Harry Potter-Before You Buy

hey we’re back with another episode of before you buy that show we give you some straight up gameplay and our first impressions of the latest games releasing as usual it’s me Jake and today we’re talking about Hogwarts Legacy this is the much hyped much talked about much argued about big open world Harry Potter game that has been in the works for many many years now remember back when it leaked and then we didn’t hear about it again for a long time that was crazy anyway uh usual Spiel here these are first impressions as we have gotten a review code but we’re able to get about 25 hours in and wanted to give you guys the heads up since people are already dropping cash on this and this footage was captured on PlayStation 5 and is spoiler free I’m happy to report that Hogwarts Legacy is a really solid open world action adventure game I think the more jaded gamer will find some stuff that they’ve done a million times before in other games and maybe roll their eyes here and there but I think Harry Potter fans that have been waiting for like the end-all be-all Wizard game I think this is pretty darn close I think the developers that worked on this game took the HarryPotter franchise and ran with it giving us new things and expansions way moreexciting than even the more recent spin-off movies in my opinion now the game is a bit glitchy but it’s also charming and really fun it distinctly feels like a Warner Brothers open world game if that makes sense not like Gotham Knights I didn’t really like that game I think more like Arkham Knight Mad Max or the Middle Earth Shadow games but like way bigger in almost every sense so

where it starts uh you’re a fifth year transfer student it’s a great jumping off point to kind of experience it as new through the character’s eyes and uh also not be like a little baby kid you’re right in the middle and you’re under the tutelage here of a professor who was supposed to get you up to speed with other fifth years and get whisked up in a much bigger Adventure that involves way more than just going to school and learning how to make potions or whatever you create your own character any type of person you want total freedom which is nice but the face options feel a bit awkward and limited the way they’re implemented and keep in mind like total freedom but like in the realm of realism so you can’t make a bug-eyed alien person or anything with sliders it’s not bad though because there’s a lot of Loot and uh that’s where the custom character stuff really shines like where you can really express yourself one thing to note you can choose your voice pitch so for my character since I know I’ll be honest I have a bit of an annoying voice in real life I decided to kind of up the pitch by one point like the game lets you and it resulted in a very tinny modulated sounding voice so be warned

and be careful with the voice choices here because your character does talk quite a bit now uh your thrust through a really cool intro and then you slowly get into the flow of the game missions everything is a mission classes are kind of just side objectives or story missions that are part of the flow so the game isn’t broken into like a school thing every day so if you weren’t paying attention I’m sorry if you were were looking for like a Persona or bully type School simulator this isn’t quite it still still because class moments are interesting the new professors are pretty decent and uh the game actually establishes a roster of students like a cast of characters that you get to know throughout the game you hear about them you learn about them you meet them you talk to them you see them in the Halls you see them during cut scenes and yeah now within Hogwarts itself is where a lot of the game’s mechanics are slowly introduced to you in a pretty digestible way it’s all trickled out the main element of course though is the Spells and I think there are about 16 to learn and unlock and they have various uses between exploration and combat so let’s talk about combat this was the thing I was the most worried about when the game was like announced and revealed and shown off it was hard to tell how it really felt or if it was fun or if it made sense I mean as much sense as it can it’s magic fighting with sticks but I’m happy that the combat is fairly decent and can sometimes be challenging tapping the trigger is like a strike button like you’re just doing Jabs basically hitting your opponents with a magic blast it gets her pet pretty quickly unfortunately but you’re doing that really to manage things between cooldowns of your other spells that are mapped to the face buttons this is where you can build combos say soften them up with a couple of wax then use a spell to lift them up in the air making them vulnerable for more damage then hit theme

