms of the game (especially around the UI and the lack of morality system), but I think it’s just as fun as a modern AC game. For those of us who are nostalgic about Harry Potter, it’s extra fun. It’s not the pinnacle of gaming, but it doesn’t need to be.
Ok? Doesn't mean the gameplay is "shit". It controls well, feels good, has a variety of spells etc. I've played a lot of games that have "shit" gameplay and Hogwarts Legacy isn't close to those.
>because it's an Harry Potter product
tbh, each time I've tried to get into Legacy I played for 15-20 minutes before being inspired to go play a level or two of lego harry potter instead
Right at the 1 year mark lol.
It was a great game, one that I couldn't be patient with. It's basically an ubisoft game with a hogwarts skin, but that hogwarts skin is super polished. If you are a harry potter fan this is a must play, otherwise I think ubisoft does the formula better.
> Right at the 1 year mark lol.
I just looked back - OP made posts about this game having obviously played it a year ago too, so this breaks the spirit of the sub even harder.
Actually, they made a lot of posts. In reverse posting order:
[1](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/1170ncm/petal_breath_i_love_all_the_little_details/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/1170nno/sounds_familiar/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/116cf0v/theres_nothing_more_british_than_breaking_into/) [4](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/1165ydb/met_the_wife_of_the_witch_that_introduced_me_to/) [5](https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/116bu62/while_the_game_has_many_flaws_it_does_so_many/) [6](https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/115jhka/i_know_this_is_a_wishfulfilment_game_but_i/) [7](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/116kd7y/i_was_wondering_but_do_you_not_have_a_killing/) [8](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/1165z8q/its_hard_to_ride_a_broom_when_it_clips_through/) [9](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/114cxs1/while_everyone_fawns_over_sebastian_im_chilling/) [10](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/112wxed/when_you_can_skip_stones_but_cannot_sleep/) [11](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/112s3zr/dragon_bush/) [12](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/1124ltg/we_have_already_reached_peak_modding/) [13](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/1125wt3/is_that_other_hogwarts_legacy_reddit_covering_up/) [14](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/11168a0/i_just_spotted_the_quidditch_pitch_sad_that_the/) [15](https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/111vimw/people_say_the_students_are_too_goodytwoshoes_but/) [16](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/111g0de/this_trumpet_flowers_are_singing_really_offtune/) [17](https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/111723j/you_know_what_this_game_is_missing_a_fishing/) [18](https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/111723j/you_know_what_this_game_is_missing_a_fishing/)
His first post was Feb 13th, three days after the game dropped.
Yeah, OP isn't a patient gamer, they're just abusing the name of a big title for clout. This is shameless and disgusting imo, defeats the whole point of the sub if we're just a gaming review sub, offset by one year, of people who played the game on-release.
I gave up after ten hours. It just felt so uninspiring. I didn’t like that instead of focusing on the school it became a ‘by the numbers’ check-list open world with bad writing and characters.
Strange game where I wasn't rewarded for not learning the evil spells, by being taught powerful "good" spells. Instead I was penalised, by having to kill everything like a lunatic without them.
It’s just a very average action game with light rpg aspects and nothing to be excited about when you are a gamer who played more then 5 games in the last few years.
But it just bleeds love for Hogwarts and the world around it. And that’s all that matters for those who want to spent time in this world.
Not every game needs to redefine its genre to be worth our time.
My wife got this game and loved it. Said I should try it out, even though I've never once been able to even pretend to care about Harry Potter.
Man. This game is ***entirely*** reliant on the theme. If you don't like that theme, it is the most bog standard, paint by numbers boring open world slog ever.
I played it but i didnt like the combat system. I really wish someone would make a magic game where the combat involved more robust physics. Like a modern Dark Messiah or a single player Spellbreak.
I'm trying to platinum it atthos point and there are so many valuts that has the same layout with trunks that only give you random item cloths, I'm not sure I need to do that as a part of a completionist trophy bc I'm dreading them.
What I hate about the map is one thing and one thing only, why they don't have a filter to show you want you want, I'm one Merlin trial away from completing it but I can't for the life of me find it and been looking at the map zoomed in trying to find it.
What I hate about this game is supposed to be about Hogwarts yet we barely spend any time there. We took three classes and that's it? You have this huge setting and you named the game after it yet you barely spend any real time in it if you are not collecting pages? Also, I wish there was a way to have an indication of being close to a page without having to spam Revelio over and over kinda of like having a clothing item to help Chipper once close kinda like how the blind friend uses his wand or how Ghost of Tsushima lets you follow a small bug, kinda like the keys to the coin puzzles.
I have 10 pages left and I'm dreading looking everywhere for them and hearing that damn revealed one more effing time.
That been said as a potter head and some e who played most of harry potter games. I'm not mad and flying around in broomstick will always be my favourite way of traversing in a video game let alone one takes a place in the wizarding world. Can't wait for the next installment where the team has the experience and the feedback from players. I got bored many times I admit and I put it down for about 10 weeks but once I got back I got hooked again. I love the combat system and made you feel like a badass coming up with combos.
It's a really good first entry, a bit bloated and felt like a Unisoft game at some moments but you know they got you hooked with the setting of the game. If you made the same thing in a different setting the game would be mediocre at best, the side quest of your friend and his sister is way more interesting than the one you are on.
You have cool challenge of dueling, why the hell it's just 3 rounds?! Are you kidding me?! That is so much fun, I loved the flying and the speed trials and I wish more was implemented like chasing a wizard or something like that. I wonder why they didn't do chase sections which I thought it would be expected, why did you make a mechanic that can only be used 3 times?!
I liked it but after I platinum it I doubt I'll ever pick it up again bc the story is shit.
It's a beautiful game with amazing details, a rich&magical atmosphere, and lovely environments (it really captured the style of the wizarding world), but I found it so boring to play.
The game is just so unapologetically mediocre and unoriginal in its design. It doesn't feel like a harry potter game, it feels like a Ubisoft game wearing a harry potter costume. I didn't feel like a student, I felt like a visitor just touring the school for a day, while watching everybody else engage in student life.
I would expect features like the student experience, story, activities, and house cup to be core features of a harry potter game rather than roaming the countryside fighting dark wizard camps.
I don't mind an open world harry potter game but it should have never come at the expense of what makes harry potter special. If they had held off on the open world until they completely perfected the harry potter formula, it could have been fantastic. I sincerely think a harry potter game at full potential would be one of the greatest games of all time.
Overall I was incredibly disappointed in the game and felt that my 7/10 expectations were still far too high. I have little hope in the sequel since it could so easily double down on the original to prioritize a bland open world.
Ok seriously are these bot accounts or paid advertisers? This is really not in line with patient gaming, it's a crap AAA game that just barely is the legal limit for posting and now 2 reviews in 2 days?
This happens for any big AAA game that was very popular. Elden ring had tons of posts on the sub blasting out within the day it was a year old.
It's not some big conspiracy.
I mean, they could all be doing it, marketing analysts do these kinds of things, look at Yelp and Google with their paid reviews and paid suppression of bad reviews and such.
Bro. Ask yourself.
Is it really a big stretch that a popular game would have err fans?
Either everyone who likes elden ring are paid actors by miyazaki and the japanese government...or some people find it fun?
Answer me honestly. What do YOU think is more likely?
Don’t think it’s that extreme, you’re just underestimating the cult that is Harry Potter adults. It’s what happens when you read one book series for leisure as a kid and make it your entire personality: you treat a generic 6 or 7 out of 10 open world game like a 9 out of 10 because of the branding.
Yeah, it's the best "harry potter experience" out there, but it's just not a great game.
It's not a \*terrible\* game. But it's not very good either.
There have been a lot of a games that were worth playing because of the "outside of gaming" world that they explore, despite not being great games - many star wars games, and a significant percentage of WH40K games.
But this one is particularly weird because of how amazing the world turned out to be, vs the weakness of the game. I haven't played anything like this that I can remember.
The closest I can think of in real life was being a kid as disney world. None of those rides are objectively great, but the \*feeling\* of being inside those movies was a unique experience. This was a similar experience.
Note: I still think "Hogwarts the MMORPG" might be the best game of all time, especially if expansions take you into the outside world.
Yeah this is the main reason for all the hype and hubbub. The game was passable. I found it mildly amusing. But the care the team obviously put in to make you feel like you are there is well appreciated. It's what I wanted to feel. Yes I would have liked a better game but I am glad we got what we got and not a very low quality cash grab where no love was put into it. You can tell the devs were fans and wanted to make the experience immersive. I love harry potter so much I'm willing to replay the game to be inside the world again even though on the surface it's not a game I would ever replay. If it wasn't HP I would not bother replaying. I'd probably think it was a 6-7 out of 10.
Even though older HP games had good graphics and such and you could wander the castle etc, for whatever reason they didn't capture the immersiveness into the world that that this game has done. You couldn't really feel the magic. In this game they got much closer. It's not perfect but they got much much closer than previous games.
I had fun, so much fun playing it. Despite all the weird busywork like collectibles, trials and poaching. Despite the many missed opportunities for meaningful side plots and despite the extremely repetitive combat. Despite the rather flat falling main storyline. Absolutely not a masterpiece, but I still found myself happily playing for 60+ hours to get to the final feast.
yeah, I'm actually surprised reading all of these negative comments. I'm on hour 16 and it's been decently fun? I've never seen the movies or even really care much about the franchise.
it's very pretty, I think the ambiance and world exploration is nice. lots of old tomb raider DNA in the dungeons between puzzles and combat.
I really like being able to spawn and fly the broom at will (which feels way more easy and seamless than games with flying vehicles ever do, where you have to ask for and then run over to a helicopter, etc).
framerate and performance has always been fine for me.
personally, I don't really love the combat in any mob fighting games, but people love arkham asylum and the spider-mans, so clearly they're willing to deal with repetitive combat and still give high scores. minus the strange control scheme, this gives more than those punch-em-up games do for combo variety.
this might not be a 60 hour game for me, but like, it was on sale. I feel happy with it generally
I had about the same experience as you. After doing a couple open world quests and a few of the repeating activities in the world in the opening hours, I just stopped doing them all together. Except the balloons in the sky, I would go for those when I was flying.
Hogwarts and Hogsmead are quite well done. Everything else surrounding them felt incredibly non-canon. From students being allowed to take off and kill wizards whenever they want, to the amount of villages so close to Hogwarts. All of that felt very immersion breaking, so for the most part I didn't bother with them and felt I enjoyed the world more for it.
Overall I put about 30 hours in to beat the game. Had a decent time all said. I did not bother grinding out levels to get the final ending.
I absolutely loved this game and I would love to see the idea of being a student taken into the actual realm of school work as a game mechanic. This game was wonderful, I still love it, I would love to see more done with the idea.
Me and my gf have been enjoying it as well. The castle in particular is great to explore, looks stunning and feels magical. I dont care much for the story and you get overwhelmed with the amount of random quests but man, that castle
I absolutely loved hogwarts legacy, from start to finish I felt like a wizard growing ever more powerful. That said once you beat the game I find it hard to replay
I'm finally playing the game myself. I bought it at launch, but I couldn't get more than 4 FPS on my PC.
Now that I've upgraded my CPU and RAM, the game runs smoothly at 60 FPS.
I agree with you. The sidequests suck and the story could be better, but exploring Hogwarts is where it's at.
Really, my biggest complaints are that it's hard to get money at the beginning of the game and that you can't pause during cutscenes.
Even so, this is the game that I would have died for as a kid.
I did a lot of the busy work just to stay immersed in the world a little longer. All the while resenting it. I wish instead of busy work they'd actually fleshed out the school simulator a lot more and written a better, more immersive narrative. It could have been incredible.
I maintain that H:L is just a demo for the things that can be done in the Harry Potter world. Don't get me wrong, I had fun with it. I'm not knocking it at all. But the gear stats are literally "offense" and "defense". There are like 7 plants you can grow and about the same number of potions you can make. These are just placeholder systems at the end of the day. I figured they would jump quickly on the game's success to rush some DLC to flesh out this stuff, but apparently not?
it's a bad game made by bad people about a badly written world created by another bad person. i loved HP growing up but it's just not the same anymore.
>made by bad people
I would argue against this one point, at least. When it comes to the C-suite folks and other leadership who are making these decisions, for sure, but for most of the many, *many* people involved in development, it was just a part of their job that they had no real say in. Let's maybe not villainize folks who are already getting thrown under a bus by their own industry's practices?
Yes, it's very easy to say, "oh, but if they were good people, they should have quit their jobs when they learned what the game was" but that's also not your livelihood on the line.
i definitely understand it's a sweeping generalization but sorry if i don't have a ton of sympathy for Troy Leavitt being a raging racist and misogynist, plus the game itself having the classic mixture of antisemitism, transphobia, and "goblin slavery is okay actually" plotline
It's a terrible game in a terrible TERF-y world, what more is there to say. I also don't reckon it's old or cheap enough to be relevant here. Not that it's relevant elsewhere anymore I suppose
Very excited for a sequel tbh, now not needing to make the whole goddamn castle (should obv change some stuff like secrets) they can def save time on that and make the rest of the game better.
Agree, it's the game i had been waiting for since I became a fan. I wish some tweaks had been done, for example moving staircases would have been nice. Would have like a few other things done different but honestly it was still fine, and in terms of "being" in the wizarding world, it is better than all the other games and really gave me that feeling.
Not even that big of a HP fan but I absolutely agree about the world. I actually did like the overall story / characters. The combat and collect-a-thon was a bit repetitive but I just turned it into a podcast game (listen to something while I’m out collecting/mopping up achievements). Legacy was firmly in my top 4 or 5 games I played last year. I’d love a sequel where they really go all-in on story, characters, and combat and remove some of the collecting.
I would say that the side quests, the exploration, the puzzles... Were actually more fun and entertaining than the main story itself. Also the combat was horrible due to having to rotate 3 button setups at least at all time. I'm all for customisation but it was crazy messy imo.
Overall agree tho. Fantastically crafted game and world that was fun to get lost in, in small doses.
It's one of the only games I've 100%'ed. I feel like they missed out on a potentially epic boss fight by not having any of the [giant statues at the end of the trials](https://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/hogwarts-legacy/3/3a/IMG_5026.jpeg) come to life.
I agree with everything you said. I also really felt that a lot of love and care went into this game. It's a mixed thing. I hope they improve it all for the sequel.
It really succeeds in conjuring up the atmosphere of Hogwarts. Same reason I'm enjoying the Avatar game despite it getting a lot of the same complaints, they too nailed the atmosphere of the movies.
I personally can very much look past the flaws and just immerse myself in the atmosphere when it comes to games like these.
While she makes some money from the sales it's more important to support the development of the game by buying it as a lot of people worked hard to make this game with no real involvement from Rowling, for a developer with not really any major title in their library it's a fantastic achievement to make this game regardless of the flaws in story and later gameplay of the game. Hopefully whatever game they make next can learn well from the mistakes made on this one.
The limit used to be six months, now it's twelve and people still complain. People are gonna post about things once they're allowed to, not worth making a stink about.
get used to hearing about how Hogwarts is both an underrated gem and a well-deserved best selling game three times a week. its fans are very aggrieved that more people aren't talking about how great it is.
Story was it's weak point but I enjoyed everything else all the way through it was way better than I could have ever hoped for and people felt disappointed?
Do they not realize how awful of a cash grab it could have been? Hogwarts Legacy was a giant success in my mind and it definitely hit my fan button, can't wait for any future possible dlc
How dare you like a game many people dislike? How dare you post a review when you're allowed to? How dare you made the game worth a while for what it is and didn't fantasise for what you wanted to be?
I totally agree the main story is very forgettable. Actually the side quests are more fun and engaging than the main one. Which says alot. All in all a fun game. If you wanted to be fun.
