Reddit-level take.

- IGN grades on an absolute scale rather than on a curve. That means lower scores are reserved for messes which you just don't get out of professional big budget studios.

- Even on your own premise, if it's a three point scale, that's still a useful scale.

- The real content of a review is the text, not the score, and the text of this review gives plenty of detail.

- The IGN review is in line with every other major games outlet which is scoring around 8 and 9, with a few 7s.

- The Cyberpunk reviews were accurate, just incomplete. Namely, they reviewed on high end PCs where the game was able to run well, even on launch (see @TMD giving it a positive review on launch, playing on his RTX 3090). What the reviews didn't include was how badly the game would perform on lower end PC and console. That is plainly not applicable here because the Hogwarts Legacy reviews have mostly been on the console version, which appears to run well in performance mode. The only question marks are over PC performance (and down the line, previous gen consoles).

 

While I won't deny your subjective experience and preferences, I think it's fair to say your preferences are so out of line with popular consensus as to what constitutes good gameplay that they can be safely categorised as a "you problem" rather than a problem with the game.

 

I'm not a big fan about how the combat looks either tbh. It's very Fallen Order. The rest of the gameplay looks fine, but I don't remember all that much rolling from the books or the movies. Maybe the Hogwarts gymnastics team was disbanded before 1991. I haven't played much Shadow of Mordor, but I do remember absolutely hating how it played with a keyboard, so hopefully Legacy's controls are more optimised.

Personally, I also think that a first person perspective would work a lot better for what's supposed to be an open world rpg. More like Skyrim or Cyberpunk than the Witcher since we can customise our character.

 

I'm curious to see if visual customization is tied to stats. This was the one thing Anthem did right.

 

The text of the IGN review panders pretty heavily, but its general verdict is clear. As a game? Mediocre. As a story? Mediocre. As a Hogwarts fantasy? Fawning all over it. And yes, there is the standard array of bugs. I feel like giving it a 9/10 given what's in the review is a laugh, but fuck maybe this reviewer just really wanted a Hogwarts fantasy. Or maybe they're just latching on to the most redeeming part of a mediocre game to give the AAA title a good review.

The rating is definitely useless to me, but the text of the IGN review was helpful even if I had to read through the lines more than I should have. It convinced me not to stress about buying it, but when I inevitably get it as a birthday gift it'll be worth giving a shot.

 

Any reviews mention an aspect of micro transactions? Hadn't seen mention of them before, but maybe I'd missed it? It would be a wonderful surprise if they weren't present!

 

Guess I'm gonna be waiting a while for the PC version to get patched and cleaned up

 

All I want from this game is true open world exploration of Hogwarts and the surrounding area. Mostly indifferent about everything else. Let me poke around random classrooms, go swimming in the lake, and jump off the Astronomy tower with a broom and I’ll be happy.

 

Guess it’ll come in the sequel

No Romance

https://thegamespoof.com/gaming-news/hogwarts-legacy-wont-have-romance/

 

Good? We're playing a 15 year old.

Preloading it now. Got an RTX 2060 so we'll see how it runs.

 

yup.

I mean I don’t have a preference, but can understand those who wanted that depth and if you’re a teen playing could see it.

Just finished preloading. About to hop in

 

I suppose I am about due to get another HP game. I skipped Hogwarts Mystery because paying someone to STOP choking you runs counter to my understanding of how things are supposed to work.

My machine is rather long in the tooth, though, so I'm waiting to see how the PC version runs on old shit-boxes.

Anyone: "What are you running? Ryzen?"
Me: "VHS, but I just used the head cleaner, so that's something."

 

I haven't heard anything so I'm assuming it's not a thing otherwise there would be a lot more complaining. Considering Warner Bros eventually patched out the microtransactions from Shadow of Mordor (now there's a good reason for it being a bad game at launch tbh) I'd assumed they'd learned their lesson on how stupid putting those into a single player game is. Apparently leaks are suggesting Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will have a battle pass but I think that game has multiplayer.

I'd seen leaks that about a quarter of Hogwarts Legacy's map was cut from the game (alongside Quidditch, RIP you beautifully unbalanced dream minigame) as it was unfinished and speculation it would be finished as DLC if the game sold well.

