i think what was mostly missed by devs was them forgetting or not realizing that a vast majority of people who wanted to play this game were very excited to BE a STUDENT at hogwarts. The books and the movies showed that yes while a lot of exterior things were affecting our favorite characters lives, the best moments were them showing their affection, being family, and just being kids in a magical castle. I mean the setup was practically handed to these guys to nail that. I just hope if another one comes they see that
Nailed it. I am not a potter fan. But even I love the CHARACTERS interactions more than any action. The game engines cool, but should be secondary to Hogwarts castle, and role playing as a student and making friends in a visual novel fashion. Maybe, If I could be Voldemort, that would be cool too.
What I really wanted was a Persona style thing where you went to classes (more than once) and where it gave you a "day/night" cycle. Classes (even just briefly) -> Afternoon -> Night. Then you could have the castle actually shut down at night.
Skipped quidditch, Skipped classes, skipped major holidays, skipped house moments/quests, skipped fighting for your house's success, and didn't have a difficult or repeatable dueling club. I loved the little questions that Ravenclaw girl gives you in the library. They could have had something like that for each class teaching us about the wizarding world and then giving us tests to see if we remember and the better we do the better our house points could be. You pick a house but it never seems to matter which one you're in.
This was my thing too: there's no consequences or organic interactions. Everyone is friendly and hangs with everyone in the game but there absolutely were personality differences between houses in the books. A lot of Slytherins wouldn't be caught dead hanging with a Hufflepuff, for example. If you pursue the Dark Arts your interactions and ending should have changed entirely. It also sucked not being able to interact with the castle more (eating and drinking, people sleeping in beds, more common room quests, being punished for wandering at night, being able to actually chill and interact with stuff in the room of requirement).
and your best friend has to be most annoying person in the game, who keeps telling you how magic in their country is stronger, because they don't use wands.
I was kinda dissappointed at the lack of INTERACTIVE classes. When I found all the classrooms it felt like a waste to not use them. Wouldve been cool if we couldve picked out our classes and interacted within them. And Diagon Alley is also something I missed! And I wish that you could buy more stuff in Hogsmeade, like I have a trillion Galleons and cant even buy a sugar quill. I really wanted to feel like a student. Altough Im happy that you can walk around anytime anywhere you like.
I was the producer for the Hogwarts Castle until I left Avalanche in March of 2021. I think there are many worthwhile observations and criticisms in this video. Should there be a sequel, the developers should take much of what you have to say here to heart.
It just felt like a copy and paste game, the same merlin trials, empty caves, animals to fight against, missing field guide pages - it was just too much. The map was way to big, and each massive area didn't bring anything new to the game at all, every part of the map felt the same, and on my way to grinding almost 100% completion it only took me a couple of boring days because every quest and mission felt the exact same: just rinse and repeat over and over again. The game wasn't badly made at all, in fact it was very well designed for the most part, its just all the great design was copy and pasted all over the map a 100x which made them all the less magical. So many easter eggs should've been planted in the castle, you should've really felt like a student - that in and of itself is what makes the wizarding world and Harry Potter in particular as a concept so special. But instead you just feel like some outsider character who is superior and special to every other character. I don't have a problem with being the 'chosen one' with the ancient magic, but I would still want to feel like a student to some extent. I just never felt anything of those things, I always felt my time spent in game was going towards something completely outside of my time at school - both worlds should've been explored: both the extensive dark arts 'ancient magic'-centred world, and the school world. I find it so weird that we're only at school for 1 year! I mean let the story progress over 7 years like it did in the Harry Potter franchise, let us grow with the character and allow us to experience all of the little magic novelties that make the wizarding world so magical, like a visit to Dragon Alley, or a visit to your best friends wizarding house. Let us marvel at the magic of the world rather than endlessly experience the same type of magic, away from the most magical part of the map (which is obviously Hogwarts itself) 100x times over and over again. The first 10 hours I played, I was so engrossed in the magic of Hogwarts, but then I realised it wasn't really about Hogwarts at all. It should've been called 'Wizarding World Legacy', not Hogwarts legacy because I barely feel like a student.
@@weebabyshamus I would have loved the massive world if each area brought something new, but it didn't Every are was copy and pasted from the last area I visited and as someone who grinded to about 98% completion of the field guide this got incredibly frustrating and boring for me.If the development time making a large world had gone into creating a wider variety of missions, improving the storyline or adding a house point system and more things to do in Hogwarts - I would take that trade anyway.
They should have added a lesson system like the one in "Bully", where you could decide to join classes or not, completely optional, but actually joining classes rewarded you with new features and gameplay elements.
This was my first thought as well after playing the game. Not just the classes from Bully, but also the curfew, detention, truancy, authority figures chasing you when you break the rules, the fact that you actually sleep in the dorm instead of crash on the floor...
I agree. For a game called Hogwarts Legacy, they couldn't wait to make you leave Hogwarts and spend as little time possible there. The game has good groundwork but instead of focusing on elements they introduce, they abandon them and move on to others. Went for the jack of all trades and master of none approach. It just feels a very shallow game.
It was so immersion breaking for the cutscene in the Sebastian/ominis questline where Sebastian gets chastised for using unforgivable curses once where I had used them about 15 times in the fight immediately preceding. I agree it was the best questline in the game but the lack of consequences was heartbreaking...
had the same thing happen in my playthrough i just finished. So close to greatness, really needed to centralize around hogwarts and add a bully like morality system
@@chadbassett8381I was sorted into slytherin, so my head canon was that all of my being nice and doing good stuff was just me being Tom Riddle and making everyone like me, but secretly I was a dark wizard doing unspeakable horror
I didn't like that you basically had to pander to Sebastian's increasingly poor choices to learn the curses when they could have had more dialogue with Ominis to get them instead. Minis could have been the voice of reason we learn from because he knows we won't abuse them (even though we absolutely will), but instead we just have to smile and nod as Sebastian gets more unhinged one quest after another
@@sterlingcrawford1218I wanted that as well, but there were certain dialogue choices that just didn't make sense. Or that time when you tell the uncle that Sebastian went too far.... But instead of actually saying that, your character says that he did it out of love. It pissed me off that the short choices sometimes were opposite of what you actually wanted to say.
My main issue was the severe lack of consequences. It's well established in the books and movies that students shouldn't be outside of the common rooms after hours, but outside of a few missions I can walk around everywhere without anyone batting an eye. Not to mention leaving the castle in plain view of everyone. Then there's the ability to use the dark arts anywhere and the most you'll hear is "Please don't do that"
I agree with this completely. It's a bit jarring how you have an entire moment in a quest that emphasizes "we aren't supposed to be out at night, so we need to sneak around the castle!" then it's immediately thrown out the window. Any other day you can wander around freely regardless of the time. Having to actually sneak out if you wanted to leave after dark would have been quite fun. It would have tied in perfectly with a house point system if you ended up getting caught out of bed after hours.
@@saucyblossomI think they intended Prefects to patrol at night, but as seen in the missions where they're present they have broken spotting ai that's more inconvenient than fun
I rationalised that security measures like being able to freely come and go from the castle (during the day) was a reflection of safer times. Like flying in America pre 9/11. The security we see in the books would be in large part due to Voldemort and perhaps Grindlewald before him. But as for Hogwarts rules like being out of bed, using (dark) spells in the castle, etc. That stuff should've been handled way better.
The first hours of being a student and discovering Hogwarts and Hogsmead were definitely the best part of the game ! I grew very frustrated when the game kept asking me to leave the castle for every quest. They spend so much time and effort making the castle only to force the player to not play in it...
People like you can never be pleased. Just reflect on your life and admit you complain about every second of it. What's the point. They spent a tone of time on all aspects of this game. So what your complaining that there is too much content. If it were different you would complain about the limiting scope of the castle alone Just give a valid reason why you dislike the game. Not some vapid bs just to be part of the hate train. Honestly your lazy 😫.
@@Matty272The open world was way too much though. The Forbidden Forest, Hogsmead, Hogwarts, those are all important locations but we do not need the tens of copies of Hogsmead littered throughout the map. It's just way too large and way too boring.
THIS IS WHAT I WANTED: 1. no major external threat 2. many classes (challenging) 3. goofy side missions (like giving crab and goyle the cupcakes type of stuff) 4. even bigger castle (no big countryside just the forest/hogsmeade and the castle) 5. quidditch (instead of this god awful looking new quidditch game coming up) 6. house cup 7. sneaking at night quests 8. a bigger and scarier forbidden forest 9. detention side quests 10. a personal owl that interacts with you 11. arriving and leaving at kings cross / platform 9 3/4 12. finding the secret passages 13. potion classes 14. O.W.L's 15. Bully/Rival (like Draco) 16. Cozy Christmas/Halloween scenes with lighthearted fun quests 17. Meeting Harrys great grandfather or something 18. 1 Evil teacher with a hidden motive to stop instead of a Goblin antagonist 19. Better dueling club with optional spell classes to be earned 20. Dementors and Expecto Patronum (Dont know how but they could have figured it out) 21. Choosing between christmas at hogwarts or at home/diagon alley? 22. Diagon Alley shopping spree beginning of the year. 23. A tight friend trio (like Harry, Ron, Hermione) 24. Side quests where you have to hide from another Filch type character(squib janitor) 25. Actual consequences to your actions 26. Meeting Voldemorts grandfather at hogwarts(already kind of evil / Maybe a Draco malfoy type) 27. Being able to read the daily prophet a few times 28. Ministry of Magic mission at the beginning of the year to discuss the fact you dont start in The 1st year 29. NO UNFORGIVABLE CURSES (i hated this) 30. Befriend the game keeper (for some fun Care of Magical creatures side quests)
You took the words of my mouth, i was remembering this game this afternoom and i tought to myself "this game should learn from hogwarts mystery". I mean, the mechanics of hogwarts mystery aren't good, but they knew (at least in the begining) the mood of the world, like bonding with friends, dialogs, characters with nuance, even romance, and not basing the gameplay on combat, cause, at least for me, is never the strong side of the harry potter world. i bought this game in pre sailing, and considering the cost in my country(Brazil) it was a HUGE investiment for me(the game costed almost 40% of my salary back in the time), and i felt like it was a generic Triple A game with a Harry Potter Skin.
There was a huge lack of secret passageways in Hogwarts. Plenty of hidden rooms and chests but the castle should have actual passages that would act as shortcuts throughout the castle
@@NicVandEmZ Which you can get quicker by using the floo powder, so it only makes sense to use it in the quest for it. It takes out part of the fun of the game to be able to just teleport everywhere. Why would you use the passage if you have a free and quicker path. They should have put a cost in the teleport scheme at least.
The game needed some outdoor areas, Hogsmeade, the forest, the lake, the train station. Maybe even a visit to the Ministry. But other than that? Yeah, you're completely right. Hogwarts is a *magical castle*. It has exactly as much space as you need or want.
I'd have been happy with just the castle to explore but with more stuff to do in. Just going around on a broom checking boxes is boring. When I saw the map was so big, I immediately knew it was gonna be shallow.
This pretty much mirrors my thoughts exactly. I wanted to be a student in this game. I didn't need a shoe-horned "chosen one" storyline. I wanted to start as a first-year and go to class, be required to actually learn stuff in order to progress my character, and spend several in-game school years becoming a great witch or wizard while exploring and constantly uncovering new secrets in Hogwarts, which was beautifully crafted. Every time I left Hogwarts in this game, I no longer felt like I was playing a game in the Harry Potter universe. Just felt like any other generic open world game.
What you wanted is exactly what I thought this game would be. I don’t have it as it hasn’t come out for Switch yet, I’m going to pass and replay the Lego games at least it’s familiar. 🙂
I hate how there was only 1 school year, we should've started from the beginning like every other Hogwarts student - after all the years watching Harry Potter there was no need to explore the idea of the 'chosen one' yet again, and if you were to explore that idea don't explore it at the sacrifice of your lesson time or time in general at Hogwarts. I just never felt like a student and that was the games biggest downfall, hopefully they fix this in the sequel
Eh I like the lore building of ancient magic and kids not discovering their magical till really late I think y’all were expecting way too much if you thought we’d get an entire full 7 year hogwarts experience but I was at least expecting one year that would get sequels like the books
I literally didn’t do a single merlin trail… The best part of the game was, crazy enough, going to class lol. I loved role playing as a student at hogwarts. They should had about 10 student quest lines instead of giant open world stuff. The castle is legit amazing. It’s one of the greatest parts of a game I’ve played in the last ten years. Hogsmeade was fine, and I didn’t mind having a bit of open world like the forest and close surrounding area, but it should’ve been 75% smaller. More focus on quests and being an actual student would’ve bumped this up on my list of best games.
Part of the appeal of the HP saga is being a student of Hogwarts, the devs forgot how many children were absolutely passionate about the series because they wished with all their hearts that they could live that story themselves.
@@noestestristecass I find them meh for inventory. We can use magic... We already see the field guide just disappear into our robes. Use an undetectable extention charm and you're good too go. Hagrid has that type of pockets in his jacket and he never made it past 3rd thanks ol Voldy.
Same. I was so disappointed to learn that we could in fact not interact with most of the more banal stuff in the castle, like sitting down, eating/drinking something or walking around with books under our arms (thanks to modders this is now possible). Huge oversight from the dev team. The aesthetics of the castle and Hogsmeade are absolutely gorgeous, let us be able to breathe them in to the max, I say!
I really really hope that whatever we get next (a sequel, DLC, or another game completely) will have a ton more things to do in the castle. Like you said, I feel like the amount of work designing the castle deserved ten fold the amount of things we do within the school itself. And not just more quests and secrets, but built out systems like attending class, more characters and a better companion system, grades, more complex spell mastery, in a way that adds immersiveness and makes it feel like your character is actually a student in the school that's growing as a witch/wizard with it. I think at the core of any story set in the wizarding world is a coming of age story and these would greatly bolster that theme.
I was so excited about getting to be in Hufflepuff and actually make an impact in my house and spend time in the common room since you don't get to see it in the movies. I spent all of probably 15 minutes in there since there wasn't anything interactive to do :( I was pretty sad realizing that it didn't even feel like I was part of any specific house other than it showing on my robes
And like why not have some interactions with our dorm room? Being able to sleep in our bed, decorate our bedside table, choose bedcovers, and simple things like that would make it way more immersive but nooo we have to go to a fucking cave every 5 minutes.
