Hogwarts Legacy (2023)

Stepping into the Wizarding World.

Hogwarts Legacy is definitely one of the heavy hitters commercially in 2023, but it's safe to say its left a mark on social politics since its release. I won't be commenting on that, however, I'm more concerned that I'm forcing myself to play this on the Switch.

Don't worry, I won't be starting any political movements for a drop in framerate, but I might do for the amount of loading screens I have to sit through.

May the Force be wi... Sorry wrong franchise. -Trauts

Played the main story & some side quests. As soon as the main story was over, I quit.

Take this with a grain of salt 😅

An RPG for those who don't usually play RPGs, the writing is bland, the characters are 'eh' at best, and there isn't any really change that comes from completing the main story - the goblins aren't seen differently, you are effectively still a 'chosen one', and there are no real consequences to using the Forbidden spells.

Only reason I didn't give 1 star was because the game technically functions, but it's not for me. Regret spending my money on it, regret spending time playing it. Should have just watched someone play it and called it done.

Decided to give this a go after seeing it in a second-hand shop. I can't really begin to discuss this game without first ackowledging the damage Rowling has inflicted on the LGBTQ+ community. This article summed it up well when I was trying to educate myself on the subject. Her language over the past few years has been hurtful and caused unessary division. Fans of the franchise now have to ask themselves whether they can separate the art from the artist, and although Rowling has had no involvement with the game to my knowledge, she will recieve royalties, along with her franchise growing as a result of the game bringing in new fans, and no doubt compelling existing ones to pour even more money into merchandise etc. The linked article reports some apparant cases of team members being uncomfortable working on the game after Rowling became more vocal, and as a result they pushed for more inclusivity within the game which is great if its true! So far I have seen a nice mix of representation in the game which I'm all for. It's the abundance of variety and diversity after all that should make these fantastical worlds special.

With all of this being said, why am I even bothering with this game? I am not a potter fan and I am certainly not a Rowling fan. I am, however, a fan of open world exploration, fantasy, and medieval settings. I wanted to see what the team at Avalanche studios had managed to conjour up. My wish for the franchise moving forward is that they completely abandon the Harry Potter IP and get someone new on board to create a totally unique magic orientated IP so that we can move away from Rowling.

Moving on to the game itself, I'm actually quite impressed with what they've done. They've done well to capture the feeling of the films and this is apparent throughout all aspects of the game. The characters, voices, locations, even the first glimpse of hogwarts where they play the iconic harry potter theme - it's all executed beautifully. I can't really overemphasis how well they've captured the feeling of the films. There's detail packed into every corner of the map. It's obvious a lot of talent has been poured into the game.

Every inch of hogwarts and the surrounding area beyond the castle is crammed full of students to talk to, objects to see, quests to complete, items to interact with. The game almost feels cluttered with stuff bursting out the seams. I love when games do this though, it reminds me a lot of older games where there's secrets to be found and lots of stuff to interact with. Hidden chests and areas that are locked behind certain lock levels remind me a lot of the ps2 era of games where exporation was often heavily promoted. Hogsmeade is the first location you visit outside of hogwarts and I was blown away by how many buildings you could venture in, often with no quest relevance, they seem to be there just to fill the world up and provide you with things to see and interact with. I loved the music shop where I could enchant pianos to play beautiful pieces of music.

Speaking of exploration, walking around the map is a joy. There's so many different areas of magic to delve into. You could get lost in just honing in on your spell skills, or you could get really get stuck in to potions. Personally I love walking around the Herbology greenhouse and I'm definitely going to be using plants in combat.

The combat is basic in terms of your attacks, but the complexity comes in when you start to strategies the combination of attacks you're going to use. It's sort of similar to choosing a build in an RPG. Will you focus on heavy attack spells? or perhaps use potions and plants to give you that upper hand. I'm only 6 or so hours in so I hope to discover even more ways of playing.

I'm looking forward to getting my broom and taking to the skies to see what else awaits me beyond the castle walls.