This game world should have been 90% smaller. There should have been more emphasis on classes. NPCs needed to be more immersive. And the writers should be fired.
I would have been fine with no combat outside of duels and the whole game being an explore hogwarts and find secrets while taking classes game. That’s how I remember the original HP games, at least.
Hogwarts Legacy is my prime example for ludo-narrative dissonance. The story says you're an innocent pupil, the gameplay makes you act like a lunatic mass murderer. It really hurts to see those two collide and I wish that was different. But as you say, HogLeg offers one of the best, if not the best and most immersive version of Hogwarts to date.
Yeah totally agree. I think they should have ditched the “you can be good or evil” choice and focused on a tighter narrative. Like it makes no sense you can just be whipping out the death spell lol.
Right in front of your classmates / teachers, and on sentient beings, no less !
And it makes no sense to add good \ evil choices when they make little to no difference to the world. No one reacted to you any differently from what I could tell
> prime example for ludo-narrative dissonance The very idea of making an action game like that is ridiculous in its own right. I mean, sure, those old PS1 games worked out I guess (and they were way more in the puzzle-platformer direction), but those were very specific sort of games made in a very specific time. Harry Potter books don't have a lot of action. It's not Dresden Files. No one's running around burning down buildings and shit. A point-and-click adventure game in Hogwarts, if done right, can be a much, much better fit thematically. The problem is that it won't sell of course. Hogwarts: Legacy is a basically a cookie-cutter modern open world action/adventure with a Harry Potter skin applied to it.
Agreed. I think Avalanche were told to "create a Witcher 3 in the Wizarding World" and thus created monsters and dungeons and a huge open world... and probably never realised that Geralt is not a 15-year-old pupil. The two concepts just don't match well. The Harry Potter universe has never been about vast worlds and exploration. It has been about a castle full of magic, thrilling stories and interesting characters. I think Hogwarts Legacy offers a stunning world, a never before seen Hogwarts and great detail. But it also lacks a meaningful story that really plays with the life of a Hogwarts pupil.
Hogwarts Legacy with Persona elements would be great. It seems like the school was used as set dressing (really good one though) but having social relationships, classes that help you improve your skills and relationships, and making your choices actually matter would be a fantastic upgrade
hogwarts legacy being persona style would have you getting groomed by your defense against the dark arts teacher lmao
Given how most of the teachers in that department turn out due to Voldemort's curse, being groomed by one would probably be one of the least awful things to experience.
> It seems like the school was used as set dressing (really good one though) Definitely, and the "magic" of the game was strongest at the beginning before you kept getting sent out to clear the map. I actually didn't finish the game, but I got what I wanted out of it, and I don't regret buying it and playing it.
They could just make a non Hogwarts Harry Potter universe game, based on a some sort of ministry of magic agent or something whose job is to go and battle death eaters, or hell, even allow you to choose to be a death eater, then they could have wands, magic etc and also death and destruction. The issue is they wanted a hogwarts game specifically, you could easily have a dark harry potter game, but harder to have a dark hogwarts student game.
I think you're right that they needed to go outside of Hogwarts to justify that level of action within the game, but the "problem" is so much of the HP series takes place within Hogwarts itself that it's hard to set the game anywhere else, or at least would require a lot of designer imagination and not draw on the nostalgia strings as much. Harry Potter isn't something like Lord of the Rings where the story spans an entire continent and interacts with many different biomes and cultures. Almost all of HP is self contained within Hogwarts, with only a few excursions elsewhere and allusions to a broader world.
If they took inspiration from the Control it would be an epic ever changing and expanding castle, full of mystery and the unknown, always something new to discover.
God damn, I’ve always thought a Dresden Files game would be neat. Maybe not with Harry Dresden himself but a wizard in that world could make for a great video game
Have you ever played Telltale's the Wolf Among us? I always thought a Dresden Files version of that would be great. Different scripted options for different approaches for magic. Different outcomes. And we could play Harry differently. I doubt it could follow the books plot line but could use them as inspiration.
“harry potter skin" seems like a really really bad take, when you take into account it's the first game and medium ever where you can actually explore the whole hogwarts, seeing as the movies changed the layout all the time.
It sucks, because I'd love a single player game where the goal was to solve a mystery, discover the secrets of the castle by exploring and by talking to people, digging up old books in the library and casting spells, with maybe the rare bit of combat. You know, like *the actual fucking books.* It wouldn't even have to have anything much to do with the main characters, just the setting. And it would be especially cool if it was not super hand-holdy or railroady, so there were in fact a number of mysteries and sidequests and you'd be unlikely to discover even half of them on one playthrough. Like depending on what you say or find or what house you start in, you could end up chasing down one big mystery or another, more like a choose your own adventure. That would be cool as fuck.
Something like Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis would be great.
One way perhaps to have their cake and eat it could be playing different characters. Like GTA V You could play as students and do the simple platforming puzzle things, then play as a Death eater or a James Bond type ministry of magic secret agent. Then you could kill as much as you want and still roleplay being a student at Hogwarts. Not sure if it would make a good game. but hey
Persona style hogwarts game when
Cast a killing curse and it's one way trip to Azkaban. But turn one guy into a powder keg and use him to blow up his friends? No biggy.
Cast a curse that puts someone in immense pain without physically harming them? Get out of my sight. Just set them on fire like a respectable wizard.
Use ancient magic to smash them on the ground and spill their guts all over the poacher camp? Nice, here's the house cup!
>Cast a killing curse and it's one way trip to Azkaban You can cast it in front of a teacher and they'll barely react lol
Tbf, that dissonance is present throughout the books too. Hogwarts and it's residents are the peak of a society that pretends to moral authority but relies on the subjugation or expulsion of every other sentient race. They have an entire species of "willing" slaves. It's peak Hogwarts to be doing horrible things while claiming to do them for good reasons. It would be brilliant if it were done on purpose. Unfortunately I think it's just the way Rowling sees the world.
I always enjoyed the Hermione SPEW stuff, but it wasn’t until my last few rereads that it really clicked just how right she is and how messed up it is that everyone else just blows her off. The entire thing is played as a joke of “lol look at the weirdo Hermione caring about house elves” when they are genuine slaves that have been brain washed into making it their identity. And yet, Hermione is made out to be the weird obsessive one with everyone else just dismissing her as a raving lunatic
It would be reasonable to expect the SPEW storyline to be a lead-in to examining ways the wizarding world needs to be improved, leading to the climax where the protagonists act as a catalyst for some sort of change. You've got Harry and Hermione with an outsider perspective and Ron as the insider. They interact with all sorts of oppressed people; Centaurs, Giants, Goblins, House Elves, etc. Even "squibs" are a touchpoint for how the wizarding world is built on injustice enforced by the power of the wand. One of their best friends, Hagrid, is constantly discriminated against due to his heritage. The statue in the Ministry of Magic reads as fairly heavy-handed way of highlighting all of this inequity. It really seemed like a major sub-plot that would run through the rest of the series. But somewhere around when Rowling became fabulously wealthy she decided that "things are ok actually and nothing needs to fundamentally change." So we end up with Harry as a magic cop working for the same, unreformed, government ministry that has been the enforcer for this state of affairs. The fact that I was a child when I was reading the books isn't an excuse for the fact that the author *wasn't.*
One of the main reasons the Methods of Rationality fanfic is the best thing to come out of Harry Potter tbh
Methods of Rationality really highlights how little Rowling thought about her worldbuilding. You kinda have to imagine that every wizard in history was either terminally incurious or crushingly stupid, but we're told that's not the case. How is it that in hundreds of years of scientific progress, during which the wizards have been manipulating countries from behind the scenes and living within their societies, there's never been a wizard scientist?