Was it at least filled with plants and had a lot of yellows? I have yet to see what the other houses really look like apart from the one I picked, the house of the snakes. That house was a tad bit disappointing that it lacked a lot of green lighting.
And even then... it took effort to have a look that had your emblem or colors because any time you got new/stronger clothes you'd have to re-vamp your look.
You perfectly summed it up, I hope they see this. It angered me so much that basically every main- and sidequest happened in freaking caves as well, and spiders are not THAT central in the wizarding world. Nobody bought this game hoping that they would get to fight spiders in caves every ten minutes
@@jorgeandresmasisbogantes957 Tried it, they just change appearance. Get roller skates and turn into triangles. Check it out. Doesn't change the gameplay a bit. I changed it back immediately, looks a bit weird
The spiders shouldn’t even be there in 1890. The books say that they are native to Borneo and they only got introduced to the Forbidden Forest in the 1940s when Hagrid freed Aragog. There are loads of other magical creatures they could have used as enemies such as kelpies, red caps, jarveys, quintapeds, etc.
This hit almost every mark, every problem I've been having trying to pick it back up. The professors give points to your house that don't actually accumulate to anything other than a dialog reference
This game lacks the immersion that BULLY in the 2000's had. Took me a few minutes in Hogwarts Legacy to finally understand why BULLY is so much praised.
For me, if they were to do a sequel, they'd really need to lean into the day-to-day student experience thing. Not doing the same 6 classes every time you play, but actually immersing the player in being a student at hogwarts. as you touched on with a reputation system, consequences for being out of bed, companions etc etc. I'd also limit the map to hogwarts, hogsmeade, the lake, forest and then a few side maps you can go to at certain points - diagon alley (before school and during the "holidays" and the ministry of magic (for a quest and then sneaking out to discover something there). All it needs is a slow burn story in which you discover certain things depending on what you do, with minor side quests, missions, and puzzles at and around the immediate vicinity of hogwarts to just immerse you in the magic of it and actually feel rewarding, not like ticking another merlin trial off the list of 95. Quidditch should be a near must-have if they do a sequel as well. I know its a lot to ask for but if it could be perfect (or what I would see as perfect anyway) Id' be happy to wait 5+ years for it.
I don’t trust the devs who made Hannah Montana, chicken little, meet the robinsons, and cars video games to make a proper sequel. They’re gonna fail regardless
@@stonaraptor8196 It´s really not the best way of doing it, the point of the game should be to build your legacy, not to follow the imposed legacy the creators want you to follow.
I KNOW! WANT IT REAL SCHOOL! I get it people have real life dont want to go back to school...so it will not have in time clock going even if your not playing like some games do...but real full hour 2 classes...that be cool..you do homework and crap!...(that you can turn in when ever to advance the game, yet again you have real lifes too.) but I think we would need to reach out to real teachers who may be HP freaks to help with that make real assigments/ And syllabus...if Any future harry potter games came out. But game developers need to think about this. This would be so cool if they collaborate with actual high school and college teachers to do this... When developing future games. Because basically we would be doing our own virtual larp in the safety of our own homes...pretty much.
yeah, teh student part would make this so much more interesting. You have classes and then limited time for exploration. ensures you won't be able to grind things quickly, and that you just won't see everything that the game offers, because let's face it, Hogsmeade is hour on foot (according to books), so after classes you won't reach much further. Then there are the weekends, but there is limited time to them too (we cant expect devs to bake all the classes, but we would play with timetable). And detention would reduce your time even further. It would add another element to the game.
You just perfectly described why I only have a total of 24 hours playtime on hogwarts legacy. I loved the castle itself, but the essential part beeing a pupil was missing. Plus you are going against the goblins although they have a vary valid reason to hate the wizards.
I wished for more interactive NPC, more classes, more in Hogwarts missions, more missions like the Polyjuice one. The polyjuice one was very HP and what a student would do. Too many caves and not enough missions in Hogmeades as well. I also wished we could have a core friend group.
@@Koinoo-q8fthey could also have something like the system on the old mordor game that the people u interact with get stronger and stronger and more important
They just needed to focus more on the life of a student, the main story was cool and what not but I found myself doing it because I had to, not because I wanted to. The castle itself and the stuff we did in it was 100% the games peak, we just want more of that but it seems so hard to reach for 😂
I bought this game for my son. But recently, I started playing it just because and I am falling in love with it. And when I went outside the castle, I was blown away by the countryside. Everything is just beautiful. You know we’re going to stumble on a hidden gym. a DLC would be really appreciated.
Also what I wanted soo desperately was the ability to sit Especially in the common rooms I just wanted to sit in one of the endless amount of cozy chairs or on a bench and overlook the lake and just take it all in and not awkwardly stand around and shift position every so often It's a small thing but somehow huge for me
Yess!! I honestly did't notice it at first, but now when I lazily walking through the whole castle just to get to the room of Requirment, I wanna sit on the couches I made, damn
I think my favorite part of the game, besides Sebastian's side story and exploring Hogwarts, was hearing the "bad guys" reactions to getting cursed. I'm actually surprised the "bad guys" didn't react more to the fact that the main character is a child. I personally feel like the optional exploring outside of Hogwarts could have worked if more characters reacted to it and reacted to what we were doing. For example, you barely ever sleep in the common room and I think it would be more interesting if characters pointed that out, or acted worried. Basically if being out and exploring effected the the plot or at least side conversations, it would have been slightly more enjoyable. Not to mention we kill so many people in that game only to turn around and be a normal student with no moral repercussions. Maybe if our character started become less and less lighthearted and fun the more we killed, it would have been more interesting. That's just how I felt while playing the game.
There are tons of funny reactions when you run around with invisible clothes, so I'm also surprised that this is apparently the only character dependent reaction you get
It's really weird that they took the power fantasy approach to the player character. They went to chosen one, world threatening stakes in the opening hours of the game and rush to skip the entire student experience of Hogwarts. I would think the entire fantasy of attending Hogwarts is....well, attending as a student, learning and growing in knowledge and ability and having more of the world and it's dangers revealed to you as your power and responsibilities expand.
I don't really mind having a chosen one setup, I mean gameplay wise you end up being a chosen one anyway no matter what story you do, but to me it's the whole "start as a fifth year, given a special book to help you learn faster, no reasonable explanation as to why you get it for starting late, and not other students, and then dropping the facade of it being wizarding school so you can go commit genocide on the goblins. I'm not saying I want it to play through 7 years to beat the game, but I feel that most people would have definitely enjoyed a bit more of a life sim game out of this than a weird action RPG.
Completely agree, in fact, one of my disappointments with the game is how quickly and easily you learn new spells to the point where learning them just doesn't feel rewarding. In the books, it's described how Harry practiced for hours to learn 'Accio' so he could use it in the triwizard tournament, and that's why it also felt like he'd grown as a wizard when he learned it. I would've loved to attend multiple classes and genuinely having to put in work to practice a spell before learning it. It would've made it feel so much better once you actually got it and like becoming a powerful wizard isn't something you can just do with your left hand with your focus elsewhere
@@casperix3741 They could have gone that route, or just spent more time being a character rpg interacting with classmates, having drama and stories between students with something dark happening in the background you eventually become involved in or something,
They should have made it like in Rockstars Bully, so that every subject has like 5 levels or so and after you don’t need to attend classes no more. They shouldn’t just throw the new spells at you or recipes for juices
It’s not a major point, but the facial expressions and voice acting (particularly from the students) left a lot to be desired as well. The sequel has the potential to be a masterpiece if they take criticism to heart.
Oh yeah I absolutely agree. The voice acting was also lacking in German and I thought it was just because it was a translation but now I fear it was actually the directions they were given if the English original feels the same.
The voice acting was shite apart from some of the professors. I.e; Prof. Weasley who was voiced by the actress who played Mrs Patmore in Downton Abbey and Prof. Black who was voiced by Simon Pegg
I loved the main girl’s voice. Dumb that it had that weird robotic echo sound if you chose the higher or lower options though… how hard is a small pitch change to get right?
I HATED the voice acting, this was the first game where I started to skip dialogue, it was the most text to speech mundane voice acting I've ever heard.
I’m glad someone else agreed that the Sebastian side-story was far stronger and enjoyable than the main story. Which is insane to say. I wish the devs had put more time into having more side-stories with more characters in the game, rather than all the collectibles and making the map as big as it was
I’m fairly sure the Sebastian and Ominis quest line was originally going to be the main quest, however they changed direction midway through productions. This is backed up by the fact that Natty and the other companion quest lines are nowhere near as deep. It’s a shame, they should’ve stuck with the Sebastian and Ominis route as the main quest!
It would have given also way more Harry Potter vibes if the Sebastian&Ominis quest line would have been the main story line. Harry Potter is about frienship and the power you can get from it. Not about being the most powerful wizard. (Unless we could be the bad dark witch/wizard who the world fears.) All that Choosen-One-Stuff is unnecessary. It's boring and old fashioned. We don't need to be a Mary Sue to have fun in a game. Let us be part of the people in this universe not some godlike superhero who always feels left out by society.
Definitely would’ve been better to have them and a smaller more linear game so that you spent most of your time as a student at hogwarts. It literally would’ve been exactly what we needed. I understand why they felt the need to make it feel like a bigger, more traditional open world game because that style is so popular and reliable right now, but I’m sad they did.
I mean the current main quest isn't that bad and it nicely ties into the rest of the wizarding world, but the fact is took away from all the good times in Hogwarts is a big problem. I think if the quest was slightly less generic and more development time was spent improving and refining the main story line instead of creating a massive map, I wouldn't have minded the chosen one narrative as long as I could still feel like a Hogwarts student at times. But the fact that I could fly around the massive map from sunrise to sunset and not attend any lessons was very odd and frustrating - I didn't feel like a student at all and that is the game's biggest downfall
I was quite disappointed with not really "being a student". That was the biggest appeal to me...going to Hogwarts. I don't mind all the open world stuff, sure. However that should have been secondary in this case. My dream for a "Hogwarts Legacy 2" would be to bring Hogwarts back in focus. 1. Start as a 1st year and actually progress through the school system, taking full classes 2. House points 3. Companions/friends 4. Hogwarts secrets/discoveries/miniquests 5. Decisions that matter 6. Keep the surrounding area (especially Hogsmeade, but emphasis time spent on the castle grounds
Agreed. The game is stunning for the first 10 to 15 hours. Then you realize how empty and rushed everything was. You fill your vivarium with ceatures only to realize there isn’t much to do with them. You brew all these potions for no reason. You have a shop in Hogmeade that offers you nothing. It gets to the point where everything you do is kind of pointless. I wish they would have focused on fewer elements and just fleshed those out really well. The game lacks depth. The one area that they fleshed out well was the spell casting and combat. Good job there.
This describes pretty much exactly how I felt. You can quit this game 10-15 hours in and won't miss much, but those few hours are worth the price for anybody interested in Harry Potter.
@@Sky_Guy definitely the same. if i see no progress, if i see no real change, i don't want to play it. be that unlocking things, growing stronger, or something like that, if a game feels like you're never moving, it loses me instantly.
If I'm not mistaken one of the developers even said they removed the morality/reputation system because they didn't want to punish players for being a dark wizard. You...what? If people don't react to how evil I am in a RPG then what's the point! I wanted Bully in the wizarding world with actual bullying being an option, hope Avalanche returns to Hogwarts but with all the features they planned fully implemented.
Game Developers: "We did not want to stigmatize Dark Wizards, because who we are to judge our players?" Avada Kevadra: Spell that requires so overwhelming, crystallized desire to unlawfully take a life, so strong killing intent that it literally damages users soul to successfully cast.
exactly. LoL RPG's with consequences is the points. I don't mind not being in the castle the entire time. I actually found the map of the castle quite annoying. It was so confusing to navigate and find things for me. And I've already seen the castle enough. I want to explore the rest of the world, which was nice. Reminded me alot of fallout 3. I LOVED fallout 3, but we had karama for things. Had more the explore. And had glitches up the wahoo because of bethesta games being the buggest games I've ever seen, but still. More RPG roles and options please.
The game is soooo good for the first hours when you are having classes and really feel like a student , the forbidden forest seems scary when you are at a low level , try to beat the Absconder Spider as soon as you get the mission and you will think you should never come back , but after level 30 is a stroll in the park , also I really thought that if I got all Merlin trials that Merlin hologram would talk
It's kinda crazy when you realise the Hogwarts castles in the old Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban games from 20 years ago had some better elements to them. Like how at night prefects roam around the castle and you had to sneak past them, In Hogwarts Legacy there's one part where you sneak into the library but then after that you can just go in there any time you want and no one cares. It's not a bad game at all, I really liked the whole catching animals and breeding new ones thing but it could have been so much more. The castle should have been like the over worlds in the Yakuza games, small but absolutely packed with interesting things to do. Instead we got a no doubt, visually stunning rendition of Hogwarts with not all that much to actually do within it. It's a shame that western devs seem to think it's fine to just make giant open world games and copy and paste the same 3 or 4 things across it nowadays.
As much as I agree with you... Tbf, it's not only Western Devs who do that. Nintendo did the same with Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Gigantic open worlds with barely anything to do in it, and if there's something to do, it's copy and pasted content.
The devs said they want to keep making games like this, so I really hope they learn from their mistakes and make more fantastic games. Legacy is really dang amazing on its own, but there is always room for improvement!
@@jeanculasec1466 let me give you the highlight games this studio made the past 2 decades Rugrats Chicken Little Hannah Montanna Cars Disney Infinity They've made a game thats a genuinely good game and great for fans of the IP
there will definitely be a hogwarts legacy 2 (the sales numbers were insanely good), and i'm hoping they can really build on this one since a lot of the base functionality is already there.
I remember pausing the game when the decision whether or not to return the gobstones to look up what the consequences were and finding out that no decision in the entire game matters.
God that’s the worst feeling. There’s another game like that (can’t remember what it’s called atm) but pretty much did the exact same thing as you and had that feeling of disappointment wash over me and after that just spammed B on every cutscene because the ending was the same regardless of what you chose.
