Only the vanishing charm is very difficult to learn, so you get a lot of partially vanished human excrement lining Hogwarts' hallways.

 

Here's a review of the game by someone who's already 100%'d it if anyone's interested. It's mostly spoiler free.

 

You're doing a lot of murdering in this game even without using the unforgivables...

 

New protagonist. Old protagonist is the sequel's antagonist, or a cameo, or not present because they're traveling, learning more ancient magic and changing the world or whatever.

 

Wow. For those non-PS players, you're really missing out by not having the Haunted Shop quest in Hogsmeade...

 

There are mods to to unlock the PS5 content on PC (though I think they're being taken off the Nexus so you have to know where to look) but apparently some people have said unlocking the Hogsmeade quest part can cause save corruption issues. Was thinking of doing it on a separate save once I was finishing up with the game, or do you think the quest should be done earlier in the game?

Some nice quality of life mods starting to hit the Nexus now too which is good, I like the ones that give better broom controls, silence the Floo inventor lady and silences the glowing sound effect on the line that guides you to quest objectives. Also found a reshade toggle to get rid of the UI on a button press which helps enjoy Hogwarts a lot more. Interested in the Ascendio mod that claims to fix FPS/stuttering and it seems to have a bunch of downloads, but I'm always hesitant of mods that come in executable form so going to check it out a bit more.

 

I'm so fucking glad that this game seems to be... somewhat easily moddable. I'm not expecting, and no rational human being should expect monstrous overhauls that the Creation Engine supports via a free Creation Kit like in Skyrim, Fallout 4, Oblivion, etc. But if it ends up a bit better than DA:I mod quality (and it looks vastly easier to actually install those here), that's a major win. I wish I could have 6-month-forward intelligence to see what mods come out.

 

Had a friend round on Saturday and we messed around, not really taking things seriously, just to get a feel for the game and explore. Once he left, my true playthrough began - as a Slytherin student called Victoria Potter. Played most of Saturday evening and then Sunday afternoon. Have got up to the quest where you unlock Talents, currently level 15. Going to keep mainlining the story until I get Talents, Room of Requirement and flying unlocked then go nuts with side missions. At that point only my lack of the Unlocking Charm will gate my ability to access different areas.

Enjoying it immensely.

- Combat is very fun, and I wish there were more options to just engage in as much of it as you want. Like Crossed Wands only has 3 rounds, and none of them are replayable. I wish that club had more depth and replayability.

- Love the depiction of Hogwarts. The grandeur, the size, the population all up to their own little adventures/interests, the position within the grounds and highlands landscape giving it a real sense of location. The movies obviously had to do things within a budget and within practical constraints, so it's nice to see what can be done within a virtual environment where the only limit is imagination. More than anything, this inspires me to get down to writing more VP, just for that Hogwarts experience.

- That said, I mirror previous comments about wishing there was more immersion, with your character more grounded in the environment. I love the cosmetic aspect of the game but I wish there was more to it. For example, before I go swimming I change out of my robes and into the bathing costume for added realism. I always put on my proper school robes before attending class, and leave my more casual outfits for when I head out of the castle. I just wish there was more of that built into the game, rather than being purely optional role play. I don't think a full on school sim would be appropriate - it would get tiresome having to constantly jump through hoops to get on with the game - but some deeper level of immersion would have been welcome.

- Similarly, I agree that actions should have more consequence. You speak to a quest-giver and choose all the "mean" dialogue options and you just get the quest anyway, with the person having no different attitude towards you.

- The RPG/stats system is a bit simplistic. It works for the combat, as it is, but it would have been nice for levelling up to mean more than just higher HP. You get so much free XP from finding field guide pages - from doing anything, basically - it's clear they're not worried about preventing you from over-level. With that in mind, it would have been nice to have a more involved stats system where each branch of magic has its own stats and you can do mini-quests around the castle that level up particular magic fields. This would have also added to immersion.

- I wish they had found a way to implement transfiguration more. It's hard to hold this against the game too much, because the combat is so fun and I wouldn't want to detract from that. But surely there would have been a way to include more transfiguration with puzzle-solving or interacting with the environment or whatever.

- Fuck Natty and her shitty takes on wandless magic.

Edit:

I think the main product of the lack of consequences, other than a general feeling of shallowness, is that there will be limited replayability. On a single playthrough you can do basically every quest. There's no content that is mutually exclusive with other content. By choosing to go down one path, you never close another path off.

So the only reasons you would feel a need to replay are:

(1) Wanting to respec your character's talents.

(2) Wanting to be in a different house.

Neither of those is really enough incentive to play the game again. While you can't get all the talents, you can still get most of them. And House is largely cosmetic, with no other changes for playing as a different house. So the only people who replay will just be those who want the same experience again, not because there is extra/different material you can see on a second playthrough.

 

There are infinitely replayable battle arenas you can just go nuts at - if you're on PS5, there's dark arts one too that lets you play with the unforgiveables (untalented) before you get them.

