Most transfiguration is restricted to the Room of Requirement, where you can conjure and transform things. It's basically a menu system not unlike placing furniture in a house in The Sims, but your character is animated as if casting a spell as you cycle through the options.

There is a generic "transform" spell you can use out and about in the world as well, but I think this basically just triggers a pre-determined transfiguration set to that object or enemy as to what the transform spell will do to it, rather than letting you pick what it will transform into.

 

Useful tips video:



No story spoilers but includes gameplay spoilers.

 

Lol you can’t be pale skinned

https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotte...urce=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

 

Having booted up the game, here's my review:

1/10 utterly broken trash, don't waste your time.

I literally can't get through shader compilation because the game's in such a poor technical state it apparently can't use more than 3-4 gb of my 32gb of vram. I'm about 30 min from just demanding a refund and forgetting the game exists.

 

Playing PS5 it’s great. Definitely feels like Hogwarts.

Spoiler

Man why you gotta do my man George like that. The threstrals were a nice touch.

 

Given that the game is set in 19th century Scotland that seems like a glaring oversight.

 

I could not stand the tutorial, and the initial introduction to Hogwarts immediately put me off. Not a game for me.

I hear lots of good stuff from different sources though, glad a lot of people are enjoying it, but I'm not playing this. Decided to refund it when they skipped through the Opening Ceremony and an introduction to my Common Room and immediately afterwards I get treated to three stilted lines of dialogue from the three characters in Slytherin who are going to be actual characters vs the rest of the cast. Immediately after said boring dialogue I was forced to fast travel directly to the great hall, which stunned me. Teaching me fast travel exists sure, but forcing me to use it? I can't stand every decision up until that point, and by then my 2 hours were almost up and I went to refund it before I forgot and the window closed.

If you are not as invested as I am in the "sim" aspect of a Hogwarts game, go for it I guess, but the combat did not earn any points with me either. Just a weird first impression overall. Do give it a try though, I am a grumpy bastard at times.

 

It’s definitely not a Hogwarts simulation. It’s an adventure game set in the wizarding world.

Hogwarts itself is beautiful once you get to start exploring.

There are plot holes. Your PC is a Gary Stu. As a story it’d get a 3/5 in the library.

still massive respect for making me feel like I’m in the books.


Combat starts slow and begins to pick up once you start getting talents.


I feel a lot about this game that I did Ragnarok. It is trying to do too much. It’d benefit from a stronger story/stronger characters. Etc.

Still worth it imo on PS5. I’m having fun.

 

Played 8 very fun hours so far today.

Yes, there's several issues, most importantly the performance and some pacing/setting issues, but overall it's been a fun time and passed quickly. Hogwarts feels like it's come to life and very obviously is lovingly crafted. It won't win any awards on any category, but it's not criminally messed up anything yet either.

It's a decent RPG game and a good Harry Potter game. So far.

 

I've only played a little (PC release was 5am in Australia), and most of that time was spent messing around with settings trying to make the PC performance playable. I think I'm actually getting better performance without DLSS (even after updating to version 2.5.1) at native 4K which is pretty weird, hoping Nvidia updates drivers when the early access ends and sorts out a lot of this. I've pretty much given up on ray tracing, even the less demanding ambient occlusion - not sure it really looks that much better in this game anyway.

I just got to the point where a fellow student explains how wandless magic is like, totally better and more instinctive and what is largely practiced in Africa (where their school is of course much bigger than Hogwarts). The fanon feeling is a bit cringe (though I think a lot of that is from Pottermore? I never really got into that, and despite apparently coming from JKR it still a felt a bit like fanon) - every now and then though I'll encounter something from the books (like Peeves) and feel like a kid geeking out again. Nostalgia works, I suppose.

 

Yeah NGL the whole bit about how wands are only really used for dramatic purposes was bizarre. You can tell someone felt really smart and creative putting that in there. Never mind what it does to established lore.

It was just a couple of lines though. Easily ignored.

 

As it so happens, I'm about 8 hours in as well. I more or less agree with most of the things being said, but Im personally pleasantly surprised by the combat.

You feel pretty weak at the beginning, a lot of spamming the same shit, but at the same time, you have to combo it with your limited spells so you can unleash absolute destruction upon your unsuspecting enemies.

I like that you have to use both dodge and protego in combination with your attacks (if you don't wanna be stubborn and die 10 times before forcing it)

I get a feeling, that the combat will become more and more satisfying as you morph into merlin. Until you are just stomping on anything that dares stand in your way.

And I don't know what it is. But I just love this scenario of this pretty pathetic duel between 4 nobodies and the protagonist. Some weak spells are being traded back and forth - until suddenly one guy is just annihilated by some lighting.

 

If you're a HP fan, get it. Yes there are things that could be better, and yes there are some strange lore bits, and yes if it didn't have an established IP it wouldn't be as good - these don't matter. It's Hogwarts. Get it.

 

I have got the standard edition on PS5 so will play at the weekend. I was tempted by the early access but I already agreed with a friend that we would play it together on Saturday, so I need to hold out for that.

 

Do the staircases move?

 

I'm still pretty early on but there has been a distinct lack of moving staircases so far, maybe I've just missed them though the castle seems like it's massive. I feel like video games are a medium where you can really do justice to the whole thing where the castle switches up the layout and corridors connect to different places over time, so it will be disappointing if they haven't done anything like that. Although I suppose that would probably be an absolute nightmare from a quest design and NPC AI navigation point of view. I'm already finding myself getting a bit lost in all the corridors, but it would be pretty hilarious if the map was just constantly switching up too.

Big fan of how almost every door you can come across seems like it can be opened, I haven't unlocked lock picking yet but I don't think I've come across any unopenable doors that are generally ubiquitous in these open world games.

 

There are stairs that appear when you run towards them, but no official major map changes. Which...I don't think I would want with how massive the map is already.

Ran into a bathroom and hidden in one of the stalls was a cauldron boiling. Non quest related. Just there. Made me laugh.

 

The biggest argument against wandless magic being superior is that neither Voldemort, Dumbledore, or Grindelwald ever stopped using a wand to perform most magic. The game devs definitely spent a lot of time reading Harry Potter fanfiction around 2005.

 

I'm enjoying the game so far. I think the worldbuilding is a good compromise between mass appeal and staying true to HP. Yes, the ancient magic and wandless magic isn't great writing. Yes, there is very obvious shoehorning of diversity that doesn't matter to anyone but racists/homophobes/etc. It's decent because it's Harry Potter.

From a game perspective, there are several issues. I'm playing on PC and have no issues getting 60 fps. The issue is that when you enter a new area (and persistently in one area for some reason), the frames go down to around 24. It goes back up to 60 shortly but it can be a bit of an issue entering combat.

Combat feels okay. From a visual standpoint, it's flashy without being overbearing which I enjoy. It's also pretty easy but I'm playing on normal. So far, the open world has been fairly standard. There's the usual elements of "fetch the collectibles," "kill these people," "gather these materials" sidequests that are part and parcel for most generic open world video games these days.

Overall, I'd give it a 7/10, though it'd probably be a 5/10 if it weren't a Harry Potter game.

Edit: Formatting because the forum inserted a lot of weird font stuff.

 

What is the lowdown on player choices? Does anything you do matter? Can you randomly hex people and be an evil dick?