Tugwood is actually a famous witch and is even featured on chocolate frog cards in previous Harry Potter games. She's famous for discovering the beautification properties of a potion ingredient hence why they probably made her stand out/look like a modern day beautician.
Poppy’s parents and community she grew up in were poachers. It’s like she was raised by slavers and now she’s on BLM protests … so kinda emotional, more so than Nattie I’d say
I didn't think it was a GOOD game, just ok. All of it was very shallow, from the talents and spells, to the character building, to the story, to world exploration. All of it was shallow and could have used another year or two for depth. I really think this game SHOULD have taken inspiration from Mass Effect instead of Zelda, their formula would have been perfect for this setting. The combat could have been very good but I refused to use items since I found item juggling and creation to be tedious, and spell combat was horribly tedious when it came to 1. Targeting (and I tried both options in the options menu, and 2. Dodging/blocking. The indicators for blocking/dodging didn't always come up in a timely manner causing me to take unnecessary hits, and frequently I would not be able to target an enemy with the right spell in the flurry of combat which was especially frustrating when I used the only yellow spell on my spell wheel on the wrong enemy causing me to go back to wheel customization to slot in a different one and ATTEMPT to hit the right goblin this time. URGH!!!!!
I bet a lot of people who’ve played Hogwarts legacy wanted more of a student scope of the game, but instead they got a whole open world RPG. I bet a sequel would benefit from more classes. (Ngl I’m not complaining, open world games are my favorite😅)
TBH I was not expecting a bully styled "school simulators". I was funny enough expecting the "RPG" openworld version of that old mobile game "hogwarts mistery" The world and ambient really did the heavy lifting in keeping the game interesting. In fact for all the care the dev put in building the world they fumbled a bit in the story and characters.. But as a "first step" is remarkable. And. A good platform to build way better mechanics.. Let's be honest, most people hope to have consequences and more "lived in " worlds (as an RPG should be) in their RPGs.. bad not just a thrown in leveling system and maybe a couple of barely significant choices... Morality sistems and more actually student related rpg elements might sit closer to many people's hope
The severe lack of student life was my biggest disappointment. When it set in that we were no longer really students halfway through I wasn't all that motivated to continue.
following the butterflies always made me chuckle cause it immediately popped that scene into my head where Ron whines about having to follow spiders... why can't it be butterflies?
One of the things I missed in the game was definitely the feeling of consequences not just with the unforgivables but also just roaming the castle at night there are a few missions where you can get caught but I would have loved there to be patrols of teachers and perfects so that the castle 1 didn't feel as dead after dark but also make me feel like I'm breaking the rules of the school
I feel like a real day-night cycle would have helped a lot with a immersion in general. It's already kind of there, the fact they make you wait till day time until lessons etc. This really needed a weekly schedule system like bully and then the missions fit around that
yep this. but consequences overall. i wish using the unforgivables had a more dark effect to the ppl and creatures around you. the killing curse either could've been a fun gimmick move only in the arena or it should at least give us a wanted level of sorts. imagine how crazy it would've been if there was a "game over" or a second story line where you're expelled. i know it's too much to dream about that but it would've felt more immersive!
@@krack-a-lacker weirdly, some of the older games did this a little bit better. In chamber of secrets and prisoner of azkaban on the PS2 if you got caught at night, you'd restart at a checkpoint but you'd permanently lose house points. If you got caught too many times while out at night it'd be impossible to win the house cup at the end of the game, at least from what I remember.
My absolute favourite moment in this game was when I opened the decorate room of requirement menu, and I saw I could hang up mounted house elf heads….right in front of a house elf
@@Hsdias The thing is, the game does not care about this one bit. Playing a role is much more difficult when the world you're playing in doesn't react to said role you're playing, at all, even in places where it really should. These are the unforgivable curses, some of the most horrible and forbidden uses of magic in universe, not the "slightly frowned upon, if the person already didn't really like you" curses. And the game doesn't even treat them as the latter.
One thing about this game that's pretty underrated imo is the music. They could've just made a number of whimsical magical Harry-Potter-y tunes and called it a day, but much of the music that plays when you're out exploring the world is varied and very beautiful in a somber kind of way that reminds me of tracks from games like morrowind and civ.
@@helmaschine1885 the location themes are awful because they tend to be goofy whimsical stuff. the music that plays while you're flying around in the highlands on your broom is some of the best video game music of all time.
I noticed while exploring the trophy room I think it's called (?), they ripped off a John Williams track almost note for note, in the same key and instrument for instrument (the track that plays at the end of the first and last films). I'm not making a point here, just an observation.
it was hilarious to me when i played it and used unforgivable curses in a combat encounter, but in cutscene a minute later, when Sebastian uses a curse front of his uncle he gets yelled at and its suddenly a big deal
So is there no reason to not use them except for role-playing reasons? I haven't used any yet (including the skill tree) because I wanted to have a "good" character, but also because I assumed there would be consequences.
The most galring issue, which impacted my enjoyment, was the voice acting. Almost everyone, minus the villains, spoke such proper and calm language despite the situation they were in, that I began wondering whether the VA's are simply reading from the script without being aware of the scene itself. This really took a point or two for me from the overall score.
They did the classic fantasy trope of having all the good kids and smart teachers sound like middle england private school toffs, whilst the bad guys and poor people sounded like they worked on an East London market stall or lived in the most rural parts of Yorkshire.
It was also rather annoying that it seems like they hired 7 total actors and had them play 40 characters each. I think majority of the female students were the same actress. It took away any shred of individuality some characters did have.
1:15:46 the biggest thing about Figg I found really lacking was how his wife plays such a massive roll in the backstory of the game but we never actually see her. You don’t even really get the sense that he’s sad that she’s dead? Which felt incredibly strange. And in a world full of magical portraits of dead people you can talk to… Im not sure why she didn’t have a portrait.
Exactly. There's one line he says "I wish she were her to see this" or something, and that's it. He should be on the warpath since it so obvious it must be Ranrok who contributed to her death.
In the beginning because of how blasé he was about this dead wife of his, I was almost convinced that he was my enemy and I was just waiting for his nice professor mask to be ripped off.
@@klaudiagrobit's kinda clued in at the beginning as she was investigating Ranrok bringing attention towards him, also investigating ancient magic (said before you even reach gringotts. he needed her gone
For me, I would have loved more RPG where you get to choose your background. e.g, orphan muggle born or a pure blood Slytherin family etc but start as a 1st year. This will give a chance to experience Hogwarts, the houses, teachers and students until 5th year begins. Maybe typical school stuff, like Bully, where the main character has a rivalry with someone in another house and trying to prove themselves. They build meaningful friendships and Professor Fig could become a mentor to the player because he sees something special within them. This isn't realised until 5th year when the player could stumble across glowing box. Maybe it was on Professor Figs desk? And yes, for consequences to happen. I was really surprised how easy it was to use the UNFORGIVABLE curses. Like... It would have been great to have a morality chart, which I believe would add a lot more character development and playing as a good or an evil character. I would also like the character to not be perfect at everything, like Harry, Ron and Hermione all had their own unique strengths. Maybe in 3rd year your head of house could ask what job you would be looking at doing. e.g Auror, Beast keeper, Quidditch player, Herbologist, etc etc etc. That way you could really focus on certain classes, and build up the character you wish to be. That would be my perfect Hogwarts game.
@@Shishakind86yeah RDR2 is a good example of random banter. This game is the perfect platform to be inproved further if they are clever. They could work a year on a massive immersion DLC and then charge another 30 bucks for it. Id pay
@@crow_g1639 good luck finding a publisher who throws a billion bucks st you and lets you develop your game for 8 years just so you can have you dream game lmao. The studio did way more in their time and with their budget than most other studios would have accomplished. Its a great game. And quidditch makes no sense anyway. Look up the rules then you see why there are no proper games on it because it makes no sense
The game starts off really strong but the longer you play the worse it gets. In the beginning the classes are cool and immersive, you're running around the castle exploring, getting lost, solving puzzles etc. When you finally get your broom you just spend a while flying around doing random stuff and its really cool, the first 15-20 hours or so are really enjoyable. The combat is fun and feels good so running around the open world isnt the worst thing ever but it gets boring pretty fast. My playthrough was a little over 60 hours and the last 10-15 hours I kind of had to force myself to finish, especially when that last southern section of the map unlocked I couldnt imagine doing anything besides flying right to the quest marker and fast traveling away when the quest is over. Most of the teachers were interesting, cool backstories and conversations for most of them. Sharp, Hekat, Garlick, Ronan, and Kagawa were the ones I enjoyed the most. Student companions were hit or miss. I really enjoyed all of Poppy's missions, Sebastian's quests were the peak of the game for a while and fell off hard at the end. The difference in how the characters in the game treat you and Sebastian is quite jarring honestly, you get treated like a saint while Sebastian is just the devil incarnate for saving his sister and protecting himself from someone trying to kill us. Natty I found kind of boring I didnt even finish her quests, the person she was going after I honestly forgot who it even was so I wasn't that invested. The poor Ravenclaw kid barely got anything besides showing us the telescope mini-game and coming along for that one mission. Definitely not a bad game but overall I'd find it difficult to give it higher than a 6/7 out of 10, even as a fan of the books. Fun combat and the castle itself is genuinely amazing but theres still frame rate issues, the open world is way too big and repetitive (Ubisoft vibes), loot system is awful (the transmog is great) and theres no real reason to replay the game. The house you choose doesnt seem to matter and theres no real good or evil paths to mess around with. I honestly haven't even really thought about the game at all since I finished which is kind of sad, hopefully if this studio makes another HP game its more focused on being a student next time around.
The games fun at first because you psych yourself up thinking it’ll be a great huge games, but then after a few hours the charm wears off and you realize that they dropped the ball
It gets worse??? Bro I bought the game and so far I’m 5 hours in, just got the flying tutorial done and I’m not gonna lie it’s a weak start of the game in my opinion. I am used to epic intro’s to games like jedi fallen orders intro, gow 4&5 intros so to me this one is very meh. I’m hoping it gets better the more I progress cause I’ll unlock more spells but i think you’re referring to overall gameplay and story and not just combat
i totaly agree, I felt like the stutent experiene was missing, and it hurts the game alot. because thats one of the cores of harry potter, being a student at hogwarts
As for professor Fig - he was so underdeveloped and missing from the whole game, I was convinced, he will betray me at the end, as so many situations were like I was sure Fig should be there, but was missing…
I would REALLY love a more mature/dark character driven narrative harry potter game about a smaller cast of students learning magic, with spells having actual impact - I'd assume most fans of the franchise are 25+ at this point
The game was basically what I expected. AAA open world, no consequences and RPG mechanics as deep as a puddle. But like you said I was one of the people who wanted the world more than anything. I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan but a flushed out world is what keeps me into a game. And the world is 10/10 (castle and hogsmead anyways )
Yea definitely, I feel like Luke's whole number system is completely off. He said it was an 8/10 right at the start, then proceeded to describe a 6/10 experience immediately after.
One game they should have looked to more for feeling is "Bully." In particular, the experience of simply being a student and attending classes seems very shallow compared to Bully.
While Im running around Hogwarts Legacy being a badass im always thinking about how Harry will be studying this Goblin Rebellion in History of Magic 100 years later and not retain a single iota of information about it 🥴
I enjoyed the one cutscene we got for each professor. Shame there wasnt more than that. Bc the main quest was too boring imo. Omnious Gaunt was a character I was hoping to hangout with, but characters only became relevant if the main plot magically intersected them. Idk, I think I enjoyed the early game the most. It was more appealing for me to be treated as a fellow student and not a wizard who is secretly good at everything.
One of the problems I had with the game was character motivation. We're told the reason Ranrok has started his rebellion is because goblins are treated like second class citizens, widely distrusted and hated and abused and we see this multiple times throughout the game. Lots of wizards just straight up tell you all goblins are worthy of derision, people give you crap for working with Lodgok and general distrust is expressed through ambient conversation. At NO POINT in the game is this expressed as a problem by any character that isn't a goblin, including your character 😂 you just beat the bad guy and everything goes back to the way it was for goblins and that's the heroic ending lol
Goblins ARE bad because they control the banks and government and newspapers and that's an indisputable fact. They get mad when you point it out as well
True but that matches how in the main Harry Potter story there was still an extreme amount of discrimination against goblins for example. But it is true that the story is way too generic and boring, Sebastian's was way more interesting
Agreed that Prof. Fig is underutilized and there only to progress the main story. It’s bad when I don’t even remember what subject he teaches or if it’s even mentioned at all. He has a wife, but other than that he’s all business all the time. Most characters are straight to business and in turn it makes the story feel soulless and without any heart to it. Connecting to characters is the best way to engage someone with any story, and Hogwarts Legacy absolutely fails in that regard. 100% agree with Luke’s assessment.
I think the lack of hogwarts student simulator/rpg features vs the open world adventure game features which we did get in abundance was the biggest issue for me personally. The game literally has "Hogwarts" in the name and Hogwarts dynamics, friendships / rivalries with people, how students relate to the teachers etc are a big part of the Harry Potter books so you'd expect them to be more of a prominent feature in the game... At the end of the day I still enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy, but it wasn't really the game I wanted.
