Hogwarts Legacy Review: A Truly Magical, Spellbinding Experience

As we mentioned in our First Impressions article, Hogwarts Legacy is a game that we’ve been super excited about ever since the announcement. We’re both huge fans of the Wizarding World and it’s been well over 10 years since we last got a game set within the universe.

We understand we’re late with the review. It’s worth noting we don’t receive the games early and buy them at the same time as everybody else. It’s also worth noting we don’t like to just throw up our review for the sake of it, we prefer to take steady care, and ensure we’ve played enough hours to warrant a full opinion on the game. After all, I got 8-9 hours in and STILL unlocking new things.

Even still though, after so many hours put into the game (roughly 20 hours each), we’re having a blast. The game is everything we wanted and more. We’re beyond happy to see the game is a huge success and breaking records despite a small minority boycotting the game for ridiculous reasons. It’s amazing for all of the developers who have worked tremendously hard on this project to ensure it’s a success, it does open the door for future sequels as well which I am all for.

Please note, this article will contain spoilers.

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Information and products Daniel used to play the game;

• Platform: PlayStation 5
• Edition: Deluxe
• Screen: 4K Samsung TV
• Audio: SteelSeries Arctis 7P+
• Release: 7th February 2023 (Deluxe) / 10th February 2023 (Standard)

Information and products Phil used to play the game;

• Platform: PlayStation 5
• Edition: Deluxe
• Screen: 4K Samsung TV 46″
• Audio: HyperX Cloud II
• Release: 7th February 2023 (Deluxe) / 10th February 2023 (Standard)

Initial thoughts

We both preordered the Deluxe version of the game. Honestly, we didn’t care for the items, we mainly did so just to play this 3 days early. It was worth the additional £10 alone. We both had the game pre-downloaded onto our PlayStation 5’s in advance of release so as soon as 12am hit, we were able to jump straight onto the game.

After booting the game up, you gain the opportunity to create your character and get a feel for the story before you head to Hogwarts and choose your house. It’s worth noting here that each house has different things going on. For example, Hufflepuff has a different mission including Azkaban, Gryffindor apparently has the most missions, and so on. My advice here is to choose the House you’ve said you wanted to be in from the beginning and enjoy the experience.

After that, this vast world of everything opens up to you. It’s not JUST Hogwarts you get to run around in, there’s Hogsmeade and a huge map to explore with dungeons, the Forbidden Forrest, piers, small little villages and so much more. The world itself is spectacularly beautiful in every way, the studio has done a wonderful job of ensuring everything feels so new but so familiar.

It’s easy to say I was completely blown away at every turn. I have already touched on the fact that after so many hours in, I was still unlocking new stuff. For example, I was 10 hours in before I unlocked the ability to capture beasts and so much more. The game really has thought of nearly everything when it comes to the game. This is something we’ll go into further detail in the content section.

I mean, I expected Hogwarts Legacy to be a contender for Game of the Year in 2023 and we’re already in February, I can safely say this will absolutely be there by the end of 2023.

The world itself is spectacularly beautiful in every way, the studio has done a wonderful job of ensuring everything feels so new but so familiar.

Daniel Lewandowski

Dislikes

As always, I do like to point out the flaws of a video game early in the review. I do this particularly because I prefer to get the bad points out the way so when you’re reading it, you can save the best until last. I will be honest, these dislikes are fairly petty but it’s things that did stand out when I played the game.

1. The lack of Quidditch does need to be mentioned here. Although I don’t mind that it’s not here, it is a vital part of the universe. The pitch is there and obviously, you can fly a broom. I just wish the game had included it in, even if the game was just pressing buttons in a timed manner.

2. This is a very small dislike but it can be annoying. You cannot put your wand away. Even when you’re running through Hogwarts, you have your wand out all of the time. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense not to just add a button to equip and unequip it.

3. The classes. While they are fun and unique, I do wish they were more regular and mandatory. Similar to how the game “Bully” did it. If you didn’t make the class you would be skipping and it would cause teachers to chase you and take you to the lesson. It’s one of the things they promoted in the marketing and we’ve barely been.

Story

At this current stage, I’m at an 80/20 split on how I personally feel about the story. While the story about the Goblin rebellion is decent, playing through the game It just feels flat, lackluster, and just not fully interesting. While the villain is great, the amount of time it takes to get onto to the main story and then having to do a bunch of side quests sometimes overwhelms you to the point you need to truly remember what you last did.

