While Hogwarts Legacy has little to do with the franchise it had been born from, the plot is serviceable enough to help keep you intrigued, even if it will have a bit to get going. There was rarely a surprise as the story played out, but I understand the dedication of Hogwarts trying to do its very own thing and not as being a retread of the conventions that we've come to see from both Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts. Regardless of where the story goes, it does a great job of nailing the feeling and tone of the story set in the field of Harry Potter, which is a plus.
But I'd fervently argue that the crux from the Hogwarts Legacy experience is simply living your lifetime in the realm of Hogwarts. From the gameplay perspective, no doubt you've played the type of game that Hogwarts Legacy is before. This is an open-world that's populated with activities to attempt, characters to engage with, and secrets to uncover. Hogwarts Legacy's world is not as big as other open-world games, but it is packed with things to discover. Hogwarts itself is a marvel comprising winding corridors densely full of hidden nooks and crannies just begging to be uncovered. The surrounding areas like Hogsmeade provide a shopping district for players, as the Highlands around Hogwarts can also be explorable. It's larger than you'd expect but smaller through the standard on most open-world games.
There's a whole bunch of activities packed into Hogwarts Legacy's world to uncover. The open world is filled with collectibles full of little lore-laden tidbits that I'm sure fans of the Wizarding World will love uncovering. Other activities include Merlin's Trials, which act as Breath from the Wild-esque shrines, offering puzzles to resolve with minimal guidance, not to mention an array of beasts and dark wizards to consider down.
THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $79.99 WITH FREE SHIPPING FROM AMAZON
Surprisingly, one of the strongest cores from the Hogwarts Legacy experience may be the combat system. You're eventually given just over twenty spells and each of them serves an excellent purpose in battle. Using the press of the mouse, you are able to block spells with Protego, but perfectly blocking enables you to parry, throwing back a Stupefy to stun your assailant. There are dodge rolls as well for avoiding the odd unblockable attack, but magic may be the solution to much of your problems in Hogwarts Legacy's combat.
I state that since the combat has been tuned to take advantage of most of the spells you'll wield. Where other games might just add elemental weaknesses to their combat, Hogwarts Legacy has you exploiting physical weaknesses to get the jump on enemies. You are able to suspend mutant toads by their tongue mid-attack with Levioso, exposing their soft underbelly to manage critical damage. You can even slash that very same tongue with Diffindo, a severing charm, to insta-kill it. A troll’s club could be Flipendo'd to manage critical damage to itself. You can even use Expelliarmus to interrupt a wizard’s casting or rip an axe out of a non-magical enemy’s hands and throw it back their way. There are even more options to exploit enemy weaknesses too, also it helps let the use of your whole repertoire of spells.
Spellcasting and combat are simply one side from the coin, however, as you will still need to do what you could around Hogwarts to be a star student for your household. Attending classes often unlocks new spells, but additionally opens up questlines for other students around Hogwarts who might need your help. You will find clearly two tiers to Hogwarts Legacy's side quests – a few of the more involved quest lines feel like they could be in the main game, while others are delivering certain goods in one part of the map to another.
Spells are not only used in combat either, with some of them being utilised to solve puzzles too. They're the type of puzzles which have clear solutions, so no immersive sim-like interactivity exists here, but they're still just like satisfying once you realise that which you need to do to resolve them. It's especially exciting, and maybe even Metroid-like, to unlock a brand new spell and then go exploring to see what new regions of the castle or highlands you can explore now. It all all comes together meaning that there's always something to complete or see in Hogwarts Legacy no matter what point you're at within the journey.
Within the area of Requirement is also a selection of habitats to house the friendlier beasts hanging around, which may be captured in a knapsack out in the wild similar to Newt's suitcase in Fantastic Beasts. Emptying the knapsack then allows you to look after the beasts (or setup the systems that will take care of them) which gives you materials to boost your gear with. It's another system with sufficient depth to it that it's impressive it's even included. But if it's not your lifestyle, you are able to engage with it as much as you like.
The main story will take most players around fifteen or twenty hours to accomplish, but Hogwarts Legacy's world is full of other pursuits to satisfy. Completion of optional quests and finding certain collectibles bring about challenge meters, which subsequently unlock teams of gear for players. It's admittedly done-to-death design in open-world games, but there's a lot variety available within a global so compelling it doesn't ever feel incessantly grindy. If you've got your vision on completing everything, you could easily pull fifty or so hours from Hogwarts Legacy or even more depending on how long spent on each task.
And I say that with love because Hogwarts Legacy is actually good at causing you to feel inefficient. The world is really inviting, and also the activities are just so compelling that I rarely travelled inside a straight line in one objective to a different without getting distracted by something else. I haven't felt this compelled to understand more about a wide open world since dare I only say it, Elden Ring, but it feels like the best mix of size and density for that kind of experience it's providing.
It’s not every great though, there are a few things which i think Hogwarts Legacy could most definitely do better. For just one, the gear product is great. There is a nice variety of robes, scarves, glasses, and hats on offer that any wizard or witch would like to wear. You may also transmog anything at any time, but the gear itself feels a bit tiresome to handle. You'll usually see yourself with five robes, all looking exactly the same, however with slightly different stat increases. It's not a huge dealbreaker, since combat feels more rooted in skill instead of pure number or stats crunching, however it was annoying enough to need to keep selling from the old stuff that I needed to bring it up here.
And then there's the lack of one of the most integral parts of the Harry Potter experience – Quidditch. There's in-universe justification why it isn't playable in Hogwarts Legacy, however it feels strange not to have it here when almost every other part of the Hogwarts experience is here now. It in no way demotes the feelings of the experience, but even having the big Quidditch arena stand there, going unused, feels like a bit of a misnomer to not include it.
From an exhibition standpoint, Hogwarts Legacy does its best to align with the same visual type of the films. While it incorporates a few of the classic motifs from John Williams' now iconic score, Alexander Horowitz's original score does a fantastic job of evoking the wonder and whimsy of the Wizarding World without entirely relying on the crutch of nostalgia. The best touches were the very subdued but, once again, whimsical pieces that played while exploring. They just helped to provide such a sense of tone and place to Hogwarts and it is highlands while you uncover its many secrets.