Holy shit your picture just brought back memories I had completely forgotten about. Me and a few friends in high school used to fucking love depth, what a great game that was.
one thing i have to say i was really impressed with was the decoration changes around halloween and christmas. they didn't have to do all of that and there's bows or jack-o-lanterns EVERYWHERE.
For me the main thing the game failed on was giving you that 'student' feeling. For the majority of the game you're outside of Hogwarts and your house doesn't make much difference apart from one quest. But overall it's a good open world game with fun combat. It just missed that 'be a student at Hogwarts' mark.
That's my main issue as well. This aspect is, to me, the most important of the series, along with deep connections with other people, and I think they missed the mark massively on both these things. I wanted Bully/Persona and I got Assassin's Creed (RPG ones). I'm a huge fan so I really don't understand why so many other fans say this is the HP experience come to life.
There's a great video about this stating that the games core problem is that it doesn't know whether to be a student sim or an openworld rpg and ends up doing neither very well.
@@damgful Same for me! I don't really want Wizards Creed, I want a student simulator + mystery solving! Combat, gear and open world freedom are not the priorities for a HP game, I feel.
@@mikanchan322 I think the 4 core elements of the series are relationships, student life, mystery (as you mentioned) and a whimsical world. I feel like the game only did the last one kinda well, and it only hitting 1 out of 4 aspects is probably why it didn't do it for me.
@@damgful That's a great analysis! I do wonder if they sat down before making this game and thought about the core qualities of HP and how to bring those in to a game. To me it seems like they just decided to make an open world rpg and all their other decisions came from there.
2:12:30 Yup, the ridiculously small inventory space was my biggest gripe in the whole game. Second biggest was no actual when you dash or roll away from attacks(especially HOMING troll smash)
Honestly once you get to level 30 you have absolutely no use for anything except legendary gear. So all the greens, Blues, and Purples are pretty much useless and fill up your space fast.
I really miss sneaking around Hogwarts at night (used to play HPaCoS on PS2). It was so much fun! They could make a curfew and implement a little guest for the Floo lady. If you do her quest she will let you use Floo at night so you can avoid prefects and professor so people who wanna sneak around can and those who don't can just floo where they want and skip sneak sections entirely.
Was he also responsible for the broom racing theme? I always found myself humming that melody during those gameplay sections. It was perfect for portraying the feeling of freedom and flying.
Sequel idea: An actual companion system could give the game way more replay value. Give us the four characters, one for each house, but only allow us to pick two as our close friends for each play through. This gives us different interactions and quest lines for each run depending on who we pick. Also, allow us to bring them along while free roaming.
Apparently, there is a companion mode when you're playing on pc, and it seems to be part of the coding of the game in general, but it was scrapped along the way and now it's not available for any other consoles. Really would've loved this! After finishing the main game and trying to get it to 100%, it get's really tiring really fast when you're roaming around, doing Merlin trials etc. while you're on your own. Having one or two friends with you could totally improve this imo
After learning Crucio in Sebastian's quest line, I thought we'd face 3 trials from Salazar Slytherin, each requiring one of the Unforgivable Curses to survive. I thought it would lead to a morally ambiguous choice between; learning Avada Kedavra to kill Sebastian (who willingly sacrifices himself), or Sebastian murdering Ominis with the curse (who was refusing to take part), and a third choice when you and Sebastian Duel using the curse to decide who dies (a call back to when you both first met in class). I was disappointed with the actual quest line, to say the least.
@@vignotum132 Probably, but I know I got my moneys worth with the features of the game so I don't think it matters that it wasn't some perfect gods gift to earth, I think it was everything I saw advertised and it released very stable and in a mostly complete state for me which is more than can be said for a lot of games being released at the time.
@@Morhan_Jehnez I love the game, but story-wise, Sebastian’s was the most well-written, especially with the relationship with Ominis. The Ancient Magic thing was pretty boring, especially in comparison
@@vignotum132 I agree Sebastians story was the most compelling for me as well, it just didn't go in the direction or hit the story notes I thought it would. Also the Ancient Magic is a sort of cliche 'chosen one' trope. So I understand how it could be boring. I enjoyed it more because I just felt like I was reading a childrens storybook, though it wasn't particularly nuanced. I genuinely think it's a brilliant game and hits the beats of a fairytale well, the mechanics are all pretty good as well although shockingly similar to the recent AC games lol. It wasn't anything revolutionary though, it was just well designed and detailed. I guess I'd call it reliable, it does work it's just doesn't set itself too far apart from everything else.
1:27:30 this game felt like it was built around a morality system and character relationship system like what Mass Effect 1 had. Something basic and based on how often you went out of your way to interact with certain people. But then they just didn’t put it in the final game.
i couldn't bother finishing it, quit after 22 hours. i think the main problem is that i played too many videogames and hogwarts added absolutely nothing new, they recycled a bunch of boring mechanics that i've seen a thousand times. the open world felt exhausting to me, i've done 3 puzzles and i already knew what's coming in the next 100 of them. you giving it an 8/10 really took me by surprise. i'd give it a 6 at most. if you're not into videogames, only harry potter and this is one of your first videogames this might be an 11/10 experience for you and i'm not denying that, but yea wasn't for me
i forgot to mention the thing that pissed me off the most, no consequences story-wise, you can pick whatever dialogue, be a cunt to whoever you want and you'll get the same ending. even the curses have 0 consequences. i didnt expect telltale level of story writing but im so dissapointed in what they made
Good post. Most overrated game in years. AngryJoe the shill gave it a 10, I couldn't believe it. The loot system alone makes it less than a 10. Like yes, it should get bonus points for making twitter activists go insane (that's always fun IMO) but it's still nowhere near a 10.
The game experience would have been increased significantly if they had just allowed Alohamora to open locks without the mechanic (at most they should have made it so the spell auto opens locks that are below your current spell level, so once you have it full upgraded you just have to do the mechanic for level 3 locks not ALL of them)
How do you have the time to stream everyday, edit and upload videos, play all the games you do, write 4 hour critiques, and spend time with your family?..I am impressed with your work ethic and enjoy your content.
@@Praxss who cares if he has a team? Doesn’t take away the fact that he puts in work. He wouldn’t be where is he today without is hard work & dedication.
Once I learned about the change appearance feature in the game I started selling all my gear besides what I was wearing and I actually started to really like it. I liked the fact that once you found a item of clothing you can change to that appearance while keeping you upgrades on the gear you already have on.
for me, the most frustrating thing was how impossible it was to immerse into the game. I was like: okay, I am a 15 year old student, let's act alike one. But then... oh, I can barely talk to other students... oh, I can't attend school anymore... oh, I guess I am strangely good at everything even though I just started using magic... Do all students have to fight Goblins? ...wait, am I killing these people? ... wait, am I the bad guy?! I tried to spin a narrative around it by wearing a mask while being out adventuring, kinda living a double life. What I'm trying to say is that it's hard to play a role game when the game doesn't encourage or even respond to your role.
Big HP fan here. I give it a solid 7/10. Wish they’d gone deeper into the ancient magic, also wasn’t happy with the broom controls. But overall it was a fun game. The studio looks like it’s destined to do great things.
What didn't you like about the broom controls? Once I had gotten good enough at flying to beat that Slytherin character (can't remember her name) in the time trials and fully upgraded my broom, I found the controls to be about as good as anyone could ask for. By the time you're good enough to win those races, you're probably a pretty good flyer in general and have the controls down pat, especially considering those time trials only really allow one or two mistakes in the whole run in order to be able to still win. What are your issues with it?
@@STSGuitar16 I think I tried to hover in the air and move the camera around to look what was around me, but couldn’t do it without the broom moving along as well. Maybe this was a first month bug and has been fixed now, definitely wasn’t fixed back then.
@@abhiramboralkar5782 Oh, that actually reminded me of a similar issue I had with it but forgot about. I don't like that you can't look down while on the broom. Trying to move the camera to be able to see what's right below you just makes the broom go down instead, and that was actually pretty annoying at times. At first I also had a bit of trouble getting the hang of the directional controls, and I actually do wish they would have let you customize the flight controls to some degree. For example, I have flown a lot of RC airplanes and helicopters before so I was kinda used to having the elevation and the turning left/right controls being on the same "joystick" like you may find with a RC plane, so having those two directions assigned to your two different joysticks (on a standard game controller like xbox) threw me off for a while. But like I said before, by the time I was good enough to win those time trials I had basically gotten the initially odd flight controls more or less nailed down. Luckily it's to the point now where I don't really have to think about it too much and am just able to control the broom pretty intuitively. But yeah, the camera movement controls aren't great while flying. They could easily fix it, too. If the elevation and turn left/right controls were assigned to the same joystick like you usually find on a RC airplane controller, you could probably have some better camera movement options that weren't available with the control layout in this game. All in all, they do have a fantastic broom flight platform in this game that they will be able to really build off of, improve, and perfect in future games; especially since quidditch will almost certainly be a part of future games in this franchise. Despite its few flaws, broom flight is still one of my favorite things to do in HL.
@@STSGuitar16 you captured it perfectly in the first few lines. I want to hover in the air and look around 360 degrees without the broom moving along. And yes, flying on the broom is still one of my favourite things to do in the game. I can’t remember how many times I jumped off a high spot and hopped on to the broom mid air. Fun fun fun. You know something, I really wish they make Dumbledore the main character in future games and we explore a badass young Albus 😁
I’m still salty there’s so many spiders. Like, I’m phobic, I can’t complete the game without help in certain quest lines, and then find out dementor models were made then used for 15 SECONDS?! Bruh
It would've been great if the story changed a bit depending which house are you in, also they give you almost every time two type of answers (good or evil) and it doesn't change anything. I would love updates with Quiddich, Patronus Charm, Dementors, Azkaban, new Beasts (Mythical like Basilisk), "Bounty Hunter system" for dark wizards, there is so much room for future Dlc's Also it would be good to save slots for outfit sets. A morality system. Being able to talk in Hogwarts with studens so I can feel like part of the class. Not being able to go around the castle at night like in the movies (So you'd have sneak to leave the castle) Another thing I felt was that the world doesn't really feel alive, there is a lot going on but it's meaningless and repetitive, the NPC's are awfull and how the camera works when you talk with them really breaks the inmersion for me. My biggest complaint is that you feel like a god in this world, there's no consecuences whatsoever, you master every spell in less than a year of school. Being able to know the 3 Unforgivable Curses in less than a year is crazy op, I understand that it's a game and you can't be lore accurate all the time, but I think that people would've love to play more and more to get this kind of spells, maybe wait a extra year of school or something like that. The game has SO MUCH potential to be great, almost perfect, but it has fallen short I think. Anyway I don't think they are gonna implement any of this, maybe Quidditch and that's it, because it would be a lot for an update, in Hogwarts Legacy 2 we might see this type of stuff.
The game does give an in-world explanation for starting Hogwarts as a fifth year: It is a quirk of being able to see ancient magic (The 2 other ancient magic "users" also started in their fifth year).
Kind of yes. But that is not an explanation. We still don't know WHY. Do people who use ancient magic start exhibiting magical propertirs later on in their life? Did the teachers think it's better for them to start of school later when they are more mature?
Another thing that bugged me about the Merlin trials is, that you have to "activate" them first and cant simply do them on the fly. Imagine that in Zelda you have to activate every single coroc challenge with some kind of resource. Everyone would hate this
Yep early on in the game I found myself running out of Mallosweet pretty often, to the point that I started buying it every time I could and setting up a farm just for that specifically in the room of requirement. Nothing worse than seeing a merlin trial on the map, going towards it only to find out you don't have any mallosweet and can't do it.
I loved Harry Potter so this was a dream game...until I played it. I play lots of games (top games being MM, Disco Elysium, Journey, RDR2, Cyberpunk 2077, etc) I don't usually play "plot based games" but when I do they tend to be the best in the business (solid but only once or twice exceptional)...so I'm not used to bad plot in videogames (plenty of mid-tier writing in Bethesda games or pretty good stuff like in the GOW franchise, with the top eschelon being CDPR...specifically their work in 2077 is next fucking level) and haven't really exposed myself to it in awhile. Then this game happened, and holy shit it's the worst thing I've seen plot wise in AGES. You've got goblins that want rights but we are supposed to want them dead? No nuance, just "they kill people so FUCK THEM" when in reality imagine saying that about civil rights or slavery? Like I'm fucking sorry, that's grotesque. We are talking about a people LITERALLY SUBJUGATED WHO CANNOT USE THE ONLY THING THAT GIVES ANYONE POWER IN THEIR UNIVERSE. None of this is interrogated. Rockwood is just bad, the villain is bad, the characters they throw in to die are ok but again...why is "they die" the only ending to every good character in this game? It's so one-note and repetitive. You have the companion quests which are...um...fine, C tier minimum viable plotting. Not bad, but so deeply inoffensive and boring I'm rolling my eyes. Ancient Magic is a chosen one narrative WITHIN a chosen one narrative (to have magic is already chosen one in this universe), stupid. The ancient magic fortresses look like the most generic fantasy dungeon shit I've ever seen. The Dungeons sucked, the only good one was the book that was all in pencil drawn style. And the plot being fucking garbage is the tip of the iceberg. The game should have cut the entire countryside...the castle was so deeply underutilized. The story there was entirely lifeless, teachers were archetypes not people, and the castle felt like a puzzlebox...not a place. The "Harry Potter +1/2" Imo for me barely laneded it at a 7, and between having to stomach bad combat design and cutscenes...man did I love walking around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. Otherwise? Filler...filler everywhere, empty level design, bad puzzle design (90% are just "press button get prize"), bad plot, unbalanced and tuned combat, unthoughtful world and level design (Hogwarts is 90% hallways and atriums that are just connected to hallways, wtf? Where are the classrooms? There are like maybe 8 classrooms for a school of 1000 kids? lol WHAT!? Imagine if your High School had 8 classrooms!?) I think the concept of this game is still valid, even if it WEREN'T Harry Potter...a wizarding AAA game is totally something we need. There just aren't games focused around MAGIC in this way. Unlike games like Elden Ring where magic is just a variation on a bow and arrow with a different damage type...this game puts magic where it SHOULD be...in the Breath of the Wild "puzzlebox and environmental gameplay" zone of combat. However, it just isn't actually good. Too few enemy types, little to no reason to use the environment other than spamming the throw object button, and items were so poorly balanced if you ACTUALLY use them the game has zero challenge whatsoever. Im hoping they tune down items, make things like potions and herbology and actual PLAYSTYLE and not a get out of jail free card/gimmick. They need to reduce enemy spam and make combat more intentional between me and a few people. The enemy spam was aggresious, like RDR2 without headshot 1-tap kills. Herbologists should have been this game's "summoner class" but instead of it was just faceroll. None of the animals or things were even really tied into a playstyle. Also it has one of the most HEINOUSE designs for "the new player experience" I've ever encountered. It took me 10 hours to get to the FUCKING SKILL TREE. That's ridiculous.
