5 reasons to play Hogwarts Legacy and 5 reasons not to

Hogwarts Legacy is a third-person action game with RPG elements. The action takes place at the end of the 19th century at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The player will also have to visit other places in the process of passing the main storyline.

The main character of the game is a student or student of the fifth year of the school. The character is able to use ancient magic that is inaccessible to most wizards in the Harry Potter universe. This feature becomes the key to the beginning of the plot and the core of the overall story of the game.

Why is everyone crazy about Hogwarts Legacy

1. familiar universe

Hogwarts Legacy was developed by fans of the franchise, turning it into a fan service with a huge amount of familiar elements. The game is addictive for people who enjoy this fantasy universe. In the virtual Hogwarts, you can spend dozens of hours exploring the environment and completing various tasks.

It is interesting to walk around the school, here you can get acquainted with students, observe what is happening around and soak up the atmosphere of a magical place where many would like to go from childhood. Hogwarts Legacy partially plays the role of a virtual museum for those who have not waited for the coveted invitation letter.

The territory of the castle and its immediate surroundings are worked out in detail, and all iconic places are carefully transferred to the game. There is a recognizable courtyard, a large hall, a library, a hospital wing, offices, classrooms and many other locations. Also, the player will definitely visit the bank "Gringotts”, the village of Hogsmeade and the Forbidden Forest.

It will take a long time to reveal all the secrets, because there are a large number of secret passages in Hogwarts leading to dungeons with side tasks.

2. References to books and films

The developers transferred the main details from books and films, adding practically nothing of their own. At the same time, Hogwarts Legacy does not copy decisions from the cinematic series. Here is a different time period, so it was logical to assume that many places then looked a little different.

There are almost no those same characters from the franchise in the game, but without familiar surnames, of course, did not manage. For example, Weasley and Black appear here as important persons of the second plan.

The Harry Potter films are remembered not only for the visual part, but also for the music. The soundtrack at Hogwarts Legacy was created by a team of composers, focusing on the work of John Williams. The authors chose similar arrangements, interpolated familiar motifs and quite successfully coped with the formation of a fabulous atmosphere. But there will certainly be fits of childish delight at the moments when that very Hedwig’s Theme of Williams is heard. For example, during the flight of an owl over the Hogwarts Express.

3. The ability to create your own character and develop it

At the start of the game, you must choose the appearance of the main character. You can limit yourself to one of the pre-prepared templates or approach customization more carefully. Although thoroughly editing the character as in The Sims or The Elder Skrolls won't work here.

In the process of passing opens a large number of different clothes and accessories. These are cosmetic items, but the style of the main character shows the taste of the player. In addition, customizable appearance helps in role-playing.

The leveling system in the game is not the most complicated, but it is quite interesting to develop the "talents" of your wizard. For example, you can delve into forbidden magic, embark on a dangerous path with unforgivable spells, and become a master of the Dark Arts. But also on the side of the world to play the role of an honest Gryffindor also exciting. At least during the first playthrough.

The choice of the player to some extent affects the gameplay and story. New spells are unlocked during main and side quests, and most unforgivable magic can be skipped altogether.

4. Good game mechanics

The combat system in the game is well implemented. Battles do not turn into the exchange of one spell "Dumb!", for different types of enemies you need to find your own approach to attacks and defense.

Fights become more interesting from about the middle of the game. The character can dodge and parry attacks while responding with impressive combos spells. You can pull opponents, knock back, blow up, set fire to, and even perform "unforgivable actions" on them. At the same time, the affected area increases with the addition of perks - it will be possible to deal with several enemies at once.

It is possible to collect a large amount of loot, but game designers have planned the mechanics so that players do not have to endlessly do boring things to level up. There are dozens of spells in Hogwarts Legacy that are really useful. The rewards for completed tasks are almost always valuable - there is no feeling that the time was wasted.

You can move around the game world on a broomstick, and approximately in the middle of the passage, it becomes possible to transfer to a hippogriff and a thestral. Nice to see the surroundings from a bird's eye view. It's a pity that quidditch the developers decided to cut it out for now.

Another nice feature of the game is the ability to equip your space in the Help Room. There you can build buildings, engage in crafts and planting plants, breed cute fantastic animals.

Also in Hogwarts Legacy you will be able to delve into potions and even participate in a duel tournament for the title of champion among classmates. And for meditative walks, Hogsmeade is suitable.