@DescendingVelocity probably thinking about mass effect 4. I heard in the previous ones each choice made a crazy difference with like a BUNCH of endings. But the fourth had only like 2 endings typical bad and good and there was like a bunch of optional dialouge
Decisions kinda matter, but only on level of few dialogues. If you act mean to students expect negative comments from them when they wander Hogwarts. But that's it. Well maybe they'll learn in sequel. Game is popular and has good ratings so maybe they'll makes choices more impactful. It'd be kinda cool if they added wanted level or something similar. Maybe some morality system which affects how others treat you. To make things more fun Slytherin would start on negative karma. Not too much, but still...people would see you as "bad guy". You could pursue that route by doing bad things, bullying, being mean or be nice to people and earn positive reputation, but by doing so you could turn some Slytherin students hostile to you.
I think this game would have benefited from being more of a linear RPG with free-roaming aspects in the vein of Dragon Age instead of an open-world collect-a-thon. As it stands, it sacrifices a focused character-driven narrative to have the widest map possible. The countryside being packed with enemies also gives the weird impression Hogwarts is under siege.
To the last line of your point? Are there indications within the narrative for such a siege? If not the critique of it being bloated without a point is a valid one. PS: Which dragon age though?
The thing is it tries to be open world while forcing you to stay linear. The first time when i received that popup return to the NPC in 15 seconds or quest is canceled when i just wanted to open a chest 30m away broke my immersion so fast it never recovered. You dont block exploration when exploration is the most important thing in this kind of game Also there is nothing to find in the game but complete grinding missions. Light 100 torches for 1 item and the torches even disappear not even adding to the atmosphere Same for the statues and keys . The first 3 EA games was gathering cards with interesting lore but here it just unlocks an items for you. Also items are not interesting to find in any souls game when i find a new items it sparks joy here its just a number increase and you lose interest.
I'ts true that I found it strange that very close to the borders of the castle and between Hogsmeade and Hogwarts there were so many enemies, one would expect that most paths were a lot of people, merchants, supossedly officers or people with autority like that, teavhers / professors and so on would have less enemies exactly because there would be a kind of monitoring and elimination of the danger too close to inhabited places, that or it would've people saying that noone should walk alone, not without people able to be bodyguards. So it wouldn't be exclusively kids and teens that couldn't walk alone. It truly does give an impression that at anytime could happen a siege and it would turn in a Tower Defense or a Musou + Strategy game.
@@boangherrazvan3977 It seems like you are describing the rockstar narrative problem, which goes something like complete freedom in the open world, while narrow in the missions. For example you ran 20 meters out of bounds, mission failed. I think we are critiquing consistency here. If the game was linear we would be okay. What are the games which you think, have got this right, in terms of open world, which is tight enough to hold the narrative, but loose enough to let you explore. Which reminds me souls games. As you pointed out. There the story goes through the scrolls, and legends. But, that mystery is what keeps the findings interesting. Which in turn leads to the joy we seem to get in return. Which a mere torch collection of numbers game makes for a banal and a boring game. Feel free to criticize these comments? PS : As the fellow above this comment mentioned, does dragon-age origins quality as a good open linear game, if you have played it obviously?
Completed HL like 2 hours ago, and I can't agree with you more. I loved exploring the castle, collecting at least one of each type of beast, and the side-quests with Sebastian and Ominis. However, the endless grind for crappy loot and the repeated merlin trials, slaying goblins, felt repetitive, and I actually started ignoring most of it after level 20, since the game was no longer a challenge. From there, I finished the main story in one go.
The puns in this video are next level. Especially to a player who’s put in 80+ hours, the subtle references to annoying quirks like ‘Deek doesn’t give a sh*t about anything but the potions you’ve brewed’ was perfect. Add in little nuances like ‘Dudley Souls’ & it made the whole video overall quite enjoyable while still clearly conveying the point. Subscriber earned.
This rule applies to the vast majority of culture war centerpieces. Theres so little to dissect, talk about or argue over in the content itself no matter how controversial it is that whatever whoever was mad about is quickly replaced by them complaining about [the other side] and how they've imagined them to enthusiastically like, be responsible for and agree with whatever the thing was. None of these products ever contain a message or point that can be said to genuinely argue for or add to the point of one side or another, they're mostly just reminders of the intangible perspective difference that divides people rather than something divisive in of itself.
No, clearly the game is such a cultural force that streamers need to be harrassed for playing it or else a lot of people will... play a game based on a thing made by a person we don't like, then move on with their lives
that's because ninety percent of the "culture war" stuff is someone who didn't learn the "change the channel or leave the room rule" if you don't like what's on the tv, change the channel, if it's not your tv and your the minority vote of what's playing on it, leave the room, but instead the people harass others endlessly over some perceived grievance and it's riddikulus, their usually nothing actually culturally significant about the piece itself outside of the vast amount of hate, or praise it gets depending on what side of the social fence it sits on, etc
@@fionn2220 I guess you haven't watch many shows or movies post 2016 then. South Park made a pretty funny special about Disney's contribution to the "panderverse" recently.
Here’s hoping the updates they just announced will address some of these issues. I’d love to see them do more with characters like Nattie, Ominis, Gareth, and Imelda. They were all so fun and interesting, I’d love to get more stories and adventures with them.
Another feature I think they missed out on was the use of the black lake, let me explorer the seabed, kelp forrests and mearmaid cities of the black lake, run into the merpeople (scary as they are), grindylows and kelpies, maybe even expand the room of requirement to have an underwater/loch section, could have been awesome instead of just the diving animation. I know the bubblehead charm isen't useally taught to fifth year student's but maybe a quest in the black lake could have you learn the charm a year earlier for some black lake themed shenanigans. I don't know if it's just me, but really think they missed out here too
Love the game, but you are right about all of it, the castle is amazing and the open world is so meh. We needed more classes, quidditch integraded into the story, more student life and more time with professors, classes are amazing and we get so few...
@@sit-insforsithis1568 yeah, definitely. I finished the game satisfied and hopeful for ehat they would be able to do in the sequel. Its their first big game and they nailed so many aspects of it
It was a great first try, but I agree. I would love it if class performance were tied to a skill/proficiency tree of a sort as well. Or have stuff so that if you're good in Care of Magical Creatures classes, you can unlock more rare/unique creatures as pets/mounts and ask some creatures for help. And if ur good with COMC and Herbology, you can 'commune' with nature and gain access to secret caves or something. Maybe have something like broom-modification for skilled Quidditch players, to increase handling or speed when mounted as well as targeting with a wand like a momentary slow-mo when you aim with the wand while mounted on a broom. Even stuff like creating your own group like Harry did with Ron and Hermione or like Dumbledore's Army (prolly not as large as that).
True. Rest of the world except Hogsmeade and forbidden forest (which look too "cute" with rtx on btw) it's feel like a filler and walking simulator. "go to the quest on the other side of the map" over and over 😔
The game also forces me to be a murderer against my will. There is no way to defeat enemies without killing them even though I don't use unforgivable curses at all, so then it makes no sense why the unforgivable curses are unforgivable when I pretty much do the same thing with my normal curses. Why is it worse to use avadacedavra that kills instantly and probably painlessly, than burning someone to death with incendio? Surely avadacedavra is more humane?
Considering who's the Headmaster during the game it would have been amazing to have a school-based storyline that includes having to venture out and about. Even just letting you choose to be either a pure-blood or Muggle-born and have to deal with a school and Headmaster who encourages certain attitudes and ideologies surrounding blood purity. We also needed the odd Prefect or two to sneak past at night (not tonnes but one or two at certain points and you can't fast travel inside the school from outside) to give the feeling of being out when you shouldn't be. A lot of powerful wizards and witches who weren't chosen ones became legendary either due to learning lots of magic or through brave acts so you could easily just be a normal student (and friends) who could choose how much and what subjects to learn to customise your playstyle and give the feeling of being a student who has interests in particular subjects, it would also give replayability as you could choose different subjects (skills) each time and how in-depth/power level you choose to ‘study’ them.
I completely agree. Hogwarts, it's secrets, learning about magic, and everything involved within it was the world we wanted to explore and be apart of; not the empty and meaningless wilderness around it. I mean if they wanted to involve the outside world around Hogwarts, that would have been some great DLCs. Also, absolutely choices NEED to matter. That was a core feature of the Harry Potter franchise. "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." (Dumbledore | J.K. Rowling)
If it was going to take us away from Hogwarts, I would have loved it to have been parts of Victorian London instead! (I've not competed it yet, so holding out hope we do...)
The original video games series were awesome because you kept exploring the castle. Hidden rooms, forbidden areas were the appealing theme for me when I was a kid. Hogwarts should have being the entire open world of the game. It doesn´t matter if the interior broke the logical architecture design and spacial dimensions of the castle itself. Who cares if the inside is bigger than the outside? Hogwarts is a magical castle, after all.
@@Bombur888 oh and using revelio & seeing chests and blue objects right behind the wall you are facing and going 17 different directions to try and find your way to that room/space in priceless! I spent hours doing what I could to memorize the routes
It wouldn't be breaking logical architecture design anyway since the Harry Potter world does have space-expansion spells, used in tents and Hermione's bag. And Hogwarts got the Room of Requirement, which is a extra room that exists inside a wall. I know it's likely canon that Hogwarts is quite small and not as spectacular to look at from the outside (based on Rowling's drawings) compared to the movies, but I always liked to imagine Hogwarts being way way bigger. The books do establish that there are lots of unknown things about the castle like hidden passageways, secret rooms, unconventional entrances and moving decors that make the inside of Hogwarts feel like a maze and an ever-changing living entity compared to the movie version. Hogwarts would've been the perfect place for a game to focus exploration on and go wild with all the possibilities. We could be stumbling across secret passages to travel like the pipes in the walls and discovering hidden areas through unconventional means
@@flyingstapler1241that's exactly my point! Omg I thought the same when I was reading chamber of secrets for the first time. The reason the chamber was well hidden is because Hogwarts had many many secrets that not even the headmaster know about it. Hope the H. Legacy creators deliver in the next game
Yep. They could have had less repetitive fields, caves, and mini villages. And then had a deeper, more interesting Hogwarts with more secrets, hidden passageways, discoveries, etc. Maybe expand to the forbidden forest and Hogsmeade.
I went for full achievement runs in the first week and I even bought the game to play it before release and I hated it so much that I'll never return and I've done all achievements in several games but Hogwarts Legacy was the most boring grind I ever had. Achievements aside, I agree with the missing reason to stay and do stuff at the castle, I remember back to when I was a kid, wanting to run around and explore the castle and the castle grounds and a lot of it was amazing but there's really no reason to stay in the house you've gotten sadly. I think my expectations were in the wrong honestly, I wanted to enjoy the experience of being a real student at Hogwarts, classes, friends, enemies even, teachers, going home or staying at the school while the others students are home, experiencing going to Hogsmead with my class for the first time, fighting some amazing enemies in the dark of night, explore the places from the movies at day or night, riding on my broom trying to get the golden snitch and maybe even win the tournament between houses and even better win extra points for my house in order to gain another huge win at the end of the year, but at least I got to throw around the most evil of curses while feeling... Like a good guy? I wanted to be evil doing evil stuff, but they said nah man we wont allow it... I still hope someone out there will be able to make a better Hogwarts game with the option to play in first person instead of having to act like I'm not the guy looking at my own characters neck 24/7
I loved this game purely for how beautiful Hogwarts was and how much fun I had initially exploring it. It felt so sprawling, with wonderful cozy music, and a lot of stuff to find. The rest of the game was okay with some mediocre elements, but Hogwarts was awesome. However... there was not nearly enough stuff to actually *do* in Hogwarts. They could have made it so much more alive and dynamic. I wanted in-depth side quests, mini-games, secrets, dungeons, etc..., all within Hogwarts itself. I would have much preferred that to the open world which was unnecessary to some extent. If they had just given us Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and the Forbidden Forest, and really fleshed out those areas to make them as dense and as interesting as possible, it would have been a much better experience. Also, where the heck do all the students go at night? They're not in their beds or anywhere else. Weird oversight that makes the castle feel not very lived in.
Honestly while I generally loved the game, in particular I actually really like how they implemented combat, one of my biggest peeves about it is that you cannot jump to morning by sleeping in the dorms. I just don’t understand why that’s not an option.
right? No going to class, no consequences for being up at night, having to endure long long nights (yes you can skip w R3) and no difference with what house you choose? RDR2 you need to eat and sleep and bathe and I LOVE that aspect
@@andrewlowden322 maybe it’s too much of a casual game to really implement *all* of the survival mechanics, but being able to sleep in your dorms, more excuses for stealth with penalties for exploring at night and maybe some temporary stat boots from food would be awesome! And everything the video mentioned was in development of course
Same! Maybe I’m too old for Harry Potter but Hogwarts Legacy is just a bit too silly and whimsical. Something in the tone of Prisoner of Azkaban/ Chamber of Secrets would be epic
I would gladly skip all this goblin rebellion stuff for Triwizard Tournament questline that takes place mostly in the castle and/or around it, and maybe even explore Beauxbatons Academy instead all this boring caves and goblin camps around Hogwarts
I loved the missions with other students the most. The world of HP is known for doing things with friends, so the missions with Seb, Natty, Poppy, Ominus and other students was the best.
For me, the biggest issue with Hogwarts Legacy is its main quest story, especially the ending. I mean, the game sends you on a hunt to complete Isidora’s portrait with Sebastian, a path that could have lead to amazing twists even in the vaults and then… nothing. You face Ranrok and then you’re basically obliged to do good because if you go bad and betray everyone… nothing happens. My God 🤦🏼♂️
and the quest itself is so so boooooring. I think I am jaded about it is for the reasons NK brings up in the video. I get tired of the same industrial sites fighting goblins. yawn. thats not what the HP world is to me
Agree, I wanted to be bad but the most bad guy you can be is an ass to your class mates keeping the emotional power instead of sealing it up dose nothing, your not more strong or despised, the keepers arnt even in the portraits after the story and you have to keep grinding for points to get enough for the end of term feast cutscene.
OK that's what I was just about to write and you saved me the effort! For me Sebastien's questline was more like the main story but it abruptly ends with none of the hard choices you made there not matter at all in the end. Like I chose to learn the unforgiveable curses from Sebastian and expected there to be some consequences. Or chose not to tell about him to the authorities and yet still nothing.
@@Potter5416 huh you never have to actually grind for the final feast cutscene! Maybe you misinterpreted the dialogue with Prof. Weasly wrong because she tells you that there is still so much to do? I wasn't even close to 100% when i finished the game, not even on maxlevel and was able to get through the epilogue without any grind!
Not to mention that this game was supposed to be you having your own main character, but instead it's literally just you as Harry Potter fighting Voldemort again, only this time Voldemort is a little person. When the side quests of the game are more fun than the main quest, that means your game is trash and you should feel ashamed
Might seem small, but one thing that really let me down was the fact you can't even sit in the great hall and talk to the friends you've made. Such an impactful area of the movies, I felt very disconnected from the school and it's what I wanted to experience the most.
I wanted to eat at that grand hall so much and eat turkey legs. The books placed so much emphasis on the grand hall. Harry Potter and his friends would always hang out in the grand hall and eat together and talk about Wizarding politics. It was great stuff.
They could have had a system like fire emblem three houses, where you can cook meals and pick class mates to sit with. In fact, a lot of the game play of FE three houses would have worked in this game (maybe without out the tactical battles haha)
You start game and do whatever (introduce yourself and gtfo from school - what a rebel. Spending entire year slacking like a proper anime protagonist), you play game and do whatever (mostly murder poachers with curses), you finish game and: OVER 9000 POINTS TO YOUR HOUSE! YOUR HOUSE WON! Nothing felt more deserving. I dont care how they handled it in books... its a game. Let me earn my points instead of giving them for finishing main story (for free).
I myself would have preferred a denser, more lived-in Hogwarts with layered focus on the mysteries of the Forbidden Forest and Chamber of Secrets as its main dungeons. I know some also abhor the idea of a Persona-progression-style but its choice elements (like the social link and arcana) would have made interactions more immersive. At some point, they could even throw in a DLC where you get to visit Diagon's Alley and a new dungeon in its bowels where a caucus of dark wizards congregate.
Absolutely agree, especially with having companions to go on your adventrues with. One of the greatest disappointments for me though was no co-op. Exploring Hogwarts with your buddies would be a dream.
The intercutting of scenes in these videos is what keeps me coming back. They’re masterful, it must take hours to find the right clip for each joke and I love it! Great job man!
Couldn’t agree more and have been saying this since release. My 5 biggest changes for a sequel 1. Have a scheduling system that requires you to go to school (or punishes you for missing). I think the persona schedule system would be perfect 2. Small map. Only hogwarts, hogsmeade, the Forrest and lake. You can create smaller open maps for specific story beats I.e Diagon alley, Godrics hollow 3. Either get rid of dialogue options and define the MCs personality, or make dialogue choices matter so we can define the personality 4. Make hogwarts more rewarding to explore 5. Get rid of loot. The clothing options were ridiculous and felt pointless
For number 1, I think a Bully scheduling system would be better. In Bully, you had 2 classes everyday and the game didn't force you to go, however if you went and passed the class you got a reward. And if you didn't go, you were basically being truant and had to avoid the prefects while on campus. Persona isn't bad by any means, but I don't think the game design of having to pick 3 things to do a day would work well for this game. Bully system is better for an open world game that wants you to explore.
Expanding on point 2 - if there is an open world then I want to be able to shape that world. Bring consequences and rewards for doing certain things. If you're becoming a Dark Wizard then make those lore-specific consequences felt. If you're helping people left, right and centre, then make other characters more likely to help you in return; if you helped one character out once and they have another quest to give you, they will rememeber that you helped them and give you better rewards. Have an interconnected world full of characters who know each other and have quest lines based around each other. Xenoblade Chronicles did this very well. If two characters dislike each other, and you help one but then go to help the other, it will cause a rift between your character and the one you helped but then could lead on to another quest that helps to reconcile their relationship (if that is plausible for those specific characters) or permanently make you disliked. Also make it so that every NPC character has a journey of their own that you can miss if you don't pay attention (The Legend of Heroes does this and it's so immersive). Also, get rid of the quest markers and let people figure out the quests themselves. This forces a player to talk to every single character and remember character designs to complete the quest.
@@dfabulous if persona was used, it would have to be altered a bit.. but I personally like the idea of playing an entire school year, but it may be tough. I’ve probably played an hour of bully.. and while I get the appeal I just think it would be too hard to get from class to class on time with such a big castle
IMO extensive work needs to be done for immersion. After so long as you mentioned I stopped feeling like a student and more like an exhibitionist who can just come and go from the school as I please. There should be a more in depth day/ night cycle with mandatory classes and a headcount before bed every night. There just needs to be enough dynamic conversations and scenarios for those to not get boring, which is a lot of crunch and no small order dev wise. Even Harry Potter was a student first for the majority of his story. I’d really love a fully fledged out student life in the next one. They should be basing the story and events around the student life and school year like the original story did for the majority of the early books.
I agree with part of your analysis on the Sebastian and Ominis quest line, I wish that they integrated more of the choices in it to the rest. Also, I wish they had more of the Sebastian story tie with how the MC had the potential to "take away pain" like I would love to see more of him driving forth on research into that and his reaction
The game felt lonely. The character constantly remarks that he/she need their friends beside them despite not having co-op, online play, or NPCs that can go with you. This leaves the character feeling lonely too. I was particularly annoyed at combat because instead of it being challenging, the enemies just don't die. I loved the stealth sections where we feel like a student out after dark and the characters constantly refer to how students are not allowed out at night _except_ you are allowed out after dark - no one cares. You don't really feel like a student but instead like an adult allowed to kind of return to the castle of your younger life. I found the main conflict and main secretive story of the ancient magic boring and poorly written. I understand why the game has a huge play area but what this game needed was a much smaller, tightknit story that bounces between Hogwarts and the village with the name that escapes me currently. Given that I sided with Sebastian going with me early on, I honestly thought the other companion was a spy for the baddies because she knew so much about events I had not taken her with me to see. In fact, her entire plotline was utterly rubbish in my playthroughs because my player character hardly ever interacted with her due to my suspicions and yet the game expects me to be BFFs with her. It also doesn't help that while the outside world is very Harry Potter it is also very uninspired and lacks creativity. The idle animations are played during cutscenes which are on a loop and the voice acting doesn't remotely match the visuals. I did like the game except I'm now bored with it and haven't even finished it. Somewhere between the uninteresting gameplay, lacklustre story, and the overwhelmingly bland push of modern shit politics I've found myself disheartened and playing older, more fun games that I've already completed two-to-three times beforehand.
I went back to the witcher 3 and red dead. Both ten times the game Hogwarts Legacy is. The main story felt like it was a bad hogwarts fanfiction. And my character the most boring creature ever. I suppose it was meant to be like skyrim and fallout where you kind of invent your backstory. Didn't really work though in this game imo.
I'm not a Harry Potter fan at all, never read the books or watched the movies, but I played this game and I was in love with the beginning of this game. Exploring around the castle and that first town, meeting the characters like the teachers and other students, stuff like that. But once all that was over with, I ended up never finishing the game. Such a shame, there was so much potential here.
@@bwhere45 Yeah, I didn't think I would. The main story was not very interesting and wasn't able to keep me engaged. That early part of the game though, man that was good.
Fans got to have that experience spread over a decade or so, or a couple weeks for the newcomers. It's definitely more of a light novel for teenagers and has its flaws, but it's the best selling series for a reason. The world really is a delight to immerse yourself in, so long as you don't dig too deep. Great character writer, slightly-above-average worldbuilder.
if the hamlets had as much to do as hogsmede, I think it would've been nice. I liked not being in the castle because it was just confusing to explore. But the one hamlet across from hogwarts that had a person get eatten by spiders she was breading. Brutal and amazing. The hidden mazes of the black trees or whatever they were with the story line in little books and teresures at the center. amazing. Finding some dude who exploded himself by accident on the other side of the bridge thing to the lower map, very coiol. thigns like that is what I like about RPG's. Staying in a building isn't. So I'm glad to not have been in the castle the entire time, but they needed to do more with other villages and make them as extensive as hogsmeade.
My main issue was repetitive puzzles, would br awesome to use spells in a creative way to solve em like reparo, arresto momentum, descendo or transformation.. 90% of the puzzles comes down to depulso, confringo and levioso
What I think is really frustrating is if they fix some of these in a sequel it’s gonna feel backwards IMO. I think ideally you start off with a fully realized Hogwarts castle with a smaller map of the outskirts that you expand as the series goes on; Then as the series continues you raise the stakes more and more better justifying why the faculty doesn’t really care about the protagonist spending so much time away from the grounds in years 6 and 7. Instead what I could see happening is they still raise the stakes but try to incorporate classes and Quidditch but that it will feel odd that you’re taking a break from the main story to go learn about Herbs.
Definitely agree - I kept saying to my friend when playing that I was shocked by how little we were in Hogwarts. Best parts were going to lessons and being a pupil at Hogwarts!
Couldn't agree more with the video! If anything i wish that (who knows, a sequel/dlc?) will focus more on daily life at Hogwarts. I get that something major and extraordinary has to happen, it happens to HP every year, but keep it mostly inside the castle. I was disappointed that you could just leave the castle like that. Leaving Hogwarts grounds (apart from scheduled Hogsmeade) should feel like breaking every rule and risking your house their chance to win, your wizarding career and your very life. I would have preferred to keep the stakes smaller or atleast more intimate. Other than that: - the world outside Hogwarts should feel challenging, you're a gifted student, but just a student after all. - The forbidden forrest should have dangers you can't win and a variety of monsters. - Dark wizards should feel impossible to defeat, given how they are graduated and honed the dark arts. - The classes should be more engaging and tie in to events in the story. - An unforgivable spell should absolutely bare the greatest consequences, even throw you off into an entirely different story trajectory with bad endings as a possibility. - Daily life at Hogwarts, however interrupted by the story it might be, should always play a role. That means worrying about the house cup, quidditch season, passing your exams, detentions and your right to leave the castle. That said, i absolutely love the entire team at Avalanche for realising my childhood fantasy. Every point of criticism i have comes from nothing but love for the game and pointers to make it perfection.
I couldn't even finish the game, it was just too mediocre. I loved seeing talking paintings and suits of armor smacking each other because one was humming, the castle was just beautiful... but that was the strongest part of the game. And like you said, they barely fleshed it out and you spend 80% of the game outside it
To be honest I really wish they gave you the option to choose blood status and your family. Wish they would’ve given an option to OFFICIALLY be a Weasley or a Black, Lestrange, etc; would’ve been cool if that also dictated how certain Npc’s interacted with you. Also wish you could find your common room npcs and bring them on missions with you kinda like how the original saints row games let you recruit homies (trials would’ve been exempt from this). Also wish the indulging in the dark arts would’ve had an impact on how npcs view you,?Hopefully they do this in the sequel.
Solid take. Quidditch and duelling are the kind of side activities that can really breathe some variety from the quests into the game and do a whole lot for longevity. Kind of a shame that they didn't capitalize on that and the other things you mentioned near the end. I wouldn't be mad if they copy-pasted their world and almost exclusively worked on a new story and a better core experience for a/the sequel. Also: no muggle interactions? Could've been fun. And lastly, I still don't know the protagonists backstory or motivation. Why didn't he get in year 1? Is he muggle born? ...
You really articulated my issues with this game so well. Exploring the castle was incredible, Sebastian's storyline was great, there's so much to love about this game. But when you got outside the castle, it felt so unfinished and empty. Pointless encounters and empty caves without any meaningful loot. I wish that they had taken more time and actually fleshed out the huge map the way they had with the castle. It could have been AMAZING.
There’s so many games out there that really didn’t need to be open world. With this being one of them. All we really needed was: the castle, forbidden forest, and hogsMeade. If they would’ve focused the game on those small areas and made it densely packed, it would’ve been so much better.
Absolutely all criticism here is on point. I did like the game, it was by no means bad, especially for casual gamer, which was in all honesty the target audience. And it was a childhood dream come true for me, but I was first and foremost excited to explore and roleplay in Hogwarts itself, and one class per professor plus a few side missions and collectables in the castle itself is a huge miss IMO. You put it so well. The giant explorable world becomes tedious after a few hours in, and actual house system, quidditch and more stuff in the castle would have been so much better.
While I agree with most, I completely disagree with your opinion about the open world being too large. If they made it smaller people would complain it’s too small.. I think devs made a very good choice when it comes to the size of the game
I felt exactly the same about Sebastian’s quest line , I found myself only wanting to progress the story to just get more of his content and when the game ended I felt incredibly underwhelmed by his stories ending and I was half expecting them to announce a Sebastian based dlc because of how abruptly it ended !
The fact that he ignores you and doesn't have dialogue after his ending kills me. Everyone else will say a npc phrase about your experiences together but he just npc walks away like we didn't just had a traumatizing adventure together.
Part of the joy of the books to me is uncovering the mysteries of Hogwarts itself. There's something mystical about it in the sense that Hogwarts itself won't ever let you solve all of its mysteries. I hope the sequel's main story takes place in Hogwarts and centers around a mystery of the castle itself.
I watched this video 2 years ago amongst a bunch of other hogwarts legacy videos. I forgot about it until I finally got witcher 3 several months ago and haven’t stopped playing it since. And so I’ve been binging your videos (amongst others) over and over again at work cuz I can’t get the Witcher out of my head. I gotta say I love yours the most. 👍🏻
What we wanted: - Student life - Multiple years - House systems - Holidays and weekend events - Classes - Pets - Reputation Points - Companions What we got: - A pretty good Potter-themed Ubisoft open world with Hogwarts slalpped onto it.
basically an open world visual novel with a non-character being played to fruition. I bought it, played a half hour and returned for a refund cause it wasn't any good to my taste.
