My wife is a big Harry Potter fan but has mixed feelings about it. She described the game this morning as not great but not bad either, with great graphics, but also with an indecisiveness to it that suggests too many cooks in the kitchen.
With that said, that’s just one opinion. The game seems outstandingly popular. She felt it’s worth the money if you can get it on sale in her personal opinion.
My wife and I had the same opinion. Magical to run around the castle for a few hours and do the early classes, surprisingly good combat mechanics, but then… Nothing.
It is really hurt by the inclusion of brooms. They necessitate a huge world so you can’t cross it in a minute, but then it’s too spread out and empty. At least in Ghost Recon my world-design-crippling flying devices have rockets and gattling guns.
Totally agree with this. The first few hours were great but then when you get the broom and you see the huge open space that’s just really lacking. I really wish it never went to that scale.
You may hit the nail on the head, once you get the broom you just breeze past everyhring. The forbidden forest may be the most dense content wise on foot, everything after that does feel more sparse as it was designed with the broom in mind. All in all I still enjoyed the game and got my moneys worth out of it, I did pick it up rather cheap on a sale
Thanks! I think I’ll hold off on this title. I don’t have much time for gaming and open world games can be got it miss for me. This one sounds like it might be a miss.
I got it on sale in December and think it’s worth it. I’m not a huge HP fan by any stretch but was impressed by the mechanics, they’re fun. Though as the game opens up you start to spot the tedious shit all open worlds tend to throw in to keep you busy. I just ignore that shit.
I’ve been enjoying the game as well. Not so much the story, or even “day by day” quest line its had. Once you get into the game and it opens though as the last guy said, it also has a lot of fun activities. You can also customize youre own “room” with the many magical creatures you can find as well.
If you liked the books, and just want to enjoy the game to feel what it might be like as a wizard than its an awesome game.
It’s extremely popular because it is a well polished Harry Potter game; something the world has been begging for for a long time. It does invoke that sense of magic that the films do so well, so if you’re just looking to get a fresh hit of the Hogwarts world it’s great. There are also a lot of really interesting and well designed characters. Most of all the world, particularly the castle, is beautifully and lovingly crafted.
The game buried beneath all that polish is a pretty basic-ass RPG. It is crammed with filler fetch/find quests. The dialogue system is just another exhaust all options non-system. The combat has some really cool ideas on paper but I personally ended up mostly mashing buttons against one of like 5 generic enemies most of the time. Also the only customization in this RPG is your appearance.
It’s not a bad game by any means, but i wouldn’t say it’s great either.
I also agree with the above statements. The best way I could describe it is that while the gameplay wasn’t all that spectacular, experiencing the game world was definitely a treat, and made me smile like I did the first time I opened the first Harry Potter book or played the first games that game out on PS1!
Haha! I actually listened to the audiobooks on the lead up to the release to get myself in that warm and cozy mindset for the game. Those books are like comfort food for my soul.
Can you give me some of your opinions on it? I made it to book 3 of Lord of the Rings, and just couldn’t put up with the purple writing any longer. Segments just seemed to drag on and on and on just to get through some dialogue that could’ve been said with a lot less flowery prose. It was charming at first, but I couldn’t put up with it any longer by book three, at least going back to back. I will finish it one day though! 😭
Ill preface with the fact that overall I think it’s more than worth your time, and is one of the greatest works of fiction ever made. That being said, it takes a little work to read as it is a VERY long series, and does a lot of worldbuilding. There is a point towards the middle where the “depth of field” of the story increases dramatically, and from my experience and my friend who has also read them, that is typically a burnout point. There isnt as much prose as in Tolkien’s works, though some of that is just cultural/temporal, but Robert Jordan was definitely in love with the story and takes the time to describe things fairly often. Im confident you’re likely to greatly enjoy the first three books and the last few books, but the middle could be a stumbling block.
Additionally, if you aren’t aware already, RJ passed away before the last book(s) could be finished and his wife arranged for Brandon Sanderson to collate all of the drafts and notes and conjure up a conclusion, which could definitely be something to consider. Personally, I was already a Brandon Sanderson fan before I read WoT, and I loved the ending.
One last thing, if you are deterred by the series or not ready to try it yet but still want a less-daunting rec, I love to recommend the Licanius Trilogy by James Islington. It is a reasonable length, it is one complete story, and it is just 🤌. End rant
edit: I forgot to mention that I am an audiobook-oriented person and greatly prefer them for the wheel of time. They’re narrated by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, and they are EXCELLENT narrators.
You’ve got a friend in me, as the only times I have to allocate towards books is the hour commute to and from work every day, I will listen to my audiobooks that I have found or that have been recommended by wonderful people like you!
