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[Wvrs]

There's so much I love about this game but it's almost offensively bland. The world is beautifully sculpted and the gameplay systems are all lovely but the plot is so by-the-numbers and all the characters are absolute melts with no personality whatsoever.

Shit PC performance too. I go from 90fps to 15fps in the same scene sometimes.

But overall I like it and I'll finish it. Just it's white bread as fuck. A decent enough bread I'll eat in the morning and enjoy but I'm not going to spend 80 hours trying to 100% it at the bakers' in town.

 

[JetBlackPanda]

Is there any real negative to use the unforgivable curses or dark magic? while out in the wild not around students etc?

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Is there any real negative to use the unforgivable curses or dark magic? while out in the wild not around students etc?

no; kill everybody.

 

[JetBlackPanda]

no; kill everybody.

KILL MODE ACTIVATED.

thanks

 

[semiconscious]

There's so much I love about this game but it's almost offensively bland. The world is beautifully sculpted and the gameplay systems are all lovely but the plot is so by-the-numbers and all the characters are absolute melts with no personality whatsoever.

Shit PC performance too. I go from 90fps to 15fps in the same scene sometimes.

But overall I like it and I'll finish it. Just it's white bread as fuck. A decent enough bread I'll eat in the morning and enjoy but I'm not going to spend 80 hours trying to 100% it at the bakers' in town.

it's a game for 'children of all ages', based on a very popular series of books for 'children of all ages'. what were you expecting? edginess? i mean, while maybe the adult me wasn't consistently thrilled with the game, the 10 year old me was pretty damn impressed & delighted...

 

[bratpack]

I grabbed this last week and am super surprised at how good it is missions and side missions are all very rewarding cutscenes are bland though but the world , gameplay , missions , magic , broom flying etc it all comes together greatly.

 

[Portugeezer]

Reviewers giving this 9/10 were smoking crack, even if you loved the HP franchise. I think the game relies too much on the setting (which is stunning and well crafted).

I read some HP books growing up, but I wasn't too invested in the franchise. This game feels like a typical checkbox open world, once the wizard fantasy element dries out the game feels dead and bland. Earlier in the game I spent every moment exploring and looking for loot, "Revelio, loot, Revelio, loot, etc..." but with the level scaling what's the point? You don't really gain anything besides gear, which will become shit eventually and I will find a basic piece of gear via the main path in the future which will be better.

Combat could be OK, but there is no incentive to try much, combat challenges get old and despite the protection bubbles some enemies have to use different spells combat comes down to spamming 3 or 4 different spells until they refresh, rolling, throwing stuff and using the ancient magic spell. Blocking and dodging is too forgiving.

Broomstick flying is nice and seamless (besides Hogsmead, lol why?), I often fly to an objective rather than fast travelling. Griffin is pointless, more cumbersome and doesn't feel any faster than broomstick.

8/10 because Professor Garlick.

 

[ABeezy1388]

Just finishing up the unique one and only house specific quests/trophies. Pretty cool. Wish they were able to make each play through have different options, quests etc. would have made multiple play throughs fun.

Overall as I said the other day, good game but once the charm wears off a bit it’s not a 10/10, more a 7.5 but I enjoyed it a lot and got my moneys worth for hours and hours of entertainment!

 

[RPS37]

I went back and rewatched the movies on UHD to get fully into it. Just gotta finish the last two.
Haven't played the game for a couple weeks and I miss it.
Going to be awesome going back.

 

[Hugare]

it's a game for 'children of all ages', based on a very popular series of books for 'children of all ages'. what were you expecting? edginess? i mean, while maybe the adult me wasn't consistently thrilled with the game, the 10 year old me was pretty damn impressed & delighted...

The HP movies are +10 rating and are way darker and more interesting than this. So are the books. I read them all.

Heck even The Philosopher Stone had more bite than this story

I'm enjoying the game, but the story/characters are easy the worst part of it. "Being for children" is no excuse.

"His Dark Materials" is a book for children and its about kids being abducted, experimented on and have their souls removed

 

[semiconscious]

The HP movies are +10 rating and are way darker and more interesting than this. So are the books. I read them all.

Heck even The Philosopher Stone had more bite than this story

I'm enjoying the game, but the story/characters are easy the worst part of it. "Being for children" is no excuse.