Great summary, couldn't agree more. Huge lifelong HP fan, severely disappointed with how easy reviewers went on this game. AngryJoe the DNC shill gave it a 10... a 10!!!
Great video! I very strongly disagree with what you said about Poppy's quest line though. I'm not sure if you made some different dialogue choices than me maybe, but later on in the quest line she reveals a pretty significant part of her backstory that really changed my view on her and gave her a lot of character development and especially a strong motivation. It's very strange you didn't mention this at all, makes me think your character never heard this piece of dialogue which is quite unfortunate!
Yeah I was wondering this too. I have no idea how he thought Natty and Sebastian were so interesting but Poppy wasn't. It honestly makes me wonder if he just skipped the dialogue in her quest or something
As a HP fan this is a 6/10, the most mediocre game of the year so far. If I wasn't a fan it might get extra points, but as a fan this is a massive dissapointment. You pretty much don't attend classes, your character isn't even in the cutscenes that constitutes as a calss. You don't roleplay as a student, your house means nothing other than the color of your robes. You can't even collect house points even though sometimes they say you earned points. Also the open world outside of the castle is boring as hell I just flew over most of the empty lifeless world most of the time (I did end up crossing every marker off the map at the end). The loot system is also trash, once you have good gear it's pointless to open chests until you level up again since you mainly get garbage that's multiple levels below what you already have or just the same level you already equiped. While the castle itself is pretty cool to explore and I did enjoy it, there's no reason to learn it's layout, since you can just teleport everywhere. The story is also another generic boring chosen one saves the world story instead of just a normal school life simulator that most fans would have wanted. Could someone explain how can there be so many villages in the open world sorrounding Hogwarts if Hoghsmead is supposed to be the only wizzard only village in the country?
Did they allow us to skip every part of the story out of the kindness of their hearts OR because they knew the story was sub-par? I watched the first 1/3 of the story and skipped the last 2/3 and just had fun with the combat.
i dont agree with your take on 3:09:10 the argument that they cant touch the harry potter stuff in terms of story so they may as well not even try and keep the story lightweight is not satisfactory to me. they have all the material they need to make the charters more interesting and make the story better but they chose not to. after 6+ years of waiting on this game i feel like we deserve better in that regard.
The room of requirement ended up being probably my favorite aspect of the entire the game-- followed by the intricately crafted castle (which brought to life so many beautiful details and references from the books) and the simple yet surprisingly fun and intuitive combat system. I'm pretty sure the room of requirement is now my favorite player home/base of any open-world game I've ever played. I spent hours in game just playing around with crafting items and decorating my room to make my ideal gothic castle/mage's library aesthetic, and I just love how the room expands and new mechanic unlock as you make you're way through the main campaign; the vivariums alone gave me several hours of very wholesome fun-- and I love how each one was based around a different and unique biome/environment.
As a non-HP fan this game didn’t really impress me. It kept my attention for a solid 10 hours but neither the story nor the exploration hooked me enough to keep going, and there’s not enough unique side activities akin to a yakuza game so for me it’s a 6/10. Also, i remember seeing an ad about how you can become a dark wizard, which seems to be really misleading since there is no morality system, there are simply spells that you are not “supposed” to use but there are no consequences if you use them all the time.
1:05:24 even patronous choices would’ve been another layer of customization. I’m hoping for an exponential class based system of spell learning based learning n what classes you actually attend (including darker extracurriculars to get bad)
If you had to force yourself to push through it in order to justify the $70 cost of it to yourself, then I would say thatfor you personally it was not even an okay game.. haven't played myself and prob even will not if I can't get my hands on series x in the future but for me, if I have to force myself to play something it is a sign I do not enjoy it one bit so I just don't play it and go trade it for something else I might have good time with..
@@elitereptilian200 The game is really good. Especially if you like Harry Potter. They have done a wonderful job with this game. So much clothes, great music, probably the best interior designs and attention to detail I’ve ever seen. Fantastic graphics and combat. A very interesting story as well with all side missions feeling weighty and relevant. And a stunning world to Explore. There is so much value. It is easily worry even 100 bucks.
@studentstudent5044 We must not be playing the same game. The hogwarts castle and open world are very well designed and interesting, and the spell casting is cool. The story though is just plain boring. The main character has no emotion and is very monotone about everything. Some major events are laughable with how your character reacts. The side quests are extremely boring and are usually just fetch quests or killing something. They don't develop any characters in the game and don't show what school life is like at hogwarts at all. The only interesting side story was Sebastions. Outside of the main quest is just a giant collect-a-thon with over 600 collectibles and no real reason to collect most of them. The room of requirement is cool but gets old fast and doesn't really add any longevity to the game after you beat it. Honestly, the game is average at best.
@@thechris932100 Well the character has a voice and a look that you chose. So ofc it’s not gonna be as smooth as a fixed character. But they did a very good job and making your own character feel like an actual person. Literally Every side quest is unique dude. There are games where you literally do the exact same thing Every time. That is not at all the case here. With Every side quest you meet a new character and they added enough diologue options so that you can actually learn about the characters. And the game has alot of replay value. Chose a different house and you’ll meet different people and get to do different story missions. The game is just well crafted and the world is alive and feels very natural. The game is easily an 9 or 10 dude I’m sorry to break it to you. And you’re in the minority here. People are saying it’s amazing cause it is amazing.
@studentstudent5044 Choosing your voice was a bad decision. All it does is adjust the pitch. I don't think they did a good job at making your character feel like a real character at all. The side quests are also definitely not unique at all. It's just boring busy work like finding someone's Nifler or finding their dead relative or killing some spiders/poachers/goblins. There is nothing at all that develops the characters you meet. I couldn't tell you a single difference between the merchant's that give you their list of chores to complete. The students are also extremely boring, and the game doesn't allow you to experience the student life that could and should have been expanded on. Bully captured student life 100 times better than this game could ever hope to. They crafted an awesome world but forgot to fill it with fun and memorable experiences. It's definitely just an average game.
Arguably, one of HL's biggest flaws is it's setting. Fans of Harry Potter love it for the characters, more than the magic. I believe that's why the Fantastic Beast films haven't been nearly as successful. In the series, the castle itself is a character - granted - but in the game, it rings hollow. Yes, you can awe at the various features you recognise, the references; but it's all just as superficial as watching Rey hand Luke Skywalker his old lightsaber. So when you have a Hogwarts game in the 1880's - there's no Dumbledore, no Hagrid, no hateable teachers like Snape, no real rival students like Malfoy. As far as Wizarding World goes, that's half the world-building gone. The game has a short-lived novelty in magic combat, attending 'classes' disguised as a vehicle for unlocking new spells, and flying around on a broom - but it lacks the character depth that would really flesh out the roleplaying aspect. The teachers have minimal personality, as do the other students. You arrive at age 15, and not 11, denying you a boat-trip moment. You are also sent to Hogsmeade as an afterthought, also denying you a Diagon Alley moment. You didn't even arrive to school via Platform 9 3/4. Your house and house points don't matter, and quidditch doesn't exist. Pretty much every imagination, every idle day-dream that a millennial could have had - growing up with the books, or the movies, and imagining their own letter at age 11 - is sadly not reflected in this game. It's a reasonably unsophisticated RPG with a Harry Potter flavouring. I'm not necessarily proposing that the game should task you with studying in the library for an essay - but if it had, I'd feel much more immersed in the experience.
I think having the story take a 2nd-person perspective could’ve been really interesting. Like, if YOUR character was the Ron/Hermione equivalent to the game’s Harry equivalent and *your choices* had consequences on *their* life; shaping them into either a hero, dark lord, or somewhere in-between. Kind of like the Sebastian subplot, but if *he* was the one with the Ancient Magic power.
The game's castle section is a 10/10, however, it is also a house of cards as anything beyond this area (excluding Hogsmead) just feels like your typical Ubisoft world filled with filler. I think if they went with a more focused story like RDR2 or witcher 3, this game would have been a true masterpiece.
Exactly. The story is like a weird boring mismanaged mess. Completely ruins the world of Harry potter. Makes it seem like Disney land ride or something.
I understand excusing a lackluster story/character development from a game that isn't focused on those things and exists in a genre that doesn't fit with, like a sports game or fighting game even. But this is an RPG, and those elements are core pillars of the genre. It doesn't work to simply dismiss criticism of the game because "that's not what they were going for." They are the weakest parts of this game and the reason, especially as a lover of the HP world, I would SUBTRACT a point or two from the game's score, not add to it. If this game is an 8/10, I would subtract at least one point for the fact that it leans way too heavily into nostalgia to carry what is otherwise a very lackluster RPG
*might contain spoilers* a few gripes with the game are that for me personally, i found the relationship quests (Sebastian, Natti and Poppy’s quests) a lot more compelling than the main story imo. i get the game is aimed for 12+ (in the U.K.) so they can’t go TOO complex with the story but i just felt more gravitated towards those quests much more than the main story. i’m in agreement that the gear system sucks because you shouldn’t have to grind those Merlin trials just to make space in your gear inventory. i also wish the gear was more diverse - can’t tell you the amount of times i got multiples of the same stuff but different levels. i feel i’d prefer a choice based loot system where you get to the chest, get to see what the item is BEFORE picking it up and then deciding whether you want it or not to save on space for cooler, higher level gear? a minor thing that i wanted was for the enemies to be affected by the events of the end of the game after you defeat Ranrok because when getting into fights with enemies post-completion, their dialogue still mentions stuff like “you won’t be able to stop Ranrok” (paraphrasing but you get what i mean). it just felt odd to me. i also agree with rating the game 8/10 because also as a HP fan, i thought it was a great game for the fans but still could be things ironed out to make it that 9 or even 10/10! one last thing for now, the barrier system when mounted baffles me. i wish you could land that little bit closer to Hogsmede without being told you can’t go further while mounted. and trying to figure out a route to further afield on the map, such as the coastal areas when travelling from day Hogwarts isn’t straightforward as you have to sort of go around everything instead of cutting straight through and making the journey shorter. (oh and we didn’t see enough of the Headmaster, i wanted more of him!)
ive heard some people say that if they wanted to make this game better, they couldve followed the model set by bully. like a whole hogwarts school sim.
nah the story is bland asf they need a whole revamp also most of the characters dont have personalities apart from Sebas and ominus all the other students and teachers whole personality revolves around asking for your help and getting you in trouble
quite frankly. Its about a 6/10 at best. TLDR: They nailed the environments. Hogwards. Hogsmeet. the world. everything really. is amazing. its Peak immersion. Its like you're there. Same with the music. and the sound and effects. Really REALLY good. ( except the voice overs. the mixing is atrocious. the reverb doesn't work half the time and they all sound like they were recording from home and eating the mic) But then we get to the story. and the content. and that's just fricking bad. Your character is basically an anime chosen one marry sue. Everyone loves her. Everyone lives for her. She cant do wrong. there is no conflict in her arc with peers. the closest you get to character development in the entirety of content is the slithery guy story line. Like you're a 5th year student out of nowhere, with no prior experience, and you just cannot fail and are at powerlevel 9000. And it just goes from there. You don't have that core group of friends. you don't have the other characters filling in for your shortcomings. etc etc. also the story pacing is a mess, the way you unlock quests, and stuff requires filler content that's just attached to have it. Long story short: they nailed the setting. they nailed harry potters sound, music and world. But they failed at writing and open world content. I hope they make a sequel. really do. and now, that they have a world. they can spend like 3 or 4 years on writing the best story and characters of all time
It's interesting to consider canon within the creation of the game, are they intending to add to the larger wizarding world with a story canon to the whole. If so, this will affect the story and customization largely. As someone who has read the hp books multiple times, the attention to detail is extraordinary. There were aspects to Hogwarts, where lessons are held etc that are only mentioned a few times that are done correctly. The amount of work put into the world building in keeping with the og is astonishing.