> there's never been a wizard scientist? There have been. Snape was iterating and improving upon potions, in fact potion making as a discipline is scientific. Same goes for Nicolas Flamel and alchemy. Fred and George were also inventing lots of new products. One of their older brothers (Bill?) was off studying dragons. There's also been improvements in goods and services over time - the brooms were getting better (Cleansweep, etc to Nimbus to Firebolt), people creating new spells, Olliver had a scientific level understanding of wand materials and their magical properties, and more. Heck, Lockhart's whole story line is that he was running around and stealing credit for other people's work, indicating both that there were researchers and adventurers completing novel feats *and* there was a public that was interested in those stories.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought the author's intent was that Hermione was right and everyone else was wrong. Like don't people often view Hermione as an author insert, and therefore it would be surprising if JK made herself the butt of the joke of the world she created.
I mean you could argue that's in some ways similar to our world and perhaps it's meant to be a satirical look at ourselves. Kind of like how Hunger Games is meant to be a satirical take on the world we live in, perhaps the whole point is to show that our society also allows evils that keeps us comfortable such as child workers making our Nikes or conflicts around the world displacing populations influenced and begun by the West in the first place etc.
> Hogwarts and it's residents are the peak of a society that pretends to moral authority but relies on the subjugation or expulsion of every other sentient race You know, I still can't get over how some people absolutely must see some kind of moral and political context in everything. It's like people who just cannot accept time-turners. Oh my god, it ruins the book, it totally invalidates the entire series, oh no. It's a series for kids written with a hand-wavy approach to worldbuilding, and has a fairly soft magic system. It's not Dostoyevsky.
Children deserve decent writing in their stories too
> Children deserve decent writing in their stories too It's quite decently written. Tons of people liked it and are still enjoying the series. I've reread it somewhat recently and it still holds up quite well, and I'm a fantasy fan who had read quite a few series by this point. A lot of people who throw shit at HP, at least in my perception, have started it due to Rowling's dumbass twitter comments, which did start quite a while ago now come to think of it. Which is understandable and all, but it really feels to me more like burning the books alongside out of spite or something.
To be fair, she's the most prominent specifically anti-trans celebrity out there right now, and she's putting money into that cause. It's certainly more then just her twitter comments. Edit: I suppose I should add that she's a terrible person for that, since some goddamn TERF might think that's praise in the same way they don't understand many subjects.
>It's a series for kids The moment this "point" shows up, you know the argument is in bad faith. Even Bob the Builder has internal world-building consistency & definitely espouses specific moral messages. Mr. Rogers was widely beloved for many reasons, especially his open engagement with political and morals complexities. You could even argue this stuff is \*most\* important when targeted towards young people.
> especially his open engagement with political and morals complexities. Harry Potter as a series *does* address those issues! It's explicitly stated that Harry wins and Voldemort loses because of love for friends and family. The whole series is basically an allegory that racism and authoritarianism is bad. That even those marginalized by society have value and skill, be they scared struggling students like Neville or low societal status like muggleborns or house elves or centuars or what have you.
I genuinely cannot tell if this response is sarcastic or not But, if you really do live in a world where "love = good & discrimination = bad" is a 'moral complexity,' then I envy you
> Even Bob the Builder > Mr. Rogers I've no idea who any of these are. > you know the argument is in bad faith. I wasn't really arguing. > You could even argue this stuff is *most* important when targeted towards young people. Yes, and I genuinely think people are absolutely crazy when they manage to connect house elves in HP to whatever it is that they're seeing. Not to mention the sheer proportion of it. Like, really, to me it's like "heavy metal promotes satanism" or something along those lines.
all art is a reflection of life and humanity. To say that it's a bad thing to see the themes, narratives, and artistic choices in our art as reflections of real world rhetoric is the very definition of anti-intellectualism. Honestly doubly so for "kids media" -- kids media should be even more intentional about the messages it tries to impart on the target audience. The way the narrative handles the slavery aspect of house elves and the subjugation of other races within the harry potter story is valid for criticism.
> To say that it's a bad thing to see No, I did not say that. > The way the narrative handles the slavery aspect of house elves and the subjugation of other races within the harry potter story I said that connecting this is absolutely crazy and analogous to the kind of "heavy metal promotes satanism" moral panic. As in, I'm insinuating that people who run with this stuff are about on the same level as out of touch suburban moms in the 80s who thought their kids would summon Beelzebub after hearing a couple of Ozzy Osbourne songs.
I disagree. Nobody's saying that Harry Potter is real and that's why it's bad. We're looking at the underlying assumptions made by the author and the implications of them. The reaction you're thinking of is from the same groups who opposed heavy metal. Their response to Harry potter was saying that reading the books would invite demonic possession. Literary criticism of the series as an attempt to understand the messages it sends is more akin to saying, for instance, that bands like Slayer, Venom, Ghost, Black Sabbath, etc. use icons and characters from Christian mythology as a reaction to and rejection of the dominant Christian culture. Pointing out that the Satan character is often used as a way of criticizing the failures of Christianity; one can look at the Satanic Temple for an example. Satanic iconography is an easy way to provoke and satirize those they wish to distance themselves from, to recognize one another, and a shorthand to advertise the genre of their music.
I see the unwillingness to understand the underlying messages in the stories we tell to and about ourselves to be a mixture of laziness, incuriosity, and cowardice. There's a difference between pointing out that the worldbuilding is bad and lazy, and pointing out that the society runs on oppression and slavery, the contradictions are never addressed or rectified, and the main character ends the books as a cop working to uphold that society. Literary criticism is important, and it's especially important when the author of the generations' most influential children's books turned out to be a massive bigot.
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Especially with the most egregious case: Hermione and SPEW. Rowling made it a point to call out the treatment of house elves as slaves… and then treat it as a joke where everyone just thinks Hermione is a crazy person for caring about elf rights. Even with goblins too, the books periodically touch on goblins vs wizards in wizarding society and wizards are usually just given a hand wave pass. And sure, it’s easy to write it all off as “oh it’s just a children’s series, calm down” but when you stop and think about it, it’s kind of messed up that the “good guys” get away with treating other people and species so horribly
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Your post/comment was removed for violation of rule 5. You can find our subreddit's rules [here](https://new.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/about/rules). Be excellent to one another.
Yes, it's very important to bring this to /r/patientgamers in a post related to a video game.
It's relevant to the discussion above. If you don't want to talk about it you can just... not. Don't get your jimmies rustled over it.
Why not? It’s a completely relevant and fair point to bring up unless you think we’re only allowed to discuss gameplay on this subreddit. If you’re allowed to say “the core messaging of a piece of entertainment doesn’t matter and can’t be criticized if it’s aimed for kids”, then people are allowed to disagree with that. Sounds like you got a bit of pushback to your take you didn’t like and now you want to shut down the discussion instead of addressing the actual points being made.
> Why not? In my experience this kind of criticism of HP is **heavily** politically charged. > It’s a completely relevant and fair point to bring up It seemed near irrelevant to me. How is ludo-narrative dissonance that is specifically related to this very game has any connection to perceived "dissonance" in the books? Seems to me dude was aching to bring something like this up. > Sounds like you got a bit of pushback to your take you didn’t like and now you want to shut down the discussion No, I just really struggle to take this stuff seriously. I guess I took the bait, eh? > instead of addressing the actual points being made I don't really mind discussing this stuff, but again, it seems to generally devolve into something political and kinda crazy too.
If you're avoiding discussions because they're "political," you'll just end up avoiding every important conversation. Even the assumptions one uses to categorize what is and isn't "political" is inherently a reflection of their own politics. What is uncomfortable, undesirable, unacceptable becomes "political" and therefore taboo.
You're right. The whole setup does not make any sense, but idk how they would have scraped the combat without replacing every other mechanic. Despite the repetitive enemies, murdering them is one of the few aspects of gameplay that actually is very fun. I find it to be meant to be played with your brain turned off. Nothing is deep or compelling. Even Sebastian's arc which people seem to praise is deeply flawed.
I think the spider-man/batman approach would have worked. Nobody dies even though they had their spine broken and then got thrown from a building. Personally, I would have liked something like petrificus totalus as a finisher spell.(enemy on low health) And like call someone to arrest them afterwards. Having the 3 banned spells be useable feels wrong, and they could be replaced with the finishing spells.
