Hogwarts Legacy PC Review

A weak plot is compensated by an interesting open world and familiar locations.
User Rating: 8
Hogwarts Legacy PC Review

Hogwarts Legacy was one of the highlights of the year. A sophisticated player unfamiliar with the Harry Potter universe is unlikely to plunge into this world and understand the value of the project. But for fans, this is one of the most magical games in recent years. Yes, I had sleepless nights in the company of the game’s main character, but now they have subsided, and now I can safely talk about the pros and cons of the game.

Hogwarts Legacy – in case you missed it, this is a third-person adventure with RPG elements, where the main character is a fifth-year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It’s a single product, complete inside and out – no microtransactions, additional purchases, loot boxes, or in-game stores. And yet – it’s the only game in which you can enjoy the world’s beauty, invented by JK Rowling. But first things first.




The path of Wizarding World video games turned out to be very thorny. Electronic Arts once provided the franchise with a strong start with a whole bunch of games. Still, the increase in financial and time costs for production due to the change of two generations of consoles at once led to the fact that new projects gradually degraded to the point of absurdity. Still, there were times when Harry Potter was in style Gears of War where you hide behind cover using your magic wand as a machine gun.

After the transfer of the license under the wing of WB Games, the situation did not improve. Despite a couple of good LEGO games, the publisher released outright garbage. And only now the project, which the fans of the “Potteriana” dreamed about, has entered the market. And let’s be honest – there are criminally few big games about the adventures of schoolchildren on the market, only Atlus, with its Persona series, is now taking the rap for everyone, and they remember the great Bully from Rockstar. But what Avalanche Software has done could usher in a new era of game development for the studio and series.

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Stories of the Chosen

The main character is a fifteen-year-old wizard invited to start studying at Hogwarts School in the fifth year! There were only three such cases in the chronology of the magical world, and they are associated with the ability of such students to use ancient magic – an unknown source of magic. And a global plot is built around this ability of the hero.

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Before us is another story about the Chosen One, the wizard or sorceress, depending on the player’s preferences, will have to save the world of magic from the evil goblin. Moreover, only the main character can do this because he is the only one who owns ancient magic. However, first, he will have to prove that he is worthy and can be trusted with such a huge power source and reveal all the secrets. To put it succinctly, this is a light fantasy story that does not qualify for an Oscar but is great for a little pastime.

But the developers were able to surprise with additional tasks, especially the tasks of companions. Sebastian Sallow, Natty Onay, and Poppy Dobring will be the main interest of those fascinated by the Hogwarts Legacy. Each of these three has its tragedy and backstory. Each student needs a friend and helper. Without details – the storylines of companions are worthy of passing and your acquaintance with them.

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The rest of the additional tasks vary in quality of execution and often turn into the usual “give-bring” or “find-kill” scheme. But even such simple tasks are catchy with plots and a sense of presence in this magical world because the atmosphere from books and films is conveyed so accurately that for the first 10 hours, the player will run around the castle and its environs with a stupid smile on his face in search of numerous secrets, and also reading all notes and looking up descriptions for every item you find in the castle or around.

Problems with this story

And here I have two big claims and one global. The problem with this game is that the plot doesn’t make much sense, and you must be prepared. This is a game about immersion in the world of magic, about the classic open world for the industry and side quests, and not at all about the main tasks.

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And the first problem is that our controlled hero is omnipotent. All her classmates either want to be friends with her or envy her fiercely. The magic she wields makes the character unique in the eyes of teachers, the general public, and even legends from the past! Merlin himself kisses her hands for the filigree passing of tests although it seems redundant.

Secondly, not only is your heroine stupid, but so is everyone around her. In addition, NPCs are completely colorless: they are empty. Each of the characters the player encounters as will be one-sided. Apart from the story you are introduced to, it has absolutely nothing except for boring lines of additional questions in the dialogue.

Player dialog choices do not really affect anything. You will still find yourself at the planned point and tell the NPC exactly what the writers wanted. Your will as a player extends to the open world – yes, there you are, your own boss. But the plot is a direct road from which you cannot deviate a single step.

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At the same time, in some places, you can see the original vision of the development team, who clearly wanted to do something in the spirit of Bully. So, the characters several times advise the player not to wander around Hogwarts at night because elders patrol the corridors. In reality, this is demonstrated in just a couple of story missions, and then do what you want 24/7. Also cut out is a companion system, which for some reason, was removed.