Just want to say the introduction to this was great. You got right to the point, giving us a solid review while keeping us engaged to find out what’s ahead in the video. Amazing work on everything up to this point!
The thing about the romance option debacle is, I'm pretty sure they have it in the mobile game. There's a mobile game that came out before legacy and while not as graphically intense, you still get to explore hogwarts and the surrounding world and build relationships with other students and if I'm remembering correctly they have romance options. So they could do it in the mobile game but not this one which is odd to me.
I thoroughly enjoyed this game, and I believe it is a very solid foundation for the games to come. There are a lot of changes to be made things to add, and mechanics to refine, but as far as an initial release, hopefully, in a franchise, I think this was solid.
Sebastian’s storyline was the only one that kept me engaged. Even then there were questionable elements to it. The rest, including the main story, were forgettable, just there to facilitate the awesome gameplay. Love the game, but the story is subpar even for the Harry Potter series.
Sebastians story was the most compelling, but it was still undercooked imo. There are some real powerful emotional moments in there that are undercut by the games pacing and some of the dialogue (why is Ominis supposedly super stubborn about the dark arts but we talk to him once and convince him to go along with it... multiple times?)
Absolutely. By no means did I mean that Sebastian’s story was great, even good for that matter, just more memorable than all the other sludge. And yeah, the constant dialogue reiterating the same points over and over again was tedious at best and frustrating the rest of the time. Dialogue with the lady who introduces you to the Merlin trials (I forgot her name) essentially boils down to the player responding with answers such as, “Sounds interesting,” or “Sounds intriguing,” or “Sounds fascinating.” It sounds like I might be paraphrasing but those were pretty much back-to-back options given for the player to answer in a single scene. Same goes for most of the random NPC characters out in the world. Uninspired, bland, cookie-cutter writing-especially for the player character who is just so generic.
Hello from the future. A bug I’m still experiencing in the game (Ravenclaw, playing on switch, I downloaded it in March ‘24) is that the lumos frame near the history of magic classroom, the moth is supposed to be near the sphinx statue and it just doesn’t show up, and when I started a second run of the game in Slytherin, it wasn’t bugged at all. Another thing I don’t really like is that after you complete the main story, the castle is so much emptier than it was during the “school year”. I know the main quests are over and I’ve also done all the side quests but it would still be nice to have more students walking around and the great hall still have the food set up and such. It just looks so empty and lonely
i think the developers were looking at games like breath of the wild or skyrim when they should have been studying high school simulators like persona LOL
I found it odd that I couldn't cast any spell while I was mounting my broom and it would have been great to be able to grab enemies and drop them while flying with the Hippogriff !
I frickin loved this game and yes, I am VERY biased because of my love to HP. Nevertheless, you touched some good points that I hope they add/correct in the sequel. Kudos for the 4 hour script and editing btw!
Poppy got an excellent story; she is the daughter of poachers and escaped. While searching for dragons she got even recognized. She is going to dedicate her life to animals and protecting them. This storyline was great.
Overall, I like more of Luke's content than I dislike it, but there's always a few things that grates a bit on me with him. One of those is, he often seems to imply that he is coming from a more "objective" place than others - which he doesn't. His constant use of the word "sceptical" does become a bit comical at times - I have a feeling that that he thinks that being a sceptic also means that he is more objective, but that is never the case when making opinion pieces like this, of course. Also, he has a tendency to meander on some of his points and repeats himself often - examples here would be the part about adding or subtracting points from his score of 8 and, as Rufus here has also mentioned, his line chart. But he does seem like a passionate and charismatic guy who loves gaming and have interesting insights about the gaming industry. He is dedicated to his work here on UA-cam and seems to come from an honest place which I appreciate.
I was like okay I'm curious, I'll see what rigorous methods he uses to be as objective as possible. Then he bought out the line and just claimed he starts in the middle lol 😂 No hate, I still like hearing his thoughts but of course they're subjective.
"I'm just reviewing as if this game released in a vacuum"... Bro, that's DELUSION. I get it, try to be objective, but you can't and your attempts to "cleanse yourself" only further subjectifies the experience because you make subjective decisions about what elements of an artform are part of that experience and what aren't...due to your OWN value system and what you FEEL is agreed upon. He needs to stop presenting himself as anything more than just another reviewer. We didn't go to Roger Ebert because he was OBJECTIVE...we went because of his taste, his clarity of language, and his humor. Not to mention his clarity of language and ability to present meaningful reviews in a sea of FLUFF words and meaningless poetics in the review sphere.
thank you for this detailing review, it was really enjoyable. i want to add something i see doesn't bug many people: i have the greatest issue with a quest about Deek's elf friend. we go to the location, we slaugher many enemies, we see the dead body and all we do is leave immediately 'yep, he's dead, whatever'. where are the funerals???? or something like this??? you can't just leave someone's dead body where it was when you've come to get it in the first place???
nah, they should have done more with the characters and story. make itmore about the story than just an open world sandbox game and make it an actual magic wizarding world game
I definitely LOVED the game when I first started playing it, but after I completed it… it became a lot less compelling. The fact that no decision you make can ever actually affect your path (besides house choice which only affects one quest and your clothes,) the fact that the combat is SO easy even on the hardest mode (and I’m an easy mode gamer most of the time,) the fact that almost all of the clothing options are hideous and don’t have unique effects, the fact that chests contain so many repetitive clothing pieces with just one more stat point instead of things like ingredients, more money, resources that you could sell??? Idk it feels lacking compared to other open world RPGs. I recently completed the Witcher 3 and I’ve played breath of the wild probably 8 times all the way thru, and this game felt like the baby version of both. Also this is minor but the player characters hair is very distracting. The lighting model on it makes it stand out from everything else in the game and most of the colours don’t fit into the world at all.
Tbh, this game is so mid (imo not an 8/10) that I literally forgot I played it for like 40 hours, after starting the RE4 Remake. Cool Harry Potter stuff, hollow and shallow game design & story.
@@yuhantao1713 Because of the Harry Potter aspects and the combat is pretty good. Take the affinity for the IP away and it's just a generic open world game. Could have been smaller and more in depth of the wizarding and Hogwarts aspects with a better story. Also from what I've seen the people who really love it tend to not really play video games. Not saying that's bad but it shows the standards
Thank you for mentioning persona 5 in the video. I couldn't put my finger on why I was so disappointed by the student life sim being missing from the game but you made me realize it: I have played personas 3,4 and 5. I was expecting wizarding persona.
My main problem with the game was that I felt alone and detached from other students. A companion system would be great for sure, I loved the quests with Sebastian, Poppy and Natsai. Also the world around could've felt more alive, the npcs were too npc-like and I found the voice acting underwhelming for the most part. Especially coming from Baldur's Gate 3 to play this, these issues were really highlighted for me.
I give this game a 5/10. Or a 6/10 at most. As a huge Harry Potter fan since the late 90s, I've been quite disappointed with the game. The story was very weak in my opinion. And it didn't fit into the so far known Harry Potter lore. What's the background of the lead character? Why is no one asking them *why* they only started in 5th year? Everyone mentions it in the game, everyone says how unusual it is, but no one asks the protagonist what they did before and why they only started this late. The diversity felt forced and didn't feel natural in that setting - we are talking 1880s Great Britain here. If the game was set today, yeah, totally fine with the diversity, but here? Didn't fit one bit. Except for Indian students. The side characters were bland and their quests were... meh. Mostly fetch quests. The graphics were amazing in itself, but the faces of the characters looked liveless. The voice actors (German dub) were also quite disappointing, especially of the female lead. Exploring Hogwarts was nice at first, but got boring after a while. I'm not a fan of games which gives me choices and in the end, the choices barely make any differences or barely lead to different consequences. Etc... All in all, a mediocre game in my opinion.
🔴My Stream: linktr.ee/lukestephens
Tugwood is actually a famous witch and is even featured on chocolate frog cards in previous Harry Potter games. She's famous for discovering the beautification properties of a potion ingredient hence why they probably made her stand out/look like a modern day beautician.
Hey Luke! Any chance you can tell me where you got that pyramid statue that’s on the bottom shelf of your display case? Thanks!
Poppy’s parents and community she grew up in were poachers. It’s like she was raised by slavers and now she’s on BLM protests … so kinda emotional, more so than Nattie I’d say
I didn't think it was a GOOD game, just ok. All of it was very shallow, from the talents and spells, to the character building, to the story, to world exploration. All of it was shallow and could have used another year or two for depth. I really think this game SHOULD have taken inspiration from Mass Effect instead of Zelda, their formula would have been perfect for this setting.
The combat could have been very good but I refused to use items since I found item juggling and creation to be tedious, and spell combat was horribly tedious when it came to 1. Targeting (and I tried both options in the options menu, and 2. Dodging/blocking. The indicators for blocking/dodging didn't always come up in a timely manner causing me to take unnecessary hits, and frequently I would not be able to target an enemy with the right spell in the flurry of combat which was especially frustrating when I used the only yellow spell on my spell wheel on the wrong enemy causing me to go back to wheel customization to slot in a different one and ATTEMPT to hit the right goblin this time. URGH!!!!!
Anyone know what that third mini keyboard he has is? The numpad looking square with the dials?
Quidditch, house points, and morality system. I hope the sequel has these. It would make it feel a little more like you’re a student at hogwarts.
I bet a lot of people who’ve played Hogwarts legacy wanted more of a student scope of the game, but instead they got a whole open world RPG. I bet a sequel would benefit from more classes. (Ngl I’m not complaining, open world games are my favorite😅)
Crazy they cut quidditch because of that stupid quidditch multiplayer game they're developing. (early access was fun but not that fun)
Morality system sounds like a good idea, i felt like our character is the biggest kleptomaniac in Hogwarts history.
🤣@@marcgo13
TBH I was not expecting a bully styled "school simulators".
I was funny enough expecting the "RPG" openworld version of that old mobile game "hogwarts mistery"
The world and ambient really did the heavy lifting in keeping the game interesting.
In fact for all the care the dev put in building the world they fumbled a bit in the story and characters..
But as a "first step" is remarkable. And. A good platform to build way better mechanics..
Let's be honest, most people hope to have consequences and more "lived in " worlds (as an RPG should be) in their RPGs.. bad not just a thrown in leveling system and maybe a couple of barely significant choices...
Morality sistems and more actually student related rpg elements might sit closer to many people's hope
The severe lack of student life was my biggest disappointment. When it set in that we were no longer really students halfway through I wasn't all that motivated to continue.
I really wish the common rooms were utilised more! Like, why put an owl in my room if the mail is going to be read out to me as I go 😕🤔
Shout out to luke for trying to reach the 10 minute mark.....
You can tell it was a stretch to get it though
If he keeps it up, in the next few months he'll definitely hit the 10 min mark 🙏
I'm sure it was a struggle but he did it and I couldn't be more proud
1st time I've tried to watch this character, he must have taught a thousand grannies to suck a million eggs, and the eggs still need sucking !
@@edcliff4627 What the..? Please tell me this is some reference I missed
following the butterflies always made me chuckle cause it immediately popped that scene into my head where Ron whines about having to follow spiders... why can't it be butterflies?
Pretty sure that's the point lol
And then the butterflies lead you right through a pack of wolves or so close past a spider den that you get attacked 😂😂
@@PoleTookewhen people find out the game has references to the things the games about 😮
omg i never thought of that!! i love that 😂
Wow you figured out the intertextual nostalgiabait
One of the things I missed in the game was definitely the feeling of consequences not just with the unforgivables but also just roaming the castle at night there are a few missions where you can get caught but I would have loved there to be patrols of teachers and perfects so that the castle 1 didn't feel as dead after dark but also make me feel like I'm breaking the rules of the school
100%. Too much main character energy.
I feel like a real day-night cycle would have helped a lot with a immersion in general. It's already kind of there, the fact they make you wait till day time until lessons etc. This really needed a weekly schedule system like bully and then the missions fit around that
Oh, I just got to the part where Luke says exactly this, haha nvm
yep this. but consequences overall. i wish using the unforgivables had a more dark effect to the ppl and creatures around you.
the killing curse either could've been a fun gimmick move only in the arena or it should at least give us a wanted level of sorts. imagine how crazy it would've been if there was a "game over" or a second story line where you're expelled. i know it's too much to dream about that but it would've felt more immersive!
@@krack-a-lacker weirdly, some of the older games did this a little bit better. In chamber of secrets and prisoner of azkaban on the PS2 if you got caught at night, you'd restart at a checkpoint but you'd permanently lose house points. If you got caught too many times while out at night it'd be impossible to win the house cup at the end of the game, at least from what I remember.
My absolute favourite moment in this game was when I opened the decorate room of requirement menu, and I saw I could hang up mounted house elf heads….right in front of a house elf
TBF that sounds like something that totally would happen in the HP universe so...
Or how you openly walk into homes and classrooms stealing shit right in front of people.