"His Dark Materials" is a book for children and its about kids being abducted, experimented on and have their souls removed

i was never attempting to offer an 'excuse'. hogwarts legacy went with the family-friendly story it went with. it didn't have enough bite for your taste? based on the movies, you were expecting a darker, grimmer experience than what you got? fine - individual tastes vary, & it's expected that not everyone's always going to be enjoying a story equally. thing is, simply because some family oriented material (including the potter books) can tend to get surprisingly dark doesn't mean that all such material need, or should, be. again, i'm not sure what expectations you or others had coming into this game, but, as basically a non-fan of the potter books (read one) & movies (watched them all once), i was very surprised by how enjoyable it was, rather than disappointed by what it wasn't. ymmv...

 

[Ramz87]

Man what a game. I haven’t been this hooked on a game for a long time! Combat is great and the open world is beautiful.

 

[FeastYoEyes]

Maybe it's a product of how I was playing it but the game last a lot of steam about half way through.

 

[Mr Wonderstuff]

Maybe it's a product of how I was playing it but the game last a lot of steam about half way through.

How were you playing it?

 

[Spaceman292]

Just finished it. I agree with pretty much everyone that the three students' quest lines were much more interesting than the main story, which sort of sucked in the end. But it had some good moments and the final boss was badass so it's fine.

I liked the parts where I got to kill all those people. And I like that the last upgrade for the dark arts basically turns Avarda Kadavra into the BFG from DOOM.

 

[FeastYoEyes]

How were you playing it?

Doing all side quests that I can then the main quests.

 

[Wvrs]

it's a game for 'children of all ages', based on a very popular series of books for 'children of all ages'. what were you expecting? edginess? i mean, while maybe the adult me wasn't consistently thrilled with the game, the 10 year old me was pretty damn impressed & delighted...

I didn't expect nor want edginess at all. I just wish the characters and plot were as distinct and developed as the books. Instead it feels like the blandest gaming experience of all time. There's nothing interesting or daring whatsoever.

 

[Mr Wonderstuff]

Doing all side quests that I can then the main quests.

I do the same generally but have mixed it up for variety in this game.

 

[Rentahamster]

I'm experimenting with different combat strategies, and I discovered that if you're invisible, undetected, and drop down chomping cabbages or tentaculas, they attack the mobs and the mobs just sit there and take it. Kinda cheesy lol. I'm gonna stack the +damage plant traits and see how ridiculous this gets. But stealth is still OP. 4 points in the stealth talents and you can OHKO your way around the map.

The combat overall can be pretty entertaining. Accioing an enemy from up top a cliff, lighting him on fire, then descendoing him back down 50 feet is hilarious AF.

 

[RoadHazard]

I think I might have been doing too much side stuff. I'm pretty sure I'm less than halfway through the main story, but I'm already level 24. I just don't want a huge backlog of side quests later on, so I'm doing most available ones before moving on with the main quests.

Either way, liking it a lot overall, but it's definitely a bit buggy and unpolished (mostly UI stuff, but also some gameplay stuff that just feels janky).

 

[Rentahamster]

What is really pissing me off now is these demiguise statues. I need just one more so I can unlock higher Alohomora locks. I might just go look at a guide to find a quick easy one. It's a pain in the ass that you have to wait until night time to collect them.

Go to the map and select the "wait until day/night" option.

 

[vodka-bull]

1257 collectibles for the platin trophy? You shitting me, right? Who is insane enough to do that? That‘s even worse than any Assassins Creed

 

[Mossybrew]

1257 collectibles for the platin trophy? You shitting me, right? Who is insane enough to do that? That‘s even worse than any Assassins Creed

Trophy hunters are a strange, inscrutable breed worthy of our derision and ridicule. I champion any game that makes it more difficult for them.

 

[vodka-bull]

Trophy hunters are a strange, inscrutable breed worthy of our derision and ridicule. I champion any game that makes it more difficult for them.

It‘s not difficult at all, it‘s just boring and filling a game with a shitton of collectibles is just poor and lazy gamedesign.

 

[balls of snow]

Repulso sheeps down cliffs never gets old.

 

[CortexVortex]

1257 collectibles for the platin trophy? You shitting me, right? Who is insane enough to do that? That‘s even worse than any Assassins Creed

Yeah I am missing some pages in Hogwarts itself and I don't think I will bother with it. Did everything else and had a great time with the game though.