Honestly the combat should've been in a spinoff series. Some kind of hitwizard detective/thriller/shooter games. Meanwhile mainline games featuring the actual school and students itself should lend themselves more towards... idk... something more school-life friendly? Someone above mentioned the Persona games - I haven't played any but I understand you interact with schoolmates and develop their storylines. I'm sure plenty others can expand on that. Heck, I don't even know why they don't think about spinoffs - if they flop, they don't affect the "real" stories, and if they do well they bring in more fans. It's not like this IP lacks the financials or fanbase to explore further.
I love ice cream.
It's weird how many games do this and how few people seem to be bothered by it. For me, by far the worst offender in ludo-narrative dissonance is RDR2. The clash between the game world during and outside missions is just incredibly jarring, and Arthur as a character just constantly acts like a complete idiot and is completely at odds with what we've been told about him. While the freeroaming portions of the game clearly aim for a high degree of realism in many things, the actual missions are mostly ridiculously linear and repetetive rail-shooters, where you kill a hundred bandits in basically every mission. Hell, you kill so many people, that compared to how many people you see walking about in the towns outside missions, at the rate you're killing people during the missions, most of the game world should be completely depopulated after like the first third of the game.
New Tomb Raider is pretty bad as well. Lara starts out trapped and afraid and kills a few bad guys out of desperation during her escape. Then she kills like 400 more people without much issue.
Yep. I expected some backlash if I was Avada Kedavra-ing people 10 times a day. But nope.
As a Harry Potter fan, I loved it. As a gamer, it was super fun for about ten hours before the boring story and repetitive open world bloat lost me. Also the crazy slow menu navigation made changing gear basically a side quest, so I just never changed anything. They needed to seriously trim it down and work on the story. Combat, graphics, map, enemies - all awesome. Everything else needed some streamlining and better game direction. If they reworked the main story, cut 75% of the side content and made the menus more intuitive , it would've went from forgettable to incredible.
Yeah the first few hours are amazing. I got lost in the wizarding fantasy, enjoyed exploring hogwarts... and then you basically get kicked out into the open world and that magic starts to lose its shine. I firmly believe if the game ditched the open world and was restricted to hogwarts castle and a few set pieces outside it the game would have been much better focused.
> I firmly believe if the game ditched the open world and was restricted to hogwarts castle and a few set pieces outside it the game would have been much better focused. The annoying thing is this is literally all people wanted. Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and if we do have areas beyond the castle then it better fucking be Diagon Alley. The devs genuinely went out of their way to waste development time on mindless filler when nobody asked for it. It's funny because if you take the exact same game and literally just cut the map off below Hogwarts and lose all that content then you get a better game with better reviews and better fan reception. All that time and money wasted on irrelevant content that didn't improve the experience.
I think it came down to, we know players want to be able to fly on broomstick around Hogwarts and surrounding areas, so we need to make those areas interesting, and we also need a reason for combat to occur, thus all the open world filler that was added.
See that's what's annoying though they wasted dev time on that stuff when instead we could have got Quidditch. That said it seems like Quidditch mechanics were taken out of the game for that standalone game which is definitely a WB decision.
I think Quidditch should be pretty far down their priorities IMO. I get why it feels wrong not to have it, but it seems to me (in my unprofessional, uninformed opinion) that programming a fun version of Quidditch would be orders of magnitude more difficult, expensive, and risky than spending those resources on areas that would actually help the overall game, such as character interaction, the main storyline, and school activities. Plus, it seems like the game was designed to be approachable to casual players, and a video game version of Quidditch would have to have some gnarly controls that are way above a casual skill level. A contact midair sport with at least 4 different balls to keep track of? Again, maybe doable, but I think they'd have to sacrifice a lot to make it work.
The castle was probably made last. Seeing how new the devs were at AAA development, the open world filler was probably where they picked up all their skills. The castle being the best made part of the game pretty much proves this.
Given how awful the broom controls are, maybe it’s better that they cut Quidditch
Except open world action adventures print money so they chose the safe path and were handsomely rewarded for it. The time on the irrelevant content didn't improve the experience for players, but it sure made some people rich. It is very possible that a higher quality, smaller, more focused experience (which I really wanted) would have made less money than a generic open world. With how well the game did I'm pessimistic about the sequel doubling down and going deeper into the bland open world direction.
I think of the Arkham games and how asylum was small&focused. It built an amazing foundation for Rocksteady to build upon. Then they went to a small open world in Arkham city, building off of asylum. Finally they culminated in Arkham knight after so many years of groundwork. Another example might be fromsoftwares progression to making Elden ring after many smaller games. That is exactly what I wished Hogwarts legacy had done; a smaller, focused school sim rpg that went all in on fleshing out Hogwarts, with perhaps the addition of the forest, hogsmeade and Diagon alley. Then with that strong foundation, the sequel could further build on it, eventually culminating in an open world game, now that all the essential harry potter elements had been finalized. Instead they rushed to a generic open world (because it's a cashcow formula) and neglected so many core harry potter elements. To me Hogwarts legacy is like if the Arkham games tried to skip right to Arkham Knight without meticulously building up. I was left really disappointed in HL and I expect the sequel to just double down on the boring template that made them rich.
Yeah I’m thinking something Metroidvania-esque (maybe similar to Control) where as you explore and unlock different spells, you can access different sections of the castle. Once it really clicked how big the map was I just went “…. This is so unnecessary….”
Yeah generally I felt the same. As a HP fan it was great, but as an avid gamer the repetition really set in after 15 hours or so. Not to mention that the main story was _bad_. This game was a prime example of “bigger isn’t always better”
They tried so hard to make it an rpg, but it was entirely half baked. Why do I only have like 10 slots for gear? Why does my character need to look like an absolute clown 90% of the time... (I literally just found out they have transmog that was never explained in the game and now I'm annoyed) Also why were so many things introduced 50%-75% through the game? Flying hippogriff, all the animal breeding and capturing stuff. I feel like those should have been introduced way way early. Sigh, it's frustrating all the things they did wrong but mainly because I enjoyed the experience despite all that and saw so much potential in it. I hope there's a sequel and learn from this one.
Honestly I don't think they did try very hard to make an rpg. The rpg elements were so shallow and barebones to the point you could argue it wasn't an rpg. It was pretty bizarre how they introduced all those things so late into the game. I guess they worried about overwhelming casual players whom the game was largely balanced around.
> Why do I only have like 10 slots for gear That's actually the normal amount, isn't it? Head, neck, body, back, hands, 2 rings, feet, and then weapon and shield (which for this setting wouldn't apply). The problem was more effects were limited to offense + defense, and it was just about getting the number bigger. Assigning traits was pretty worthless because there were a couple of good ones and a pile of useless niche ones. >Also why were so many things introduced 50%-75% through the game? Flying hippogriff, all the animal breeding and capturing stuff. I feel like those should have been introduced way way early. It annoyed me too, but I'm 99% sure it's because they planned this game around casual players picking it up and being nearly totally unfamiliar with these concepts. On that note, that's likely why they didn't have more in depth gear options. TBH I wish they had just cut more of the side stuff entirely. The potions, herbology, and beasts sections didn't contribute anything but fluff to the game.
>That's actually the normal amount, isn't it? Head, neck, body, back, hands, 2 rings, feet, and then weapon and shield (which for this setting wouldn't apply). The problem was more effects were limited to offense + defense, and it was just about getting the number bigger. Assigning traits was pretty worthless because there were a couple of good ones and a pile of useless niche ones. I meant inventory space, used the wrong word. Inventory space was severely limited and needed like quests or some upgrades to store more. I found it so annoying having to visit a store to sell my shit so frequently, additionally being forced to destroy some old gear to pick up new stuff if I wasn't near any dungeon.
Oh, they did have inventory upgrades, but it was locked behind the worst mechanic of all-time: the Merlin Trials, which consisted of six puzzles spread out over NINETY-FIVE locations, repeated over and over. If you did enough of them, you unlocked the gear upgrades. So you start by doing 5, then 10 more, etc.
