4.5/5 ★ – mxciej_j's review of Hogwarts Legacy.

To start, I absolutely love this game, as someone who’s tried and tested many games flaunting the Wizarding world ip, I believe I speak for many people when I say this, but it’s exactly what we’ve all been waiting for. I have many things to say about the game (mainly positive) starting with the story. At a surface level it’s pretty good, there’s no blockbuster story to be found here such as in the likes of the last of us etc, yet the story delivers on the traditional mystery driven formula of the Harry Potter franchise. Succeeding greatly in making you as the player feel apart of your own story as opposed to living another characters story out. This is pushed by how interactive both the main quest and side quest dialogues are, feeling like you are truly in charge of your personality, to the point of debating ultimately non important dialogues for my own intrinsic interests of taking on a good/bad persona around the world. Granted, the unimportance of many dialogue options can feel disappointing, especially as a lot of the time you have the option to go back on a decision you make, making them feel much more insignificant. Yet this is a personal peeve of mine and not anything that necessary takes away from in game immersion too heavily. The combat is extremely satisfying, whilst some may say it’s overly simple and follows a very assassins creed/Arkham system, it’s hard to ignore that these systems are used so commonly for a reason and it’s because they just work. Granted the combat at no point for me has felt repetitive purely to how beautifully fluid the combat is. Along with how great the spells look and feel in game. Additionally, and it feels weird to say, when playing I do feel a sense of tactic in the combat system as you are limited to 4 major spells in your spell wheels at any given time, adapting said arsenal to truly suit your play style, making chaining spells together especially between multiple wheels having you feel like the wizarding worlds ultimate badass. The visuals and sound design are great. I was playing this on a PS5 and mainly played on the fidelity setting throughout my play through of the main story. I didn’t run into any performance hitches along the way and constantly saw myself stopping to take in the world around me. I am playing in the performance setting now that I’m working my way towards the platinum and it’s buttery smooth whilst not taking away from the graphical fidelity to any noticeable degree. The music and sound effects are great as well building a real immersion and truly bringing the game to life, making the game extraordinarily cinematic at time even out of cutscenes. Casting spells sounds crispy and each sequence is orchestrated beautifully. There’s much more I’d like to say about so many aspects about this game but this review would then be about the same length as some of my uni essays. To conclude, there’s so much I love about this game, the fan service is amazing, the developers really went out of their way to delve into the source material that inspired this game, adding nods to what feels like almost everything the medium of the wizarding world had to offer. I’d like to note this review and my play through of the game has been and is very much sugarcoated by my own love for Harry Potter but I struggle to find many reasons for someone who isn’t too into it to not find a good time in this game. It’s a game that fans of the source material will love and still remains a great time for players casually interested in the wizarding world. I couldn’t recommend it enough. Thank you for your time