@@erthboy47technically you’re rescuing them and selling them to someone who takes care of them though
@@ironwolf56 Yep, I mean they're slaves because they like being enslaved and it's for their own good. It's good slavery. - JKRowling
@@ironwolf56 I think the Black family had one of those lol
What I find most hilarious is that you cast the Unforgiveable Curses WAY MORE then Dark Wizards do
I didn’t lmao, it’s a matter of role play
Unforgivable curses are overrated anyway xD
@@Hsdias The thing is, the game does not care about this one bit. Playing a role is much more difficult when the world you're playing in doesn't react to said role you're playing, at all, even in places where it really should. These are the unforgivable curses, some of the most horrible and forbidden uses of magic in universe, not the "slightly frowned upon, if the person already didn't really like you" curses. And the game doesn't even treat them as the latter.
@@paulsilagi4783 yeah thats true
Perhaps, then… you ARE a dark wizard…
One thing about this game that's pretty underrated imo is the music. They could've just made a number of whimsical magical Harry-Potter-y tunes and called it a day, but much of the music that plays when you're out exploring the world is varied and very beautiful in a somber kind of way that reminds me of tracks from games like morrowind and civ.
The hogsmead theme is grating and gets stuck in my head. Fucking hate it so much.
@@helmaschine1885 the location themes are awful because they tend to be goofy whimsical stuff. the music that plays while you're flying around in the highlands on your broom is some of the best video game music of all time.
I noticed while exploring the trophy room I think it's called (?), they ripped off a John Williams track almost note for note, in the same key and instrument for instrument (the track that plays at the end of the first and last films). I'm not making a point here, just an observation.
I also like the music ! Quite a few times the music made me feel like in the witcher 3 or Skyrim. Made me feel nostalgic
@@jackbeckett2838they also ripped off test drive from httyd if you listen to the lord of the shore's theme
it was hilarious to me when i played it and used unforgivable curses in a combat encounter, but in cutscene a minute later, when Sebastian uses a curse front of his uncle he gets yelled at and its suddenly a big deal
The professors and your friends will slightly scold you in the middle of combat if you use it, but that's about it lol.
A bit of cognitive dissonance in the gameplay
So is there no reason to not use them except for role-playing reasons? I haven't used any yet (including the skill tree) because I wanted to have a "good" character, but also because I assumed there would be consequences.
@Nick Basically, no. There are no consequences for the unforgivable curses as far as I know.
@@hogue_music That is kind of a shame. Still plan on doing a second Slytherin character that focuses on the Dark Arts though.
The most galring issue, which impacted my enjoyment, was the voice acting. Almost everyone, minus the villains, spoke such proper and calm language despite the situation they were in, that I began wondering whether the VA's are simply reading from the script without being aware of the scene itself. This really took a point or two for me from the overall score.
They all sound so unoffensive that I was constantly rolling my eyes until it finally broke me and I stopped playing.
They did the classic fantasy trope of having all the good kids and smart teachers sound like middle england private school toffs, whilst the bad guys and poor people sounded like they worked on an East London market stall or lived in the most rural parts of Yorkshire.
It was also rather annoying that it seems like they hired 7 total actors and had them play 40 characters each. I think majority of the female students were the same actress. It took away any shred of individuality some characters did have.
@@magic8beanaha what got me was the voice for the main character witch, is the same voice as the witch that built the repository LoL
@@Jim90117 This comment is so accurate it hurts lol
1:15:46 the biggest thing about Figg I found really lacking was how his wife plays such a massive roll in the backstory of the game but we never actually see her. You don’t even really get the sense that he’s sad that she’s dead? Which felt incredibly strange. And in a world full of magical portraits of dead people you can talk to… Im not sure why she didn’t have a portrait.
Exactly. There's one line he says "I wish she were her to see this" or something, and that's it. He should be on the warpath since it so obvious it must be Ranrok who contributed to her death.
The "evil" headmaster shows more emotion about his dead wife than the "good" professor Fig. Lol
In the beginning because of how blasé he was about this dead wife of his, I was almost convinced that he was my enemy and I was just waiting for his nice professor mask to be ripped off.
We never know why she is so relevant.
@@klaudiagrobit's kinda clued in at the beginning as she was investigating Ranrok bringing attention towards him, also investigating ancient magic (said before you even reach gringotts. he needed her gone
For me, I would have loved more RPG where you get to choose your background. e.g, orphan muggle born or a pure blood Slytherin family etc but start as a 1st year. This will give a chance to experience Hogwarts, the houses, teachers and students until 5th year begins. Maybe typical school stuff, like Bully, where the main character has a rivalry with someone in another house and trying to prove themselves. They build meaningful friendships and Professor Fig could become a mentor to the player because he sees something special within them. This isn't realised until 5th year when the player could stumble across glowing box. Maybe it was on Professor Figs desk?
And yes, for consequences to happen. I was really surprised how easy it was to use the UNFORGIVABLE curses. Like... It would have been great to have a morality chart, which I believe would add a lot more character development and playing as a good or an evil character.
I would also like the character to not be perfect at everything, like Harry, Ron and Hermione all had their own unique strengths. Maybe in 3rd year your head of house could ask what job you would be looking at doing. e.g Auror, Beast keeper, Quidditch player, Herbologist, etc etc etc. That way you could really focus on certain classes, and build up the character you wish to be.
That would be my perfect Hogwarts game.
Let us have butterbeer with our student pals in Hogsmeade with some delicious RP banter!
@@Shishakind86yeah RDR2 is a good example of random banter.
This game is the perfect platform to be inproved further if they are clever. They could work a year on a massive immersion DLC and then charge another 30 bucks for it. Id pay
Breaking that all down, basically you're asking for a Persona-style Harry Potter games
they were lazy to even give us quiditch so even thinking about starting us as first year student seem unlikely with the incompetent devs we have
@@crow_g1639 good luck finding a publisher who throws a billion bucks st you and lets you develop your game for 8 years just so you can have you dream game lmao. The studio did way more in their time and with their budget than most other studios would have accomplished. Its a great game. And quidditch makes no sense anyway. Look up the rules then you see why there are no proper games on it because it makes no sense
The game starts off really strong but the longer you play the worse it gets. In the beginning the classes are cool and immersive, you're running around the castle exploring, getting lost, solving puzzles etc. When you finally get your broom you just spend a while flying around doing random stuff and its really cool, the first 15-20 hours or so are really enjoyable. The combat is fun and feels good so running around the open world isnt the worst thing ever but it gets boring pretty fast. My playthrough was a little over 60 hours and the last 10-15 hours I kind of had to force myself to finish, especially when that last southern section of the map unlocked I couldnt imagine doing anything besides flying right to the quest marker and fast traveling away when the quest is over.
Most of the teachers were interesting, cool backstories and conversations for most of them. Sharp, Hekat, Garlick, Ronan, and Kagawa were the ones I enjoyed the most. Student companions were hit or miss. I really enjoyed all of Poppy's missions, Sebastian's quests were the peak of the game for a while and fell off hard at the end. The difference in how the characters in the game treat you and Sebastian is quite jarring honestly, you get treated like a saint while Sebastian is just the devil incarnate for saving his sister and protecting himself from someone trying to kill us. Natty I found kind of boring I didnt even finish her quests, the person she was going after I honestly forgot who it even was so I wasn't that invested. The poor Ravenclaw kid barely got anything besides showing us the telescope mini-game and coming along for that one mission.
Definitely not a bad game but overall I'd find it difficult to give it higher than a 6/7 out of 10, even as a fan of the books. Fun combat and the castle itself is genuinely amazing but theres still frame rate issues, the open world is way too big and repetitive (Ubisoft vibes), loot system is awful (the transmog is great) and theres no real reason to replay the game. The house you choose doesnt seem to matter and theres no real good or evil paths to mess around with. I honestly haven't even really thought about the game at all since I finished which is kind of sad, hopefully if this studio makes another HP game its more focused on being a student next time around.
Great summary
I also hated the fact you can't interact with NPCs. If I want to crucio and waterboard the 3 broomsticks owner and Deek, let me, yknow?
The games fun at first because you psych yourself up thinking it’ll be a great huge games, but then after a few hours the charm wears off and you realize that they dropped the ball
It gets worse??? Bro I bought the game and so far I’m 5 hours in, just got the flying tutorial done and I’m not gonna lie it’s a weak start of the game in my opinion. I am used to epic intro’s to games like jedi fallen orders intro, gow 4&5 intros so to me this one is very meh. I’m hoping it gets better the more I progress cause I’ll unlock more spells but i think you’re referring to overall gameplay and story and not just combat
i totaly agree, I felt like the stutent experiene was missing, and it hurts the game alot. because thats one of the cores of harry potter, being a student at hogwarts
@@martymcfly88mph35 nah not deek, he was a banger, tho the 3 broomstick owner was anoying
As for professor Fig - he was so underdeveloped and missing from the whole game, I was convinced, he will betray me at the end, as so many situations were like I was sure Fig should be there, but was missing…
The story is total rubbish, wish it was more simulation tbh.
I thought that too!
I saw Sebastian way more than Fig. 😅
Yup, thought that as well for most of the game.
I thought professor Weasley was the secret villain because of all the questions she was asking LoL.
I would REALLY love a more mature/dark character driven narrative harry potter game about a smaller cast of students learning magic, with spells having actual impact - I'd assume most fans of the franchise are 25+ at this point
The broom and wand made this game better then 95% of open world games. I’m sooo burnt out on sword and horse games
Same thing different flavour
@@-pressxtostart-all ice cream is the same thing, but we love different flavors
I need a horse rpg with like breeding and like a whole farm. Trying to save the magical land you've inherited and just something like that
horses do not fly@@-pressxtostart-
@@MetaAceyou are right, that saying is stupid 😂
The only character i was really interested to know more about was ominis gount. Too bad he didnt had an own quest line
This, Ominis was great.
LOL you should have been a Slytherin. Then he will talk to you.
@@MiriamMonroeYes, and he's also very involved in Sebastians questline.
But still, Ominis did deserve more. He's such an interesting character!
He’s actually the grandfather of voldermort .
@@Thebroshow13 I didn't see that one coming.
The game was basically what I expected. AAA open world, no consequences and RPG mechanics as deep as a puddle. But like you said I was one of the people who wanted the world more than anything. I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan but a flushed out world is what keeps me into a game. And the world is 10/10 (castle and hogsmead anyways )
Collectables could have been similar to the older Harry Potter games. Repetitive side quests are also boring.
8/10 being “Good not Great” feels so wrong. I feel like 7/10 is the highest a “Good not Great” game could get
Yea definitely, I feel like Luke's whole number system is completely off. He said it was an 8/10 right at the start, then proceeded to describe a 6/10 experience immediately after.
The number system is so subjective and abstract in its application. It borders on being nearly meaningless.
This number system is completely arbitrary in reviews. It feels like a 5/10 is considered bad when 5/10 should be an average game.
@@Akechifan I agree with ya. 5 is average. 6-7 is “good”, imo.
People often confuse these critiques for objective takes rather than a somewhat thorough subjective account.
One game they should have looked to more for feeling is "Bully." In particular, the experience of simply being a student and attending classes seems very shallow compared to Bully.
Especially since we didn't get a Bully 2, they really should have leaned on the gamability of Bully.
Man I'm glad somebody else said it that had actually been thoughts and I'm only 6 hours jn
I was pretty proud of myself for the potions I brewed
Deek was as well
@@martymcfly88mph35 he was? Damn I wish he let me know! 😂
@@2014Altair I wish we could crucio Deek and the owner/waitress at the 3 broomsticks and the telescope/stargazing student
Wish you could brew moonshine though
@@martymcfly88mph35 whoooaaa where did that come from 😆??
While Im running around Hogwarts Legacy being a badass im always thinking about how Harry will be studying this Goblin Rebellion in History of Magic 100 years later and not retain a single iota of information about it 🥴
I was thinking the same thing😭😂
I enjoyed the one cutscene we got for each professor. Shame there wasnt more than that. Bc the main quest was too boring imo. Omnious Gaunt was a character I was hoping to hangout with, but characters only became relevant if the main plot magically intersected them. Idk, I think I enjoyed the early game the most. It was more appealing for me to be treated as a fellow student and not a wizard who is secretly good at everything.
Right? I would pay good money for a game that's more of an immersive student simulator. Kinda Persona-inspired maybe.
@@mikanchan322 Bully 2 could really be that game. The First game already feels like a student simulator.
One of the problems I had with the game was character motivation. We're told the reason Ranrok has started his rebellion is because goblins are treated like second class citizens, widely distrusted and hated and abused and we see this multiple times throughout the game. Lots of wizards just straight up tell you all goblins are worthy of derision, people give you crap for working with Lodgok and general distrust is expressed through ambient conversation. At NO POINT in the game is this expressed as a problem by any character that isn't a goblin, including your character 😂 you just beat the bad guy and everything goes back to the way it was for goblins and that's the heroic ending lol
Goblins ARE bad because they control the banks and government and newspapers and that's an indisputable fact. They get mad when you point it out as well
the story is bland asf nothing really matter or changes once you beat the generic. boss battle
True but that matches how in the main Harry Potter story there was still an extreme amount of discrimination against goblins for example. But it is true that the story is way too generic and boring, Sebastian's was way more interesting
Agreed that Prof. Fig is underutilized and there only to progress the main story. It’s bad when I don’t even remember what subject he teaches or if it’s even mentioned at all. He has a wife, but other than that he’s all business all the time. Most characters are straight to business and in turn it makes the story feel soulless and without any heart to it. Connecting to characters is the best way to engage someone with any story, and Hogwarts Legacy absolutely fails in that regard. 100% agree with Luke’s assessment.
