Hogwarts Legacy Review (PS5)

The Wizarding World is well represented in the film department, with no less than eight Harry Potter novel series and three Fantastic Beasts series. However, when it comes to games, there’s been a little bit of a drought. Although there are just as many Harry Potter games out there, the last one made specifically for PC and consoles dates more than 10 years ago.

Fans have been thirsting for a new game set in the Wizarding World, and the folks at Avalanche Software decided to raise up to the challenge and give us Hogwarts Legacy. While the game isn’t based on the Harry Potter novels, it does provide an in-depth look at the life of a young student at Hogwarts, the famous school of witchcraft and wizardry.

Playing as a student starting at Hogwarts in the fifth year has its perks, but mostly downsides. For starters, you have a very limited spells repertoire, which can only be overcome by working extra hours and completing assignments for many of the professors at Hogwarts.

As you can imagine, attending classes like Defense Against the Dark Arts and Herbology is absolutely mandatory in order to learn new spells. Once you have the spells that will form your basic arsenal, you aren’t required to continue with the assignments, but if you want far more powerful spells, you’re going to absolutely want to finish them.

+4more

Learning some spells is required in order to advance the main story, but the side-quests that are teaching you these spells will be marked accordingly to avoid any confusion. The most important tool in the game, the Field Guide, will keep track of all your progress in the game and reward you with new gear and appearances.

Regardless of what house the Sorting Hat has chosen for your character, you can decide to play with whatever house you wish: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw. During your journey throughout the Wizarding World, you’ll be bonding with NCPs that are members of other houses. As your relationship with your schoolmates grows, you’ll be able to expand your abilities with new, even dangerous spells like the Killing Curse.

Every character in Hogwarts Legacy has their own personality and some are quite memorable. It’s very easy to distinguish a Slitherine student from one that belongs to the Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw house. It also helps that their stories are somewhat representative of their ideals.

The beginning of the game is pretty tense and the plot is appealing enough to make you want to know more. However, I often found myself derailing from the main story to complete side-quests, assignments or simply explore Hogwarts and the world around it. The number of puzzles and collectibles in this game is absolutely staggering.

The folks at Avalanche Software built Hogwarts on multiple levels, and the first time you’re dropped in the middle of the school it’s truly overwhelming (in a good way). The map in the game doesn’t help with that either and probably needs some work, but I can’t see how else they would implement it because Hogwarts is a very big labyrinth with hundreds of secrets, puzzles and collectibles to discover, and I’m not exaggerating a bit.

Exploring every nook and cranny of the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry probably represents most of gameplay time, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything else that I could do in the game. Although the main story may seem generic, it’s very well done and interesting enough to keep you going after dealing with all the side content you’re interested in.

Play Video

As far as combat goes, I have to say that it exceeded my expectations. Even though you’re pretty limited at the beginning of the game and forced to roll a lot between basic attacks and occasional shield/parry, once you learn a few spells, combat become pretty spectacular. Imagine a “rock paper scissors” game where instead of having to hit the enemy with an opposite spell, you have to match its color.

Spells in Hogwarts Legacy are grouped by colors, so when enemies shield themselves against your attacks, you have to cast a spell that matches the shield’s color to remove it (any spell). That leaves the enemy open to brutal combos that can send them burning into another enemy or simply collapse due to a curse.

The talent tree can change how some spells affect enemies, so the combinations are almost limitless. Of course, you’ll probably limit yourself to a couple of combos because enemies have specific weaknesses. Not to mention that there are so many spells in the game that sometimes it’s hard to remember which one corresponds to what key. I did appreciate the fact that you can create shortcuts for every spell in the game, but the fact still remains that you’ll have to change the configuration pretty often according to the enemies you’re facing.

Some enemies are weak to fire, while others can be countered using Glacius or Levioso. The one thing that helps with deciding your main spells repertoire is the fact that enemies lack variations. This is probably one of the things that can be listed among the game’s positives and negatives at the same time.

And if we’re discussing enemies, I’m sorry to say but if you’re suffering from arachnophobia, you’ll want to skip Hogwarts Legacy. Most of the dungeons in the game are populated with spiders, but you’re also encounter this type of enemy while doing the main story quests.

There’s a bunch of other activities that will most likely stand in the way of you finishing the main quest. I’m talking mostly about customizing your base of operations, also known as the Room of Requirements, as well as “hunting” for magical beasts to populate your Vivarium. These beasts are not just there to let you groom and feed them, they also provide you with rare items that can be used to concoct powerful potions or upgrades for your gear.

In Hogwarts Legacy, you’ll be changing gear very often, but what I liked the most is that you always get something better whenever you explore a new region, solve a puzzle or run a dungeon. The transmog system in the game lets you overwrite the look of your newly acquired robes, spectacles, hats, gloves, neckcloth, and pants with whatever appearances you manage to find.

+4more

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion