Overview of Hogwarts Legacy

Hogwarts Legacy – an action-RPG game set in the Harry Potter universe, released in February.

In the story, the protagonist receives an invitation to Hogwarts to enroll directly in the 5th year of the wizarding school.

Accompanying the new student to the school is his mentor – Professor Fig, however, upon arrival, everything goes off script, and on the way to Hogwarts, we discover unique abilities – the ability to wield ancient forgotten magic.

I am virtually unfamiliar with the Harry Potter universe. I only watched the very first Harry Potter film and that was it. Starting the game, I was skeptical about it and the universe. I considered it children's fairy tales and, overall, I was not mistaken.

At the same time, once I found myself in the game Hogwarts, I spent quite some time wandering around the castle with my mouth agape in surprise – the animators, designers, and artists did an incredible job.

Before me stood an enormous Victorian castle with animated paintings, sculptures, and flying ghosts.

In general, it was a feast for the eyes. Also, while exploring the castle, I stumbled upon various (not too complex) puzzles and small texts narrating the history of the world.

Gameplay.

It's quite dull. Once you get tired of wandering around Hogwarts and enter the "open world," the magic fades away.

Well, not right away, of course; at first, everything is interesting. The game offers dozens of similar quests: go there, beat this or that. Solve typical Merlin puzzles, peek into another boring cave behind a chest… You can explore the world on foot, on a broomstick, on a griffin hippogriff, and on another mount that you will receive almost at the very end of the game.

In Hogwarts, we will have our own "common room" - the Room of Requirement. You can furnish it to your liking, and in addition, grow plants, keep (and breed) tamagochis pets, and it can also have a "crafting station" and a table for identifying items - the most useful things in my opinion that it has.

The idea of the Room of Requirement - a virtually fully customizable "housing" - is shattered by two simple design flaws: first – lack of free space (initially it's just a small room where you obviously need to place useful things: tables with pots for plants, compost heaps, and tables for identifying and potion-making), leaving no room for decorations, second – lack of recipes (each item of furnishing is a separate recipe, which can either be given as a quest reward or can be purchased or found).

It's also very disappointing that in the game there is no way to identify an item without entering the Room of Requirement - no identification scrolls or the ability to do it for a fee with traders.

Puzzles and secrets are designed poorly in my view - you walk past them time and again, trying to solve/open them, but it simply doesn’t work because you haven't learned the necessary spell, and that will only unlock later in the storyline.

Combat

The protagonist wields a wand, dealing relatively low damage from a distance, and can also learn (after completing quests) spells: control or direct damage. Additionally, we have various carnivorous plants and potions that enhance the character's attributes or grant tactical advantages. In battle, "ancient magic" charges up, dealing massive damage.

Combo attacks are provided using both spells and auto-attacks. All enemy attacks can be evaded (the game "aura" warns about an attack), and some can also be blocked with a magical shield.

However, all of this is largely nullified by a single "trick" - the "stealth attack." With some practice, leveling up stealth, or drinking an invisibility potion, you can one-shot (on normal mode) "unaware" enemies. Even mini-bosses. You can't kill a troll right away, but you can take about a third of its health (which is a lot) and major bosses (in battles with them, stealth is immediately dispelled). Overall, there’s nothing complex about quickly dispatching a horde of standard opponents without leaving stealth.

There is also a lack of variety in enemies, with the most common being: spiders, goblins, and bandits (for some reason referred to in the game as "dark wizards," regardless of their combat style). You'll also encounter "zombies," toperoes ("turtle-crocodiles"), and trolls.

The more spells you learn, the more points you invest in their improvements, the easier the combat becomes. Around level 20, I noticed that I was spending much less healing potions in combat than before, and by level 30 (I finished the game at level 38, I believe) I almost stopped drinking them!

Crafting

Over time, a "crafting station" will appear in the Room of Requirement. You cannot create items themselves, you can only enhance them (up to 3 times) and change additional properties. All of this requires "resources" obtained from pets: fur, feathers, etc.

All items in the game have 4 rarity tiers. You can only improve the last two.

There is no particular sense (at least on normal mode) in crafting – to gather resources, you need to take care of your tamagotchis: feed them, pet them (at least they don't die from hunger and loneliness!). And it would be fine, but you have to do this with each pet! You cannot feed and pet them all at once. Later, of course, an automatic feeder will appear, but there is no "autopetting" in the game! Moreover, separate spells are designated for those operations. Spells, Karl! Let me explain the problem. Initially, only 4 spell slots are provided, and of course, all slots are occupied with combat spells. Later, you can unlock up to 3 more sets of 4 slots, but with skill points, at the expense of something else, e.g. – improving combat spells. So, to "process" pets (and not just for various puzzles as well!) you have to change sets – what is this if not a useless waste of time? You can buy these resources, but they are few and expensive. And, on top of that, the "cherry on the cake" – in 5 minutes you’ll find an item in another chest that is not (significantly) worse than the improved one!

Role-playing Elements.

For a while, it seemed that this was not an RPG even nominally – leveling up is unlocked quite late. Most conversations boil down to choosing between two options: "yes, I will do your task right now" and "see you soon." No complex moral choices, except perhaps for Sebastian's storyline. The main quest is also frankly weak, with no "plot twists", the main villain is known in advance, moreover, multiple meetings with him resemble action movies in which the protagonist must win, thus the enemies make one foolish mistake after another.

Neither the choice of house nor (as I thought) the character class has any effect whatsoever.

"Agenda"

You could say there isn't one.

The Russian translation (and lack of lore knowledge) played a cruel joke on me. When creating my character, I was offered to choose whether I wanted to be a wizard or a witch, and I, playing as a female character, chose wizard. Expectations: a different starting location, teachers, spells, quests. Reality – referred to in male gender. At first, I attributed this to the traditional negligence of localizers, then I googled the differences, but I didn’t want to start over. They say explanations have appeared with a patch, but I played the release version.

The second manifestation of the "agenda" is a male-looking bartender in female form with a male voice. There were also some minor things that were "smoothed" over by the translation.

Resume.

The game is quite mediocre, it may only impress a seasoned player with the magnificent views of Hogwarts and its interiors. However, if you have the time – definitely visit Hogwarts - it is beautiful at any time of the year!