with a couple of more and then use accio or something to pull them in close and then hit them with a close range blast of fire enemies also get more complicated and are more vulnerable to different things later on depending on their Shield or just their type so you’re going to want to swap out say ice spells for fire ones for certain dungeons you know that type of thing there are four layers of face button spell layouts to swap through and you can remap them so I basically had two layouts for combat situations and then the rest for random handy wizard tricks for exploration it can be awkward sometimes fumbling through lists of spells especially in combat but with the control scheme I guess it’s the reality of only having so many buttons also you can unlock the pen window for real real ones know what I’m talking about but this stuff does work when you’re shuffling through your spells uh when you find yourself in a puzzle or something and you’re like hmm what do I know what do I know that can fix this it’s actually pretty satisfying but back to combat there is a bit more to it uh you have magical items that you can use in combat like uh buff potions and defense potions and a couple of killer plants you can toss around and you can also Dodge and eventually kind of magic Dash you can also deflect with a Kind of Magic Shield Parry that can then be wrapped into an additional stun and then also throw random things in the environment at enemies there’s a decent amount of stuff you know the aiming targeting lock-on type of thing for enemies isn’t perfect it’ll mess up sometimes but you at least have two different options to choose from with it but that and the camera sometimes will screw you up still having said that overall the combat feels good the effects are great the sound and the general feedback is satisfying but it gets a little repetitive here and there you know the Spells are dulled out nicely throughout to shake it up enough

I really it’s not the greatest combat ever but it’s not a failure or anything at all like that I was worried but it is fun oh also I forgot to mention you have like a more powerful magic type that fills up with a meter and lets you do kind of like a devastating ultimate attack on enemies uh and they have cool animations but it also kind of makes you feel like almost too badass for this world it’s a bit tonally weird but hey it’s a video game I didn’t mind it that much uh now the open world outside Hogwarts is surprisingly big and there are swamps the dense deep Forbidden Forest the Big Town of hogsmead and various other smaller towns sprinkled throughout there are a few kind of obligatory open world things to keep busy you know nothing too obnoxious thankfully and also tons of hidden puzzles and dungeons of varying sizes a lot of this is for Loot and progression yep they managed to do another colored Rarity loot system and put it in a Harry Potter game but it works uh loot is pretty interesting that has various effects and there’s a full transmog system to look however you want regardless of loot which is nice there are a lot of different looks for your character and the game gives you tons of shops and loot and the gear slots uh in your inventory are limited actually and it’s kind of annoying thankfully there is Merlin puzzles to solve that increase your inventory capacity you’re going to want to grind them out pretty quick because the game gives you a ton of loot every Mission but additionally in terms of RPG stuff you’re earning points every time you level up so you can choose to spend those points to power up the effectiveness or radius of certain spells how well your potions heal you or help you unlock a faster Dodge stuff like that pretty straightforward skill tree stuff that works it’s decently paced that stuff is useful and makes the game have some depth but then there’s some surface level stuff that doesn’t matter as much and seems like it’s just there for the experience or you know for the cynical maybe it’s Nostalgia bait like picking out your wand at ollivanders and customizing it doesn’t really seem to matter much other than cosmetic and choosing your house just means your common room and outfits are different I haven’t really seen much else with that and since the game is more of an adventure game than a school simulator you’re not exactly finishing

the day hanging out in your Cozy Common room it’s just there for the experience and cash in one or two Collectibles and that’s it and it’s fine now I can be jaded but where the Nostalgia the Ambiance really works well is within Hogwarts itself like the castle school they built here it’s a massively impressive achievement it’s huge and hours and hours in you’re still discovering new whole wings and rooms it’s faithful it’s creative and it’s filled with hidden secrets just like it should be so from a gameplay perspective it’s good for exploring and collecting and side questing but it’s also just a nice experience you know candles float around in the Great Hall ghosts hover by doing their thing including peeves he shows up and messes with students and he sucks of armor will occasionally wiggle paintings are moving not all of them but most of them the grand staircase is staggering statues will talk to you students will pass by going to class you know using spells to carry their books sometimes pranking each other just all kinds of dynamic stuff that just happens for you to just see and enjoy so if you were looking for the Hogwarts experience in a game it’s here and I think it’s still one of the best aspects of the game they did a really good job it’s faithful and Atmospheric and fascinating and there’s enough stuff to actually do in it so it’s not all set dressing it’s not all just filler one big complaint for me though personally is that although the students Milling about are cool to look at you can’t really interact with them at all unless it’s quests I mean like NPCs are completely decorative so you can’t even really bump into them or do anything I know the game doesn’t want me blasting them with my wand or anything but they don’t really react to anything and it’s a bummer at least the students you interact with on a quests are decent and professors as well but the NPC students don’t add as much life as I would hope oh and then the game has the room of requirement too

