4/5 ★ – Chunderclap's review of Hogwarts Legacy.

Note: In my opinion Hogwarts Legacy, despite being called an action RPG by the developers, does not meet any of the criteria of being an rpg, and instead fits more into the action adventure genre. As such, I am rating it as an action adventure game, and comparing it against others of the same genre. Good: The combat was surprisingly fun, especially with what seemed like such a limited spellbook in most harry potter media. The constant use of crowd control in group fights kept it engaging and required quick reactions, and the unique interactions each enemy had, such as burying a spider matriarchs head and countering an executioner’s flame tornado kept the combat progression interesting and well paced as you discovered them all. I thoroughly enjoyed the open world, and while I feel some of the smaller hamlets could use more of an identity, the small items and events scattered around such as the astronomy tables, merlin trials, etc, kept me exploring, and kept me feeling rewarded. I found the pacing extremely well done, even if the mandatory breaks could be seen as a bit obtuse and forced, they always felt naturally filled by other side quests, events and more. I found the quest lines with the friends were all really well done, unique but tied well to the main story, with one notable issue in one of the quest lines. The main story was well done I thought, though I did feel some areas were under explored. Exploration throughout hogwarts in particular was very fun and engaging, and each new level of alohamora felt like a new round of exploration without feeling forced or effortless. The secondary systems in the game, such as the beast, herbology and potions systems felt very fun and engaging, while potions and herbology felt especially rewarding. Bad: While I thoroughly enjoyed Sebastians story line, I felt like the ending was incredibly weak, namely due to the limited response types. Throughout the story, I was supportive of Sebastian and his goals, though when I felt he had overstepped a line in fulfilling them, I felt the dialogue options were incredibly binary, and lacked the complexity of the path that my character and Sebastian took to reach this point. Additionally, there came a point when I felt like something had to be done to stop what was being done, but instead I was forced into an action that in no way reflected my arc throughout the story line. I enjoyed the quests that went through a class, and wish more of that was explored. While certain things, such as the pacing and the room of requirement made me feel like a student, there were lots of points where I felt the setting suffered because the focus shifted away from Hogwarts. I feel that the injustice done to goblins was never really acknowledged, and even points where I felt like the heart of the cause that urged Ranrok on was totally forgotten. Very rarely did any wizards reference or discuss the tension between the goblins and wizardkind, and when they did it was always tied to ranrok and never actually critical of the systems that caused unrest in goblinkind and the fears ranrok rallied around. The one room of requirement system that I felt was neglected was the upgrading of items. While I was motivated by a desire to care for the beasts in my vivarium, I never found that the upgrading of gear was important enough, or rewarding enough to motivate me to raise the beasts. Often it felt as if the effort was unrewarded. I do wish boss fights explored more intense combat mechanics, because they often felt like longer versions of every other fight, with the same pattern of dodge, protego and throw a projectile, and cast all abilities, being repeated. Overall: (8/10) Hogwarts Legacy, if viewed as an action adventure game and not an action rpg, is a very well done and rewarding open world. With a cast of good quests and story lines, the pacing and interconnectivity of quests filled out the world surrounding Hogwarts well. Despite this, a few major plot points were botched, and occasionally a system had shortcomings that were mechanically lacking.