And what is very strange, the rivalry between the faculties does not manifest itself in any way – the hourglass in the castle for scoring literally does not work. Yes, and there is no particular enmity between the faculties. You save the magical world, do everything to defeat the enemies, and let someone else be interested in school affairs.

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And now about morality. After all, the plot is a very stretched fairy tale (sometimes due to extremely slow and empty dialogues). The original Harry Potter is about love and friendship, about loneliness and how to deal with it and the consequences that it can lead to. The plot of Hogwarts Legacy touches on a narrower topic – pain. In all its manifestations.

Enjoying what you see

Perhaps the best part of the game is Hogwarts Castle and its immediate surroundings. For such attention to detail, developers can only be praised. As I said, for the first 10 hours, I did not use fast travel at all. Namely, I wandered around Hogwarts Castle, the village of Hogsmeade, and the Forbidden Forest. We look around and enjoyed the views. Later I started using fast travel, but still not as often. After all, a broom appears further on, on which you can fly anywhere, opening up even more amazing views. As for me, such beauty will appeal to lovers of the universe and ordinary Muggles.

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Entering a Potions lesson or many other classes, a student stops me and asks me to run to the music room and fix the bells on the tower to pester the director. Or you run through an unfamiliar village, and you see a writhing woman – after questioning, she replies that she wanted to pacify the troll and put the creature in defense of the village, but the troll is stupid, and more harm comes from him. Well, how can you not help?

An interesting fact: not many games allow you to play an unpleasant hero who seems to have completed the task, but took the quest item for himself. Or “threw” the customer, and now the whole school calls him a coward and comes up with offensive nicknames. And that’s a cool touch that allows you to be the nasty person within the script.

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You can’t run away from walk-through tasks like following butterflies or finding a killer Chinese cabbage, but you still complete them. Not because they will give a reward, but only because of the desire to stay a little more in this world. Whatever you say, Avalanche created the best Hogwarts and surroundings in the Harry Potter video games.

Gameplay

If the plot is so weak, what does one do in “Hogwarts Legacy”? I have only one answer: enjoy the world and complete the side quests. Many of them are similar to typical MMORPG challenges: kill ten spiders, bring five flowers, and find and collect lost scythes, but there are also diamonds and really difficult puzzles. Renew your collection, look into all the corners of the castle, breathe in the magic, and for a moment, return to the feeling of the first reading of JK Rowling’s warm children’s books. Hogwarts, in your imagination, has suddenly received a new incarnation, so what more could you want? Fuck the plot. Look at the pictures, spin the globes, and eat the apples. The gameplay of Hogwarts Legacy is 50% similar to puzzles, so turn on your head. I especially liked the tests of Hogwarts itself, which are not marked on the map with icons.

 

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The main focus during development was on creating a huge map with elements of a looter shooter. There are the same type of bandit camps, ruins, dozens of collectibles, several villages, trials, animal lairs, caves, and so on. The reward for clearing space is chests with randomly generated clothes.

No desire to explore the world beyond Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, the Forbidden Forest, and Black Lake. One of the reasons is that the local map resembles a narrow tunnel, where the most interesting is concentrated at the top. It even has its analog of the appendix – several large regions you need to enter only through the goblin tunnel. And the rear turned out to be so unnecessary that it was not even affected by the system of changing the seasons.

Strong arguments in favor of clearing locations by 100% at some point in time are generally lost. Especially in this regard, the collection of statues is indicative, it is initially necessary to obtain new levels of the Alahomora spell and the very initial spell, which has now received difficulty levels, and if you decide to explore and open everything first, then I will upset you, you won’t go far without this spell. Avalanche Software forgot to inform the players about tests with landing platforms.

The predominance of quantity over quality also hit Avalanche Software’s favorite chip – sandbox locations. In Hogwarts Legacy, it is implemented as a Rescue Room where you can customize the environment, and put up tables for crafting potions and beds for growing plants. There are fantastic creatures that I don’t want to talk about.

