Yesterday I went on what I was unaware at the time was going to be the final mission of a game that I have enjoyed a great deal in Hogwart's Legacy. When this game was released I all but completely ignored it because I have had little interest in the movies and books. I did see a couple of the films but wasn't all "gaga" for them the way that other people seemed to be. I probably wouldn't have ever had anything to do with is had it not been for the recommendation that a friend gave to me and after some initial annoyances about how the tutorial is a bit long and filled with a lot of cutscenes, I truly can say that I really enjoyed this game.
It is one of the best games I have played in the past year or so although as I have admitted many times prior to now, this game is quite easy compared to other open-world games and given how Harry Potter is aimed primarily at children, this is perhaps why.
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I've been told there is a Hogwart's 2 that is in the works and even though I enjoyed this one, I likely will not be an early adopter of that one because after, let's see, 46 hours and 96% completion of what the game considers primary objectives, I don't really want to play any more of it. I might pop in from time to time to solve what remains of the map puzzles but I think 46 hours out of a game, most of which I enjoyed immensely, is enough and well worth the $20 that I spent on it. I don't know about PC and Xbox, but on PS it is still that price and I can't think of any good reason why they would bother to put the price back up. Normally when an AAA game drives their price down to this level, it is because they are milking what revenue they can out of it and realize that there isn't any chance of selling any more of them at full price.
The game was pretty nicely received by critics and this particular critic (me) is someone that normally does NOT like the games that he plays. I have very little in the way of complaints about this one and that is very rare for me.
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If you know, you know
The dungeons are creative, the puzzles are fun but not too difficult, the side quests are normally quite interesting and not just some sort of go here and get that fetch quest. Basically, they did almost everything right with this one. I suppose one minor complaint would be that there are in total only about 5 different enemy types in the entire game and all of them attack in very similar ways so for a hardcore gamer, this could get a bit boring, and this would be understandable. When combat encounters are meant to be "difficult" the enemies are just in greater numbers or a "boss" just has a much higher hit point pool or cannot be frozen or elevated like other enemies can be. It would have been nice to have seen more enemy types but this doesn't hold the game back very much.
I also like how when you are introduced to stealth, it is only truly necessary at a singular point in the game. The rest of the time if you want to run in wand a blazin' and just take on everyone at the same time, that is completely up to you and it is very possible to make this work especially once you get a particular spell that puts enemies on YOUR side for a time.
Animations are excellent, especially when it comes to the "forbidden dark arts" which honestly, I used more than any other kind because I enjoyed the fact that they were "forbidden."
Going to class sounds lame as hell on paper, but it was actually kind of fun and a great way to have tutorials built into the game. My only complaint here would be the excessive walking that you had to do initially to get to these areas, some of which were at the tippy top of a tower that has nothing else in it and therefore you were just walking for what seems like ages. Once you open all of the fast-travel points this becomes less arduous and at least all the various hallways are very nicely decorated and there is always something to look at if you want to.
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The Grand Stairwell, for example, was absolutely beautiful the first time you go to it but later becomes a massive thorn in your side as you spiral up and down it for what seems like forever for the 10th time. To be fair to the devs, the portraits on the walls are all unique, I wasn't able to discover a single repeated use of a game asset and that to me, shows that their attention to detail was truly on point with this title. I would imagine for a super fan, that there are some amazing Easter Eggs hidden in there and perhaps that it why it is so massive.
But now after the final boss, which was very creative and challenging yet not anything I would consider truly difficult (I defeated it on the 1st try with relative ease) I don't feel really compelled to play the game anymore. I only have about 60% of the overall collectibles in the game and while there are people out there that really want to complete 100% of everything in a game. I have finished all of the main story and all but 4% of what the game considers to be major aspects of the game. The rest, is simply collectibles from defeating a certain enemy type, or defeating enemies in a particular fashion such as using a 10 step combo.
There are also rare types of clothing that you can find or buy and I have no interest in that because I had my toon dressed in whatever was best and this included having rather silly glasses on, even during the cutscenes.
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I've never cared about cosmetics so after a couple of times of changing the "look" which is something you always have access to, I just allowed the default skin to be the one that was showing.
So now I find myself at a familiar spot where I don't know what to play next and am also going to be very picky about how much I enjoy something which is always what happens when I finish a game that I truly enjoy.
At the moment I had downloaded
- The Plucky Squire
- God of War Ragnarok
- Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
I'm sure that at least initially I am going to have my griped with these games but that is about me, not about the game. I'll probably start with Plucky Squire because it is indie and rather short.
Anyway, my opinion still stands about Hogwart's Legacy even after completing it. If you have $19.99 to spare and are looking for a good casual open-world game, this one is a winner for sure