PC performance definitely sounds a bit worrying, I saw a reviewer on reddit saying with a 3080 at 1440p with no ray tracing they were getting 80fps with drops down to 40fps. Another apparently was still getting frame drops with a 4090. Definitely a bit worrying if you want to play with ray tracing or have a weaker GPU. There will probably be a patch from Nvidia coming with driver optimizations that hopefully makes a difference, and maybe once they get rid of Denuvo that will also help. Looking forward to seeing what Digital Foundry says on this one.

Edit: Apparently some German gaming magazine has also talked about it requiring a lot of RAM, which could be a big factor here. When they released the PC recommended specs they did say 32GB of RAM for Ultra/4K specs. I think what is going on here is the latest gen of consoles are set up to use direct storage (a way of using fast storage from consoles finally having SSDs to decompress textures directly on the GPU and bypass using the CPU) and because there is a wider range of potential storage speeds on peoples computers they use RAM instead.

Glad I ended up going with 32GB of RAM for my rig because this might be a big thing going forward with new games. I imagine the guy with the 4090 would have had at least that much though so possibly there are other issues going on, but something to keep in mind if you're deciding which platform to play on. Very curious how they intend to run this game on Switch though, I must admit.

 

You are in for a treat because you can do exactly all these things and more

 

There are no microtransactions in the game, but there are different editions at different price points with various collectibles/cosmetics attached. And the PS5 version has a timed exclusive side quest which some report is one of the better side quests in the game.

And almost certainly there will be DLC down the line given how well it has sold.

 

Watching all the deluxe edition people doing their all-night streams.

Seems like the best setting for current gen consoles is the Balanced mode option, with framerate uncapped, and film grain turned off. Performance mode is butter smooth, but you can really notice the graphics dip, especially with character details and magic.

I've watched one guy make characters for all 4 houses and speed through the intro to run around the common rooms. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw have the best common rooms by far. Like, goddamn I want to live there.

Character creation looks great, barring the fact that there are maybe only 4 or 5 faces for each preset that aren't awful looking.


Combat seems pretty basic, at least in the early game. Tap button to attack with stupefy. Tap button to roll. Tab button to protego. Tap button to jump. Hold button and press other button to cast more interesting spell than basic stupefy.

The world they've built is incredible though. And the fidelity to the book descriptions woven into and between the movie stuff is really nice. I spy some sassy talking mirrors!

The side characters are already boring me to tears. Hope they get more interesting later.

Done watching streams now. I'll rely on y'all for reviews before I commit to buying it.

 

To the folks who have seen some gameplay? How does gear work in this game? Different rarity tiers? Bonuses to.. spellcasting speed? spell power? How's it work?

 

The gear game is reportedly quite shallow. You get gear that boosts stats but it's not the type of game where upgrading your gear is game changing. There isn't like an ultimate set of robes that makes you a complete tank or anything like that. The stat boosts are marginal.

The system is that gear will have a stat boost (offensive or defensive) plus a trait e.g. less damage from goblin enemies. The trait slot will often be empty and need to be filled by the player via crafting. You can also upgrade the stat boost via crafting.

Example:



Most of the gear game is cosmetic rather than about progressing your character's power. Wand handles, for example, are an entire class of gear with a dedicated slot, but all of them are entirely cosmetic.

Progression is largely a matter of:

- Acquiring new spells that do more damage and allow more powerful combos

- Levelling up

- Combat skill

Also, re the Killing Curse:

Spoiler

Reportedly, the level you need to be to complete the side quest to unlock the Killing Curse is higher than the level you will typically be at the end of the main story. So it seems like the solution to the OP nature of One Hit Kill is to only give it to you as a fun extra after you've already finished the main game.

(No story spoilers, just spoiler tagged because it contains details of how the Killing Curse is unlocked, which some may wish to uncover for themselves)

 

I wonder how transfiguration will work. I'm sure it will be mostly puzzle based, transfigure X into Z key or some such.

Imagine a more free-form, spell creation form of transfiguration.