For me, I was expecting it to handle it a bit more like Bully did. Sure there was story, but the school was still a major focus. You had a time limit, and if you were off campus after hours, there were repercussions...much like when you wander Hogwarts after hours (let alone elsewhere), you lost points and possibly got detention. Classes weren't just one note, you could attend multiple sessions of multiple subjects. You built up respect or disrespect with the different cliques (in this case the different houses) and could even date the students (and was done with just kissing, because not every game that includes romance needs to go full on sexual). As a game revolving around being in school, it felt like being in school, even when there were missions that took you away, because you always had to remember that timer and be back in school to be in bed (at least until you unlocked hideouts). Hogwarts Legacy could have very much benefitted from similar bits versus magical Hogwarts wow worthy but essentially abridging the actual school lifestyle right down you being able to explore at night as well as exploring the restricted section with no repercussions beyond the story-centric moments that added prefects and professors on patrol. Not to mention completely omitting Quidditch and adding a lame excuse as to why it was canceled.
Yeah not to mention the story of Bully is all ABOUT the school life and drama. Youre at the bottom working your way up, fighting bullies and making school better. The villain wants to be the top dog of the school. The conspiracies are all about the school. It was all about the school. Then HogLeg comes out with... ancient magic? What? Why cant it be simply about winning the house cup? Or about reconciling Slytherin and Gryffindor? Why all this chosen one BS? Why can you do dark magic? This is all so stupid.
To be fair you'd really need to reinvent quidditch so any roll but seeker didn't feel like wasting your time. Personally though I have a feeling at one point in the past Qudditch must have had points for debrooming the other team, as that is really the only way to justify the point system that the Snitch is worth so much and ends the game.
I agree with this 100%. One of the most amazing things about Bully was having a story that's just around just school drama end up being super engaging and way deeper then it has any right to be. I remember the game building up to rigging the Jock's football game, it felt like feeling like you were pulling a heist when really all you were doing was putting some glue on benches and messing with the signs. Just stuff like that I feel like hogwarts legacy should of been about. 1 thing I really wished they could of done when compared to bully was the Quality vs quantity mindset. Bully's map is like 5% the size of hogwart's legacy map yet thousands times more memorable. I just feel like if Avalanche just made the map the size of just being barley a couple acres from hogsmade and scrapped all the ubisoft slop, instead using those resources to Create better story, better missions, better RPG mechanics and just better everything, the game would have been a masterpiece.
Imagine each house having a quest equivalent in quality to the Sebastian quest, which would take the game in four different directions. That alone would enhance the replay value and buzz around this game.
Maybe it would be better but it still wouldn't be what people expected it to be after their marketing "become the witch/wizard you want to be, go to class, study, learn new spells, make impactful choices..."
I was hoping for a student roleplaying game combined with an action RPG like bully from 2006. But instead after 10 years we get generic countryside open world RPG
After arriving at Hogwarts and exploring for a few hours, I remember thinking to myself that I can't wait for night, to see what goes on in the dormitories and to sneak around the castle. Turned out that absolutely nothing was going on. Nobody in the whole building, no sneaking required. Was so disappointing.
I mean FOR FSCKS SAKE there was a mission in HL where students were guarding the library. They would capture you if they saw you. Couldnt they act as hall monitors at night? Instead you never see them again. There have been plenty of harry potter games where ghosts attack you at night in the castle. not in legacy though. you can only pet cats.
There’s a mod that fixes that I think it’s called Hogwarts curfew or whatever but it’s still depressing that you need to mod for simple quality of life improvements, even if it isn’t that difficult lol
Pretty much summed it up for me. The castle is SICK, the collectibles there weren't a chore to collect. And I liked the sebastian and main story line both. But the endless filler in the open world...could have been 90% less and I wouldn't miss it. The reputation and more teacher interaction would have made a world of difference though. I short, I wanted to have it make me feel more like I was a student there. That illusion faded too soon.
I feel you. But also, I adored this game. I’m excited to see what they do next but I really really enjoyed just being in this world. It felt like something I needed. For a sequel I do hope they make the castle even bigger and make the open world smaller, but man did I really love this.
The Sebastian storyline, having to sneak out at night to investigate the secrets of Hogwarts, even a whole undiscovered part of th school untouched for centuries and filled with Slytherin's traps would've been fun. Each level closer could've involved another level of spells and discovery. I liked how the PS2 gen of th Potter games let you discover secret passages to sneak around the prefects.
![Lethal Company Music Video 🎵 "Follow The Orders" [VERSION A]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QeooZB4Z7RA/mqdefault.jpg)
i think what was mostly missed by devs was them forgetting or not realizing that a vast majority of people who wanted to play this game were very excited to BE a STUDENT at hogwarts. The books and the movies showed that yes while a lot of exterior things were affecting our favorite characters lives, the best moments were them showing their affection, being family, and just being kids in a magical castle. I mean the setup was practically handed to these guys to nail that. I just hope if another one comes they see that
yeah i was hoping id make some friends in the game like harry did and did stuff in the castle
Exactly!! And the fact you can’t even sleep in your own bed? What bs is that?
Nailed it.
I am not a potter fan.
But even I love the CHARACTERS interactions more than any action.
The game engines cool, but should be secondary to Hogwarts castle, and role playing as a student and making friends in a visual novel fashion.
Maybe, If I could be Voldemort, that would be cool too.
What I really wanted was a Persona style thing where you went to classes (more than once) and where it gave you a "day/night" cycle. Classes (even just briefly) -> Afternoon -> Night. Then you could have the castle actually shut down at night.
Somehow, Hogwarts Mystery manages to pull that off far more than Legacy, which considering the buildup and resources is kinda sad.
Skipped quidditch, Skipped classes, skipped major holidays, skipped house moments/quests, skipped fighting for your house's success, and didn't have a difficult or repeatable dueling club. I loved the little questions that Ravenclaw girl gives you in the library. They could have had something like that for each class teaching us about the wizarding world and then giving us tests to see if we remember and the better we do the better our house points could be. You pick a house but it never seems to matter which one you're in.
This was my thing too: there's no consequences or organic interactions. Everyone is friendly and hangs with everyone in the game but there absolutely were personality differences between houses in the books. A lot of Slytherins wouldn't be caught dead hanging with a Hufflepuff, for example. If you pursue the Dark Arts your interactions and ending should have changed entirely. It also sucked not being able to interact with the castle more (eating and drinking, people sleeping in beds, more common room quests, being punished for wandering at night, being able to actually chill and interact with stuff in the room of requirement).
There are also no quests where you can secretly explore other houses with polyjuice or something. Like cmon.
and your best friend has to be most annoying person in the game, who keeps telling you how magic in their country is stronger, because they don't use wands.
Yeah I agree, I really liked her little quiz.
thats what appens when you try oto make absolutely inoffensive game. everyone has to be kind, friendly, etc.@@Xiosoranox
I was kinda dissappointed at the lack of INTERACTIVE classes. When I found all the classrooms it felt like a waste to not use them. Wouldve been cool if we couldve picked out our classes and interacted within them. And Diagon Alley is also something I missed! And I wish that you could buy more stuff in Hogsmeade, like I have a trillion Galleons and cant even buy a sugar quill. I really wanted to feel like a student. Altough Im happy that you can walk around anytime anywhere you like.
In hogwarts legacy, hogsmeade IS diagon alley
I was the producer for the Hogwarts Castle until I left Avalanche in March of 2021. I think there are many worthwhile observations and criticisms in this video. Should there be a sequel, the developers should take much of what you have to say here to heart.
There better be a sequel!
It just felt like a copy and paste game, the same merlin trials, empty caves, animals to fight against, missing field guide pages - it was just too much. The map was way to big, and each massive area didn't bring anything new to the game at all, every part of the map felt the same, and on my way to grinding almost 100% completion it only took me a couple of boring days because every quest and mission felt the exact same: just rinse and repeat over and over again. The game wasn't badly made at all, in fact it was very well designed for the most part, its just all the great design was copy and pasted all over the map a 100x which made them all the less magical. So many easter eggs should've been planted in the castle, you should've really felt like a student - that in and of itself is what makes the wizarding world and Harry Potter in particular as a concept so special. But instead you just feel like some outsider character who is superior and special to every other character. I don't have a problem with being the 'chosen one' with the ancient magic, but I would still want to feel like a student to some extent. I just never felt anything of those things, I always felt my time spent in game was going towards something completely outside of my time at school - both worlds should've been explored: both the extensive dark arts 'ancient magic'-centred world, and the school world. I find it so weird that we're only at school for 1 year! I mean let the story progress over 7 years like it did in the Harry Potter franchise, let us grow with the character and allow us to experience all of the little magic novelties that make the wizarding world so magical, like a visit to Dragon Alley, or a visit to your best friends wizarding house. Let us marvel at the magic of the world rather than endlessly experience the same type of magic, away from the most magical part of the map (which is obviously Hogwarts itself) 100x times over and over again. The first 10 hours I played, I was so engrossed in the magic of Hogwarts, but then I realised it wasn't really about Hogwarts at all. It should've been called 'Wizarding World Legacy', not Hogwarts legacy because I barely feel like a student.
@@all-caps3927I agree except I love the massive world personally. I always hated games where the world was small or limited in travel options.
@@weebabyshamus I would have loved the massive world if each area brought something new, but it didn't Every are was copy and pasted from the last area I visited and as someone who grinded to about 98% completion of the field guide this got incredibly frustrating and boring for me.If the development time making a large world had gone into creating a wider variety of missions, improving the storyline or adding a house point system and more things to do in Hogwarts - I would take that trade anyway.
Outstanding job, Troy. The castle is spot on, both gameplay and lore-wise.
They should have added a lesson system like the one in "Bully", where you could decide to join classes or not, completely optional, but actually joining classes rewarded you with new features and gameplay elements.
This was my first thought as well after playing the game. Not just the classes from Bully, but also the curfew, detention, truancy, authority figures chasing you when you break the rules, the fact that you actually sleep in the dorm instead of crash on the floor...
Bully is such a great game
@@tp7206 that would have been perfect for a game like Hogwarts legacy.
Kinda like the first Ps1 games where to get spells you needed to attend the classes and then do a level based on it
I agree. For a game called Hogwarts Legacy, they couldn't wait to make you leave Hogwarts and spend as little time possible there. The game has good groundwork but instead of focusing on elements they introduce, they abandon them and move on to others. Went for the jack of all trades and master of none approach. It just feels a very shallow game.
It was so immersion breaking for the cutscene in the Sebastian/ominis questline where Sebastian gets chastised for using unforgivable curses once where I had used them about 15 times in the fight immediately preceding.
I agree it was the best questline in the game but the lack of consequences was heartbreaking...
had the same thing happen in my playthrough i just finished. So close to greatness, really needed to centralize around hogwarts and add a bully like morality system
I was basically a death eater throughout the game and everyone loved me.
@@chadbassett8381I was sorted into slytherin, so my head canon was that all of my being nice and doing good stuff was just me being Tom Riddle and making everyone like me, but secretly I was a dark wizard doing unspeakable horror
I didn't like that you basically had to pander to Sebastian's increasingly poor choices to learn the curses when they could have had more dialogue with Ominis to get them instead.
Minis could have been the voice of reason we learn from because he knows we won't abuse them (even though we absolutely will), but instead we just have to smile and nod as Sebastian gets more unhinged one quest after another
@@sterlingcrawford1218I wanted that as well, but there were certain dialogue choices that just didn't make sense.
Or that time when you tell the uncle that Sebastian went too far.... But instead of actually saying that, your character says that he did it out of love. It pissed me off that the short choices sometimes were opposite of what you actually wanted to say.
My main issue was the severe lack of consequences. It's well established in the books and movies that students shouldn't be outside of the common rooms after hours, but outside of a few missions I can walk around everywhere without anyone batting an eye. Not to mention leaving the castle in plain view of everyone. Then there's the ability to use the dark arts anywhere and the most you'll hear is "Please don't do that"
They're Bri'ish. So "please don't do that" is the equivalent of them cursing badly and insulting you for doing those things.
I agree with this completely. It's a bit jarring how you have an entire moment in a quest that emphasizes "we aren't supposed to be out at night, so we need to sneak around the castle!" then it's immediately thrown out the window. Any other day you can wander around freely regardless of the time. Having to actually sneak out if you wanted to leave after dark would have been quite fun. It would have tied in perfectly with a house point system if you ended up getting caught out of bed after hours.
@@saucyblossomI think they intended Prefects to patrol at night, but as seen in the missions where they're present they have broken spotting ai that's more inconvenient than fun
I rationalised that security measures like being able to freely come and go from the castle (during the day) was a reflection of safer times. Like flying in America pre 9/11. The security we see in the books would be in large part due to Voldemort and perhaps Grindlewald before him.
But as for Hogwarts rules like being out of bed, using (dark) spells in the castle, etc. That stuff should've been handled way better.
@@jamesfilms_ Not a bad way to look at it
The first hours of being a student and discovering Hogwarts and Hogsmead were definitely the best part of the game ! I grew very frustrated when the game kept asking me to leave the castle for every quest.
They spend so much time and effort making the castle only to force the player to not play in it...
People like you can never be pleased. Just reflect on your life and admit you complain about every second of it. What's the point.
They spent a tone of time on all aspects of this game. So what your complaining that there is too much content. If it were different you would complain about the limiting scope of the castle alone
Just give a valid reason why you dislike the game. Not some vapid bs just to be part of the hate train. Honestly your lazy 😫.
That's why open world isn't always a recipe for success
@@JC-em4txI dunno, I quite enjoyed exploring the forbidden forest.
@@Matty272 fair enough
@@Matty272The open world was way too much though. The Forbidden Forest, Hogsmead, Hogwarts, those are all important locations but we do not need the tens of copies of Hogsmead littered throughout the map. It's just way too large and way too boring.