I think the lack of hogwarts student simulator/rpg features vs the open world adventure game features which we did get in abundance was the biggest issue for me personally. The game literally has "Hogwarts" in the name and Hogwarts dynamics, friendships / rivalries with people, how students relate to the teachers etc are a big part of the Harry Potter books so you'd expect them to be more of a prominent feature in the game...
At the end of the day I still enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy, but it wasn't really the game I wanted.
Sharp and Heckett seemed like total badasses and it would have been awesome to do more with them.
Holy shit your picture just brought back memories I had completely forgotten about. Me and a few friends in high school used to fucking love depth, what a great game that was.
*Hecat
one thing i have to say i was really impressed with was the decoration changes around halloween and christmas. they didn't have to do all of that and there's bows or jack-o-lanterns EVERYWHERE.
Yes I loved it too.
Never played a game I adored so much in its opening hours that turned into such a slog for me to get through. Really wild experience.
Same for me. Idk if I will finish it
Haven't had this experience since ghost of tsushima. Brilliant opening hours. Very tedious latter half
For me the main thing the game failed on was giving you that 'student' feeling. For the majority of the game you're outside of Hogwarts and your house doesn't make much difference apart from one quest. But overall it's a good open world game with fun combat. It just missed that 'be a student at Hogwarts' mark.
That's my main issue as well. This aspect is, to me, the most important of the series, along with deep connections with other people, and I think they missed the mark massively on both these things. I wanted Bully/Persona and I got Assassin's Creed (RPG ones). I'm a huge fan so I really don't understand why so many other fans say this is the HP experience come to life.
There's a great video about this stating that the games core problem is that it doesn't know whether to be a student sim or an openworld rpg and ends up doing neither very well.
@@damgful Same for me! I don't really want Wizards Creed, I want a student simulator + mystery solving! Combat, gear and open world freedom are not the priorities for a HP game, I feel.
@@mikanchan322 I think the 4 core elements of the series are relationships, student life, mystery (as you mentioned) and a whimsical world. I feel like the game only did the last one kinda well, and it only hitting 1 out of 4 aspects is probably why it didn't do it for me.
@@damgful That's a great analysis! I do wonder if they sat down before making this game and thought about the core qualities of HP and how to bring those in to a game. To me it seems like they just decided to make an open world rpg and all their other decisions came from there.
2:12:30 Yup, the ridiculously small inventory space was my biggest gripe in the whole game. Second biggest was no actual when you dash or roll away from attacks(especially HOMING troll smash)
Honestly once you get to level 30 you have absolutely no use for anything except legendary gear. So all the greens, Blues, and Purples are pretty much useless and fill up your space fast.
I really miss sneaking around Hogwarts at night (used to play HPaCoS on PS2). It was so much fun! They could make a curfew and implement a little guest for the Floo lady. If you do her quest she will let you use Floo at night so you can avoid prefects and professor so people who wanna sneak around can and those who don't can just floo where they want and skip sneak sections entirely.
Jacob needs to start a music career. As Dobby's theme absolutely slaps. Great video as always. Can see all the hard work that went into it. 👍
Was he also responsible for the broom racing theme? I always found myself humming that melody during those gameplay sections. It was perfect for portraying the feeling of freedom and flying.
Sequel idea: An actual companion system could give the game way more replay value. Give us the four characters, one for each house, but only allow us to pick two as our close friends for each play through. This gives us different interactions and quest lines for each run depending on who we pick. Also, allow us to bring them along while free roaming.
I wanted this so bad!!!!
Apparently, there is a companion mode when you're playing on pc, and it seems to be part of the coding of the game in general, but it was scrapped along the way and now it's not available for any other consoles. Really would've loved this! After finishing the main game and trying to get it to 100%, it get's really tiring really fast when you're roaming around, doing Merlin trials etc. while you're on your own. Having one or two friends with you could totally improve this imo
@@clarimm6675 I played thru on pc and didn’t see a companion system at all
I like this idea. Better than being alone 95% of the time.
After learning Crucio in Sebastian's quest line, I thought we'd face 3 trials from Salazar Slytherin, each requiring one of the Unforgivable Curses to survive. I thought it would lead to a morally ambiguous choice between; learning Avada Kedavra to kill Sebastian (who willingly sacrifices himself), or Sebastian murdering Ominis with the curse (who was refusing to take part), and a third choice when you and Sebastian Duel using the curse to decide who dies (a call back to when you both first met in class).
I was disappointed with the actual quest line, to say the least.
I also thought that was where it was going, god forbid there be tangible consequences of using the unforgivable curses though lol
Sebastian's quest was the least of the problems with the game
@@vignotum132 Probably, but I know I got my moneys worth with the features of the game so I don't think it matters that it wasn't some perfect gods gift to earth, I think it was everything I saw advertised and it released very stable and in a mostly complete state for me which is more than can be said for a lot of games being released at the time.
@@Morhan_Jehnez I love the game, but story-wise, Sebastian’s was the most well-written, especially with the relationship with Ominis. The Ancient Magic thing was pretty boring, especially in comparison
@@vignotum132 I agree Sebastians story was the most compelling for me as well, it just didn't go in the direction or hit the story notes I thought it would.
Also the Ancient Magic is a sort of cliche 'chosen one' trope. So I understand how it could be boring. I enjoyed it more because I just felt like I was reading a childrens storybook, though it wasn't particularly nuanced.
I genuinely think it's a brilliant game and hits the beats of a fairytale well, the mechanics are all pretty good as well although shockingly similar to the recent AC games lol.
It wasn't anything revolutionary though, it was just well designed and detailed. I guess I'd call it reliable, it does work it's just doesn't set itself too far apart from everything else.
1:27:30 this game felt like it was built around a morality system and character relationship system like what Mass Effect 1 had. Something basic and based on how often you went out of your way to interact with certain people. But then they just didn’t put it in the final game.
i couldn't bother finishing it, quit after 22 hours. i think the main problem is that i played too many videogames and hogwarts added absolutely nothing new, they recycled a bunch of boring mechanics that i've seen a thousand times. the open world felt exhausting to me, i've done 3 puzzles and i already knew what's coming in the next 100 of them. you giving it an 8/10 really took me by surprise. i'd give it a 6 at most. if you're not into videogames, only harry potter and this is one of your first videogames this might be an 11/10 experience for you and i'm not denying that, but yea wasn't for me
i forgot to mention the thing that pissed me off the most, no consequences story-wise, you can pick whatever dialogue, be a cunt to whoever you want and you'll get the same ending. even the curses have 0 consequences. i didnt expect telltale level of story writing but im so dissapointed in what they made
same..we are just getting older
Good post. Most overrated game in years. AngryJoe the shill gave it a 10, I couldn't believe it. The loot system alone makes it less than a 10. Like yes, it should get bonus points for making twitter activists go insane (that's always fun IMO) but it's still nowhere near a 10.
The game experience would have been increased significantly if they had just allowed Alohamora to open locks without the mechanic (at most they should have made it so the spell auto opens locks that are below your current spell level, so once you have it full upgraded you just have to do the mechanic for level 3 locks not ALL of them)
How do you have the time to stream everyday, edit and upload videos, play all the games you do, write 4 hour critiques, and spend time with your family?..I am impressed with your work ethic and enjoy your content.
He’s a beast that’s why
He hires people to work for him
@@D..S.. im surebhe gets help, but even with help hes juggling alot and deserves his props. I love seeing hardworking people
Team
@@Praxss who cares if he has a team? Doesn’t take away the fact that he puts in work. He wouldn’t be where is he today without is hard work & dedication.
Once I learned about the change appearance feature in the game I started selling all my gear besides what I was wearing and I actually started to really like it. I liked the fact that once you found a item of clothing you can change to that appearance while keeping you upgrades on the gear you already have on.
Literally wish this was a thing in other games oh my god I felt so silly in those dragon goggles until I could change the appearance
I walked around in a full-face mask with a clown hat for 30 hours before I realized I can hide them
I got bored halfway through and stopped playing.
for me, the most frustrating thing was how impossible it was to immerse into the game. I was like: okay, I am a 15 year old student, let's act alike one. But then... oh, I can barely talk to other students... oh, I can't attend school anymore... oh, I guess I am strangely good at everything even though I just started using magic... Do all students have to fight Goblins? ...wait, am I killing these people? ... wait, am I the bad guy?!
I tried to spin a narrative around it by wearing a mask while being out adventuring, kinda living a double life.
What I'm trying to say is that it's hard to play a role game when the game doesn't encourage or even respond to your role.
Big HP fan here. I give it a solid 7/10. Wish they’d gone deeper into the ancient magic, also wasn’t happy with the broom controls. But overall it was a fun game. The studio looks like it’s destined to do great things.
I give it 6 and I haven't finished it yet, I value story the most in games so being such an incoherent boring mess was unforgivable.
What didn't you like about the broom controls? Once I had gotten good enough at flying to beat that Slytherin character (can't remember her name) in the time trials and fully upgraded my broom, I found the controls to be about as good as anyone could ask for. By the time you're good enough to win those races, you're probably a pretty good flyer in general and have the controls down pat, especially considering those time trials only really allow one or two mistakes in the whole run in order to be able to still win. What are your issues with it?
@@STSGuitar16 I think I tried to hover in the air and move the camera around to look what was around me, but couldn’t do it without the broom moving along as well. Maybe this was a first month bug and has been fixed now, definitely wasn’t fixed back then.
@@abhiramboralkar5782 Oh, that actually reminded me of a similar issue I had with it but forgot about. I don't like that you can't look down while on the broom. Trying to move the camera to be able to see what's right below you just makes the broom go down instead, and that was actually pretty annoying at times.
At first I also had a bit of trouble getting the hang of the directional controls, and I actually do wish they would have let you customize the flight controls to some degree. For example, I have flown a lot of RC airplanes and helicopters before so I was kinda used to having the elevation and the turning left/right controls being on the same "joystick" like you may find with a RC plane, so having those two directions assigned to your two different joysticks (on a standard game controller like xbox) threw me off for a while. But like I said before, by the time I was good enough to win those time trials I had basically gotten the initially odd flight controls more or less nailed down. Luckily it's to the point now where I don't really have to think about it too much and am just able to control the broom pretty intuitively.
But yeah, the camera movement controls aren't great while flying. They could easily fix it, too. If the elevation and turn left/right controls were assigned to the same joystick like you usually find on a RC airplane controller, you could probably have some better camera movement options that weren't available with the control layout in this game.
All in all, they do have a fantastic broom flight platform in this game that they will be able to really build off of, improve, and perfect in future games; especially since quidditch will almost certainly be a part of future games in this franchise. Despite its few flaws, broom flight is still one of my favorite things to do in HL.
@@STSGuitar16 you captured it perfectly in the first few lines. I want to hover in the air and look around 360 degrees without the broom moving along. And yes, flying on the broom is still one of my favourite things to do in the game. I can’t remember how many times I jumped off a high spot and hopped on to the broom mid air. Fun fun fun. You know something, I really wish they make Dumbledore the main character in future games and we explore a badass young Albus 😁
I’m still salty there’s so many spiders. Like, I’m phobic, I can’t complete the game without help in certain quest lines, and then find out dementor models were made then used for 15 SECONDS?! Bruh
Literally has an arachnophobia mode in settings.
It would've been great if the story changed a bit depending which house are you in, also they give you almost every time two type of answers (good or evil) and it doesn't change anything.
I would love updates with Quiddich, Patronus Charm, Dementors, Azkaban, new Beasts (Mythical like Basilisk), "Bounty Hunter system" for dark wizards, there is so much room for future Dlc's
Also it would be good to save slots for outfit sets. A morality system. Being able to talk in Hogwarts with studens so I can feel like part of the class.
Not being able to go around the castle at night like in the movies (So you'd have sneak to leave the castle)
Another thing I felt was that the world doesn't really feel alive, there is a lot going on but it's meaningless and repetitive, the NPC's are awfull and how the camera works when you talk with them really breaks the inmersion for me.
My biggest complaint is that you feel like a god in this world, there's no consecuences whatsoever, you master every spell in less than a year of school. Being able to know the 3 Unforgivable Curses in less than a year is crazy op, I understand that it's a game and you can't be lore accurate all the time, but I think that people would've love to play more and more to get this kind of spells, maybe wait a extra year of school or something like that.
The game has SO MUCH potential to be great, almost perfect, but it has fallen short I think.
Anyway I don't think they are gonna implement any of this, maybe Quidditch and that's it, because it would be a lot for an update, in Hogwarts Legacy 2 we might see this type of stuff.
I haven't played the game, are Dementors in it?
@@TheZanzibarMan Only in a 2 minutes cutscene if u play as a Hufflepuff
An 8/10 being “good but not great” is CRAZY
The game does give an in-world explanation for starting Hogwarts as a fifth year: It is a quirk of being able to see ancient magic (The 2 other ancient magic "users" also started in their fifth year).
Kind of yes. But that is not an explanation.
We still don't know WHY. Do people who use ancient magic start exhibiting magical propertirs later on in their life?
Did the teachers think it's better for them to start of school later when they are more mature?
