Hogwarts Legacy - a weird (90 hour) review *no spoilers

J. K. Rowling is a fascist.

Honestly I don't know why you want to 100% it. It seems like you're not having a good time. It's okay to stop games instead of forcing yourself trough something you don't enjoy.

Having said that AFAIK the PC version seems pretty stable. There are some perfomance kinks but overall the game seemed to run good. My partner has not reported minor or gamebraking bugs aswell. So this side might be on the switch port.

Now let's talk about the actual game. It is incredible shallow. That's just it. But honestly I think that's fine. The game was made not made for people who play a lot of games and more importantly I don't think the actual gameplay is the selling point of the game. It's the incredible and rich presentation of Hoghwarts and it's surroundings. The amount of unique assets and beautiful textures you find in the castle are incredible and it's clear most of the development budget was spend there instead of the gameplay.

The word as a gameplay playground is horrible as you said. Countless of meaningless repetitive tasks. But as a backdrop to the focal points of the game they do their job. I don't think the game is a game of the year but I'm still impressed by the visualisation of Hoghwarts and it's surroundings. I've expected this game to be way worse than it is.

I strangely find enjoyment out of 100% something and I'm not currently the main player (mostly help my partner out in the difficult spots, collect items for upgrades and restock equipment). If it was just me I probably would've lost interest a while ago.

You're absolutely right about the assets. The variety was baffling, we wondered if they were able to import a large library or if considerable time was taken modeling all of it. Would explain a lot for the development, and our hopes is that everything can just be carried over to the next installment so other areas of the game can be concentrated on.

Please stop giving money to bigots. You're directly funding the legislation against a minority group.

I think it's a bit unfair to base it off the Switch version. Even though the developers really tried (walling off vistas for better framerate, reducing the amount of objects in rooms, etc) the loading times are virtually nonexistent on PS5 and obviously it looks and plays a lot better.

Doesn't apply to the puzzles and possibly the controls though, although Switch is missing an analog trigger so that might be another reason it's being obtuse.

All in all, when I saw the comparison video and how long loading times were even when going in and out a single building, I knew that it was gonna be a rough time. Playable, sure, but the best experience is on PC/PS5

I liked it and thought it was fun. Funny that dark arts has no real downside though.

I will preface this by saying I'm a PC gamer who also has a Switch. Wife and I were gifted this game on the Switch and I knew going in it would be a subpar experience compared to the PC. That said, my wife was really into it and watching her okay made me want to pick it up also.

No it isn't very deep and doesn't bring any new mechanics to the table we haven't seen already but the presentation, even on the limited horse power of the switch was nice. It was fun to explore the castle and build up your character. The game is easy to 100% though it can be a bit tedious to track down everything. If you like the potter-verse, I think it's a pretty good game. Watch a video, grab it on sale, didn't expect to have your mind blown.

I look forward to a sequel assuming they can improve on some of the repetition.

Pretty sure all the hype was by potter-heads. I don't know anyone who enjoyed playing the game who wasn't also a die-hard fan of Harry Potter.

My girl almost never plays games. I bought her the ps5 with Hogwarts Legacy. She did like the atmosphere and such, but the story felt very rushed towards the end, the ending was unsatisfying, the world started off cool but got a choreful minefield afterwards.

I only played the tutorial.

yeah I think I played about 10 hours. the initial stage around hogwarts proper was interesting and fun, but once the quests went out into the open world it got a lot more tedious.

thanks for the review!

@Cataphract I mostly agree with your assessment. If's a fun game. It's not great, it's just fine though. I played it, had fun with it, I think they did an amazing job with the castle and the setting then put and extremely mediocre RPG into it. They could have done so much more. I didn't feel like I wasted my time, but I also didn't feel like it was a great game at all. It's worth it, on sale for $20-40 max I'd say. If you're a huge potter fan it's a must play, if you're not, eh it's fine. Like Assassin's creed. It's fine.

However, _how did they ever say no DLC_? I will never understand this. They made a money printer for potter fans, the world is empty with barely anything to do in it. They could be cranking out DLC every quarter for this and I know people would be buying it. I thought these companies liked money, how the hell did they decide not to do that?