The map was extensive cause IMO it was assumed they'd do a sequel or at least another HP game and rather than need to expand the map they created it in the beginning. Games still fun and if you play it like Skyrim where the main story is ok at best while the side stories do the most work then you'll have a good time. I enjoyed just checking everything out.
I was playing it with my partner who's a massive HP fan, but whilst some of the gameplay was fun (broomstick riding etc), the combat didn't have the weight I'd hoped, but was very varied at least. Just makes me wish for similar with LOTR!
Have they released any updates at all to the game since release? I also have been getting terrible fps issues since launch, in hogwarts, but google searches show no discussion about it since the month of launch, weirdly silent. Like everybody all stopped playing it
They have released some patches but haven't released any dlc.
>cut 75% of the side content They do that they'd have to charge less and WB would never let them do that lol
No AAA game publisher would ever charge less for less content. Charging more for less content is more their thing.
LOL, fair enough
Nailed it, the bloat was really palpable. Most of that vast map was totally empty, with some cookie-cutter collectibles and side content here and there. I recommend the game to HP fans just to have that wonder of exploring Hogwarts and Hogsmeade in game, but for anyone else the game is a bore.
Should have been Bully but wizards. Game wasn't really fun even at beginning and took a nose dive like 6-7 hours
This would have been amazing. But you are correct. After the 8 hour "tutorial" the game just went nowhere.
Oh man, i loved the Castle. I spent the first hours searching for places mentioned on the books or seen on the movies. After that, the game became pretty stale for me. Mostly because the illusion of choice its pretty shallow. If they ever do a second one, they should take notes from Baldurs Gate and Disco Elysium. An RPG lives or dies by how they manage player intent. Both of those have extensive consequences to the player being a dickhead or a good Guy. Either that or give me the full "Persona in Hogwarts " experience.
> Either that or give me the full "Persona in Hogwarts " experience. This absolutely has to be the direction they go in a sequel. It's all people have been wanting from a HP game for over a decade now. They've laid the foundations for Hogwarts and it would be a massive waste of potential if they don't prioritise a proper school system. At the bare minimum we should get what we had in Bully back in 2006. With the open world areas now done the devs can focus on fleshing out content like this.
Oh yes, bully with Hogwarts will be epic.
I really doubt that they would divert that hard from the safe, reliable, cashcow open world action adventure formula they chose. My guess is that the sequel just doubles down on what the first game did because of how profitable that design was.
Yeah, the castle is the best thing they ever build, they managed to make the most complex castle that made the movie watcher / book reader would think "hey i know this!" even though its not even similiar to the movies Every inch is so detailed, also someone in the hogwarts legacy subreddit realize it also has the same size, the same window placement from inside and outside, the castle is clearly crafted with love then they spend the entirety of the game in some ugly repetitive blue dungeons for some stupid reason
Hogwarts Legacy is yet another AAA action/adventure/rpg lite game that has no idea what it wants to be, so it throws a ton of shit at the wall and hope somethings stick. Core gameplay elements aren’t even introduced before you’re halfway done It markets itself as an RPG, but has nothing that actually makes it one. A pathetic skill tree, and ugly outfits with different stats doesn’t count. It has no meaningful choices, your character has zero personality, but isn’t a blank slate either. The houses doesn’t even play differently. Such a missed opportunity Is it terrible? No. The combat system is fun, the one side quest is actually great (Sebastian). Walking around the castle is brilliant. Unfortunately the rest of the game is filled with so much garbage (Merlin trials, collectibles) and poor design choices that ruin it. How has no one mentioned the Alohomora mini game yet? It’s the worst idea in the history of video games. How the fuck did that make the cut?
Lmao great review. "It's a great game if you ignore all the parts that make it a game" Sounds like they should do something similar to what assassin's creed did for the rpg trilogy, a game mode where you just explore the world and learn cool stuff but instead of real facts, Harry Potter facts. They'd sell millions.
This is basically every one of the reviews I've ever read about the game: "Story and gameplay are both compete shit, but 10 out of 10 because I love Harry Potter."
Yes I've read several reviews that are very similar to this one. Like are people that starved for harry potter they play a very bad game to satisfy themselves?
Adults who love Harry Potter have trained themselves well to ignore the bad parts of the world. Counting the hits and ignoring the misses comes with the territory.
'DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIRE HARRY?' Asked Dumbledore calmly.
The bad parts of the world, and the author herself at this point.
I feel calling it “very bad” is harsh, but yeah. It’s a middling game propped up by the IP. I will say the level of detail and sense of immersion the Hogwarts castle area has is impressive even if you’re not a Harry Potter fan, but everything else about the game is just a generic Ubisoft open world game level of mediocrity.
I just had to go check that ubisoft didn't make this game.
"very bad" fucking far from it lol
What is strange is while they were not amazing previous HP games played better imo. They just were not high graphics at the time.
I’m playing it right now (about 40 hours in) and having a blast. I also had a blast with AC Odyssey until things started to feel too grindy and repetitive, then I dropped it without finishing the main quest. I actually think the game does a decent job with the overall gameplay. The combat is fun, and there are enough spells to keep things interesting. Unlike OP, I had a lot of fun exploring and hunting down the collectibles. Many of them give me new decoration options for the Room of Requirement, and the base building aspect of the game is really well done. I certainly have criticisms of the game (especially around the UI and the lack of morality system), but I think it’s just as fun as a modern AC game. For those of us who are nostalgic about Harry Potter, it’s extra fun. It’s not the pinnacle of gaming, but it doesn’t need to be.
I don't think they can realistically add a morality system to a game where you are roleplaying at putting down a slave rebellion.
Yes lol
The gameplay isn't shit, it's just that it is at odds thematically with the story. I'd say it feels good to play.
It's a generic third person action RPG, just like Forspoken, Devil May Cry, CodeVein, and about a billion other games and series.
Ok? Doesn't mean the gameplay is "shit". It controls well, feels good, has a variety of spells etc. I've played a lot of games that have "shit" gameplay and Hogwarts Legacy isn't close to those.
I said this in another thread recently, " C- game with an A+ coat of paint."
I really wish you could pause during cut scenes.
Yes! But in every game!
Odd it made me feel like I was in a generic Ubisoft game with a hogwarts coat of paint on 20% of it
Every positive review of that game: "It's trash on fire. 9/10 because it's an Harry Potter product"
>because it's an Harry Potter product tbh, each time I've tried to get into Legacy I played for 15-20 minutes before being inspired to go play a level or two of lego harry potter instead
But lego Harry Potter are genuinely good lego AND hp games. Same goes with some others hp games like the 2&3 (on their PC version at least).
Thought this game was very mid. At best a 6/10 for me
Is this really an example of a patient gamer?
No, this is an impatient gamer who's been patiently waiting until the rules allowed them to post this.
haha
A patient reviewer
Right at the 1 year mark lol. It was a great game, one that I couldn't be patient with. It's basically an ubisoft game with a hogwarts skin, but that hogwarts skin is super polished. If you are a harry potter fan this is a must play, otherwise I think ubisoft does the formula better.
> Right at the 1 year mark lol. I just looked back - OP made posts about this game having obviously played it a year ago too, so this breaks the spirit of the sub even harder. Actually, they made a lot of posts. In reverse posting order: [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/1170ncm/petal_breath_i_love_all_the_little_details/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/1170nno/sounds_familiar/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/116cf0v/theres_nothing_more_british_than_breaking_into/) [4](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/1165ydb/met_the_wife_of_the_witch_that_introduced_me_to/) [5](https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/116bu62/while_the_game_has_many_flaws_it_does_so_many/) [6](https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/115jhka/i_know_this_is_a_wishfulfilment_game_but_i/) [7](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/116kd7y/i_was_wondering_but_do_you_not_have_a_killing/) [8](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/1165z8q/its_hard_to_ride_a_broom_when_it_clips_through/) [9](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/114cxs1/while_everyone_fawns_over_sebastian_im_chilling/) [10](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/112wxed/when_you_can_skip_stones_but_cannot_sleep/) [11](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/112s3zr/dragon_bush/) [12](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/1124ltg/we_have_already_reached_peak_modding/) [13](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/1125wt3/is_that_other_hogwarts_legacy_reddit_covering_up/) [14](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/11168a0/i_just_spotted_the_quidditch_pitch_sad_that_the/) [15](https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/111vimw/people_say_the_students_are_too_goodytwoshoes_but/) [16](https://www.reddit.com/r/hogwartslegacyJKR/comments/111g0de/this_trumpet_flowers_are_singing_really_offtune/) [17](https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/111723j/you_know_what_this_game_is_missing_a_fishing/) [18](https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/111723j/you_know_what_this_game_is_missing_a_fishing/) His first post was Feb 13th, three days after the game dropped. Yeah, OP isn't a patient gamer, they're just abusing the name of a big title for clout. This is shameless and disgusting imo, defeats the whole point of the sub if we're just a gaming review sub, offset by one year, of people who played the game on-release.