Another thing that bugged me about the Merlin trials is, that you have to "activate" them first and cant simply do them on the fly.
Imagine that in Zelda you have to activate every single coroc challenge with some kind of resource. Everyone would hate this
Yep early on in the game I found myself running out of Mallosweet pretty often, to the point that I started buying it every time I could and setting up a farm just for that specifically in the room of requirement. Nothing worse than seeing a merlin trial on the map, going towards it only to find out you don't have any mallosweet and can't do it.
I was more bugged by the Merlin cut scene every time you finish , that you can't skip.
Too Bad we didn't get someone from Ravenclaw to complete some quests with. I mean like with Sebastian, Poppy and Natsai...
i mean, i guess there’s amits astrology stuff
I loved Harry Potter so this was a dream game...until I played it. I play lots of games (top games being MM, Disco Elysium, Journey, RDR2, Cyberpunk 2077, etc) I don't usually play "plot based games" but when I do they tend to be the best in the business (solid but only once or twice exceptional)...so I'm not used to bad plot in videogames (plenty of mid-tier writing in Bethesda games or pretty good stuff like in the GOW franchise, with the top eschelon being CDPR...specifically their work in 2077 is next fucking level) and haven't really exposed myself to it in awhile. Then this game happened, and holy shit it's the worst thing I've seen plot wise in AGES. You've got goblins that want rights but we are supposed to want them dead? No nuance, just "they kill people so FUCK THEM" when in reality imagine saying that about civil rights or slavery? Like I'm fucking sorry, that's grotesque. We are talking about a people LITERALLY SUBJUGATED WHO CANNOT USE THE ONLY THING THAT GIVES ANYONE POWER IN THEIR UNIVERSE. None of this is interrogated. Rockwood is just bad, the villain is bad, the characters they throw in to die are ok but again...why is "they die" the only ending to every good character in this game? It's so one-note and repetitive. You have the companion quests which are...um...fine, C tier minimum viable plotting. Not bad, but so deeply inoffensive and boring I'm rolling my eyes.
Ancient Magic is a chosen one narrative WITHIN a chosen one narrative (to have magic is already chosen one in this universe), stupid. The ancient magic fortresses look like the most generic fantasy dungeon shit I've ever seen. The Dungeons sucked, the only good one was the book that was all in pencil drawn style.
And the plot being fucking garbage is the tip of the iceberg. The game should have cut the entire countryside...the castle was so deeply underutilized. The story there was entirely lifeless, teachers were archetypes not people, and the castle felt like a puzzlebox...not a place.
The "Harry Potter +1/2" Imo for me barely laneded it at a 7, and between having to stomach bad combat design and cutscenes...man did I love walking around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. Otherwise? Filler...filler everywhere, empty level design, bad puzzle design (90% are just "press button get prize"), bad plot, unbalanced and tuned combat, unthoughtful world and level design (Hogwarts is 90% hallways and atriums that are just connected to hallways, wtf? Where are the classrooms? There are like maybe 8 classrooms for a school of 1000 kids? lol WHAT!? Imagine if your High School had 8 classrooms!?)
I think the concept of this game is still valid, even if it WEREN'T Harry Potter...a wizarding AAA game is totally something we need. There just aren't games focused around MAGIC in this way.
Unlike games like Elden Ring where magic is just a variation on a bow and arrow with a different damage type...this game puts magic where it SHOULD be...in the Breath of the Wild "puzzlebox and environmental gameplay" zone of combat.
However, it just isn't actually good. Too few enemy types, little to no reason to use the environment other than spamming the throw object button, and items were so poorly balanced if you ACTUALLY use them the game has zero challenge whatsoever.
Im hoping they tune down items, make things like potions and herbology and actual PLAYSTYLE and not a get out of jail free card/gimmick.
They need to reduce enemy spam and make combat more intentional between me and a few people. The enemy spam was aggresious, like RDR2 without headshot 1-tap kills.
Herbologists should have been this game's "summoner class" but instead of it was just faceroll. None of the animals or things were even really tied into a playstyle.
Also it has one of the most HEINOUSE designs for "the new player experience" I've ever encountered. It took me 10 hours to get to the FUCKING SKILL TREE. That's ridiculous.
Great summary, couldn't agree more. Huge lifelong HP fan, severely disappointed with how easy reviewers went on this game. AngryJoe the DNC shill gave it a 10... a 10!!!
Yeah getting to the skill tree took me like 10 hour too. Wtf??
Great video! I very strongly disagree with what you said about Poppy's quest line though. I'm not sure if you made some different dialogue choices than me maybe, but later on in the quest line she reveals a pretty significant part of her backstory that really changed my view on her and gave her a lot of character development and especially a strong motivation. It's very strange you didn't mention this at all, makes me think your character never heard this piece of dialogue which is quite unfortunate!
Yeah, I liked Poppy a lot. After Sebastian, who was the heart of the game for me, Poppy was my #2 girl.
Yeah I was wondering this too. I have no idea how he thought Natty and Sebastian were so interesting but Poppy wasn't. It honestly makes me wonder if he just skipped the dialogue in her quest or something
If the immersion had been cranked to the absolute maximum, this game might have become one of my favorites of all time.
As a HP fan this is a 6/10, the most mediocre game of the year so far. If I wasn't a fan it might get extra points, but as a fan this is a massive dissapointment. You pretty much don't attend classes, your character isn't even in the cutscenes that constitutes as a calss. You don't roleplay as a student, your house means nothing other than the color of your robes. You can't even collect house points even though sometimes they say you earned points.
Also the open world outside of the castle is boring as hell I just flew over most of the empty lifeless world most of the time (I did end up crossing every marker off the map at the end). The loot system is also trash, once you have good gear it's pointless to open chests until you level up again since you mainly get garbage that's multiple levels below what you already have or just the same level you already equiped.
While the castle itself is pretty cool to explore and I did enjoy it, there's no reason to learn it's layout, since you can just teleport everywhere.
The story is also another generic boring chosen one saves the world story instead of just a normal school life simulator that most fans would have wanted.
Could someone explain how can there be so many villages in the open world sorrounding Hogwarts if Hoghsmead is supposed to be the only wizzard only village in the country?
Did they allow us to skip every part of the story out of the kindness of their hearts OR because they knew the story was sub-par? I watched the first 1/3 of the story and skipped the last 2/3 and just had fun with the combat.
i imagine luke having his expectations/skepticism chart when he is deciding on what to order in line at mcdonald's
Dude, McDonald´s requires a good 4-hour breakdown lol.
@@Sandlund93 😹we need him to do this
i dont agree with your take on 3:09:10 the argument that they cant touch the harry potter stuff in terms of story so they may as well not even try and keep the story lightweight is not satisfactory to me. they have all the material they need to make the charters more interesting and make the story better but they chose not to. after 6+ years of waiting on this game i feel like we deserve better in that regard.
Has to be a max 7/10 game for me, poor story, decent gameplay, okay open world, poor dialogue, decent side quests
The room of requirement ended up being probably my favorite aspect of the entire the game-- followed by the intricately crafted castle (which brought to life so many beautiful details and references from the books) and the simple yet surprisingly fun and intuitive combat system.
I'm pretty sure the room of requirement is now my favorite player home/base of any open-world game I've ever played. I spent hours in game just playing around with crafting items and decorating my room to make my ideal gothic castle/mage's library aesthetic, and I just love how the room expands and new mechanic unlock as you make you're way through the main campaign; the vivariums alone gave me several hours of very wholesome fun-- and I love how each one was based around a different and unique biome/environment.
Ikr I keep checking on all my animals and end up in there for a couple of hours crafting stuff
As a non-HP fan this game didn’t really impress me. It kept my attention for a solid 10 hours but neither the story nor the exploration hooked me enough to keep going, and there’s not enough unique side activities akin to a yakuza game so for me it’s a 6/10. Also, i remember seeing an ad about how you can become a dark wizard, which seems to be really misleading since there is no morality system, there are simply spells that you are not “supposed” to use but there are no consequences if you use them all the time.
1:05:24 even patronous choices would’ve been another layer of customization. I’m hoping for an exponential class based system of spell learning based learning n what classes you actually attend (including darker extracurriculars to get bad)
It is an okay game that I had to push myself through to justify spending $70.
If you had to force yourself to push through it in order to justify the $70 cost of it to yourself, then I would say thatfor you personally it was not even an okay game.. haven't played myself and prob even will not if I can't get my hands on series x in the future but for me, if I have to force myself to play something it is a sign I do not enjoy it one bit so I just don't play it and go trade it for something else I might have good time with..
@@elitereptilian200 The game is really good. Especially if you like Harry Potter. They have done a wonderful job with this game. So much clothes, great music, probably the best interior designs and attention to detail I’ve ever seen. Fantastic graphics and combat. A very interesting story as well with all side missions feeling weighty and relevant. And a stunning world to Explore. There is so much value. It is easily worry even 100 bucks.
@studentstudent5044 We must not be playing the same game. The hogwarts castle and open world are very well designed and interesting, and the spell casting is cool. The story though is just plain boring. The main character has no emotion and is very monotone about everything. Some major events are laughable with how your character reacts. The side quests are extremely boring and are usually just fetch quests or killing something. They don't develop any characters in the game and don't show what school life is like at hogwarts at all. The only interesting side story was Sebastions. Outside of the main quest is just a giant collect-a-thon with over 600 collectibles and no real reason to collect most of them. The room of requirement is cool but gets old fast and doesn't really add any longevity to the game after you beat it. Honestly, the game is average at best.
@@thechris932100 Well the character has a voice and a look that you chose. So ofc it’s not gonna be as smooth as a fixed character. But they did a very good job and making your own character feel like an actual person. Literally Every side quest is unique dude. There are games where you literally do the exact same thing Every time. That is not at all the case here. With Every side quest you meet a new character and they added enough diologue options so that you can actually learn about the characters. And the game has alot of replay value. Chose a different house and you’ll meet different people and get to do different story missions. The game is just well crafted and the world is alive and feels very natural. The game is easily an 9 or 10 dude I’m sorry to break it to you. And you’re in the minority here. People are saying it’s amazing cause it is amazing.
@studentstudent5044 Choosing your voice was a bad decision. All it does is adjust the pitch. I don't think they did a good job at making your character feel like a real character at all. The side quests are also definitely not unique at all. It's just boring busy work like finding someone's Nifler or finding their dead relative or killing some spiders/poachers/goblins. There is nothing at all that develops the characters you meet. I couldn't tell you a single difference between the merchant's that give you their list of chores to complete. The students are also extremely boring, and the game doesn't allow you to experience the student life that could and should have been expanded on. Bully captured student life 100 times better than this game could ever hope to. They crafted an awesome world but forgot to fill it with fun and memorable experiences. It's definitely just an average game.
I didn’t even realize fig died until later when they said something like “for professor fig!” While fighting someone…
Watching it so far, I feel like your 8/10 rating is highly generous, I'll hear you out and comment/critique underneath as I continue watching it
Arguably, one of HL's biggest flaws is it's setting.
Fans of Harry Potter love it for the characters, more than the magic. I believe that's why the Fantastic Beast films haven't been nearly as successful.
In the series, the castle itself is a character - granted - but in the game, it rings hollow. Yes, you can awe at the various features you recognise, the references; but it's all just as superficial as watching Rey hand Luke Skywalker his old lightsaber.
So when you have a Hogwarts game in the 1880's - there's no Dumbledore, no Hagrid, no hateable teachers like Snape, no real rival students like Malfoy.
As far as Wizarding World goes, that's half the world-building gone.
The game has a short-lived novelty in magic combat, attending 'classes' disguised as a vehicle for unlocking new spells, and flying around on a broom - but it lacks the character depth that would really flesh out the roleplaying aspect.
The teachers have minimal personality, as do the other students. You arrive at age 15, and not 11, denying you a boat-trip moment. You are also sent to Hogsmeade as an afterthought, also denying you a Diagon Alley moment. You didn't even arrive to school via Platform 9 3/4. Your house and house points don't matter, and quidditch doesn't exist.
Pretty much every imagination, every idle day-dream that a millennial could have had - growing up with the books, or the movies, and imagining their own letter at age 11 - is sadly not reflected in this game. It's a reasonably unsophisticated RPG with a Harry Potter flavouring.
I'm not necessarily proposing that the game should task you with studying in the library for an essay - but if it had, I'd feel much more immersed in the experience.
Great job with the video. I love how you make even a 4-12h videos entertaining all the way and they never get boring. Keep up the good work.
I think having the story take a 2nd-person perspective could’ve been really interesting.
Like, if YOUR character was the Ron/Hermione equivalent to the game’s Harry equivalent and *your choices* had consequences on *their* life; shaping them into either a hero, dark lord, or somewhere in-between.
Kind of like the Sebastian subplot, but if *he* was the one with the Ancient Magic power.
The game's castle section is a 10/10, however, it is also a house of cards as anything beyond this area (excluding Hogsmead) just feels like your typical Ubisoft world filled with filler. I think if they went with a more focused story like RDR2 or witcher 3, this game would have been a true masterpiece.
Being a Harry Potter fan doesn’t make a boring game suddenly exciting!
One man's boring is another man's excitement. It's subjective.
Exactly. The story is like a weird boring mismanaged mess. Completely ruins the world of Harry potter. Makes it seem like Disney land ride or something.
