Hogwarts Legacy is the new Harry Potter universe game that lets you live the fantasy of the wizarding world. It was the much-talked-about Harry Porter game. Hogwarts Legacy is a good open-world game that can be a treat for Harry Potter fans. Developers have taken the concept of the literary work and made an open-world game from it. The game lets you live the fantasy of being a student in a magical school without making it look like a school simulation.
Immersion is the core experience as it let you experience the world of Hogwarts Legacy like never before. It is the first game to tackle and nail the feeling of Hogwarts from the dorm, and common rooms to corridors full of students. There is a high amount of detail, and puzzles moving stairs that make everything happening on the screen livelier. It is the type of game that requires you to take your time and don’t rush ahead. There is a lot of remanence of the books and movies. This feeling extended throughout the open world, not just the Hogwarts castle.
There is character customization through different tools that might seem shallow at times. The world has dynamic stuff happing all around. The emphasis on living magical school life is not forced which gives other aspects of the Hogwarts Legacy to shine. Living out the fantasy of exploring the Harry Potter world is the main focus.
An RPG
You will create your own character but the game offers limited customization options. You can make any type of person despite some of the options feeling awkward and limited by the way they are implemented. It gives you the freedom to make a human character so it stays in the realm of humanity. You can pick a pitch for your voice that will change the sound of your character. The basics of an RPG game are there to get started.
It is a big open world where you are a 5th-year student under the tutelage of a professor. The plot goes beyond learning spells and potions. The game introduces you as a character that is already familiar with the basic stuff. Having such a character puts the story in the perfect spot to start an adventure in a new location.
Living the Fantasy
The feeling of living the fantasy of a magical world extended throughout the game. It will not just be there for a couple of hours and then dims out. Hogwarts castle is not the only area where this feeling is prominent, the open world of the game has it as well. Everything you see around you seems like it belongs in there. This feeling lasts not just for the first couple of hours but the entire game. Designs, puzzles, the way you interact with other characters, and do things, all of it feels like it belongs in the game.
The School Life
Hogwarts Legacy shows the world of Harry Porter through cool video game windows. It is not a school simulator as classes act as side missions that are part of the flow. Hogwarts Legacy is not a school simulator, it is an open-world game with school being a big part of it. There are some cool class moments and new characters. The game will establish a cast of characters that you will meet throughout the game while playing. You will hear about them, meet them, learn more about them, and talk to them. These characters will also appear in cut scenes.
The World of Hogwarts Legacy
The world of the Hogwarts Legacy game is surprisingly big. You can explore Hogwarts and the open world of the game. After going into the open world you will realize that world is much bigger than the initial impression. Elden Ring was surprisingly big and Hogwarts Legacy is no exception. You can fly around on the broom to explore the world.
Hogwarts Legacy can take nearly 100 hours to complete all that the game has to offer. The quality of the hours you spend is good but not exceptional. It’s not just back and forth between different points. There are some repeatable activities in the game. If you are a completionist then these repeatable activities can cause burnout and become tedious. A lot of side activities are copy-paste, unlike some other games. The world and character can keep them interesting but at times, it might not be enough.
There are big swamps, big forbidden forests, a big town of Hogs Meet, and other small towns scattered around the map. The open world of Hogwarts Legacy also has some generic open-world stuff. Hidden Puzzles, Dungeons, and other generic open-world stuff offer a good chance for exploration.
Exploration and Sense of Belonging
The school is a big sense of nostalgia and Hogwarts castle provides good chances for discovery. After spending hours and hours there would still be new rooms and wings to discover in Hogwarts castle. It is a faithful recreation of the school with lots of hidden secrets as it should be. Hogwarts castle is good from a gameplay perspective for exploration, collecting things, and side quests.
Going around in the castle is also a good experience. There is a lot of dynamic stuff happening in the background which helps in making it a good experience. You can see ghosts roaming around, candles floating in the air, moving stairs, armor moving from time to time, moving paintings, and things like that. Students are also part of these dynamic background motions. Students will pass by carrying books with spells, prank each other with spells, and things like that and all of it provides a good Hogwarts experience.
All of it looks cool but there is no way to interact with any of it. Students look cool but you cannot interact with students unless it is part of a quest. Which was a huge disappointment for me as such an approach makes everything nothing more than a prob. NPCs are completely un-interactable and they will not react to anything you do. It is a major reason that NPCs don’t add much life.
General Gameplay
Hogwarts Legacy looks cool with the town, spooky caves, and cool art design. The world of the game will reflect the changes in the season. The world will change as the season changes from winter to summer. Music is good and it will change depending on what’s happening on the screen. Developers have done a good job of creating Harry Potter fantasy while putting their own spin on it. The story is good and does not spoil the world of Harry Potter that people have come to love.