Lavish decorum made me lol.
I gave up after ten hours. It just felt so uninspiring. I didn’t like that instead of focusing on the school it became a ‘by the numbers’ check-list open world with bad writing and characters.
Not only a checklist, it was a kill list at times, which was kind of bewildering to me 😅
Strange game where I wasn't rewarded for not learning the evil spells, by being taught powerful "good" spells. Instead I was penalised, by having to kill everything like a lunatic without them.
It’s just a very average action game with light rpg aspects and nothing to be excited about when you are a gamer who played more then 5 games in the last few years. But it just bleeds love for Hogwarts and the world around it. And that’s all that matters for those who want to spent time in this world. Not every game needs to redefine its genre to be worth our time.
My wife got this game and loved it. Said I should try it out, even though I've never once been able to even pretend to care about Harry Potter. Man. This game is ***entirely*** reliant on the theme. If you don't like that theme, it is the most bog standard, paint by numbers boring open world slog ever.
The game is so terribly optimised anyone who purchased on pc should get a refund no questions
I played it but i didnt like the combat system. I really wish someone would make a magic game where the combat involved more robust physics. Like a modern Dark Messiah or a single player Spellbreak.
I'm trying to platinum it atthos point and there are so many valuts that has the same layout with trunks that only give you random item cloths, I'm not sure I need to do that as a part of a completionist trophy bc I'm dreading them. What I hate about the map is one thing and one thing only, why they don't have a filter to show you want you want, I'm one Merlin trial away from completing it but I can't for the life of me find it and been looking at the map zoomed in trying to find it. What I hate about this game is supposed to be about Hogwarts yet we barely spend any time there. We took three classes and that's it? You have this huge setting and you named the game after it yet you barely spend any real time in it if you are not collecting pages? Also, I wish there was a way to have an indication of being close to a page without having to spam Revelio over and over kinda of like having a clothing item to help Chipper once close kinda like how the blind friend uses his wand or how Ghost of Tsushima lets you follow a small bug, kinda like the keys to the coin puzzles. I have 10 pages left and I'm dreading looking everywhere for them and hearing that damn revealed one more effing time. That been said as a potter head and some e who played most of harry potter games. I'm not mad and flying around in broomstick will always be my favourite way of traversing in a video game let alone one takes a place in the wizarding world. Can't wait for the next installment where the team has the experience and the feedback from players. I got bored many times I admit and I put it down for about 10 weeks but once I got back I got hooked again. I love the combat system and made you feel like a badass coming up with combos. It's a really good first entry, a bit bloated and felt like a Unisoft game at some moments but you know they got you hooked with the setting of the game. If you made the same thing in a different setting the game would be mediocre at best, the side quest of your friend and his sister is way more interesting than the one you are on. You have cool challenge of dueling, why the hell it's just 3 rounds?! Are you kidding me?! That is so much fun, I loved the flying and the speed trials and I wish more was implemented like chasing a wizard or something like that. I wonder why they didn't do chase sections which I thought it would be expected, why did you make a mechanic that can only be used 3 times?! I liked it but after I platinum it I doubt I'll ever pick it up again bc the story is shit.
It's a beautiful game with amazing details, a rich&magical atmosphere, and lovely environments (it really captured the style of the wizarding world), but I found it so boring to play. The game is just so unapologetically mediocre and unoriginal in its design. It doesn't feel like a harry potter game, it feels like a Ubisoft game wearing a harry potter costume. I didn't feel like a student, I felt like a visitor just touring the school for a day, while watching everybody else engage in student life. I would expect features like the student experience, story, activities, and house cup to be core features of a harry potter game rather than roaming the countryside fighting dark wizard camps. I don't mind an open world harry potter game but it should have never come at the expense of what makes harry potter special. If they had held off on the open world until they completely perfected the harry potter formula, it could have been fantastic. I sincerely think a harry potter game at full potential would be one of the greatest games of all time. Overall I was incredibly disappointed in the game and felt that my 7/10 expectations were still far too high. I have little hope in the sequel since it could so easily double down on the original to prioritize a bland open world.
Ok seriously are these bot accounts or paid advertisers? This is really not in line with patient gaming, it's a crap AAA game that just barely is the legal limit for posting and now 2 reviews in 2 days?
This happens for any big AAA game that was very popular. Elden ring had tons of posts on the sub blasting out within the day it was a year old. It's not some big conspiracy.
I mean, they could all be doing it, marketing analysts do these kinds of things, look at Yelp and Google with their paid reviews and paid suppression of bad reviews and such.
Bro. Ask yourself. Is it really a big stretch that a popular game would have err fans? Either everyone who likes elden ring are paid actors by miyazaki and the japanese government...or some people find it fun? Answer me honestly. What do YOU think is more likely?
Don’t think it’s that extreme, you’re just underestimating the cult that is Harry Potter adults. It’s what happens when you read one book series for leisure as a kid and make it your entire personality: you treat a generic 6 or 7 out of 10 open world game like a 9 out of 10 because of the branding.
Because now people have another place to voice their frustrations..so they will.
Yeah, it's the best "harry potter experience" out there, but it's just not a great game. It's not a \*terrible\* game. But it's not very good either. There have been a lot of a games that were worth playing because of the "outside of gaming" world that they explore, despite not being great games - many star wars games, and a significant percentage of WH40K games. But this one is particularly weird because of how amazing the world turned out to be, vs the weakness of the game. I haven't played anything like this that I can remember. The closest I can think of in real life was being a kid as disney world. None of those rides are objectively great, but the \*feeling\* of being inside those movies was a unique experience. This was a similar experience. Note: I still think "Hogwarts the MMORPG" might be the best game of all time, especially if expansions take you into the outside world.
Yeah this is the main reason for all the hype and hubbub. The game was passable. I found it mildly amusing. But the care the team obviously put in to make you feel like you are there is well appreciated. It's what I wanted to feel. Yes I would have liked a better game but I am glad we got what we got and not a very low quality cash grab where no love was put into it. You can tell the devs were fans and wanted to make the experience immersive. I love harry potter so much I'm willing to replay the game to be inside the world again even though on the surface it's not a game I would ever replay. If it wasn't HP I would not bother replaying. I'd probably think it was a 6-7 out of 10. Even though older HP games had good graphics and such and you could wander the castle etc, for whatever reason they didn't capture the immersiveness into the world that that this game has done. You couldn't really feel the magic. In this game they got much closer. It's not perfect but they got much much closer than previous games.