I mean, it literally does for a fair few people. Being a massive fan of something since childhood does that
I felt more over the loss of a loud mouth blue dwarf than I did over the loss of my teacher and mentor, just saying.
I understand excusing a lackluster story/character development from a game that isn't focused on those things and exists in a genre that doesn't fit with, like a sports game or fighting game even. But this is an RPG, and those elements are core pillars of the genre. It doesn't work to simply dismiss criticism of the game because "that's not what they were going for." They are the weakest parts of this game and the reason, especially as a lover of the HP world, I would SUBTRACT a point or two from the game's score, not add to it. If this game is an 8/10, I would subtract at least one point for the fact that it leans way too heavily into nostalgia to carry what is otherwise a very lackluster RPG
*might contain spoilers* a few gripes with the game are that for me personally, i found the relationship quests (Sebastian, Natti and Poppy’s quests) a lot more compelling than the main story imo. i get the game is aimed for 12+ (in the U.K.) so they can’t go TOO complex with the story but i just felt more gravitated towards those quests much more than the main story.
i’m in agreement that the gear system sucks because you shouldn’t have to grind those Merlin trials just to make space in your gear inventory. i also wish the gear was more diverse - can’t tell you the amount of times i got multiples of the same stuff but different levels. i feel i’d prefer a choice based loot system where you get to the chest, get to see what the item is BEFORE picking it up and then deciding whether you want it or not to save on space for cooler, higher level gear?
a minor thing that i wanted was for the enemies to be affected by the events of the end of the game after you defeat Ranrok because when getting into fights with enemies post-completion, their dialogue still mentions stuff like “you won’t be able to stop Ranrok” (paraphrasing but you get what i mean). it just felt odd to me.
i also agree with rating the game 8/10 because also as a HP fan, i thought it was a great game for the fans but still could be things ironed out to make it that 9 or even 10/10!
one last thing for now, the barrier system when mounted baffles me. i wish you could land that little bit closer to Hogsmede without being told you can’t go further while mounted. and trying to figure out a route to further afield on the map, such as the coastal areas when travelling from day Hogwarts isn’t straightforward as you have to sort of go around everything instead of cutting straight through and making the journey shorter. (oh and we didn’t see enough of the Headmaster, i wanted more of him!)
ive heard some people say that if they wanted to make this game better, they couldve followed the model set by bully. like a whole hogwarts school sim.
nah the story is bland asf they need a whole revamp also most of the characters dont have personalities apart from Sebas and ominus all the other students and teachers whole personality revolves around asking for your help and getting you in trouble
quite frankly. Its about a 6/10 at best.
TLDR:
They nailed the environments. Hogwards. Hogsmeet. the world. everything really. is amazing. its Peak immersion. Its like you're there. Same with the music. and the sound and effects. Really REALLY good. ( except the voice overs. the mixing is atrocious. the reverb doesn't work half the time and they all sound like they were recording from home and eating the mic)
But then we get to the story. and the content. and that's just fricking bad.
Your character is basically an anime chosen one marry sue. Everyone loves her. Everyone lives for her. She cant do wrong. there is no conflict in her arc with peers. the closest you get to character development in the entirety of content is the slithery guy story line.
Like you're a 5th year student out of nowhere, with no prior experience, and you just cannot fail and are at powerlevel 9000.
And it just goes from there. You don't have that core group of friends. you don't have the other characters filling in for your shortcomings. etc etc. also the story pacing is a mess, the way you unlock quests, and stuff requires filler content that's just attached to have it.
Long story short: they nailed the setting. they nailed harry potters sound, music and world. But they failed at writing and open world content.
I hope they make a sequel. really do. and now, that they have a world. they can spend like 3 or 4 years on writing the best story and characters of all time
It's interesting to consider canon within the creation of the game, are they intending to add to the larger wizarding world with a story canon to the whole. If so, this will affect the story and customization largely. As someone who has read the hp books multiple times, the attention to detail is extraordinary. There were aspects to Hogwarts, where lessons are held etc that are only mentioned a few times that are done correctly. The amount of work put into the world building in keeping with the og is astonishing.
Just want to say the introduction to this was great. You got right to the point, giving us a solid review while keeping us engaged to find out what’s ahead in the video. Amazing work on everything up to this point!
The thing about the romance option debacle is, I'm pretty sure they have it in the mobile game. There's a mobile game that came out before legacy and while not as graphically intense, you still get to explore hogwarts and the surrounding world and build relationships with other students and if I'm remembering correctly they have romance options. So they could do it in the mobile game but not this one which is odd to me.
Doesn’t give his moral views. Unsubscribing how dare you not peer pressure me into thinking like you
I thoroughly enjoyed this game, and I believe it is a very solid foundation for the games to come. There are a lot of changes to be made things to add, and mechanics to refine, but as far as an initial release, hopefully, in a franchise, I think this was solid.
nah this game is a solid 6
Sebastian’s storyline was the only one that kept me engaged. Even then there were questionable elements to it. The rest, including the main story, were forgettable, just there to facilitate the awesome gameplay. Love the game, but the story is subpar even for the Harry Potter series.
Sebastians story was the most compelling, but it was still undercooked imo. There are some real powerful emotional moments in there that are undercut by the games pacing and some of the dialogue (why is Ominis supposedly super stubborn about the dark arts but we talk to him once and convince him to go along with it... multiple times?)
Absolutely. By no means did I mean that Sebastian’s story was great, even good for that matter, just more memorable than all the other sludge. And yeah, the constant dialogue reiterating the same points over and over again was tedious at best and frustrating the rest of the time. Dialogue with the lady who introduces you to the Merlin trials (I forgot her name) essentially boils down to the player responding with answers such as, “Sounds interesting,” or “Sounds intriguing,” or “Sounds fascinating.” It sounds like I might be paraphrasing but those were pretty much back-to-back options given for the player to answer in a single scene. Same goes for most of the random NPC characters out in the world. Uninspired, bland, cookie-cutter writing-especially for the player character who is just so generic.
Hello from the future. A bug I’m still experiencing in the game (Ravenclaw, playing on switch, I downloaded it in March ‘24) is that the lumos frame near the history of magic classroom, the moth is supposed to be near the sphinx statue and it just doesn’t show up, and when I started a second run of the game in Slytherin, it wasn’t bugged at all.
Another thing I don’t really like is that after you complete the main story, the castle is so much emptier than it was during the “school year”. I know the main quests are over and I’ve also done all the side quests but it would still be nice to have more students walking around and the great hall still have the food set up and such. It just looks so empty and lonely
Nobody makes critiques like Luke, can’t wait to spend the day listening to this
i think the developers were looking at games like breath of the wild or skyrim when they should have been studying high school simulators like persona LOL
I’ll have to find time to watch this, as well, 4 hours is a lot of time HAHA but I am very excited too! Thanks for all the great work you do Luke! :)
Professor Weasley looks just like my mom. Even my kids said "it's grandma!". If she had rounder glasses, it'd be like a mirror image.
I found it odd that I couldn't cast any spell while I was mounting my broom and it would have been great to be able to grab enemies and drop them while flying with the Hippogriff !
I frickin loved this game and yes, I am VERY biased because of my love to HP. Nevertheless, you touched some good points that I hope they add/correct in the sequel. Kudos for the 4 hour script and editing btw!
Also, Luke... I say this with all possible love and affection, but *I do not care about changes in your shirt.* I'm here to hear about the game.
Poppy got an excellent story; she is the daughter of poachers and escaped. While searching for dragons she got even recognized. She is going to dedicate her life to animals and protecting them. This storyline was great.
I always find it funny how hard Luke tries to convert his subjective critique to something objective 😂
The line chart that he likes to bring up always makes me laugh 😂 16:42
Like come on bro
Overall, I like more of Luke's content than I dislike it, but there's always a few things that grates a bit on me with him. One of those is, he often seems to imply that he is coming from a more "objective" place than others - which he doesn't. His constant use of the word "sceptical" does become a bit comical at times - I have a feeling that that he thinks that being a sceptic also means that he is more objective, but that is never the case when making opinion pieces like this, of course. Also, he has a tendency to meander on some of his points and repeats himself often - examples here would be the part about adding or subtracting points from his score of 8 and, as Rufus here has also mentioned, his line chart.
But he does seem like a passionate and charismatic guy who loves gaming and have interesting insights about the gaming industry. He is dedicated to his work here on UA-cam and seems to come from an honest place which I appreciate.
I was like okay I'm curious, I'll see what rigorous methods he uses to be as objective as possible. Then he bought out the line and just claimed he starts in the middle lol 😂
No hate, I still like hearing his thoughts but of course they're subjective.
"I'm just reviewing as if this game released in a vacuum"...
Bro, that's DELUSION.
I get it, try to be objective, but you can't and your attempts to "cleanse yourself" only further subjectifies the experience because you make subjective decisions about what elements of an artform are part of that experience and what aren't...due to your OWN value system and what you FEEL is agreed upon.
He needs to stop presenting himself as anything more than just another reviewer.
We didn't go to Roger Ebert because he was OBJECTIVE...we went because of his taste, his clarity of language, and his humor. Not to mention his clarity of language and ability to present meaningful reviews in a sea of FLUFF words and meaningless poetics in the review sphere.
@@magvad6472yeah but he makes money as his only income by shitting on games and presenting himself as a Expert
thank you for this detailing review, it was really enjoyable.
i want to add something i see doesn't bug many people: i have the greatest issue with a quest about Deek's elf friend. we go to the location, we slaugher many enemies, we see the dead body and all we do is leave immediately 'yep, he's dead, whatever'. where are the funerals???? or something like this??? you can't just leave someone's dead body where it was when you've come to get it in the first place???
nah, they should have done more with the characters and story. make itmore about the story than just an open world sandbox game and make it an actual magic wizarding world game
I definitely LOVED the game when I first started playing it, but after I completed it… it became a lot less compelling. The fact that no decision you make can ever actually affect your path (besides house choice which only affects one quest and your clothes,) the fact that the combat is SO easy even on the hardest mode (and I’m an easy mode gamer most of the time,) the fact that almost all of the clothing options are hideous and don’t have unique effects, the fact that chests contain so many repetitive clothing pieces with just one more stat point instead of things like ingredients, more money, resources that you could sell??? Idk it feels lacking compared to other open world RPGs. I recently completed the Witcher 3 and I’ve played breath of the wild probably 8 times all the way thru, and this game felt like the baby version of both. Also this is minor but the player characters hair is very distracting. The lighting model on it makes it stand out from everything else in the game and most of the colours don’t fit into the world at all.
Tbh, this game is so mid (imo not an 8/10) that I literally forgot I played it for like 40 hours, after starting the RE4 Remake. Cool Harry Potter stuff, hollow and shallow game design & story.
Yeah crazy how a game so mid is so overwhelmingly positively received.
Felt like I was playing a Ubisoft game
@@yuhantao1713 Because of the Harry Potter aspects and the combat is pretty good. Take the affinity for the IP away and it's just a generic open world game.
Could have been smaller and more in depth of the wizarding and Hogwarts aspects with a better story.
Also from what I've seen the people who really love it tend to not really play video games. Not saying that's bad but it shows the standards
@@yuhantao1713 Agreed
Same, hit the 40 hour mark and haven’t touched it since. Only just received my flying mount and I never went back..
Thank you for mentioning persona 5 in the video. I couldn't put my finger on why I was so disappointed by the student life sim being missing from the game but you made me realize it: I have played personas 3,4 and 5. I was expecting wizarding persona.
Did anybody else play for dozens of hours, not even finishing the main story, and just never go back? Or was it just me?
because the main story is trash
3:14:25 "i find it emotionally taxing.... she's trying to give him a life" and then Luke proceeds to crucio the shit outta him
Have zero intentions of ever playing this game. But I’m here for the critique!!! Appreciate your hard work
My main problem with the game was that I felt alone and detached from other students. A companion system would be great for sure, I loved the quests with Sebastian, Poppy and Natsai. Also the world around could've felt more alive, the npcs were too npc-like and I found the voice acting underwhelming for the most part.
Especially coming from Baldur's Gate 3 to play this, these issues were really highlighted for me.
I give this game a 5/10. Or a 6/10 at most. As a huge Harry Potter fan since the late 90s, I've been quite disappointed with the game.
The story was very weak in my opinion. And it didn't fit into the so far known Harry Potter lore.
What's the background of the lead character? Why is no one asking them *why* they only started in 5th year? Everyone mentions it in the game, everyone says how unusual it is, but no one asks the protagonist what they did before and why they only started this late.
The diversity felt forced and didn't feel natural in that setting - we are talking 1880s Great Britain here. If the game was set today, yeah, totally fine with the diversity, but here? Didn't fit one bit. Except for Indian students.
The side characters were bland and their quests were... meh. Mostly fetch quests.
The graphics were amazing in itself, but the faces of the characters looked liveless.
The voice actors (German dub) were also quite disappointing, especially of the female lead.
Exploring Hogwarts was nice at first, but got boring after a while.
I'm not a fan of games which gives me choices and in the end, the choices barely make any differences or barely lead to different consequences.
Etc...
All in all, a mediocre game in my opinion.
Yeah, that just came across freaking comical to me. Oh another Asian?? Oh myyy