5. The plot with additional quests

The story in Hogwarts Legacy is quite simple, there are no unexpected twists and deep philosophical ideas in the plot. Dialogues and acting are also underwhelming. As in other open world games, the main line fades into the background, and side missions take up a significant part of the time. The authors did a good job on some of these quests.

The player is introduced to three students, each with their own backstory and need for help. In the process of uncovering these plot branches, you learn about the fate of your companions and are imbued with their personal tragedies. As mentioned above, in the game you can choose the role of a dark magician. During the execution of secondary quests, it will be possible to win back the unpleasant side for others.

Hogwarts Legacy does a good job of immersing the player in fantasy world and entertain for several dozen hours without grinding. At the same time, there are more than a hundred side quests.

Why Hogwarts Legacy can be disappointing

1. Boring gameplay

The mechanics of the combat system in the game fully starts to work only from the second half of the story. At the first stages, skirmishes with enemies can tire you out with the same type of actions. But the main problem is not the process of the battle, but often repeated opponents. You have to peck familiar dark magicians, goblins and spiders. Periodically, trolls, animagi and enchanted giant armor drop in at the party.

In general, in Hogwarts Legacy, the developers have collected quite a few varieties of enemies, but at the levels they are used in such a way that it looks like an attack of clones.

Great side quests with secondary characters are diluted with a lot of activities like "go there and fetch it" or "hunt and destroy". Together with recurring characters, this approach is disappointing. tightening plot, of course, not a unique case, but rather refers to the negative aspects of the game.

In addition, the open world outside of Hogwarts will not satisfy everyone with the quality of its study. There are extended areas with the same elements, devoid of individuality. At the same time, such spaces visually merge into a single mass, it is unlikely that you will want to return there. Perhaps the developers and creators of modifications will gradually solve this problem.

2. Annoying gameplay features

The game has some familiar elements from open world games. The constant use of detective vision in the castle looks strange and does not complement atmosphere. The developers did not think about the stealth system for covert passage for a long time - and the result is appropriate.

An equipment system with a limited number of slots is inorganic for the world of wizards. For example, only a few spells can be active at a time. And by the end of the story campaign, you will have to deal with a lot of magic. Switching all these attacks during the battle is not very convenient - you need to get used to it.

Also, sometimes character customization leads to ridiculous moments. The main character in the cutscenes may look like he just returned from a masquerade, but at the same time everyone around is dressed in a school uniform. It is unlikely that such a vivid manifestation of creativity and bad taste would have passed at Hogwarts.

3. secondary

The aforementioned combat system is assembled from familiar mechanics from the game series. Batman Arkham and Middle-Earth. Attacks, evasions and counterattacks in this form were found in a huge number of projects. If you are not a fan of the Harry Potter universe, then the gameplay can quickly bore you. You just don't want to get to the point where you have a large number of spell combinations at your disposal.

Hogwarts Legacy does not have its own gameplay finds. The main interest here lies in the elements of the famous universe. Enemy camps, skill trees, side quests and crafts say hello from Assassin's Creed.

The spells here are also related to ideas from other games. For example, Revelio is an analogue of "gut" or detective vision for scanning the environment in search of interesting objects. And here Alohomora was turned into a mini-game, reminiscent of breaking doors with a master key. It seems that in the original source, magic does not work that way.

4. Mediocre graphics

In terms of design, the developers of the game are to be commended. It is interesting to be at locations that have really received a lot of attention. But it is the graphics that cause mixed feelings.

Hogwarts Legacy uses the Unreal Engine 4 engine, you can squeeze a lot of beauty out of it so far. But, most likely, the authors failed to optimize the open world game at high detail.

The project is multi-platform, besides, it will also be released on the previous generation of consoles. Therefore, no breakthrough from Hogwarts Legacy should be expected. The situation is partially saved by beautiful lighting, but the study of models, animation and level textures send us back to games of the past.

5. Technical problems

There are occasional freezes and framerate drops on consoles, but the situation is worse on the PC version. In addition to performance issues, Hogwarts Legacy has bugs and glitches. The character can fall through the map, someone from NPCs get stuck in the wall or strange objects appear on the screen that definitely do not belong there. During a conversation, your interlocutor suddenly dares to get up and disrespectfully leave - you will have to communicate with an empty place.

All these errors do not catastrophically destroy the gameplay, they do not affect so much that you want to quit the game and never return to it. But they're just annoying. True, while the developers do not abandon the project and release patches with fixes.