 

[Rentahamster]

Those of you who have experience trying both mouse+KB controls and controller, which do you prefer?

Which one are you used to the most? Go with what you're comfortable with is my recommendation.

I want someone to invent a left hand that is basically half an Elite 2 controller/PS5 Edge for movement and buttons/paddle(s) but then the right hand side is a mouse with some buttons/wheel goodness. I cannot stand the left hand clawing required with keyboard but a mouse is way better for look/aim control etc.

Depends on the game, but generally speaking I'm fine with either. I'm just wondering if there's an obviously superior control scheme so that I don't have to bother testing both out extensively.

Controller. The only time I would recommend m+kb with this game is if you use an MMO mouse. The spells being bound to 1 - 4 is a little awkward given how often you cast them, adding in movement/parry/dodge roll etc. And even if you figure that out, you CANT rebind the 'switch between target' buttons when locked on to an enemy... which are bound to the left and right arrow keys. So for those reasons, I'd say controller is the best way to play this game.

Oh shit if I'm using directions via WASD and the switch target button is the arrow key... Lol


Might be awkward in tense combat.

So after spending some time with this game on both PS5 (3 hours) and PC (15 hours), I can safely say that for me and the way I like to play, mouse and keyboard are superior from a gameplay and control perspective, with sacrifices of course to comfy couch enjoyability.

C ChazGW7 I did end up binding all 4 of my spells' secondary hotkeys to my mouse button. This makes it a lot easier. The only time I use the actual numbers to shoot spells is if I'm doing a specific combo that has me stand in one place and just type out 1, 2, 3, 4.

For example, AOE accio > AOE incendio > confringo > diffindo

I did experiment with having protego on the mouse too, but ended up leaving it on Q. I put mousewheel scroll to change spell sets, and mousewheel click to lock on. You actually CAN rebind the switch between targets button. They are the left and right arrow buttons which are by default corresponded to look left and look right, so I put my last remaining mouse button to "look left" to switch targets.

I feel like mouselook is so much better than using the right analog stick. I can scan around a new area so much easier and faster with a mouse than I can on a controller. Having to hold R2+face button to cast spells also adds just a little more lag to my commands, and I feel more in control during combat when using mouse +KB.

 

[vodka-bull]

Angryjoe giving this a 10/10.

Seriously? I encountar bugs after bugs, a boring open world, too many repetitive puzzles, dull dialogues and boring main story. It‘s an 8/10 at best for me and a 9/10 if you‘re a 14 year old Potterjunkie.

 

[RoadHazard]

Angryjoe giving this a 10/10.

Seriously? I encountar bugs after bugs, a boring open world, too many repetitive puzzles, dull dialogues and boring main story. It‘s an 8/10 at best for me and a 9/10 if you‘re a 14 year old Potterjunkie.

Any spoilers? I'm not done with the story yet.

 

[DarkBatman]

Angryjoe giving this a 10/10.

Seriously? I encountar bugs after bugs, a boring open world, too many repetitive puzzles, dull dialogues and boring main story. It‘s an 8/10 at best for me and a 9/10 if you‘re a 14 year old Potterjunkie.

If you rate it 8/10 or less, that's perfectly legitimate. But a little counterexample: My wife (she's a huge fan since she was a child) absolutely loves the experience of being able to freely explore the Harry Potter world. And this is way she doesn't mind bugs at all, which is why she would give it a 10/10 as well.

Opinions are different. And that's a good thing, as long as you can justify them well and don't act out of blind hate or an invented agenda.

 

[Spaceman292]

Angryjoe giving this a 10/10.

Seriously? I encountar bugs after bugs, a boring open world, too many repetitive puzzles, dull dialogues and boring main story. It‘s an 8/10 at best for me and a 9/10 if you‘re a 14 year old Potterjunkie.

The game is more than the sum of it's parts. BOTW had barely any story and shit combat, but everyone loves it. Same deal.

