Just because you can exterminate darkness, that doesn't mean that you should.
I am a millennial. That is my charge and my punishment. And being that most cursed of generations, just below or above Gen Z depending on who's doing the judging, it is pretty much a given that I have sat down and consumed the conglomerate mega-titan that is Harry Potter within my lifetime. Either by reading the books or watching the movies, everyone of my age bracket found themselves hopelessly bewitched by the tales of J.K. Rowling to such a degree that I know for a fact many of my contemporaries (and myself) found themselves severely upset when they reached the age of 11 and their Owl did not arrive. I was a reader, consuming the entire book series through at least twice, but I was enough of a Potter addict to watch most of the movies as well. (Still haven't seen Deathly Hallows Part 2) As well as play all of the move tie-in games that I could get my grubby little mitts on, of course.
But even with all the might of the media conglomerate machine that was the Harry Potter empire in it's prime, there was always this ever present longing wrought in my flesh wanting to be closer to the world of Potter. To climb into the pages of the book and live the world of attending 'Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry'. As with any good fiction, those urges transcended the realm of imagination and clung like a fever throughout the years. Games are typically the medium to feed and relieve such stresses- but Harry Potter games did have an unfortunate tendency to be... move tie-ins. To be fair, the Potter games were better than your typical tie-in trash that other movie franchises subjected the industry to- but I wouldn't call any one Harry Potter video game itself exceptional. The first two are classics, no doubt; but more for the nostalgic connotations than the strengths of their fibre.
When Hogwarts Legacy was announced, first as a rumoured MMO than later as a single player RPG, all the words seemed to fit perfectly into place to describe the sort of game every Potter fan wanted, even if they didn't realise it. Free open world exploration of Hogwarts? Putting my own character in the game and experiencing the process of learning magic? Progressing along several lines of deep RPG levelling systems to create a wizard or witch unique to us? Why, that's something the Harry Potter games, by definition as adaptations, could never have offered us! To say that expectations surrounding the delivery of this game were high seems like a gross underestimation- perhaps it would be more apt to label them Everest-ian. As in- only the absolute best of the best could so much as dream of reaching the peaks necessary to pay off the promise of that pitch.
And yet for whatever twisted reason it would appear that I had faith in the team at Avalanche Software from the word go. That's the only way I can explain why I decided to pre-order the game from the moment I saw it hit store fronts, an action I never do unless I'm sure of the quality of the product. With Hogwarts Legacy however, I was disquiet. I wanted to believe in the hype train the community was riding, but at the same time I kept hearing disappointing blows to the image of the 'full immersion Hogwarts experience' that I dreamed of. It would only be focusing on a Fifth Year instead of running the gambit from First to Seventh, there would be no playable Quidditch, lessons would be events rather than obligations, there would be no house points system, and for perhaps the first time in the entire franchise- chocolate frogs wouldn't be collectibles! (The horror!) When the date finally arrived, I'll admit I did my best to temper my excitements with the realities fed to us.
Today not only is the game out, but I have played it from start to finish- completing enough of the game to have experienced every activity the game offers and actually coming a few shy hairs of 100%-ing the whole thing: which I don't typically do. With that level of experience I can properly introduce Hogwarts Legacy as an open world game mechanically in the same vain as those checklist Ubisoft open worlds that have become the bane of the industry, and yet this specimen comes doused with some curious splashes of personality to such a degree that the material is elevated above it's station. Until I reached the literal final few hours of play I never felt the chore aspect of being waylaid from a mission objective in order to solve a Merlin Puzzle, or hunt after a Field Guide Page that I heard tinkle on the edge of my Revelio cast; I enjoyed the chase, even more so than the rewards. 