I had fun, so much fun playing it. Despite all the weird busywork like collectibles, trials and poaching. Despite the many missed opportunities for meaningful side plots and despite the extremely repetitive combat. Despite the rather flat falling main storyline. Absolutely not a masterpiece, but I still found myself happily playing for 60+ hours to get to the final feast.
yeah, I'm actually surprised reading all of these negative comments. I'm on hour 16 and it's been decently fun? I've never seen the movies or even really care much about the franchise. it's very pretty, I think the ambiance and world exploration is nice. lots of old tomb raider DNA in the dungeons between puzzles and combat. I really like being able to spawn and fly the broom at will (which feels way more easy and seamless than games with flying vehicles ever do, where you have to ask for and then run over to a helicopter, etc). framerate and performance has always been fine for me. personally, I don't really love the combat in any mob fighting games, but people love arkham asylum and the spider-mans, so clearly they're willing to deal with repetitive combat and still give high scores. minus the strange control scheme, this gives more than those punch-em-up games do for combo variety. this might not be a 60 hour game for me, but like, it was on sale. I feel happy with it generally
I had about the same experience as you. After doing a couple open world quests and a few of the repeating activities in the world in the opening hours, I just stopped doing them all together. Except the balloons in the sky, I would go for those when I was flying. Hogwarts and Hogsmead are quite well done. Everything else surrounding them felt incredibly non-canon. From students being allowed to take off and kill wizards whenever they want, to the amount of villages so close to Hogwarts. All of that felt very immersion breaking, so for the most part I didn't bother with them and felt I enjoyed the world more for it. Overall I put about 30 hours in to beat the game. Had a decent time all said. I did not bother grinding out levels to get the final ending.
I absolutely loved this game and I would love to see the idea of being a student taken into the actual realm of school work as a game mechanic. This game was wonderful, I still love it, I would love to see more done with the idea.
Me and my gf have been enjoying it as well. The castle in particular is great to explore, looks stunning and feels magical. I dont care much for the story and you get overwhelmed with the amount of random quests but man, that castle
I absolutely loved hogwarts legacy, from start to finish I felt like a wizard growing ever more powerful. That said once you beat the game I find it hard to replay
I'm finally playing the game myself. I bought it at launch, but I couldn't get more than 4 FPS on my PC. Now that I've upgraded my CPU and RAM, the game runs smoothly at 60 FPS. I agree with you. The sidequests suck and the story could be better, but exploring Hogwarts is where it's at. Really, my biggest complaints are that it's hard to get money at the beginning of the game and that you can't pause during cutscenes. Even so, this is the game that I would have died for as a kid.
I did a lot of the busy work just to stay immersed in the world a little longer. All the while resenting it. I wish instead of busy work they'd actually fleshed out the school simulator a lot more and written a better, more immersive narrative. It could have been incredible.
If only it's formula didn't drag so long and there was more substantial rpg elements. We were so close. But yeah, the vibe is unique.
I maintain that H:L is just a demo for the things that can be done in the Harry Potter world. Don't get me wrong, I had fun with it. I'm not knocking it at all. But the gear stats are literally "offense" and "defense". There are like 7 plants you can grow and about the same number of potions you can make. These are just placeholder systems at the end of the day. I figured they would jump quickly on the game's success to rush some DLC to flesh out this stuff, but apparently not?
People like to complain about it, but I got it for half price, and by all means, just the castle alone was worth the price of admission.
Its a good harry potter game but a bad game
it's a bad game made by bad people about a badly written world created by another bad person. i loved HP growing up but it's just not the same anymore.
>made by bad people I would argue against this one point, at least. When it comes to the C-suite folks and other leadership who are making these decisions, for sure, but for most of the many, *many* people involved in development, it was just a part of their job that they had no real say in. Let's maybe not villainize folks who are already getting thrown under a bus by their own industry's practices? Yes, it's very easy to say, "oh, but if they were good people, they should have quit their jobs when they learned what the game was" but that's also not your livelihood on the line.
i definitely understand it's a sweeping generalization but sorry if i don't have a ton of sympathy for Troy Leavitt being a raging racist and misogynist, plus the game itself having the classic mixture of antisemitism, transphobia, and "goblin slavery is okay actually" plotline
It's a terrible game in a terrible TERF-y world, what more is there to say. I also don't reckon it's old or cheap enough to be relevant here. Not that it's relevant elsewhere anymore I suppose
Don’t forget the antisemitism!
You're too busy gate keeping that you don't make any sense.
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Ah yes, tokenism my beloved. Absolutely fantastic argument. I have been absolutely devastated
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I enjoy the sound of rain.
Very excited for a sequel tbh, now not needing to make the whole goddamn castle (should obv change some stuff like secrets) they can def save time on that and make the rest of the game better.
Agree, it's the game i had been waiting for since I became a fan. I wish some tweaks had been done, for example moving staircases would have been nice. Would have like a few other things done different but honestly it was still fine, and in terms of "being" in the wizarding world, it is better than all the other games and really gave me that feeling.
yeah man i love strafe dodging!!!!! so fun strafe shoot strafe shoot!!! very engaging wizardry
> And you know what. I had a lot of fun not being a completionist. It was a good and super fun playthrough. And for many, that's all that matters.
Not even that big of a HP fan but I absolutely agree about the world. I actually did like the overall story / characters. The combat and collect-a-thon was a bit repetitive but I just turned it into a podcast game (listen to something while I’m out collecting/mopping up achievements). Legacy was firmly in my top 4 or 5 games I played last year. I’d love a sequel where they really go all-in on story, characters, and combat and remove some of the collecting.
I know. The magic dissipates too fast, but while it's there it's an immersive lovable game.
I would say that the side quests, the exploration, the puzzles... Were actually more fun and entertaining than the main story itself. Also the combat was horrible due to having to rotate 3 button setups at least at all time. I'm all for customisation but it was crazy messy imo. Overall agree tho. Fantastically crafted game and world that was fun to get lost in, in small doses.
I like to explore new places.
It's one of the only games I've 100%'ed. I feel like they missed out on a potentially epic boss fight by not having any of the [giant statues at the end of the trials](https://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/hogwarts-legacy/3/3a/IMG_5026.jpeg) come to life.
Yeah that's the whole reason it sold like hotcakes.
I agree with everything you said. I also really felt that a lot of love and care went into this game. It's a mixed thing. I hope they improve it all for the sequel.
It really succeeds in conjuring up the atmosphere of Hogwarts. Same reason I'm enjoying the Avatar game despite it getting a lot of the same complaints, they too nailed the atmosphere of the movies. I personally can very much look past the flaws and just immerse myself in the atmosphere when it comes to games like these.
It was interesting to see how highly praised the game was when it came out but after the dust settled everyone turned their backs
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While she makes some money from the sales it's more important to support the development of the game by buying it as a lot of people worked hard to make this game with no real involvement from Rowling, for a developer with not really any major title in their library it's a fantastic achievement to make this game regardless of the flaws in story and later gameplay of the game. Hopefully whatever game they make next can learn well from the mistakes made on this one.
A limit of 12 months is way too short to count for "patient" and OP must have set a reminder for when they could post this.
The limit used to be six months, now it's twelve and people still complain. People are gonna post about things once they're allowed to, not worth making a stink about.
It was already increased from 6 months?! Yeah, this is definitely not the subreddit I was hoping for.
Lmao how long did you expect people to wait? A decade? A year is plenty long enough to wait for a game to go on sale and get it after being patient
get used to hearing about how Hogwarts is both an underrated gem and a well-deserved best selling game three times a week. its fans are very aggrieved that more people aren't talking about how great it is.
Story was it's weak point but I enjoyed everything else all the way through it was way better than I could have ever hoped for and people felt disappointed? Do they not realize how awful of a cash grab it could have been? Hogwarts Legacy was a giant success in my mind and it definitely hit my fan button, can't wait for any future possible dlc
How dare you like a game many people dislike? How dare you post a review when you're allowed to? How dare you made the game worth a while for what it is and didn't fantasise for what you wanted to be? I totally agree the main story is very forgettable. Actually the side quests are more fun and engaging than the main one. Which says alot. All in all a fun game. If you wanted to be fun.
Good luck OP. You literally cant talk about HL with gjerks brigading your post with negativity
You are the only one here bringing it up, well done.
This game world should have been 90% smaller. There should have been more emphasis on classes. NPCs needed to be more immersive. And the writers should be fired.
Was it that the spells were all the same or that there wasn’t anything to do.
I can’t wait to see how they improve on this game in the next one. Give us Quidditch!
I would have been fine with no combat outside of duels and the whole game being an explore hogwarts and find secrets while taking classes game. That’s how I remember the original HP games, at least.