Hogwarts Legacy Review: At Once Magical and Derivative
Portkey Games’ Hogwarts Legacy is far from being the first Wizarding World video game, but it’s certainly the first attempt in the current gen to make waves at bringing the universe to life via an expansive open-world setting enriched with a modern coat of graphics. But while Hogwarts Legacy contains all the indicators of a “Harry Potter RPG set in an open world,” it’s also rough around the edges in a multitude of ways.
Hogwarts Legacy is undeniably impassioned. Hogwarts Castle itself is riddled with visual minutiae in ways that are easy to overlook, whether it’s the house hourglasses, frog choir, or elements from the Harry Potter novels that didn’t make an appearance in the films such as the mischievous Peeves the Poltergeist or the ghost-dwelling Deathday ballroom from Chamber of Secrets. The actual game, however, starts off on a rough note, as reaching the eponymous location takes time.
After creating an avatar, your character sets off in a flying carriage to study at Hogwarts in their fifth year (a needlessly complicated narrative choice to justify having the player learn more spells, potions, etc). On the ride over, however, the carriage is attacked by dragons, initiating your role in a war against an evil goblin named Ranrok. You and your mentor, Professor Fig, are portkeyed to a series of islands that act as a tutorial area where you learn movement and the basic spell cast, followed by a trip to Gringotts Bank where you’re taught Revelio (revealing spell), Protego (shield spell), and Stupefy (stunning spell) and experience your first taste of combat.
Arriving at Hogwarts takes an hour total (in modern video game playtime, especially for narrative-based games, an hour is relatively nothing, but I remain obstinately against the senseless idea that longer automatically equals better) once you slog through several cutscenes and plodding walk-and-talks (I’m strongly anti-cutscene but decided to watch the introduction to get an idea of its narrative), causing me to get overly giddy when I learned the basic spell cast and destroyed every visible form of pottery that I could.
After your confidential adventure with Professor Fig, getting sorted into your house, discovering that Quidditch was “cancelled” (seriously?), and settled into your dorm, you’re finally given free reign to explore Hogwarts Castle, which is the first moment genuine anticipation takes hold. Even if a model of the castle may have existed beforehand, Portkey Games excelled at enlivening Hogwarts as a vessel to explore. First thing I did was wander the castle, getting lost in its halls and reveling in its faithful attention to detail. And, being open-world exploration, of course, hidden goodies, treasure chests, and puzzles are scattered about the castle for the player to discover, but not all of them are readily solvable, encouraging progression in the main questline.
Notable locations from the novels and films are included, too, such as Hogsmeade Village and the Forbidden Forest, each carrying over that same faithful translation. Portkey Games added their own towns and villages replete with mountains, valleys, and lakes in an area they dub “The Highlands” that extend north of Hogsmeade and south of Hogwarts Castle.
Unfortunately, the Highlands fail to instill that same wonder as Hogwarts Castle, as every region is visually indistinct from one another, and, an even bigger head-scratcher, reveals its contents as icons on the map. It’s possible that these icons appear due to proximity (“discovering” their location without actually interacting with them), but their presence nonetheless strips the locations of any mystery. The result turns Highlands exploration from anticipatory to a tedious checklist, not to mention repetitive, too. Merlin trials consist of the same several puzzles, chests and houses are easily unlocked with Alohamora, and every other collectible, such as astronomy tables, awaits in the open. (For an unknown reason, a few but not all field guide pages are revealed via icon, too.)
And the worst part about the Highlands is that they are so goddamn huge, large enough to undoubtedly deflate the completionist in anybody (it sure did for me). Even worse, they’re mostly fluff, so a broom flyover practically guarantees an unlikelihood to miss anything significant. (You’re telling me 70% of the landmass in the Highlands couldn’t have replaced with a measly Quidditch mode? An entirely different game seems like a bit much).
The contents within chests can be aggravating, too. Most contain money or collectables, which are fine, but when it comes to armor, there are countless pieces. A limited amount of inventory space forces bulk selling to vendors. Selling to gain more money is not bad, but finding armor in Hogwarts Legacy is so frequent that it becomes irritating, especially since most armor you find is either weaker or no more than ten numerical increments higher, instigating a game of equipping and unequipping over and over. Even more confusing in regards to armor is that any piece can be upgraded but for the opposite trait, in which there are luckily only two: offense and defense. Usually these upgrades are so meager that, as mentioned, you’ll sooner find a stronger piece of armor anyway, rendering upgrades useless.