I think the key to why exploration works is a key point to focus on when it comes to Hogwarts Legacy, because when I strip the package away to it's core most USP: (Unique Selling Point) I land on the prospect of exploring one of the most legendary fictitious locations in cinema and modern literature. That alone cannot really be understated because, obvious though it might seem to say, before this game Hogwarts never really existed. I mean of course it existed within our minds, built from the power of wordcraft and the magic of movie sets, but between neither of them was a coherent and cohesive layout of a place ever established. It almost seems adversarial to the castle itself to try and limit it's dimensions to any sort of comprehensive degree. Almost as though if I could rationalise the place, it's many halls, indecisive staircases and endless dozens of secrets, the magic of imagination that bought the place to life would fade from the stones. Like the anti-Tinkerbell, believing in the place felt like it would be the death of it. Overcoming that feeling took a very special ingredient which I think this game packs in droves: personality.
Creating a vast fictional Scottish castle sitting atop a lake is one thing, but imbuing the layout, colours, residents and furniture with the personality of Hogwarts would take nothing less than a team possessed by the demanding demon of exacting detail. It would take the mechanical excellence to visualise the work of the movie and slot it together in a way that made sense and was intuitive to play through. The bravery not to scale down on the task, but to commit to cramming the castle's every nook and cranny somewhere into the explorable game world. And of course the creativity and initiative to design a plethora of random encounters between rabble-rousing students, duelling attic ghosts, one banister-sliding poltergeist and a now-famous pair of sentient suits of armour- in order to breathe a degree of life into those halls.
I can happily report that the achievement of Hogwarts alone is every bit the wonder I hoped it to be, and that when I bought the game expecting the worst I had convinced myself the price of admission would be worth it for the virtual tour of Hogwarts alone and I still stand true to that assessment. I understand it's another symptom of irrational nostalgia to get all fuzzy-hearted when walking out into that courtyard where Professor Umbridge would one day aggressively eject Trelawney from the castle, just before walking out across that famous crooked bridge atop which Ron would one day turn around and say "Who are you and what did you do to Hermione Granger?" I have these memories close to that pale diseased throbbing thing I keep locked behind my lungs, and their warmth responds to seeing these locations faithfully brought to digital life with a fluttering whimsy probably unique to others like myself. I understand if that doesn't quite translate to the older generation who approach this game, nor the newer, but I can recognise that twinkle in the eye of another around my age who spots that one special moment they remember so well because in that moment they, like me, get it.
Of course, for whatever reason this digital tour game had an RPG attached to the package, so I might as well get around to reviewing that as well, eh? Right away the first thing the game places in front of the player... is actually the accessibility options screen. (They just shove those options right in your noggin, it's quite the jumpscare.) But after that we get to character creation and as far as finally realising my dream of being my own Wizard in the Harry Potter mythos- the customizer if fine. Nothing great, but better than Destiny. The character models themselves all look exceptionally high quality, which is good considering the player character's mug is slapped centre screen for the majority of the run time, but I was very surprised about the apparent lack of body size options. (My dreams of roleplaying as Gandalf Cartman have been shattered!)
However as far as 'Role Playing' goes, character customisation- which extends to wand choice, picking your house and later playing fashionista, seems to be the extent to which the developers wanted to explore that genre. (Outside of the levelling tree.) If you're hoping to mould the personality of your unique Witch or Wizard through branches of meaningful choices that have rippling consequences throughout the runtime- you're going to be caught very dry. What few choices the game provides are largely inconsequential or simply just mission reward extortion choices that also don't appear to have any consequences. Nearer the end you do get a few choices, some that actually would have an impact if this game had any sort of epilogue showing them off, but I suppose that empty space is being left open for the sequel that Warner Bros. seems very enthused to embark on already.
From the outset of the narrative you are introduced as a late-inductee fifth year to Hogwarts, and just like your character the game very much expects you to catch up to the pace of the plot without much prior explaining. You would have thought that the writers would use the excuse of a new kid haphazardly thrust into the world of Wizards and Witches to deftly introduce them, and the players, to the state of the wizarding world in the 1800's. (A setting totally alien to all Potter fans before this game) But instead we get a rather hasty "Follow me and figure it out" style introduction. It was about five hours into the game before I accepted a side quest in which a goblin character was kind enough to lay out who this villainous Ranrok even was and his whole deal. Which seems a bit like a misstep for the storytellers. Shouldn't I know the most basic details of the main villain- what is this, Dark Souls? (These references are getting out of hand. I'm going to have to get a 'Miyazaki' jar in my room if this keeps up.) 