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But there is a noticeable lack of sophistication in this sandbox. There are only a few plants and potions, and the ability to interact with pets is less than in the cheapest analog of the Tamagotchi. Ultimately, it all comes down to the banal collection of fur and feathers needed to upgrade equipment. But that doesn’t make sense either because we have a looter shooter here, in which new equipment is pouring continuously. So we can say that the grinding problem is solved completely.

The equipment system is weak: getting things is easy, and replacing one robe with another for one point of defense quickly gets boring. Often the heroine accumulates ten identical things. The inventory is clogged after cleaning one cave. I must return to Hogsmeade and trade with NPCs that cannot sell all the loot simultaneously. I really miss the “Sell All” button and replacing parts of equipment without opening the inventory – by clicking on the pop-up window about increasing the production level.

And disappointment: more often than not, getting new equipment, completing a dungeon, or completing a quest does not bring joy since the loot is weaker than yours. Only cosmetic items are good, but I’m not sure that people who ignore skins will be in any way interested in this.

The world you want to live in

The School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is a work of art. In no other open-world game have I spent so much time exploring corridors, and rooms, collecting trivia or fact pages. It’s nice to walk around Hogwarts, watching students, ghosts, and pictures – some will even throw a couple of phrases in the player’s direction or play a piece of music. The school seemed alive, filled with secrets inside and out, and I did not want to leave it throughout the passage.

Significant places were transferred with care – the clock tower, the courtyard, the large hall, and the magic rooms. Unless they made the spiral of the changing staircase, this is not even a nitpick and is easily explained by the world’s internal logic. Avalanche has achieved the main thing – Potter fans will spend hours exploring Hogwarts, taking screenshots of familiar places and discussing the game. The rest of the open world north of the school has also been moved with amazing care. Hogsmeade Village and Forbidden Forest – both of these places will also force players to spend much more time in the game. What can not be said about other regions of the open world?

Don’t get me wrong – Hogwarts Legacy is extraordinarily beautiful. But it’s filled with mediocre activities: bandit and goblin camps, nests of overgrown spiders, sources of ancient magic, animal habitats – dozens of all sorts of “attractions.” They won’t be forced to clean them up on side missions except to capture some animals for their own use. The rest is content for the sake of content for those who want to stay longer at the Hogwarts Legacy.

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You can move around the world on your feet and paws – taming some large animals will even allow you to ride them. And if you tame a hippogriff or a thestral, you can even fly. But this will only happen closer to the middle of the game, and until that moment, you will have to be content with a broom.

Separately, I want to note the soundtrack of the game. Every tune is in its place. Every note sets the right mood, no matter where the player is – in the corridors of Hogwarts, inside the cave with spiders or in the middle of the Rescue Room. Such a “hit” soundtrack has not been seen in open-world games for a long time.

Combat and the path of the dark wizard

Although in the early reviews of Hogwarts Legacy, many players complained about the annoying combat system, it turned out to be one of the game’s strengths. Stick fights are just fine: the hero can, for example, cast spells from behind, roll, reflect the enemy Protego projectile, and epically combine several spells. Once talents become available, spells also look amazingly clean visually if they hit multiple opponents. The combat is reminiscent of the Batman Arkham series and Middle-Earth: Shadow Of – there is an attack, evasion, and counterattack.

Using only four combat spells will not work: for a full-fledged battle, you will need at least two panels, and three sets of spells are better. By the way, four sets are available in total. But I used absolutely everything in one battle. Yes, you can stun the enemy with basic attacks until they place a shield that requires a specific spell to break.

As for the path of the dark wizard, let’s start with the main thing: there is no real way to become a dark wizard in the game. The actions of the hero affect the development of the story. But there is no clear moral system in Hogwarts Legacy.

This means that the global storyline will remain unchanged. The fork in which your character leaves school and joins the Death Eaters is unexpected. However, gamers can still touch the world of deadly magic.

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There are so-called “unforgivable curses” in this universe. These are moves officially banned by the Ministry of Magic: Cruciatus, Imperius, and Avada Kedavra. They are not taught on the grounds of Hogwarts. But your hero can learn dark techniques as part of the side quest chain.

As already mentioned, there is no morality system in the game. However, gamers are still able to influence the world around them. Becoming a real dark wizard, alas, will not work. But it will be possible to turn into a thunderstorm at Hogwarts. It is enough to select negative answers in all dialogues to do this. True, be prepared that such behavior will not go unpunished.

