Hogwarts Legacy is one of a kind game that people have been craving for from quite some time. For people who haven’t played it, It is an open world game designed where you can become a Wizard and explore the world in and around the castle and explore and uncover its secret. The game is influenced by the original material but the story takes place long before the events of the book every happened.
Its the first step in the right direction I would say. I played the game twice with two different houses and here I provide my review for the game. I was hyped about the game to the extent I purchased the early access deluxe edition of the game the first such purchase I ever made for any game ever. Without wasting more time ranting, lets get into the gist of it.
The review will compile both the positives and negatives for everything I encountered for every bullet point mentioned.
Table of Contents
The Castle in Hogwarts Legacy
Well if the game’s name is Hogwarts, the castle they built is beautiful. I can’t stress this enough the castle in Hogwarts Legacy is beautiful. It is aesthetically pleasing to look at. Be it the interior or the grounds or be it the classrooms and the notable locations in the movies as well as the books the developers did an excellent job.
It was ASMR to my eyes for sure. The surroundings the little interactions. Every house had their unique entrances. Slytherin being the coolest.
The best part is that even if the game is open world, for the first few hours it almost linear with quests in and around the castle. You are kind of boxed into exploring the castle and learning new skills by attending classes some of them mandatory. It makes you feel like a part of the wizarding world.
One of my complaints about this beautiful artwork would be that once the game opens, it literally drags you out of the castle to the open world. As a wizard, you are provided with quests that might be on the other side of the map and you need to kind of completely leave the castle and do the quests. According to me I would have loved if they would have cut down the map to half the current size and made the character stick closer to the castle.
On the technical aspect, I hated the level streaming. Not sure why this was there but, every time there is a closed door you would walk in or out of there is a slight buffering because of the level getting loaded. It was kind of immersion breaking to be true. Since I haven’t played it in the recent times I am unsure if it is completely fixed but when I played, it was a annoying thing in Hogwarts Legacy. Not sure if it was the Unreal engine issue or optimization problem with the game.
Hogwarts Legacy Map
The map consists of the regions around the Hogwarts castle. Notable areas include
- Forbidden Forest
- Hogsmeade Village
- Black Lake
- Quidditch Pitch
- Train Station
- Gringotts Bank
- Askaban Prison
This was kind of disappointing for me. These places were built into the game but not utilized properly. Some of the mentioned places in the above list you may or may not even utilize in your playthrough ever.
I would have loved if they would have included more missions in these areas and added some more regions and places like the following
- Ministry of magic
- Diagon Alley
- Durmstrang Institute
- Ilvermorny School Of Witchcraft & Wizardry
I can understand not having the London station as it would mess up the timelines but these historical locations make the world more lived in. The bottom section of the map could have been removed and replaced with these locations where the fast travel is possible.
Also Hogwarts legacy should have used a different themed map right ? The Marauders map. Why not use it at least to represent the map in the menu. Would have made it more interesting.
The Story of Hogwarts Legacy
Hogwarts Legacy’s story is set in the late 1800s and revolves around the player, who is a new student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who joined directly in the 5th year. The story focuses on the discovery and exploration of Ancient Magic, which the player character uniquely understands.
This adventure unfolds against the backdrop of a brewing Goblin Rebellion. The player’s journey involves navigating the challenges of being a Hogwarts student while also playing a pivotal role in confronting and resolving the looming threat posed by the rebellion. The game’s narrative is deeply rooted in the rich lore of the Harry Potter universe, although it predates the events of the original Harry Potter series. The main story is linear and the outcome for it is the same.
For the story, it was good but, weirdly enough one of the questline stood out more than the main story and felt more like the main quest than the main quest itself. Well those who have mastered the dark arts know what I am talking about. The Sebastian’s questline. This is a side mission and the one that gives you the 3 unforgivable curses. Not sure why but I think as a story, had this been worked on more could have rivaled/replaced the actual story.
The characters involved are memorable even more than the characters in the main plot. Sebastian’s motive about find a cure for his sister, his uncle, his choices and the consequence felt more impactful than the main story. Heck even Ominis Gaunt was an interesting character.
I haven’t forgotten his name/face but I needed to lookup the name of the wizard who was helping Ranrok. This story line could have had some branching story with consequences. This would have made this a better story to Horwarts Legacy and adding sequel to it would have been great.
Quest Design in Hogwarts Legacy
The main quests were interesting. Few of the main quests in early hours of the game had you attending classes. I felt excited to attend the classes and learn new spells, brewing potions and exploring the castle and its grounds.
As the story progressed you were introduced to the keepers of the Ancient Magic who tested your skills in combat to help you progress and share the secrets of what happened in the past. There is a lot of platforming involved in these levels.
The side quests in Hogwarts Legacy are mostly filler content except for the classes and the Sebastian questline, even other NPC student questlines were okay at best. The open world map feels like a map designed to hold quests made by a Ubisoft game. As I said earlier a map with procedural dungeons and enemies to Avada Kedavra is fun but repetitive. My second playthrough felt like a chore rather than an actual experience. There are no dynamic events and you get new quests from owl posts which are basically notification in the menu window. It didn’t feel immersive enough.
One thing not sure why they didn’t make it a accessible feature the dueling club. You can duel other students a few times and then for the rest of the playthrough you are not allowed to duel. Why ? Direction taken by the product team of Hogwarts Legacy is really weird. This could even have had a PVP implementation.
Travelling in Hogwarts Legacy
The map can be quickly traversed either by using a mount or a broom stick. Even though I am complaining about the map size, let me reiterate, The graphics are stunning. Riding your broom or mount feels rewarding to do.
Another mode of travel is via flu powder. Its a basic fast travel mechanic in Hogwarts Legacy. I really don’t understand why new games make it more immersive on this front like GTA V did or even the Spiderman games do. But it is what it is. There is a loading screen that transports you between two fast travel locations.
Enemy Variety
Enemy variety in terms of non humanoid enemies is quite restricted to spiders, zombies and goblins with occasional trolls. There is a whole book of enemy variety that could have been used called Fantastic Beasts. There are 3 movies made from the series yet the same was never used in the game.
Conclusion
Is Hogwarts Legacy is good game or a bad game or an average game ? Well it is a good foundation and can be used to derive the next iterations and DLCs in this series. It can be considered like the Assassin’s Creed 1 of the Assassin’s creed franchise. I am personally optimistic provided the developers take into consideration the source material and the fair criticism towards the game, I am sure the new iterations would be much better in all the aspects mentioned as weak points in the article.
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