Exploring the world and trying to piece together the basic lore are only two pillars of the Hogwarts Legacy package: Combat is the third. Hogwarts Legacy uses a vaguely Arkham inspired system of attack and response with basic casting, blocking and rolling: It's a deceptively simple set-up that can quickly spiral into chaos when surrounded by 15 goblins all chucking arrows and slashing for your throat! Where the systems blossom out a bit is with the specific named spells that you can learn throughout the game by attending school quests and completing cleverly designed 'school assignments' that nudge the player to try out newly introduced systems in combat or open world exploration tasks. These spells are pretty much the lifeblood pumping through the combat system which makes fighting an army of wizards feel so alive and dynamic.
Spells are freely mapped to a four-piece quick select (with further quick select options unlocked in the RPG tree) and operate on a cool-down timer; to compensate, these spells all have thematically appropriate unique effects on opponents in battle. Accio summons enemies to float helplessly before you, Depulso does the exact opposite- sending those same enemies flying, Arresto Momentum pauses them in a brief stasis, Diffindo shoots violent slices through the air; all these spells operate in a unique fashion. Now at first the only purpose of these spells is really to break through specific magical 'Protego' variants on enemies, which are handily colour coded with the 'category' of spell needed to shatter them. But as you become more powerful and unlock more talents some of these spells become specifically useful to certain situations requiring an almost intrinsic knowledge of which spell is mapped to which slot in which set of quick spells.
For example, Descendo is used to pick up enemies and slam them roughly into the ground, however you can also use it on a giant spider at the moment it rears up its head for an unblockable attack in order to take advantage of it's momentum and bury it's head in the ground, rendering it completely stunned for a flurry of free hits. The giant toads can be caught in the middle of their jabbing tongue attack with a quickly timed 'Levioso' which suspends them by that appendage, and if you follow that up with a cruelly timed Diffindo you'll slice right through that suspended tongue pretty much instantly killing them. These dynamic combat opportunities don't readily present themselves with handy button prompts or scripted action sequences, but are rather encouraged with dynamically spawning combat challenges and left up for the player to discover and exploit; conferring a sense of real intuitive ingenuity when you pull them off.
Of course, like all games with a combat style of it's ilk, Hogwarts Legacy does feature it's own 'press to do cool thing' meter; and this time around it's called the 'Ancient Magic' skill. Ancient Magic is essentially a finisher move built up by securing a combo in the tens and then collecting the glowing particles that shoot out of the enemy as a result. (which is a little bit of a clunky way to fill a special meter in my opinion, I shouldn't have to break my combat flow to work up towards a finisher.) The reward is a flashy and exciting burst of 'Ancient Magic' which can do anything from summon a bolt of lightning on the enemies heads to permanently polymorphing them into poultry, to just straight blasting them off into the middle distance. All mostly horrifically lethal ways for a school child to handle their battles, but as long as there's no blood (and there isn't) we can just brush by the brutality of it all. (Although some of the post combat flavour text does imply that we are knowing and happily killing these goblins and dark wizards. There's no Yakuza-level "As long as I don't acknowledge they're definitely dead, then maybe they're not!" No, these fools are buried.)
Now one of my favourite aspects of the Hogwarts Legacy package is the fact that the very same diversity in combat I boasted about thanks to the variety of spells, is present in exploration thanks to these same, versatile, spells. The checklist open world of Hogwarts Legacy is littered with puzzles and challenges that all require understanding and manipulation of your spell list to conquer, and most of the time whenever you're up against these challenges the game has enough faith in it's systems and how it has introduced them to the player for it to just leave us without any hints or overly telegraphed solutions. Some of these puzzles, between the Merlin Trials and the Magic hot spots, and even just some randomly dotted caves, feature really free-form puzzles to test your understanding of your magical toolkit, from figuring out where to levitate certain objects to become floating platforms, to working out what statues should be blasted apart and which should be repaired, to figuring out shadow-based locks and fire-urn patterns. (This world has a lot more puzzle variety than any Elder Scrolls game has boasted so far.) As a card-carrying Hitman lover, I simply adore that level of mutually shared player-developer trust. This is how open world games should handle puzzles.
