Game Review - Hogwarts Legacy

Game Review: Hogwarts Legacy by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Brothers Games
Score: +11/-7

The generosity of the Epic Games Store in their weekly and Christmas giveaways inspired us to pre-order Hogwarts Legacy from them. In this review we're not going to talk about the transgender controversy but rather have a sober review of the game elements. And despite many posts about performance and bugs, we have so far encountered literally only a couple of minor bugs... Maybe we got lucky? In any case we can't really discuss those either since we don't have personal encounters with it.

Hogwarts Legacy is an immersive, open-world action RPG. Now you can take control of the action and be at the center of your own adventure in the wizarding world.

• Highly engaging experience. Storytelling is sadly underrated in many newer games, when it is vital to give context and meaning to why you are even playing the game. Not so with Hogwarts Legacy.
• +1 It looks like a movie: The main story arcs have a lot of careful attention to give you a movie-like experience in their cutscenes, +1 complemented and enhanced by an epic soundtrack that you would expect from a big budget superhero movie to stir the emotions to greater heights.
• Caveat - we play at Ultra settings but capped at a lower fps. EVGA Geforce GTX 1070.
• +1 The story constantly engages your character to move forward. Each step starts with relevance to your character and ends with something for your character to look forward to, such as some mystery or unresolved issue.
• +1 Even sidequests receive this treatment (mostly). When they are not simply trying to introduce you to a system or mechanic, there is effort to make each an interesting story to unfold. Too often, games fall back on simple filler quests that are not interesting or boring to repeat.
• +1 The overland and main quest areas -- not just Hogwarts castle but various larger mines and ruins -- are expansive and highly detailed areas. A lot of worldbuilding has been done to make this feel like a "real" world.
• -1 Exploration is encouraged but game systems are delayed.
• Although this may certainly be intentional -- to give relevance to areas you have already been to, by unlocking new systems to let you do what you weren't able to do before -- nevertheless the game encourages you to explore right from the start yet hampers you in key ways.
• For example, you can collect gear from chests in the castle but very quickly you will run out of room to carry more and there's no way to get rid of it until you get to Hogsmeade. This presents a mixed message to players.
• The Revelio spell lets you know if there's something you can collect nearby, but that might be behind something that you can't access at the moment. Except you don't always know this for certain and can result in frustrating running around.
• -1 Many systems are made irrelevant or obsolete too quickly. For example, Potion-making.
• Making potions looks like it is supposed to be about growing your own ingredients and gathering in the wild what you can't grow. You are outright told this in classroom cutscenes and conversations.
• However, very early on they also let you own a "Hopping Pot" which literally creates potions out of nothing -- no ingredients required. This not just bypasses the potion-creating system, but a lot of the plant-growing system as well. Gathering ingredients is now pointless, and it also undermines various related systems, such as motivation to explore the game world for ingredients.
• It should be pointed out that this is a single player game, so there is the perspective that there's no need to really reward continuous hard work when the game has a definite end and there's no point making a player grind or accumulate resources endlessly in the hope for new content to be added -- unlike an online game where one can expect endless future updates, so the accumulation of stuff now is stockpiling resources for the future.
• Some systems look like those in other games... but are not.
• -0 Opening containers to find gear looks like it should be as exciting as in other games with a colour-coded gear-grade system... but in fact it is not.
• Almost everything you find will basically be sold for coin. Even the "best" legendary tier gold gear. This completely devalues the experience and makes inventory management become a chore of simply going to the nearest shop to unload your junk on vendors who are just so happy to buy them off you.
• In fact you are supposed to just buy your gear shells from Gladrags Wizardwear and upgrade them as you like with the magic Loom.
• Even this is boring because you start to accumulate so much coin that you can buy gear and all the upgrade materials and various combat consumables from shops without having to do any of the related systems like ingredient gathering or caring for Beasts.
• Nevertheless we have not penalized Hogwarts Legacy for this system because it is in fact the norm with many games. What is different with Hogwarts Legacy are the containers. You will come across really large and ornate chests that always give a piece of gold-grade gear. They try to make it feel like a reward for exploration, but very quickly it becomes just another item to sell for coin -- in other words, another system undermined.