 

[Dazraell]

I would personally give it 8,5/10, but I can see why he really enjoyed this game. It's a dream come true if you loved the franchise. A lot of those smaller issues are overshadowed by amount of so many things that were nailed correctly

I had an amazing time with this game and I felt it was a solid first entry from the developer. It was one of those rare experiences where I really wanted to play it until the very end and I can certainly see a lot of room for improvement in potential DLCs and sequels. Let's just hope they don't lose what made this game so successful and Warner won't try to pressure devs to lean into all of the current industry trends that can tank the sequel down like with Shadow of War

 

[vodka-bull]

Any spoilers? I'm not done with the story yet.

No story spoilers, no. But he talks many gameplay mechanics,

 

[Pollux]

Reviewers giving this 9/10 were smoking crack, even if you loved the HP franchise. I think the game relies too much on the setting (which is stunning and well crafted).

I read some HP books growing up, but I wasn't too invested in the franchise. This game feels like a typical checkbox open world, once the wizard fantasy element dries out the game feels dead and bland. Earlier in the game I spent every moment exploring and looking for loot, "Revelio, loot, Revelio, loot, etc..." but with the level scaling what's the point? You don't really gain anything besides gear, which will become shit eventually and I will find a basic piece of gear via the main path in the future which will be better.

Combat could be OK, but there is no incentive to try much, combat challenges get old and despite the protection bubbles some enemies have to use different spells combat comes down to spamming 3 or 4 different spells until they refresh, rolling, throwing stuff and using the ancient magic spell. Blocking and dodging is too forgiving.

Broomstick flying is nice and seamless (besides Hogsmead, lol why?), I often fly to an objective rather than fast travelling. Griffin is pointless, more cumbersome and doesn't feel any faster than broomstick.

8/10 because Professor Garlick.

I keep looting for transmog options as I play. Fashion is the true endgame of everything.

 

[Pilgrimzero]

Ugh.

I Avada Kadava’d a boss which “killed” him and won me the fight but he was still alive for the next cut scene.

That’s just bad game planning IMO

 

[K' Dash]

So, I'm still early in the game I think? I just got Alohomora and I'm level 25, but 90% of the loot I get is shit, what gives?

What hurts me the most is the lack of any cool loot when I go to explore, even in areas where there are high level enemies

 

[HotSauceEnema]

patch notes out, huuuuge list of bugfixes https://hogwartslegacy.bugs.wbgames.com/patch-notes

 

[noomi]

patch notes out, huuuuge list of bugfixes https://hogwartslegacy.bugs.wbgames.com/patch-notes

Awesome! Hoping to hear from impressions from those who have downloaded and tried it. Playing on PC and performance/ray tracing definitely needed some improvement.

 

[RoadHazard]

patch notes out, huuuuge list of bugfixes https://hogwartslegacy.bugs.wbgames.com/patch-notes

Cool, they fixed the robe transformation before the sorting ceremony, that always bugged me. Guess I'll start over!

Lol. No.

No fix for the map defaulting to the wrong view with minimap turned off. Guess I'm used to always manually switching by now.

 

[vodka-bull]

Just had the side mission with Penny the elf in hogsmeade, that mission was genious and fun to play. Incredible, that it‘s „just“ a sidemission!

 

[murmulis]

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/hogwarts-legacy-zero-punctuation/ It's ok to dislike the game, but I didn't expect so much misogynist shit from him. Wtf. Calling a woman a cunt doesn't make you sound edgy. It makes you sound like an incel.

 

[EviLore]

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/hogwarts-legacy-zero-punctuation/ It's ok to dislike the game, but I didn't expect so much misogynist shit from him. Wtf. Calling a woman a cunt doesn't make you sound edgy. It makes you sound like an incel.

Feminism in 2023 is a man calling a woman who survived domestic violence the c-word for not wanting men to invade the women's rape shelters she's personally funding.

 

[RickyRozay]

patch notes out, huuuuge list of bugfixes https://hogwartslegacy.bugs.wbgames.com/patch-notes

Would be nice to actually play this game on the pc since performance is horrible currently in some of the places I'd imagine you spend a lot of your time. However going on steam and all you hear is how this patch basically fixed nothing performance wise although I don't trust half of what I see on there at times.