Unfortunately, the rewards for a lot of these puzzles, or at least the puzzles not specifically tied to a Field Guide challenge to increase Ancient Magic slots or Inventory spots, tie into what I consider to be this game's weakest aspect: it's loot. Yes, Hogwarts Legacy features a looting system borrowed right out of Destiny or any number of those 'gear power level' styles of games with their endless pointless rarity systems and level-locked stat increases and bonus effects and more development effort then was really required to a system that adds nothing to the core experience. Hogwarts Legacy has mechanics for improving gear and slotting enchantments and all that 'Live Service' guff, but it's all functionally meaningless in action because the combat is already neatly balanced. You do appropriate damage to creatures your level and most every overworld enemy scales to your exact level anyway; rendering skill scores largely redundant. Occasionally you'll meet an open world boss who's scaled higher than you, but in those situations your little buff to your legendary school robes doesn't do much of anything- should you choose to engage in that fight, (And I suspect that the main campaign alone requires you to fight a few enemies far above your level) you're just in for a slog fest against a sponge-tank whether you like it or not.
The one aspect of loot which is worth collecting, however, is the fashion aspect of it. All loot is formed as clothing- (except for gold, some potions and some enchantments) and that clothing can be utilised to fashion your Hogwarts student however you wish. Lending itself appropriately to the theme, Hogwarts Legacy features a totally free 'Transmog' system so you can change the appearance of any piece of gear to look like any clothing item you've acquired in the past; and with dozens of some decently high quality and varied options to choose between, Legacy actually offers a surprisingly varied pool of customisation options, making the fashion aspect of loot more interesting than the gear stats. Some quests in the game seem to acknowledge how much more significant visual appeal is, with the recovery of some legendary piece of clothing rewarding the player with the Transmog option for that clothing rather than some quickly out-levelled hunk of gear itself. (The only annoying aspect of Transmog is that it doesn't transfer when you put on a new piece of gear which is a bit of a headache in a game that expects you to gear swap as often as this one.)
Whilst we're on the topic of 'weak points', I'd like to highlight one of the most annoying openworld elements being the 'Demiguise' collectibles and how 'Alohomora' works. The unlocking spell is frustratingly tied to the recovery of dozens of these tiny Demiguise statues that are scattered across the world inside and out of Hogwarts and can only be collected at night. I've scoured locations said to contain them, but because of how small they are even the Revelio charm seems to have trouble highlighting the things for collection, making them already a hassle to collect. Then when you get your reward, the ability to open locked doors, you'll be disappointed to learn that Alohomora is simply a gateway to a lockpicking minigame! The minigame itself isn't hard, but it's just a unnecessary roadblock to the progression of your spell-crafting process. Isn't the spell supposed to be doing the lock-picking for me? Why slow down exploration for the benefit of no one?
At least the team made up for that with the freedom of traversal options, particularly that of the broom. The first time you get on the broom and zoom around Hogwarts with the swell of the orchestra, it really does hit on all the right notes to be a truly magical moment. That spectacle may not last, but the acute beauty of this game world from the skies does warrant an appreciative pause and nod even at that game's twilight hours. Truly, giving the players freedom to whip out that broomstick and take to the clouds at nearly any moment was the right decision. I only wish that some of the outdoor walkways at Hogwarts had more take-off and land options; its' annoying having to search for a courtyard to go sky surfing. As for the other modes of transport, flying mounts and ground mounts- pretty unremarkable, honestly. They're too slow to be worth it and the creatures don't display the level of personality that, say, Red Dead animals do- so I'm not as attached to my summonable Thestral as I am to my old-school broom.
But the creatures of this world do have a purpose other than riding thanks to the extensive 'Room of Requirement' metagame built alongside the rest of Hogwarts Legacy. This space for base building and potion crafting acts as more of a base of operations than the player's house common room does. (The common room is actually surprisingly underutilised throughout the whole game.) You can build spells to buff or heal you in combat, grow plants to whip out as consumable combat accessories or, yes, rescue magical creatures from poachers and store them in your 'Fantastic Beasts' inspired Vivarium. I do think the range of potions and plants available to the player is a little meagre, but combat already had enough going on I suppose, keeping potions and plants simple was probably a mindful exercise in restraint.