Hogwarts Legacy is best when it implements its beloved fantasy world into its gameplay. By employing Hogwarts school subjects — potions, charms, herbology, defense against the dark arts, beasts — the game provides the player with many tools at their disposal, enabling strategies to make them stronger and resourceful in combat. Charms and defense against the dark arts teach spells, drinking potions reaps beneficial effects (e.g. strengthening spells or defense, shortening cooldowns), and plants aid in combat physically. However, potions can only be brewed, and herbs only planted, if one gathers resources in the open world, marrying the two elements quite nicely.
Hogwarts Legacy continues to support my disposition that show-don’t-tell in video games is dead, here often relying on paragraphs or character lectures to instruct, but at least Portkey Games did right by allowing you to test newly learned facets viz. training dummies (for spells), the room of requirement as a home base (for potions, beasts, and plants), and minigames. The summoning spell, Accio, is utilized for the creative lawn game, Summoner’s Court (essentially a reverse Pitching Pennies but with balls), and a dueling club enables practice in combat against multiple enemies at once.
Combat itself is probably the singular greatest aspect, particularly when tons of enemies are thrown at you altogether (battle arenas in the Highlands are exclusively for this purpose). Defense is as equally important as offense since cooldowns for powerful spells must be awaited while dodging or blocking enemy attacks. Enemies will also conjure colored shields that can only be broken with a spell of the respective color/trait (red = damage, yellow = control, purple = force), requiring more spells beyond your set of equipped four. Successful hits occasionally drop sparks of “ancient magic,” charging up a meter that, when used, deals massive damage. Ancient magic also pertains to the environment, permitting objects such as explosive barrels, disarmed weapons, or crossbow shots to be hurled at enemies. I only wish said environmental strategies were applied more frequently. (What if Diffindo (the cutting spell) could be used to cut down a chandelier and crush a group of enemies below?)
Various enemies inhabit the world and each have unique characteristics, including dark wizards, goblins, trolls, mongrels, spiders, and an array of magical beasts and creatures. Some exhibit exploitable weaknesses, like when a troll smashes their club on the ground and casting Flipendo (need I explain?) slams it back into their face for heavy damage.
Controls vary; character movement is rigid (I wish I could just jump over railings when exploring) but, conversely, beasts control smoothly. Combat surprisingly handles easily in spite of its complexity. The only obsolete control in combat is the target lock, which uses the same control stick for the camera, unintentionally causing unwanted target switches.
Aspects from other genres are applied but leave something to be desired, like the Assassin’s Creed-esque climbing and stealth sections (Petrificus Totalus is a clever application of a stealth attack, though). A few brief puzzle detours see elements like portals (not in the way you’re used to) and “Depulso” blocks, the latter a bastardized large-scale version of something like pushing ice blocks from a Zelda game (but in clunkier fashion). It’s also bothersome when characters utter puzzle solutions out loud. Fortunately, puzzles are minimal, as two instances exposed the game’s lack of polish in my particular playthrough (first, one of the portal puzzles froze a climbing block that I could no longer move, and second, I was unable to open a chest after completing a hedge maze). The best puzzles are found in “treasure caves” that demand simple logic to reveal treasure.
And, of course, you can’t have an open-world RPG without quests. They’re fun when they prompt you to venture off somewhere but less so when constrained to follow a character, committing the sin of restricting you to a small area otherwise the quest will be failed. Quests are also boring when prompted to talk too often, initiating conversation scenes as opposed to a full cutscene (suffice to say, I spam-skipped nearly every single one; having to watch their uncanny faces and mannerisms doesn’t help, either).
What I’ve gathered from Hogwarts Legacy — after indulging in the main game and spending an extensive amount of time with side activities — is that it’s at its best when sticking to its roots: the Wizarding World. When its own inventions are factored in, from the puzzles, to the story (every character is either bland, so righteous it hurts, or one-dimensionally evil, with the exception of Sebastian, who’s just unbearably delusional), it’s derivative, the most obvious offender being the hugely unjustified Highlands, which feel specifically designed to eat up your time. That said, Hogwarts Legacy is still magical enough to guarantee anyone, Potterhead or not, to be enchanted by its charms.
6/10