There are two modes fidelity and performance, like other PS5 games that we have seen for 9th gen consoles. Fidelity mode offers 30 FPS 4K while performance mode offers 60 FPS dynamic 4k. The graphics are not the best but they are good. The art style and animation sit well with the wizarding world. There is no loading time on the PlayStation 5 other than fast travel which is hardly 5 seconds. The game is pretty seamless with no loading screen while going from one area to another.
Itemization
There is a loot progression system in the game but the lack of proper itemization makes it irrelevant. There are no proper stats for the items you find. By the time you reach better customization, you have already done most of the activities. Activities you do does not justify the rewards you get from them. In the beginning, you will care about gear but later on, you will stop caring about items you find unless it is legendary.
Good itemization is always good as it incentivizes you to explore which is not the case with the Hogwarts Legacy game. Doing the same activities over and over without getting something good out of it can get tedious. Better itemization could have made exploration a lot better and more rewarding. Poor itemization holds it back. Story and sense of wonder are the major propellers of the game for exploration. Gear slots are limited and you can increase them by doing merlin puzzles. You would need to grind them pretty early because you can get a lot of loot.
Customization
There are customization options and skill trees that can be progressed. Different vendors offer cosmetic customization for your character. You can choose a wand and change clothes for your character. Picking a house will not have any impact on the story and abilities of your characters. The only thing it changes is your clothes and the common room. As mentioned earlier Hogwarts Legacy is not a school simulation game, you do not need to finish a school day. The school is more about adventure collectibles and other such things.
As you play the game you will get points through XP that can be used to upgrade different aspects of combat. You can use these points to increase the effectiveness of spells, blast radius, makes potions more effective, get a better dodge, increase attack power, and things like that. All these upgrades make your character perform better.
Hogwarts Legacy game has a Room of Requirement that acts as a base of operation that offers a lot of customization. You can craft potions in the Room of Requirement among other things. You can place chairs, candles, tables, and things like that to customize your Base of Operation. There is even an outdoor area where you can keep the caught animals to save them from poachers. Saving animals from Poachers is end-game stuff. Most of it is optional but it is fun and the game will throw a lot at you.
Combat
People in the world of Harry Potter rely on spells for combat. It can be hard to make combat exclusively based on spells. I was kind of skeptical in the begriming but Hogwarts Legacy turned out to be the game with decent combat. Sixteen total spells are used for both exploration and combat.
The combat is all about using the wand to hurl spells at enemies. At times the combat can feel challenging but it works. Taping the trigger button will let you throw spells at enemies. These spells are more like jabs that act as light attacks. All of your face buttons have a specific spell tied to them. Attacks from a face button act as heavy attacks and have cool-downs.
It can be reparative while you are tapping and managing the cooldown of other spells that are tied to face buttons. First, you will hit an enemy with a spell to throw them in the air. After that, you can hit their weak spot with another powerful attack or normal spell. There are spells to pull enemies close and ignite with another attack. Enemies get complicated and are vulnerable to different types of attacks depending on their shield and type. You have to use fire spells for ice-type enemies and things like that.
Attack and Defend
Attacks have a good effect and general feedback. You can feel the impact of a spell when you hit an enemy. There are four face buttons for spell layouts as explained earlier. You can make layouts of different buttons for different enemies and activities. Using potions is also an option, you can use potions to buff your attack or increase defense and things like that.
Hogwarts Legacy game gives you the options of both defense and offense. There is an option of magic shield parry that can stun enemies dodge that later becomes magical shift. You can also throw random stuff at enemies from the environment. Locking onto a target can be messy sometimes as the wrong camera angle can get in the way, unlike some other games. There is even the option of a powerful magic attack that can do major damage to enemies. Doing damage will fill up the meter which you can use to unleash a powerful attack on enemies. There is even a cool animation for it when you activate that spell.
Verdict
Hogwarts Legacy is a Harry Potter game that provides an open-world experience in a world full of magic. It will quench your thirst for experiencing the magical world of Harry Potter first. The game shows the world beyond the premises of the magical school. It shows what it feels like to be a person in the world of magic not just a student in a magical school. It is a treat for Harry Potter fans. You don’t have to be a Harry Potter fan to enjoy it as developers have done a good job of making a fun experience.
Customization leaves more to be desired but it is more about adventure rather than RPG stuff. Don’t come at it as a combat-driven or open-world game. Hogwarts Legacy is the closest thing we have to a wizard world. It is a game with a good open world, decent combat, story, and adventure. If you have been waiting for a game to experience the world of Harry Potter in full freedom then Hogwarts Legacy is the game for you. The game has its ups and down but it does provide a good experience.
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