In spectacle I think the main narrative does a fine job cementing itself in the moments it wants to, the extended puzzle dungeons were a little dry but the 'Deathly Hallows' storybook scene totally scrubbed the floor with the typical 'dream sequence' Ubisoft moment that every open world is beholden to since Far Cry 3. However the core questline stretches itself to last over the school year and many times the only excuse for putting the main story on the back burner is literally "I have an appointment in London so please put your destiny on hold until I get back" or "Give me a couple of months to research that painfully vague clue you were just given." Some of the companion side questlines borrow this formula too, and whilst format-wise I appreciate the way this approach relieves pressure on the player and permits them to go exploring, it feels like a lazy crutch for halting momentum and tension.
There are boss encounters in the game, but a lot of them are reused and lack any really creative element to them beyond animation sets; which seems almost criminal considering the amount of spells on hand in combat. Why not have a boss in an impenetrable metal encasing that can only be hurt once the metal is heated up, or a dive-bombing winged boss who needs to be forcibly dragged down to the ground atop their own payload in order to damage them? There is incredible potential for boss creativity that just goes utterly wasted and I'm genuinely shocked the team didn't bother go down this route even once. At least the final boss is memorable for mere spectacle alone- if the rest of the bosses had a bit more going on with them, I would have been largely happy with that as the finale anyway.
Now a topic I don't usually cover in these reviews is the technical issues, and that's because my computer is a relic from the Antebellum age and any issues I encounter are typically not representative of the general audience. That being said, I happen to know I'm not the only one who had to sit through a prolonged 'Shader Compiling' sequence whenever I launched the game. I know there's already a mod that skips it, but it's amazing to me that the shaders aren't locked in after the initial launch- and that we still get shader stutters in game! (Although the stutters might just be a me problem) The game also has some basic progression bugs in some of the questlines too, usually the ones that require a cell switch. Most of them can be worked around, the 'abandon quest' function is helpful for restarting after a sequence gets broken which I had to use once or twice; (Specifically with Sebastian refusing to spawn in the Undercroft on certain occasions.) but I wouldn't call such sporadic roadblocks 'endemic'.
Summary
Hogwarts Legacy is in many ways the game that we dreamt about playing in the highs of the Harry Potter age and yet in some other ways it still falls just that bit short of the perfect image we all imagined. What makes me so passionate about summarising it is simply that with everything the game commits to, in it's exploration, combat and side activities, the developers at Avalanche excelled in creating robust mechanics that feel fun to interact with and learn from. Playing through Hogwarts Legacy leaves me with the feeling that all the correct tools are in the toy box to create that legendary game, but the team literally just ran out of time to put it all together; which is a prospect that makes me ever so excited for the sequel that has all but been announced thanks to the runaway success of Hogwarts Legacy commercially. The game I played was genuinely great, but with a more daring narrative, greater choice and consequence, deeper side activities and more creative enemy design- I genuinely believe this series could reach sheer excellence on it's next go around. As it stands, the game I played will sing to people nostalgic of the source material, whilst probably falling just short of it's potential for those without those rose tinted spectacles equipped. Potter lovers have to buy this game, it's simply a must- but others should temper their expectation for an above-average open world title with some great ideas in some places and a few wanting ideas in others. Ultimately this makes for a difficult title to appropriately rate, which is why I would have to revert to the classic cheap-out of double scoring. Potter fans should treat this game with all the respect that an -A Grade demands, whilst others are probably looking at more of a B Grade game on my arbitrary and increasingly esoteric rating system. Hogwarts Legacy is one of those games I never dreamed would ever be made back in the day, so it feels almost callous to want for more still but I know the muddy bones of a potential masterpiece are buried in this solid game. Still, now I feel empowered to vie for the realisation of some of my other dream projects: fighting game that crossovers every single fictional pop-culture character in existence with appropriate power levels and embracing how broken that would be, when?
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