The only bit of transfiguration you get (unless you count conjuration and vanishing in the RoR) is the Transform spell, which is pretty powerful, especially if talented to transform into an exploding barrel, but yeah. I was hoping for more given the enemy has a lot of the spells I'd have wanted - firestorms and animagus particularly.


Btw, what's you guys' favourite part of the castle? Gotta say for me it's the DADA tower - the whole area is just gorgeous. Though a close second is the history of magic classroom. Starting to resent those little fuckers for hating that class when you have that splendor to look at every time lmao.


As a slightly related aside - I'll never not chuckle when reading a fanfic now when Dumbledore asks Harry to meet him in his office from the Great Hall. Knowing how monumental a clime that is now, you gotta write some sass in the reply.

 

For me my favourite parts are the transitions between interior and exterior spaces - the bridges, courtyards etc. Loved swimming across the lake to the boathouse and then just walking up the stairs to the castle proper. More than anything else, it's these that really make the setting feel real to me. You get to experience the interior and exterior simultaneously and it's a bit mind bending.

Other than that, I really love the common rooms just because of how large they are and how they are composed of multiple parts rather than a single room. I kinda went a bit in that direction in Victoria Potter, but Hogwarts Legacy took it and ran with it.

 

Wait do you actually kill people in this game. Even as a good guy? They arent just knocked out?

 

Even playing as a good guy you have a body count higher than Voldemort.

 

Ain't no pussies in the 1800s.

Though technically if you stealth kill everyone they are just knocked out (petrificus) and disappeared.

Stupefy is strictly a counter follow up that dazes rather than knocks out. Expelliarmus does damage (and a lot of it because you normally smash their sharp, discarded weapons in their faces after that).

Everything else is pretty lethal. Diffindo, Bombarda, Confringo, Incendio, Depulso into walls and off cliffs etc


It's great lol

 

Weird call on the part of the developers. You dont kill anyone in the old games and the books are very anti killing. I'd have thought they'd just use the Spiderman / Arkham system of them being left groaning on the floor.

Is there a scene where we are demonstrated that wingardium leviosa can be used to kill someone as easily as the AK?

 

I'm not sure if there's one involving the levitation charm, but I remember the first Ancient Magic finisher animation I got was the one where (minor gameplay spoilers)

Spoiler

the PC shrinks an enemy and then steps on them. Spoiler tags cause it was a pretty big holy shit moment when it happened early on. I think he also followed it up by cheerily remarking something along the lines of "One less poacher in the Wizarding world."

After that I thought those fanfics that go on about the definition of dark magic not being very helpful might have a point, I'd take the killing curse any day over some of those finishers. Probably one of the more extreme examples of ludonarrative dissonance I've experienced. I feel like someone could write a funny crack fic about the increasingly concerned students of Hogwarts as they realise what a psychopath the protagonist is, constantly coming back from killing sprees in the forbidden forest and sleeping in the hallways over night to wait for the classes they only show up at to learn new dueling spells.

Also, I highly recommend wearing the dragon hide jacket when delving into ruins for those looking to live out their Indy!Harry cursebreaker dreams. It's kind of ugly but if it's good enough for the coolest Weasleys, it's good enough for my murder hobo.

 

Isn't the issue with The 3 the mental state needed to cast them?

I've always had an issue in fiction where killing (violent criminals) is considered taboo, but locking them in a cell for life (with soul sucking demons) is considered the humane and just response.

Maybe I'm just a psychopath.

 

Well sure, but I think the difference might be academic when comparing to the mental state of someone willing to (minor gameplay spoilers again)

Spoiler

slam someone's body over and over into the ground until they die. Nothing has lead me to believe the player also doesn't have enough control over the Ancient Magic that they couldn't just choose to use the "disappear someone from existence" ability every time, instead of the brutal ones they do occasionally just to keep things from getting stagnant. It totally works too - and I do admit I prefer it over the alternative of super watered down combat like the Jedi Fallen Order lightsaber baseball bat, I just wish the story could match the tone a bit more.

 

Would need Taure to confirm this isn't fanon, but it's more an issue of what it does to the user and not the outcome of the spell.

Use a spell enough times who's specific casting requirement is wanting to cause pain is no Bueno

 

The more I play, the more impressed I am with the worldbuilding they've done. Just found the Divination classroom, complete with attic trapdoor and tea-shop vibe.

The loyalty to book descriptions of Hogwarts in this game is truly impressive. Like... I'm guessing they had several lore people on hand whose sole job was to pour through the texts and pull out every setting tidbit they could find to create a realized castle. Some things are occasionally in the "wrong place", but the detail is all there.

And their lore people are clearly huge fucking nerds too. Every time I encounter Ominis Gaunt walking around using his wand like a visibility cane, I smile, because I know someone in the writer's room was like "Can't we just fix his eyesight with magic?" and some nerdy fuck was like "no sorry, we can have magical eyes, but there is no known spell that can correct eyesight."

 

Bellatrix states in Book 5 that you have to want to cause pain for Cruciatus to work. Stands to reason it's the same with the others. (Doesn't Crouch-as-Moody mention something similar about Imperius?)