so uh it goes from like a little customizable place to craft potions and stuff to a massive completely customizable room and a bigger outdoor area where you can catch and keep animals and creatures to keep them safe from poachers it’s like an in-game story thing uh most of this is somewhat optional but it’s fun to decorate a big spooky room with candlesticks and bookcases and chairs and paintings and stuff the game really throws a lot at you here also in terms of throwing things at you as of right now it is worth noting no micro transactions or really anywhere I can see them implementing something too offensive we always hear just love and appreciate when a game is straightforward just a regular old game one other issue that I mentioned at the start I found the game pretty glitchy if you’re sensitive to that stuff you might be annoyed here to be clear though I had nothing game breaking or like a bug that crashed my game or messed up a quest or anything it’s all just visual stuff visual flaws I’ve seen a few students T pose or just completely disappear or reappear out of thin air and not in like a magical Harry Potter way I’ve also had tons of atmospheric glitches where the game’s fog or some sort of effect obscures too much of the screen or the scene and kind of kills the lighting and also a weird I don’t know HDR type glitch where dialogue scenes would flicker in and out of a brightness mode I couldn’t really replicate it on screen here but it’s kind of annoying it’s stuff that can be patched but it’s a bit iffy and it hurts the visuals a bit for a game that otherwise I think looks really gorgeous the art direction for the open world is really good towns are cool caves are spooky and everything has tons of detail the seasons change and the entire world will reflect that season that’s pretty ambitious pretty wild and impressive stuff man to go from walking around Hogwarts in a normal time of year to then it’s switching to fall and then there’s pumpkins everywhere it’s a nice touch now there is some graphical pop in for sure but otherwise again game performs fairly well on PlayStation 5. the graphical modes options do everything that you’d expect and it’s nice to have options to take advantage of higher refresh rate TVs as well I really appreciated that now keep in mind this is the only version that we’ve been able to get our hands on we don’t know the state of the Xbox or the PC version yet and as you

probably remember if you’re playing on last gen consoles those releases are coming later one other really good thing I’d like to point out is the music it’s excellent from the ambient open World stuff to the bigger stuff a lot of it is surprisingly memorable and as someone who has been listening and obsessing to John Williams’s music for like my entire life at this point the composers here did a really good job of growing off of that in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s just ripping off or aping John Williams it’s celebrating the music that plays during the first Brew mission is nothing short of incredible overall Hogwarts Legacy I mean it’s a Harry Potter open world game with colored loot RPG systems side quests and all that stuff we’ve seen before in games but with the Harry powder lore the context and some creative spins on things and the new additions it’s all pretty compelling and fun there’s an interesting story here that actually seems to really flesh out the world in some interesting new ways without spoiling much I think this is a great refreshing way to get back into it or introduce someone new to it that has left me feeling excited about a franchise I haven’t really thought about that much in the last few years like I said I think the developers took this and ran with it in a good way I think that if you were looking forward to this game you’ll be satisfied straight up but folks that’s a before you buy you know how this works by now I give you some pros some cons and a bunch of personal opinion and now I want to hear yours in the comments especially from the lore people are you a Die Hard crazy Harry Potter fan do you know the ins and outs what do you think about the stuff they’re introducing in this game maybe if you’re someone else maybe you’re a little older you grew up on the stuff but really kind of dropped off is this your way of jumping back into it how do you feel about it so far everybody has a different take a different perspective on this one so let us know what you think in the comments be civil we’ll be down there as much as possible but either way hopefully this informed your purchase if you enjoyed this article