THIS IS WHAT I WANTED:
1. no major external threat
2. many classes (challenging)
3. goofy side missions (like giving crab and goyle the cupcakes type of stuff)
4. even bigger castle (no big countryside just the forest/hogsmeade and the castle)
5. quidditch (instead of this god awful looking new quidditch game coming up)
6. house cup
7. sneaking at night quests
8. a bigger and scarier forbidden forest
9. detention side quests
10. a personal owl that interacts with you
11. arriving and leaving at kings cross / platform 9 3/4
12. finding the secret passages
13. potion classes
14. O.W.L's
15. Bully/Rival (like Draco)
16. Cozy Christmas/Halloween scenes with lighthearted fun quests
17. Meeting Harrys great grandfather or something
18. 1 Evil teacher with a hidden motive to stop instead of a Goblin antagonist
19. Better dueling club with optional spell classes to be earned
20. Dementors and Expecto Patronum (Dont know how but they could have figured it out)
21. Choosing between christmas at hogwarts or at home/diagon alley?
22. Diagon Alley shopping spree beginning of the year.
23. A tight friend trio (like Harry, Ron, Hermione)
24. Side quests where you have to hide from another Filch type character(squib janitor)
25. Actual consequences to your actions
26. Meeting Voldemorts grandfather at hogwarts(already kind of evil / Maybe a Draco malfoy type)
27. Being able to read the daily prophet a few times
28. Ministry of Magic mission at the beginning of the year to discuss the fact you dont start in The 1st year
29. NO UNFORGIVABLE CURSES (i hated this)
30. Befriend the game keeper (for some fun Care of Magical creatures side quests)
FKIN BRAVO!!!! You said it all.
They should have had you as the project lead id pay $100 to have what you described damn
@@toxictophat711 Thanks :)
You took the words of my mouth, i was remembering this game this afternoom and i tought to myself "this game should learn from hogwarts mystery". I mean, the mechanics of hogwarts mystery aren't good, but they knew (at least in the begining) the mood of the world, like bonding with friends, dialogs, characters with nuance, even romance, and not basing the gameplay on combat, cause, at least for me, is never the strong side of the harry potter world.
i bought this game in pre sailing, and considering the cost in my country(Brazil) it was a HUGE investiment for me(the game costed almost 40% of my salary back in the time), and i felt like it was a generic Triple A game with a Harry Potter Skin.
@@ed6585 Totally agree
There was a huge lack of secret passageways in Hogwarts. Plenty of hidden rooms and chests but the castle should have actual passages that would act as shortcuts throughout the castle
I would have preferred that to flea powdering everywhere!
Floo Powder was dumb. I hate fast travel in games, but if you're going to do it in this game, at least take advantage of the secret passageways
Like in a 5 game.
@@Mikeyski4there is one secret passage to candy store in Hogwarts
@@NicVandEmZ Which you can get quicker by using the floo powder, so it only makes sense to use it in the quest for it. It takes out part of the fun of the game to be able to just teleport everywhere.
Why would you use the passage if you have a free and quicker path.
They should have put a cost in the teleport scheme at least.
The game needed some outdoor areas, Hogsmeade, the forest, the lake, the train station. Maybe even a visit to the Ministry. But other than that? Yeah, you're completely right. Hogwarts is a *magical castle*. It has exactly as much space as you need or want.
If im not mistaken, one of the houses does take you to the ministry.
no that is azkaban, you do get to speak to a minister though.@@hedrickbradley9
@@hedrickbradley9maybe Ravenclaw?
@@marwasultan5465 could be. Idk what you get to do. I got bored with the game after I beat the campaign so I didn’t want to try it
@@marwasultan5465 it's Hufflepuff. Of the house-specific quests, it's considered one of the best
I'd have been happy with just the castle to explore but with more stuff to do in.
Just going around on a broom checking boxes is boring.
When I saw the map was so big, I immediately knew it was gonna be shallow.
This pretty much mirrors my thoughts exactly. I wanted to be a student in this game. I didn't need a shoe-horned "chosen one" storyline. I wanted to start as a first-year and go to class, be required to actually learn stuff in order to progress my character, and spend several in-game school years becoming a great witch or wizard while exploring and constantly uncovering new secrets in Hogwarts, which was beautifully crafted. Every time I left Hogwarts in this game, I no longer felt like I was playing a game in the Harry Potter universe. Just felt like any other generic open world game.
Exactly! The dream of Harry Potter fans , and they didn't even try to make it that way.
What you wanted is exactly what I thought this game would be. I don’t have it as it hasn’t come out for Switch yet, I’m going to pass and replay the Lego games at least it’s familiar. 🙂
I hate how there was only 1 school year, we should've started from the beginning like every other Hogwarts student - after all the years watching Harry Potter there was no need to explore the idea of the 'chosen one' yet again, and if you were to explore that idea don't explore it at the sacrifice of your lesson time or time in general at Hogwarts. I just never felt like a student and that was the games biggest downfall, hopefully they fix this in the sequel
Eh I like the lore building of ancient magic and kids not discovering their magical till really late
I think y’all were expecting way too much if you thought we’d get an entire full 7 year hogwarts experience but I was at least expecting one year that would get sequels like the books
@@Liasisws it’s still an amazing Harry Potter game just not the best Hogwarts experience.
I literally didn’t do a single merlin trail… The best part of the game was, crazy enough, going to class lol. I loved role playing as a student at hogwarts. They should had about 10 student quest lines instead of giant open world stuff. The castle is legit amazing. It’s one of the greatest parts of a game I’ve played in the last ten years. Hogsmeade was fine, and I didn’t mind having a bit of open world like the forest and close surrounding area, but it should’ve been 75% smaller. More focus on quests and being an actual student would’ve bumped this up on my list of best games.
Part of the appeal of the HP saga is being a student of Hogwarts, the devs forgot how many children were absolutely passionate about the series because they wished with all their hearts that they could live that story themselves.
merlin trials give xp though, I only started doing them when i found out that
@@noestestristecass I find them meh for inventory. We can use magic... We already see the field guide just disappear into our robes.
Use an undetectable extention charm and you're good too go. Hagrid has that type of pockets in his jacket and he never made it past 3rd thanks ol Voldy.
Same. I was so disappointed to learn that we could in fact not interact with most of the more banal stuff in the castle, like sitting down, eating/drinking something or walking around with books under our arms (thanks to modders this is now possible). Huge oversight from the dev team. The aesthetics of the castle and Hogsmeade are absolutely gorgeous, let us be able to breathe them in to the max, I say!
@@D0MiN0ChAn what mods do you recommend for more interaction?
I really really hope that whatever we get next (a sequel, DLC, or another game completely) will have a ton more things to do in the castle. Like you said, I feel like the amount of work designing the castle deserved ten fold the amount of things we do within the school itself. And not just more quests and secrets, but built out systems like attending class, more characters and a better companion system, grades, more complex spell mastery, in a way that adds immersiveness and makes it feel like your character is actually a student in the school that's growing as a witch/wizard with it. I think at the core of any story set in the wizarding world is a coming of age story and these would greatly bolster that theme.
I was so excited about getting to be in Hufflepuff and actually make an impact in my house and spend time in the common room since you don't get to see it in the movies. I spent all of probably 15 minutes in there since there wasn't anything interactive to do :( I was pretty sad realizing that it didn't even feel like I was part of any specific house other than it showing on my robes
And like why not have some interactions with our dorm room? Being able to sleep in our bed, decorate our bedside table, choose bedcovers, and simple things like that would make it way more immersive but nooo we have to go to a fucking cave every 5 minutes.
Was it at least filled with plants and had a lot of yellows? I have yet to see what the other houses really look like apart from the one I picked, the house of the snakes. That house was a tad bit disappointing that it lacked a lot of green lighting.
It looks a lot like a hobbit's house@@firetoacat
I wish they at least had a house point system
And even then... it took effort to have a look that had your emblem or colors because any time you got new/stronger clothes you'd have to re-vamp your look.
You perfectly summed it up, I hope they see this. It angered me so much that basically every main- and sidequest happened in freaking caves as well, and spiders are not THAT central in the wizarding world. Nobody bought this game hoping that they would get to fight spiders in caves every ten minutes
they REALLY overused the spiders
And there's an arachnophobia option to enable. I didn't use it. I guess that with it activated it would would be a really short game. 🤣🙄🕷️🕷️🕷️🕸️🕸️🕸️
@@jorgeandresmasisbogantes957I didn't activate it either, but I wish I had.
Those giant mother spiders almost made me pass out when I first saw them
@@jorgeandresmasisbogantes957 Tried it, they just change appearance. Get roller skates and turn into triangles. Check it out. Doesn't change the gameplay a bit. I changed it back immediately, looks a bit weird
The spiders shouldn’t even be there in 1890. The books say that they are native to Borneo and they only got introduced to the Forbidden Forest in the 1940s when Hagrid freed Aragog. There are loads of other magical creatures they could have used as enemies such as kelpies, red caps, jarveys, quintapeds, etc.
This hit almost every mark, every problem I've been having trying to pick it back up. The professors give points to your house that don't actually accumulate to anything other than a dialog reference
This game lacks the immersion that BULLY in the 2000's had.
Took me a few minutes in Hogwarts Legacy to finally understand why BULLY is so much praised.
You've transitioned from a Witcher 3 content creator to a general gaming one excellently!
Fr, it's wonderful
Agreed! He’s proven his talent really well
He has because I didn’t even know he did Witcher 3 content 😂. I watch all his last 4 videos as well.
I wanna play harry potte rorde rof pheonix game. anyone rememebr how fun the clasees and the castle was???
For me, if they were to do a sequel, they'd really need to lean into the day-to-day student experience thing. Not doing the same 6 classes every time you play, but actually immersing the player in being a student at hogwarts. as you touched on with a reputation system, consequences for being out of bed, companions etc etc. I'd also limit the map to hogwarts, hogsmeade, the lake, forest and then a few side maps you can go to at certain points - diagon alley (before school and during the "holidays" and the ministry of magic (for a quest and then sneaking out to discover something there). All it needs is a slow burn story in which you discover certain things depending on what you do, with minor side quests, missions, and puzzles at and around the immediate vicinity of hogwarts to just immerse you in the magic of it and actually feel rewarding, not like ticking another merlin trial off the list of 95. Quidditch should be a near must-have if they do a sequel as well. I know its a lot to ask for but if it could be perfect (or what I would see as perfect anyway) Id' be happy to wait 5+ years for it.
I don’t trust the devs who made Hannah Montana, chicken little, meet the robinsons, and cars video games to make a proper sequel. They’re gonna fail regardless
bet its gonna be another "chosen one jesus" story...
@@stonaraptor8196 It´s really not the best way of doing it, the point of the game should be to build your legacy, not to follow the imposed legacy the creators want you to follow.
I KNOW! WANT IT REAL SCHOOL! I get it people have real life dont want to go back to school...so it will not have in time clock going even if your not playing like some games do...but real full hour 2 classes...that be cool..you do homework and crap!...(that you can turn in when ever to advance the game, yet again you have real lifes too.) but I think we would need to reach out to real teachers who may be HP freaks to help with that make real assigments/ And syllabus...if Any future harry potter games came out. But game developers need to think about this. This would be so cool if they collaborate with actual high school and college teachers to do this... When developing future games. Because basically we would be doing our own virtual larp in the safety of our own homes...pretty much.
yeah, teh student part would make this so much more interesting. You have classes and then limited time for exploration. ensures you won't be able to grind things quickly, and that you just won't see everything that the game offers, because let's face it, Hogsmeade is hour on foot (according to books), so after classes you won't reach much further. Then there are the weekends, but there is limited time to them too (we cant expect devs to bake all the classes, but we would play with timetable). And detention would reduce your time even further. It would add another element to the game.
You just perfectly described why I only have a total of 24 hours playtime on hogwarts legacy. I loved the castle itself, but the essential part beeing a pupil was missing. Plus you are going against the goblins although they have a vary valid reason to hate the wizards.
I wished for more interactive NPC, more classes, more in Hogwarts missions, more missions like the Polyjuice one. The polyjuice one was very HP and what a student would do. Too many caves and not enough missions in Hogmeades as well. I also wished we could have a core friend group.
also i wish we could actually buy things from other shops in hogsmeade. half of them are useless 😭😭
They could have done something like in the persona games where you could build up your friendships and that you had to wait for a new quest
@@Koinoo-q8fthey could also have something like the system on the old mordor game that the people u interact with get stronger and stronger and more important
@@dr.sunglasses not sure if that could work in this kind of game
yeah like Sébastien and natt
They just needed to focus more on the life of a student, the main story was cool and what not but I found myself doing it because I had to, not because I wanted to.
The castle itself and the stuff we did in it was 100% the games peak, we just want more of that but it seems so hard to reach for 😂
I bought this game for my son. But recently, I started playing it just because and I am falling in love with it. And when I went outside the castle, I was blown away by the countryside. Everything is just beautiful. You know we’re going to stumble on a hidden gym. a DLC would be really appreciated.
The thing I am most impressed by is how many Harry Potter lines and references you managed to find and fit in perfectly.
Also what I wanted soo desperately was the ability to sit
Especially in the common rooms I just wanted to sit in one of the endless amount of cozy chairs or on a bench and overlook the lake and just take it all in and not awkwardly stand around and shift position every so often
It's a small thing but somehow huge for me
YES! Same!
🙄
Yess!! I honestly did't notice it at first, but now when I lazily walking through the whole castle just to get to the room of Requirment, I wanna sit on the couches I made, damn
humanity is doomed
@@bonerjams2k3humanity is doomed bc this person wanted to sit on a chair in a video game for sure😂
I think my favorite part of the game, besides Sebastian's side story and exploring Hogwarts, was hearing the "bad guys" reactions to getting cursed. I'm actually surprised the "bad guys" didn't react more to the fact that the main character is a child. I personally feel like the optional exploring outside of Hogwarts could have worked if more characters reacted to it and reacted to what we were doing. For example, you barely ever sleep in the common room and I think it would be more interesting if characters pointed that out, or acted worried. Basically if being out and exploring effected the the plot or at least side conversations, it would have been slightly more enjoyable. Not to mention we kill so many people in that game only to turn around and be a normal student with no moral repercussions. Maybe if our character started become less and less lighthearted and fun the more we killed, it would have been more interesting. That's just how I felt while playing the game.
There are tons of funny reactions when you run around with invisible clothes, so I'm also surprised that this is apparently the only character dependent reaction you get
It's really weird that they took the power fantasy approach to the player character. They went to chosen one, world threatening stakes in the opening hours of the game and rush to skip the entire student experience of Hogwarts.
I would think the entire fantasy of attending Hogwarts is....well, attending as a student, learning and growing in knowledge and ability and having more of the world and it's dangers revealed to you as your power and responsibilities expand.
Yeah, the chosen one bs is so overused, it's the most boring route a game could go, probably because it's the most easiest to write?