I will give the Wheel of Time and even the Licanius Trilogy a go, as I do like the epicness of LotR!
It is crazy how narrators can make or break some books though, isn’t it?!
Also, I just finished Fahrenheit 451, and the narrator had the “golden-age” of radio kinda voice and made it so much better than if I was just reading it myself!
Thank you again for taking the time out of your day to gush about something you love! 😁
If you do like Wheel of Time it’s always worth giving Brandon himself a shot as well. He’s busy writing his own universe called Cosmere. It’s got a few different series based on different planets and magic systems that can mostly be read as standalones, but they are also connected in… let’s just say ‘certain ways’ for now. Mistborn is a popular starting point. Personally I think ‘Emperor’s Soul’ is better if you want to try out his writing style, since it’s only about 100 pages or so.
If you aren’t sure, wait for a big sale. I quite enjoyed the game, but other than being a massively-popular IP, I’m not sure why it’s getting so much acclaim. It’s big, it’s Harry Potter (with all the attention to detail that usually gets), and it’s an RPG. If it wasn’t HP, it’d be another good indie game, and that’s it.
It’s a casual game that lets you run around the world of harry potter casting spells at people and things, solving puzzles, and wearing silly wizard clothes. If that sounds good to you then it’s good.
If you’re a HP fan the game is a no-brainer. But if not I suggest finding another AAA RPG game. I borrowed my friend’s copy via family sharing and I only got maybe around 4-5 hours in before I got bored and uninstalled the game.
The character customization is pretty good. Mostly just face and hair iirc but there’s a good bit of options. You can also customize your wand. That’s the most important bit I’d say.
I’d say if you’ve ever wondered what it be like to just wander about the castle, it’s well worth it. It’s cheaper than going to say universal studios or the Warner Brothers lot in London…
But there’s actually very little gameplay in the castle around areas you recognize from the books or movies. It doesn’t take long until you’re throwing into a very generic game with a thin coat of Harry Potter paint applied. There’s a lot of samey quests and combat doesn’t really evolve ever.
It’s interesting because I swear I buzzed by an article the other day with some eye roll complaint about there being too many games, and that’s why it was hard for games to sell.
There are a lot of games, but it means that people want to engage with games that are actually fun and aren’t soulless cash grabs or half baked early access with no real value or fun.
It’s just the basic “quality versus quantity” principle. Instead of shoveling out crap like Rise of Kong, Gollum, The Day Before, etc etc, just focus your efforts on a single good game. The only recent exception to this rule I guess would be Starfield, but that’s for Bethesda to figure out on how to salvage.
Speaking of salvage…at this point I think Bethesda themselves might be worth salvage value at this point. If they were willing to release a turd like Starfield, imagine what they’ll do to TES VI.
I’ve started turning more and more to indie games now, and I’ve found quite a few games I’ve loved that way. Deep Rock Galactic, Streets of Rogue, Valheim (before realising it’s abandonware)…honestly, good fucking riddance to the consoles who make it impossible to enjoy games by smaller studios.
Same. Indie games and emulators is what I’ve been putting a lot of my time into. I’ve learned that “AAA” studios are a lot like their alkaline counterparts - basically obsolete.
Valheim I agree. I did get a ton of enjoyment out of it on release, so it’s not really a matter of disappointment in the sense of fun per dollar, just disappointment in the glacial pace of updates. My feeling is that the Devs got their bag, then decided to just coast. It makes me wonder that if it didn’t explode in sales at the start, would they have put more effort into updates or would they have just given up. Guess we’ll never truly know
I think that’s going to be the big one in terms of changing the pattern of early purchases. It will also make it much harder for future indie devs to sell their games, which really fucking sucks.
Imagine a company telling you that you should get used to not owning the things you buy when arguably the most popular game in their most popular franchise is about being a literal fucking pirate.
This is the direction the big companies are looking to move in. This is the direction Microsoft is banking on, too. Even if you like one service more, the end result may be the same. It’s a matter of time before we see subscription exclusives.
GamePass subscribers are the pre-orderers and mtx consumers of yesteryear, normalizing the industry to practices harmful to general consumers.
It’s rather amusing how everything people fear happening under communism comes to pass under capitalism in one way or another. Turns out that it is the capitalists who aim to strip individuals of their personal property by transforming everything into a rental service. You see, you no longer possess your media, books, computer, phone, or any other device; they’ve all been transformed into internet-connected subscriptions. The moment you cease paying or when the company decides to discontinue its services, you find yourself in quite an unfortunate predicament.
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