Someone looked at Ubisoft’s open worlds, but they didn’t take the best ideas

How can you fill the world with such mediocrity? Why make a huge open world in the first game if there are no ideas for filling it? I don’t understand. When exploring the world, there was a feeling that the developers were inspired by Ubisoft games but wanted to surpass them. Everyone thought “helping the room” and collecting magical creatures would be tedious. It doesn’t matter how. The most tedious and stupid thing to do is to collect collectibles. Indeed, apart from the next colorful wardrobe item, they will not give anything. Of the 50 hours, 40 were spent on useless nonsense like Merlin tests and chests behind closed doors.

Yes, I understand, the fool himself, when he opened the map and saw that these tests do not end stupidly, 250 in the castle, 100 in the surroundings. From time to time you find more and more. A bunch of absolutely the same type of caves with a chest and one item, which is the most offensive that there are 3 types of them, which are constantly repeated. And the same applies to the same type of outposts. All this is a fat minus of the game, which will have to be reckoned with, because the time spent on this nonsense could be spent on working out more interesting small tasks, as well as on a more diverse filling of the forbidden forest and small environs, without laying out the game for 100 hours, or same to do lessons – lessons.

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Opponents stupidly only have 6 – 7 types. Mostly, these are people, goblins, and spiders in unrealistic numbers. There are also statues, trolls, toads, wolves, and infernals, in a smaller volume, but also a lot (these are all types). And it looks miserable, even if the world were smaller, and even more so for such open spaces. Dementors, werewolves, giants, and other magical evil creatures. Where did they go? I hope that I will be in hibernation until the second part.

What’s the end result?

Hogwarts Legacy is undoubtedly one of the biggest hits of 2023 for millions of Harry Potter fans, myself included. It is easy to find a dozen minuses in it, game design problems, or draw attention to the unreliability of the simulation of every student’s life at Hogwarts.

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But not everything is so close to ideal. If you love Potter, adore the magical world created by JK Rowling, and want to get into the school of witchcraft and wizardry not like the Boy-Who-Lived, run, buy and don’t listen to evil tongues. This is one big, high-quality fan service that takes 40-80 hours of your life to fully study, and also makes you come back and reread yourself more than once.

If “Harry Potter” is indifferent – this game is not for you. There is no “something for everyone” here, because Hogwarts Legacy was created by fans and for fans – this characterizes it in the best possible way. But if you want to experience the world that J.K. Rowling has imagined, perhaps this is your letter from Hogwarts.

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But I want to say that this is not the Game of the Year. The game captures its atmosphere, but the plot, tasks, and the combat system leaves much to be desired. I hope the success does not go to the developers’ heads, and next time they will do better, but for now, all fans of the Harry Potter universe should pass by. Muggles, up to you.

The game is best played according to the Ubisoft formula: a plot + a couple of reverse chains + enjoying the views. You can still collect creatures, but few of them exist. The main thing is to ignore the study of an empty world completely, and you will be happy.

The magical world of “Harry Potter” that fans of Potteriana will appreciate and not fall in love with ordinary gamers. The weak plot is compensated by an interesting open world and familiar locations from books and films, and the characters’ stupidity is compensated by many puzzles to think about. The game does not challenge you and does not compete with others in terms of complexity and uniqueness, it is just a good gift for all fans of the franchise.

At the same time, the success of Hogwarts Legacy clearly shows that good sales and warm feedback from players are ensured not so much by the gameplay thought out to the smallest detail but by carefully reproducing the right atmosphere. But this is already a subtle moment, akin to real magic, and here the nameless developers of Avalanche Software succeeded.

Summary
The success of Hogwarts Legacy clearly shows that good sales and warm feedback from players are ensured not so much by the gameplay thought out to the smallest detail but by carefully reproducing the right atmosphere. But this is already a subtle moment, akin to real magic, and here the nameless developers of Avalanche Software succeeded.
Good
  • Familiar locations
  • Many interesting puzzles
  • Faithfully recreated details from J.K. Rowling
  • Beautiful visuals
  • Transmog system is top-notch
  • Nice combat system
  • No real grind in terms of resources
Bad
  • Weak NPC characters with little difference between them
  • Only a few interesting side quests
  • Weak plot
  • The main character is omnipotent and goes unpunished
  • Too many holes in the plot
8
Great

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