I don't really mind having a chosen one setup, I mean gameplay wise you end up being a chosen one anyway no matter what story you do, but to me it's the whole "start as a fifth year, given a special book to help you learn faster, no reasonable explanation as to why you get it for starting late, and not other students, and then dropping the facade of it being wizarding school so you can go commit genocide on the goblins.
I'm not saying I want it to play through 7 years to beat the game, but I feel that most people would have definitely enjoyed a bit more of a life sim game out of this than a weird action RPG.
Completely agree, in fact, one of my disappointments with the game is how quickly and easily you learn new spells to the point where learning them just doesn't feel rewarding. In the books, it's described how Harry practiced for hours to learn 'Accio' so he could use it in the triwizard tournament, and that's why it also felt like he'd grown as a wizard when he learned it. I would've loved to attend multiple classes and genuinely having to put in work to practice a spell before learning it. It would've made it feel so much better once you actually got it and like becoming a powerful wizard isn't something you can just do with your left hand with your focus elsewhere
@@casperix3741 They could have gone that route, or just spent more time being a character rpg interacting with classmates, having drama and stories between students with something dark happening in the background you eventually become involved in or something,
They should have made it like in Rockstars Bully, so that every subject has like 5 levels or so and after you don’t need to attend classes no more. They shouldn’t just throw the new spells at you or recipes for juices
It’s not a major point, but the facial expressions and voice acting (particularly from the students) left a lot to be desired as well. The sequel has the potential to be a masterpiece if they take criticism to heart.
Oh yeah I absolutely agree. The voice acting was also lacking in German and I thought it was just because it was a translation but now I fear it was actually the directions they were given if the English original feels the same.
The voice acting was shite apart from some of the professors. I.e; Prof. Weasley who was voiced by the actress who played Mrs Patmore in Downton Abbey and Prof. Black who was voiced by Simon Pegg
I think the voice acting is great. Idk what people have a problem with in terms of that. Especially the main characters were great
I loved the main girl’s voice. Dumb that it had that weird robotic echo sound if you chose the higher or lower options though… how hard is a small pitch change to get right?
I HATED the voice acting, this was the first game where I started to skip dialogue, it was the most text to speech mundane voice acting I've ever heard.
I’m glad someone else agreed that the Sebastian side-story was far stronger and enjoyable than the main story. Which is insane to say.
I wish the devs had put more time into having more side-stories with more characters in the game, rather than all the collectibles and making the map as big as it was
I’m fairly sure the Sebastian and Ominis quest line was originally going to be the main quest, however they changed direction midway through productions. This is backed up by the fact that Natty and the other companion quest lines are nowhere near as deep. It’s a shame, they should’ve stuck with the Sebastian and Ominis route as the main quest!
It would have given also way more Harry Potter vibes if the Sebastian&Ominis quest line would have been the main story line.
Harry Potter is about frienship and the power you can get from it. Not about being the most powerful wizard. (Unless we could be the bad dark witch/wizard who the world fears.)
All that Choosen-One-Stuff is unnecessary. It's boring and old fashioned. We don't need to be a Mary Sue to have fun in a game. Let us be part of the people in this universe not some godlike superhero who always feels left out by society.
Definitely would’ve been better to have them and a smaller more linear game so that you spent most of your time as a student at hogwarts. It literally would’ve been exactly what we needed. I understand why they felt the need to make it feel like a bigger, more traditional open world game because that style is so popular and reliable right now, but I’m sad they did.
I mean the current main quest isn't that bad and it nicely ties into the rest of the wizarding world, but the fact is took away from all the good times in Hogwarts is a big problem. I think if the quest was slightly less generic and more development time was spent improving and refining the main story line instead of creating a massive map, I wouldn't have minded the chosen one narrative as long as I could still feel like a Hogwarts student at times. But the fact that I could fly around the massive map from sunrise to sunset and not attend any lessons was very odd and frustrating - I didn't feel like a student at all and that is the game's biggest downfall
I feel the companion quests should have been merged with the main quest.
To me the main quest seemed a bit child like.
I was quite disappointed with not really "being a student". That was the biggest appeal to me...going to Hogwarts. I don't mind all the open world stuff, sure. However that should have been secondary in this case.
My dream for a "Hogwarts Legacy 2" would be to bring Hogwarts back in focus.
1. Start as a 1st year and actually progress through the school system, taking full classes
2. House points
3. Companions/friends
4. Hogwarts secrets/discoveries/miniquests
5. Decisions that matter
6. Keep the surrounding area (especially Hogsmeade, but emphasis time spent on the castle grounds
Agreed. The game is stunning for the first 10 to 15 hours. Then you realize how empty and rushed everything was. You fill your vivarium with ceatures only to realize there isn’t much to do with them. You brew all these potions for no reason. You have a shop in Hogmeade that offers you nothing. It gets to the point where everything you do is kind of pointless. I wish they would have focused on fewer elements and just fleshed those out really well. The game lacks depth. The one area that they fleshed out well was the spell casting and combat. Good job there.
This describes pretty much exactly how I felt. You can quit this game 10-15 hours in and won't miss much, but those few hours are worth the price for anybody interested in Harry Potter.
I think I'm not alone in having a lot of difficulty committing to a game if I _know_ it doesn't go anywhere, even if the first part is good.
Keep up the good work man, love your videos
@@Sky_Guy definitely the same. if i see no progress, if i see no real change, i don't want to play it. be that unlocking things, growing stronger, or something like that, if a game feels like you're never moving, it loses me instantly.
Its not a Harry Potter game , its set 100+ years before the Harry Potter books.
@@mefw it's a harry potter game. it's set in the "potterverse". aka, the harry potter universe.
If I'm not mistaken one of the developers even said they removed the morality/reputation system because they didn't want to punish players for being a dark wizard. You...what? If people don't react to how evil I am in a RPG then what's the point! I wanted Bully in the wizarding world with actual bullying being an option, hope Avalanche returns to Hogwarts but with all the features they planned fully implemented.
They also removed the companionship that would’ve let us do quests with our “school friends”
Game Developers: "We did not want to stigmatize Dark Wizards, because who we are to judge our players?"
Avada Kevadra: Spell that requires so overwhelming, crystallized desire to unlawfully take a life, so strong killing intent that it literally damages users soul to successfully cast.
Of course they don’t want to stigmatize dark wizards. They basically are dark wizard sympathizers at this point.
exactly. LoL RPG's with consequences is the points. I don't mind not being in the castle the entire time. I actually found the map of the castle quite annoying. It was so confusing to navigate and find things for me. And I've already seen the castle enough. I want to explore the rest of the world, which was nice. Reminded me alot of fallout 3. I LOVED fallout 3, but we had karama for things. Had more the explore. And had glitches up the wahoo because of bethesta games being the buggest games I've ever seen, but still. More RPG roles and options please.
@@matiasluukkanen7718 Law has nothing to do with it. It's just malice. Hold enough contempt for the existence of life to snuff it out.
The game is soooo good for the first hours when you are having classes and really feel like a student , the forbidden forest seems scary when you are at a low level , try to beat the Absconder Spider as soon as you get the mission and you will think you should never come back , but after level 30 is a stroll in the park , also I really thought that if I got all Merlin trials that Merlin hologram would talk
It's kinda crazy when you realise the Hogwarts castles in the old Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban games from 20 years ago had some better elements to them.
Like how at night prefects roam around the castle and you had to sneak past them, In Hogwarts Legacy there's one part where you sneak into the library but then after that you can just go in there any time you want and no one cares.
It's not a bad game at all, I really liked the whole catching animals and breeding new ones thing but it could have been so much more. The castle should have been like the over worlds in the Yakuza games, small but absolutely packed with interesting things to do. Instead we got a no doubt, visually stunning rendition of Hogwarts with not all that much to actually do within it.
It's a shame that western devs seem to think it's fine to just make giant open world games and copy and paste the same 3 or 4 things across it nowadays.
As much as I agree with you... Tbf, it's not only Western Devs who do that. Nintendo did the same with Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Gigantic open worlds with barely anything to do in it, and if there's something to do, it's copy and pasted content.
Harry potter and the order of the phoenix videogame for PS2 was also veeery fun
The devs said they want to keep making games like this, so I really hope they learn from their mistakes and make more fantastic games. Legacy is really dang amazing on its own, but there is always room for improvement!
All we ask is a Hogwarts game centered around Hogwarts
Not too spread thin, but with depth!
@@jeanculasec1466 let me give you the highlight games this studio made the past 2 decades
Rugrats
Chicken Little
Hannah Montanna
Cars
Disney Infinity
They've made a game thats a genuinely good game and great for fans of the IP
there will definitely be a hogwarts legacy 2 (the sales numbers were insanely good), and i'm hoping they can really build on this one since a lot of the base functionality is already there.
dlc plz
@@Midheaven616 They have no DLC plans and likely won't bring out any. There is no point in them anyway.
7:59 yeah I think we all remember Garlick for uhhhh… “some reason”
I remember pausing the game when the decision whether or not to return the gobstones to look up what the consequences were and finding out that no decision in the entire game matters.
God that’s the worst feeling. There’s another game like that (can’t remember what it’s called atm) but pretty much did the exact same thing as you and had that feeling of disappointment wash over me and after that just spammed B on every cutscene because the ending was the same regardless of what you chose.
@@Shiestey Yeah, I enjoyed the game overall. But it does take a lot away from a game when there are fake choices that really doesn't do anything.
@DescendingVelocity probably thinking about mass effect 4. I heard in the previous ones each choice made a crazy difference with like a BUNCH of endings. But the fourth had only like 2 endings typical bad and good and there was like a bunch of optional dialouge
Decisions kinda matter, but only on level of few dialogues. If you act mean to students expect negative comments from them when they wander Hogwarts. But that's it. Well maybe they'll learn in sequel. Game is popular and has good ratings so maybe they'll makes choices more impactful. It'd be kinda cool if they added wanted level or something similar. Maybe some morality system which affects how others treat you. To make things more fun Slytherin would start on negative karma. Not too much, but still...people would see you as "bad guy". You could pursue that route by doing bad things, bullying, being mean or be nice to people and earn positive reputation, but by doing so you could turn some Slytherin students hostile to you.
@@alesthraSlytherins weren't 'bad guys' before Voldemort. That's stupid. The game should never revert to JKR's black-and-white morality system.
I think this game would have benefited from being more of a linear RPG with free-roaming aspects in the vein of Dragon Age instead of an open-world collect-a-thon. As it stands, it sacrifices a focused character-driven narrative to have the widest map possible. The countryside being packed with enemies also gives the weird impression Hogwarts is under siege.
To the last line of your point? Are there indications within the narrative for such a siege? If not the critique of it being bloated without a point is a valid one.
PS: Which dragon age though?
@@vimalpatel4060 Origins obviously. The sequels were okay, but didn't come close to reenacting the magic that was the original.
The thing is it tries to be open world while forcing you to stay linear.
The first time when i received that popup return to the NPC in 15 seconds or quest is canceled when i just wanted to open a chest 30m away broke my immersion so fast it never recovered.
You dont block exploration when exploration is the most important thing in this kind of game
Also there is nothing to find in the game but complete grinding missions.
Light 100 torches for 1 item and the torches even disappear not even adding to the atmosphere
Same for the statues and keys .
The first 3 EA games was gathering cards with interesting lore but here it just unlocks an items for you.
Also items are not interesting to find in any souls game when i find a new items it sparks joy here its just a number increase and you lose interest.
I'ts true that I found it strange that very close to the borders of the castle and between Hogsmeade and Hogwarts there were so many enemies, one would expect that most paths were a lot of people, merchants, supossedly officers or people with autority like that, teavhers / professors and so on would have less enemies exactly because there would be a kind of monitoring and elimination of the danger too close to inhabited places, that or it would've people saying that noone should walk alone, not without people able to be bodyguards. So it wouldn't be exclusively kids and teens that couldn't walk alone.
It truly does give an impression that at anytime could happen a siege and it would turn in a Tower Defense or a Musou + Strategy game.
@@boangherrazvan3977 It seems like you are describing the rockstar narrative problem, which goes something like complete freedom in the open world, while narrow in the missions. For example you ran 20 meters out of bounds, mission failed.
I think we are critiquing consistency here. If the game was linear we would be okay. What are the games which you think, have got this right, in terms of open world, which is tight enough to hold the narrative, but loose enough to let you explore.
Which reminds me souls games. As you pointed out. There the story goes through the scrolls, and legends. But, that mystery is what keeps the findings interesting. Which in turn leads to the joy we seem to get in return. Which a mere torch collection of numbers game makes for a banal and a boring game. Feel free to criticize these comments?
PS : As the fellow above this comment mentioned, does dragon-age origins quality as a good open linear game, if you have played it obviously?
Completed HL like 2 hours ago, and I can't agree with you more. I loved exploring the castle, collecting at least one of each type of beast, and the side-quests with Sebastian and Ominis. However, the endless grind for crappy loot and the repeated merlin trials, slaying goblins, felt repetitive, and I actually started ignoring most of it after level 20, since the game was no longer a challenge. From there, I finished the main story in one go.
The puns in this video are next level. Especially to a player who’s put in 80+ hours, the subtle references to annoying quirks like ‘Deek doesn’t give a sh*t about anything but the potions you’ve brewed’ was perfect. Add in little nuances like ‘Dudley Souls’ & it made the whole video overall quite enjoyable while still clearly conveying the point. Subscriber earned.
My favorite one was “You’re free to become Death: The Destroyer of Scottish Countryside all you want.” 😂
This game being the center of a culture war at release and leaving zero cultural impact itself afterwards is kinda hilarious.
This rule applies to the vast majority of culture war centerpieces. Theres so little to dissect, talk about or argue over in the content itself no matter how controversial it is that whatever whoever was mad about is quickly replaced by them complaining about [the other side] and how they've imagined them to enthusiastically like, be responsible for and agree with whatever the thing was.
None of these products ever contain a message or point that can be said to genuinely argue for or add to the point of one side or another, they're mostly just reminders of the intangible perspective difference that divides people rather than something divisive in of itself.