 

[nightmare-slain]

Would be nice to actually play this game on the pc since performance is horrible currently in some of the places I'd imagine you spend a lot of your time. However going on steam and all you hear is how this patch basically fixed nothing performance wise although I don't trust half of what I see on there at times.

what are your PC specs?

you pretty much need a PC with 32GB, a nvidia 4000 card, and at least 11GB vram to play this at 1440p 60fps on Ultra with no RTX.

my 4080 can't manage solid 60fps so i need to turn on frame generation to go above 60fps but the good thing is that with that on i can hit 80-140fps. I'm seeing 16-21GB RAM usage and 11-14GB VRAM usage.

i can't imagine trying to play this game on my old pc with 16GB, RTX 2080 (8gb vram) lol. no patch is going to fix that.

 

[RickyRozay]

what are your PC specs?

you pretty much need a PC with 32GB, a nvidia 4000 card, and at least 11GB vram to play this at 1440p 60fps on Ultra with no RTX.

my 4080 can't manage solid 60fps so i need to turn on frame generation to go above 60fps but the good thing is that with that on i can hit 80-140fps. I'm seeing 16-21GB RAM usage and 11-14GB VRAM usage.

i can't imagine trying to play this game on my old pc with 16GB, RTX 2080 (8gb vram) lol. no patch is going to fix that.

I have a 3080 and 16GB and I basically set everything to high and no RT at 3440x1440. I haven't tried going back since day 2 or 3 of release but my fps started off great with 120 throughout the entire intro basically...that is until I got to the school and the first village where I basically got nothing but travel stuttering when running around and its awful. Not the entire school though as some areas are actually perfectly fine.

Honestly after reading these patch notes surely something must have been fixed here because this seems to mention a lot of the issues being mentioned.

 

[Roufianos]

LMAO. In what world is this a 10/10? This game has some of the dullest and offensively bad side quests since Days Gone. I'm sure I did one the other day which was just walking to talk to someone. The constant level gating for main quests is a pain in the ass, especially as the goals for learning new spells are basically MMO quality fetch quests.

If this wasn't a HP game, I'd struggle to give it above a 6.

And to think Horizon got slated last year for being 'A generic Ubisoft game'. That game had much better side content and respect for the player's time.

It's an enjoyable experience, it could be a lot better.

 

[MP!]

The HP movies are +10 rating and are way darker and more interesting than this. So are the books. I read them all.

Heck even The Philosopher Stone had more bite than this story

I'm enjoying the game, but the story/characters are easy the worst part of it. "Being for children" is no excuse.

"His Dark Materials" is a book for children and its about kids being abducted, experimented on and have their souls removed

Wondering if you played the side quests?
Some of them are pretty dark?
I actually think they did a good job making characters with personalities (though I don't like some of the voices)

Not sure why people expect so much from video game stories though in general. I think the game's main purpose is to immerse you in the wizarding world and give you stuff to do.

I suppose I'm trying to ask... What makes you feel the characters are bland? And the side quests are dull?

 

[nightmare-slain]

The HP movies are +10 rating and are way darker and more interesting than this. So are the books. I read them all.

Heck even The Philosopher Stone had more bite than this story

I'm enjoying the game, but the story/characters are easy the worst part of it. "Being for children" is no excuse.

"His Dark Materials" is a book for children and its about kids being abducted, experimented on and have their souls removed

His Dark Materials are "Kids books" but yeah it goes way harder than Harry Potter (i love both of them).

HDM focuses a lot more on death, spiritualism, science, and religion. I first read those books when I was 12 and a lot of it went over my head. They might be marketed at kids books but you need to be an adult to fully appreciate them. Far more than the HP books.

In many ways, as big a HP as i am, HDM is much better. It's a shame it's not as popular.

If you've never heard of HDM before there is the show you can watch which you absolutely should and it's very faithful to the books. In the UK it's on BBC and in the USA (RoW?) it's on HBO. Produced by Bad Wolf studios who are now owned by Sony and will be doing Series 14+ of Doctor Who.

 

[analog_future]

Angryjoe giving this a 10/10.

Seriously? I encountar bugs after bugs, a boring open world, too many repetitive puzzles, dull dialogues and boring main story. It‘s an 8/10 at best for me and a 9/10 if you‘re a 14 year old Potterjunkie.

I mean, I really enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy, but Angry Joe is kind of an idiot and is politically driven. I don't take any of his reviews seriously.

 

[RyuCookingSomeRice]

I mean, I really enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy, but Angry Joe is kind of an idiot and is politically driven. I don't take any of his reviews seriously.

None of his reviews are political. Dont be such a little bitch