Review of Hogwarts Legacy

“A captivating adventure in the world of Hogwarts that it absolutely worth your time and attention.”

Hogwarts Legacy is out and after having played through the majority of it’s 25 hour or so long campaign, I can say that it is a captivating and immersive adventure. It gets a lot of things right and the positives overwhelmingly outweigh the negatives. From the strong combat system, to the ability to craft potions and learn a variety of spells to the multitude of side missions to be found, the game offers an impressive amount of depth that should keep you entertaining and engaged in this world for quite some time.

Story and Quests

The story of Hogwarts Legacy takes place in the late 19th century and revolves around a Goblin rebellion. The overall setting of the game is intriguing and the main missions generally do well in telling a unique plot that really comes together towards the end of the game. The game did just enough to keep me engaged all the way through while wondering what was going to happen next. Outside of the main missions, there are plenty of other activities to fill your time with. Numerous side missions can be found all around the map. They vary quite a bit in content and were, for the most part, fun to play through rather than feeling tedious or repetitive. There are also relationship quests and these are worth playing in that they include substories of their own allowing you to get to know some of the other students better and to even learn new spells. I feel like the main story had some pacing issues at certain points, but it was still more than engaging enough to keep me motivated to finish it.

Combat

The combat is one of my favourite parts of Hogwarts Legacy. Throughout the adventure you will learn numerous different spells including one’s designed to be used in battle. You can assign spells to different input buttons, and you will gain a fairly large variety at your disposal as you progress through the story and side missions. In addition, you have a basic attack that you have use at any time. This system never felt overwhelming or complicated and there are multiple difficulty modes allowing you to tailor the combat to your liking. For example, on easy mode, the game will give you a prompt and an input window when about to be attacked allowing you to block more easily. I played through most of the game on Normal mode, and found combat to be tense, action-packed and exciting and it never felt boring, especially as I progressed through the story thanks to all the different means available to help me dispatch the enemies.

Exploration

The exploration was another one of the my favourite parts to the game. Not long after attending flying lessons, it becomes possible to traverse the map on a broomstick. You can customise it and use it to reach explore the areas outside of Hogwarts with relative ease. It addition, you can easily fast travel after reaching points of the map with a floo flame. The experience of flying on a broomstick felt unique and the world of Hogwarts was a marvel to glance upon. It was another highlight of my time with this game and it truly felt like a magical experience.

Performance

The technical performance of the game was mostly fine across the board in my time. I played it on PS5 with the 60 FPS performance mode enabled. Throughout most of my adventure, the frame rate seemed very consistent aside from a few late game encounters with a particularly large amount of enemies. However, there were instances of a type of ghosting effect in open world areas when I quickly panned the camera. I can only assume that this was due to FSR implementation. It was a little distracting at times, but not a major issue. Apart from that, there were occasional stutters and loading times when running quickly between areas of Hogwarts, but nothing that I deemed too substantial or worrisome.

Verdict

Hogwarts Legacy is everything I hoped it would be. The attention to detail and the setting really captured my imagination. In addition, the story and side quests kept me engaged all the way through and provided enough variety to keep me coming back wondering what I was going to be doing next. The combat was also a pleasant surprise. It provided much depth and variety without ever seeming complicated or inaccessible. Overall, this is a fantastic adventure that I would recommended to not only Harry Potter fans, but to anyone who likes open-world RPG’s. The pacing and performance issues do little to detract from the brilliant world of Hogwarts depicted in this game. The game remains a magical experience from start to finish.

Final Score = 9.0 out of 10.