• A better solution would be to make such containers contain some type of Collectible. They already have such a system, the "Collection Chests" that are tracked at each map location and which give a wand handle or furnishing to add to Collections. Making these supposedly valuable and rare chests actually contain something meaningful would be far better than giving out something that eventually converts to a meaningless amount of coin.
• +1 However, when you find gear, you also collect the appearance so that you can use them later, even if you sell that piece of gear. This is something that is often overlooked in other games, or they have a system that makes it tedious to get the same result.
• Combat is misunderstood.
• There's quite a lot of complaining that combat is too easy.
• And for the most part it is, for many reasons. For example, Sneaking around with the Disillusionment charm and wiping out whole enemy camps with sniping or Petrificus Totalus (the equivalent of an instant sneak-attack takedown in Hogwarts Legacy) is very much possible.
• -1 Also the combat is based on completely avoiding damage with Protego (block) or dodging. So if you are good at that, no enemy is an obstacle even if you have to win by attrition. Levelling starts to lose relevance almost immediately.
• -1 The ease of combat also undermines other systems, such as gearing. "Good gear" from containers loses its relevance when combat is too easy. Even finding Traits to weave in your gear using materials from your zoo of magical Beasts becomes irrelevant simply because you don't need to do it. Worse, doing too much makes combat too easy and no longer engaging.
• +1 However, I think the complaints while valid, also focus only on one gaming subculture, and overlooks what else Hogwarts Legacy has done with combat -- which is in part "play your way".
• For example, you can choose to use the stealth approach if that is the type of game you like to play. Or you can go head-to-head and fight if you prefer. Or you can strategically position yourself high up and pull enemies with Accio then let them drop for an instant kill.
• If Hogwarts Legacy had been advertised as a "play your way" game similar to Arkane Studio's Dishonored or Prey, we'd probably have fewer complaints but also possibly less of an initial audience (?). Play your way means some solutions will feel "cheap" or even unintended, and that situation can often be re-framed as "too easy combat". Some will find it satisfying that they found a clever solution, while others will feel disappointed it didn't have life-threatening excitement.
• +1 Additionally, more challenges can be found in the various Arenas which throw a lot of enemies at you in a small space, and you can do these challenges any time and as much as you like, and turn up the difficulty if you want to use every combat tool available in the game.
• This counters the ease of the main story fights and makes all combat-related elements relevant again, although it is in a way completely pointless as you get no rewards and it progresses no story. It is straight repetition for repetition.
• +1 Another seemingly overlooked aspect of combat is how much they have tried to make magic fun.
• Combat spells are not simply about shield-breaking and damage, but for almost every enemy they have some special interaction involving specific spells.
• The system of Duelling Feats is a nice way to introduce you to the various tricks you can do, such as using the Leviosa charm at just the right moment against the frog-like Dugbogs for a special result.
• It is our opinion that this is in fact the focus of combat, although as a result it is often far too easy to pick up Talents and consumables to make combat too easy.
• Some really well thought out touches.
• +1 When you can have your own private zoo of magical creatures, the interactions with them are really very good for a happy farm experience.
• They will approach you to be brushed and fed, and stand still for you to gather materials like fur and feathers.
• You can conjure a toy for them to frolic with.
• +1 Lots of minigames in the open world so there always something to find, and not just enemy lairs.
• -0 Although truthfully a lot of them are rather pointless, such as "Treasure Vaults" that are easy to solve, often clones of each other, and give unexciting "treasure".
• Some questionable systems
• -1 In order to collect Wand Handles and Furnishings you have to literally break into the homes of other people and steal their stuff.
• -1 Immersion breaking amount of loot lying around in containers for the taking. And yet poachers who supposedly make a lucrative living selling magical beasts have barely anything in their camps and not even enough coin for a butterbeer in their wallets.
• -1 You are a student in a school, yet for the entire year you only attend a handful of classes.
• -0 When you "rescue" a Beast, you are more often than not simply poaching them yourself, vacuuming them up from their nesting grounds and either putting them in your own private zoo or selling them to pet stores.