However, the side of the story that is connected with Sebastian is fantastic. I have loved every minute of that storyline. The mystery of his sister’s illness, the dark arts connection. everything about it is just fantastic and absolutely incredible to see.

While the story is going on, you have side quests. While most of them are decent, some are less fun, like the Summoners Game. It’s annoying at times, and if you haven’t got any quests going on, you will have that and you’ll have to go play.

Overall the story is fantastic and so incredible in parts but some of the actual main story is flat, lackluster, and spread so far apart that you sometimes get lost overall, it is very enjoyable.

Gameplay

The gameplay is incredible. Everything about it is fantastic. Over the course of around 25 hours of gameplay, I’ve not run into anything groundbreaking that would impact the gameplay, as many games do on their launch.

When a game launches, the gameplay can sometimes be hindered by a lot of stuff, bugs, glitches, and just overall general things that should be fixed, I’ve not seen anything like that in this game and typically this happens a lot with big open world maps like this game has.

I’ve only had one bug so far and it wasn’t even anything major. It happened in a cutscene where one of the characters was talking to me, however, his character model was super speed running around. It was hilarious but fixed itself immediately.

I’ve been in a party chat with a friend playing this game and he didn’t have this issue. So it could have been a one-off. With that said, that bug isn’t enough to warrant me trashing the gameplay. It’s honestly some of the best gameplay I’ve played in a long time.

Another gameplay feature is the seasoning. What I mean about this is when you are playing through the gameplay, you begin to notice your surrounding. I’ve played around 25 hours in total, and I’ve noticed some gameplay features that truly immerse you into the surrounding.

I’ve noticed Halloween, and now Christmas. The map changes, the school changes for Halloween you get pumpkins floating, planted, and showcases, and you get Christmas decorations as well. This is a huge feature to this game.

I also noticed a similar gameplay feature that I haven’t seen many people mention. I went AFK (away from keyboard) so to speak, and when I returned my character was standing outside where I left him. His hair and clothing were covered in snow. Small details like this make the gameplay so much more.

Characters and customization

There are all brand new characters with brief relations to popular characters we know. For example, the Headmaster is Phineas Nigellus Black who’s an ancestor of the Black family, if it wasn’t glaringly obvious. There is also Ominis Gaunt who’s an ancestor of Tom Riddle. Each character you meet has an interesting backstory and you come close with specific characters, including Sebastian who teaches you the all-important spell…

It was one of the things I was worried about when it came to characters. It’s about making them relevant and likable and whilst there is the odd character that is slightly annoying, they all serve their purpose to the overall story of the game which can only be seen as a positive. This also includes Professor Fig who just irritates me but he’s still somewhat likable, it’s weird but the writers have done well.

While the overall character customization is basic and the gear section is ripped straight from a Ubisoft game, you can customize your character a tad by clothing, wand, broom, and hairstyle. I’ve changed my hairstyle twice in this playthrough.

However, the wand customization is lackluster, while they do have some options to change, you can change the color, length, style, etc but it still doesn’t feel personal to you.

Where the customization does exceed though is the in the Room of Requirement. That can be customized to your heart’s content, walls stairs, ceiling, floor, furniture, and more. It’s basically House Flipper on steroids. You can change the size, color, and style, or anything, place paintings anywhere you would like. Truly incredible.

Content

The content in this game is honestly endless. Everywhere to turn is something to do, whether you are in Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, or just flying around the giant map, there is something to do. In Hogwarts there are countless things to do, classes, running around doing side quests for students, finding statues and keys, and puzzles.

Outside of that, you have chests, more puzzles, and enemies to fight. Caves to ravage, houses to break into, broomstick races, balloons to pop, Merlin challenges, and more. It’s absolutely crazy the amount of stuff that the developers have added to keep you invested in this game for ages.

Today alone, the only true stuff that I have done today is puzzles. I love it. Running around finding flying keys, statues across the map, and little maths puzzles it’s just so good. There is so much content for you to do alone in the base game. If you just want to fight, there is a dark arts arena (if you have the deluxe edition) where you can fight waves of enemies.

Bugs

As mentioned earlier, the only true bug I have had is a character speed running in a cutscene which was hilarious. I literally burst out laughing. For a massive game like this, I expected

Buy, rent, wait for a sale, or avoid?

This is easily a buy. Don’t fall into the trap of others asking you to boycott this. If you’re a fan of the Harry Potter universe, this game will definitely be for you. It has everything that we’re so familiar with but things that feel fresh and new. This is one of the best gaming experiences for at least 3 years.

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Rating: 9.6/10

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