No, clearly the game is such a cultural force that streamers need to be harrassed for playing it or else a lot of people will... play a game based on a thing made by a person we don't like, then move on with their lives
Thats because said culture war was basically not about the game itself anyways
that's because ninety percent of the "culture war" stuff is someone who didn't learn the "change the channel or leave the room rule" if you don't like what's on the tv, change the channel, if it's not your tv and your the minority vote of what's playing on it, leave the room, but instead the people harass others endlessly over some perceived grievance and it's riddikulus, their usually nothing actually culturally significant about the piece itself outside of the vast amount of hate, or praise it gets depending on what side of the social fence it sits on, etc
@@fionn2220 I guess you haven't watch many shows or movies post 2016 then. South Park made a pretty funny special about Disney's contribution to the "panderverse" recently.
Here’s hoping the updates they just announced will address some of these issues. I’d love to see them do more with characters like Nattie, Ominis, Gareth, and Imelda. They were all so fun and interesting, I’d love to get more stories and adventures with them.
Another feature I think they missed out on was the use of the black lake, let me explorer the seabed, kelp forrests and mearmaid cities of the black lake, run into the merpeople (scary as they are), grindylows and kelpies, maybe even expand the room of requirement to have an underwater/loch section, could have been awesome instead of just the diving animation. I know the bubblehead charm isen't useally taught to fifth year student's but maybe a quest in the black lake could have you learn the charm a year earlier for some black lake themed shenanigans. I don't know if it's just me, but really think they missed out here too
*The Giant Squiiiiiiiiid* 🤌🏻🤌🏻
It could have been soo awesome to explore the black lake further than just the diving animation.
Would open up a whole new part of the game
@@Vestat1 I don't think the Giant Squid was there at that point, if I'm remembering right.
@@RionAgriaswhen you have your first flying lesson it raises its tentacles out of the water.
Loch doesn't mean underwater, lochs just the word for lake in Scottish Gaelic.
Love the game, but you are right about all of it, the castle is amazing and the open world is so meh.
We needed more classes, quidditch integraded into the story, more student life and more time with professors, classes are amazing and we get so few...
Hogsmeade, the castle and the forbidden forest are the most redeeming part
I agree but this was the first open world game they made. Let them cook for part 2 I say 🎉
@@sit-insforsithis1568 yeah, definitely. I finished the game satisfied and hopeful for ehat they would be able to do in the sequel. Its their first big game and they nailed so many aspects of it
It was a great first try, but I agree. I would love it if class performance were tied to a skill/proficiency tree of a sort as well. Or have stuff so that if you're good in Care of Magical Creatures classes, you can unlock more rare/unique creatures as pets/mounts and ask some creatures for help. And if ur good with COMC and Herbology, you can 'commune' with nature and gain access to secret caves or something.
Maybe have something like broom-modification for skilled Quidditch players, to increase handling or speed when mounted as well as targeting with a wand like a momentary slow-mo when you aim with the wand while mounted on a broom.
Even stuff like creating your own group like Harry did with Ron and Hermione or like Dumbledore's Army (prolly not as large as that).
True. Rest of the world except Hogsmeade and forbidden forest (which look too "cute" with rtx on btw) it's feel like a filler and walking simulator. "go to the quest on the other side of the map" over and over 😔
The game also forces me to be a murderer against my will. There is no way to defeat enemies without killing them even though I don't use unforgivable curses at all, so then it makes no sense why the unforgivable curses are unforgivable when I pretty much do the same thing with my normal curses. Why is it worse to use avadacedavra that kills instantly and probably painlessly, than burning someone to death with incendio? Surely avadacedavra is more humane?
Totally agree!!! Detention quests after using magic in front of authority figures would have been so cool
Considering who's the Headmaster during the game it would have been amazing to have a school-based storyline that includes having to venture out and about. Even just letting you choose to be either a pure-blood or Muggle-born and have to deal with a school and Headmaster who encourages certain attitudes and ideologies surrounding blood purity. We also needed the odd Prefect or two to sneak past at night (not tonnes but one or two at certain points and you can't fast travel inside the school from outside) to give the feeling of being out when you shouldn't be.
A lot of powerful wizards and witches who weren't chosen ones became legendary either due to learning lots of magic or through brave acts so you could easily just be a normal student (and friends) who could choose how much and what subjects to learn to customise your playstyle and give the feeling of being a student who has interests in particular subjects,
it would also give replayability as you could choose different subjects (skills) each time and how in-depth/power level you choose to ‘study’ them.
Consequences for actions would be nice. Also different missions for each house should have been top on their priority list.
I completely agree. Hogwarts, it's secrets, learning about magic, and everything involved within it was the world we wanted to explore and be apart of; not the empty and meaningless wilderness around it. I mean if they wanted to involve the outside world around Hogwarts, that would have been some great DLCs. Also, absolutely choices NEED to matter. That was a core feature of the Harry Potter franchise. "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." (Dumbledore | J.K. Rowling)
If it was going to take us away from Hogwarts, I would have loved it to have been parts of Victorian London instead! (I've not competed it yet, so holding out hope we do...)
The original video games series were awesome because you kept exploring the castle.
Hidden rooms, forbidden areas were the appealing theme for me when I was a kid.
Hogwarts should have being the entire open world of the game.
It doesn´t matter if the interior broke the logical architecture design and spacial dimensions of the castle itself.
Who cares if the inside is bigger than the outside?
Hogwarts is a magical castle, after all.
@@Bombur888 oh and using revelio & seeing chests and blue objects right behind the wall you are facing and going 17 different directions to try and find your way to that room/space in priceless! I spent hours doing what I could to memorize the routes
It wouldn't be breaking logical architecture design anyway since the Harry Potter world does have space-expansion spells, used in tents and Hermione's bag. And Hogwarts got the Room of Requirement, which is a extra room that exists inside a wall.
I know it's likely canon that Hogwarts is quite small and not as spectacular to look at from the outside (based on Rowling's drawings) compared to the movies, but I always liked to imagine Hogwarts being way way bigger. The books do establish that there are lots of unknown things about the castle like hidden passageways, secret rooms, unconventional entrances and moving decors that make the inside of Hogwarts feel like a maze and an ever-changing living entity compared to the movie version.
Hogwarts would've been the perfect place for a game to focus exploration on and go wild with all the possibilities. We could be stumbling across secret passages to travel like the pipes in the walls and discovering hidden areas through unconventional means
@@flyingstapler1241that's exactly my point! Omg I thought the same when I was reading chamber of secrets for the first time. The reason the chamber was well hidden is because Hogwarts had many many secrets that not even the headmaster know about it. Hope the H. Legacy creators deliver in the next game
Yep. They could have had less repetitive fields, caves, and mini villages. And then had a deeper, more interesting Hogwarts with more secrets, hidden passageways, discoveries, etc. Maybe expand to the forbidden forest and Hogsmeade.
I went for full achievement runs in the first week and I even bought the game to play it before release and I hated it so much that I'll never return and I've done all achievements in several games but Hogwarts Legacy was the most boring grind I ever had. Achievements aside, I agree with the missing reason to stay and do stuff at the castle, I remember back to when I was a kid, wanting to run around and explore the castle and the castle grounds and a lot of it was amazing but there's really no reason to stay in the house you've gotten sadly. I think my expectations were in the wrong honestly, I wanted to enjoy the experience of being a real student at Hogwarts, classes, friends, enemies even, teachers, going home or staying at the school while the others students are home, experiencing going to Hogsmead with my class for the first time, fighting some amazing enemies in the dark of night, explore the places from the movies at day or night, riding on my broom trying to get the golden snitch and maybe even win the tournament between houses and even better win extra points for my house in order to gain another huge win at the end of the year, but at least I got to throw around the most evil of curses while feeling... Like a good guy? I wanted to be evil doing evil stuff, but they said nah man we wont allow it... I still hope someone out there will be able to make a better Hogwarts game with the option to play in first person instead of having to act like I'm not the guy looking at my own characters neck 24/7
I loved this game purely for how beautiful Hogwarts was and how much fun I had initially exploring it. It felt so sprawling, with wonderful cozy music, and a lot of stuff to find. The rest of the game was okay with some mediocre elements, but Hogwarts was awesome. However... there was not nearly enough stuff to actually *do* in Hogwarts. They could have made it so much more alive and dynamic. I wanted in-depth side quests, mini-games, secrets, dungeons, etc..., all within Hogwarts itself.
I would have much preferred that to the open world which was unnecessary to some extent. If they had just given us Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and the Forbidden Forest, and really fleshed out those areas to make them as dense and as interesting as possible, it would have been a much better experience.
Also, where the heck do all the students go at night? They're not in their beds or anywhere else. Weird oversight that makes the castle feel not very lived in.
Honestly while I generally loved the game, in particular I actually really like how they implemented combat, one of my biggest peeves about it is that you cannot jump to morning by sleeping in the dorms. I just don’t understand why that’s not an option.
@@OscarGomez-hg8cb espessially cause you can skip time via the map by pressing the right stick. Its weird indeed
right? No going to class, no consequences for being up at night, having to endure long long nights (yes you can skip w R3) and no difference with what house you choose? RDR2 you need to eat and sleep and bathe and I LOVE that aspect
@@andrewlowden322 maybe it’s too much of a casual game to really implement *all* of the survival mechanics, but being able to sleep in your dorms, more excuses for stealth with penalties for exploring at night and maybe some temporary stat boots from food would be awesome!
And everything the video mentioned was in development of course
I'd love to have a game focused on Ominis and Sebastian. Or at least with a darker and more mature atmosphere.
The rumor is the next game will be darker and maybe closer to a horror game.
@@mrow7598unlikely. They will want to hit a much wider audience. Horror games are very niche and won't sell well
Ugh, Sebastian? The worst fucking character in the game? Fuck off
Same! Maybe I’m too old for Harry Potter but Hogwarts Legacy is just a bit too silly and whimsical. Something in the tone of Prisoner of Azkaban/ Chamber of Secrets would be epic
No to forget that Potterheads are adults now, so I think they should try to make something more relatable to them.
I would gladly skip all this goblin rebellion stuff for Triwizard Tournament questline that takes place mostly in the castle and/or around it, and maybe even explore Beauxbatons Academy instead all this boring caves and goblin camps around Hogwarts
I loved the missions with other students the most. The world of HP is known for doing things with friends, so the missions with Seb, Natty, Poppy, Ominus and other students was the best.
For me, the biggest issue with Hogwarts Legacy is its main quest story, especially the ending. I mean, the game sends you on a hunt to complete Isidora’s portrait with Sebastian, a path that could have lead to amazing twists even in the vaults and then… nothing. You face Ranrok and then you’re basically obliged to do good because if you go bad and betray everyone… nothing happens. My God 🤦🏼♂️
and the quest itself is so so boooooring. I think I am jaded about it is for the reasons NK brings up in the video. I get tired of the same industrial sites fighting goblins. yawn. thats not what the HP world is to me
Agree, I wanted to be bad but the most bad guy you can be is an ass to your class mates keeping the emotional power instead of sealing it up dose nothing, your not more strong or despised, the keepers arnt even in the portraits after the story and you have to keep grinding for points to get enough for the end of term feast cutscene.
OK that's what I was just about to write and you saved me the effort! For me Sebastien's questline was more like the main story but it abruptly ends with none of the hard choices you made there not matter at all in the end. Like I chose to learn the unforgiveable curses from Sebastian and expected there to be some consequences. Or chose not to tell about him to the authorities and yet still nothing.
@@Potter5416 huh you never have to actually grind for the final feast cutscene! Maybe you misinterpreted the dialogue with Prof. Weasly wrong because she tells you that there is still so much to do? I wasn't even close to 100% when i finished the game, not even on maxlevel and was able to get through the epilogue without any grind!
Not to mention that this game was supposed to be you having your own main character, but instead it's literally just you as Harry Potter fighting Voldemort again, only this time Voldemort is a little person. When the side quests of the game are more fun than the main quest, that means your game is trash and you should feel ashamed
okay just laughed so hard at harry riding shrek after your shrek costume hahaha
Might seem small, but one thing that really let me down was the fact you can't even sit in the great hall and talk to the friends you've made. Such an impactful area of the movies, I felt very disconnected from the school and it's what I wanted to experience the most.
Yes! You feel like an outsider.
I wanted to eat at that grand hall so much and eat turkey legs. The books placed so much emphasis on the grand hall. Harry Potter and his friends would always hang out in the grand hall and eat together and talk about Wizarding politics. It was great stuff.
They could have had a system like fire emblem three houses, where you can cook meals and pick class mates to sit with. In fact, a lot of the game play of FE three houses would have worked in this game (maybe without out the tactical battles haha)
You start game and do whatever (introduce yourself and gtfo from school - what a rebel. Spending entire year slacking like a proper anime protagonist), you play game and do whatever (mostly murder poachers with curses), you finish game and: OVER 9000 POINTS TO YOUR HOUSE! YOUR HOUSE WON!
Nothing felt more deserving. I dont care how they handled it in books... its a game. Let me earn my points instead of giving them for finishing main story (for free).
You didn't felt.like you were a student wearing death eater clothes during your beast classes after killing 500 poachers the night before? Strange
I myself would have preferred a denser, more lived-in Hogwarts with layered focus on the mysteries of the Forbidden Forest and Chamber of Secrets as its main dungeons. I know some also abhor the idea of a Persona-progression-style but its choice elements (like the social link and arcana) would have made interactions more immersive. At some point, they could even throw in a DLC where you get to visit Diagon's Alley and a new dungeon in its bowels where a caucus of dark wizards congregate.
I couldn't agree more. The mystery factor was meh, which is for me, a staple of the Potterverse franchise. @@shivamshukla7369
People quote Persona, but Bully is the superior example.
Ditto, bully is great as well... Why not have both of them chucked in? Let it be a cacophony of light, darkness, and all things betwixt.😉@@jase276
The editing on this video is some of the best I’ve ever seen
So many references 100/10
Absolutely agree, especially with having companions to go on your adventrues with. One of the greatest disappointments for me though was no co-op. Exploring Hogwarts with your buddies would be a dream.
The intercutting of scenes in these videos is what keeps me coming back. They’re masterful, it must take hours to find the right clip for each joke and I love it! Great job man!
Thank you for not spoiling a game i haven't finished 😂
Couldn’t agree more and have been saying this since release.
My 5 biggest changes for a sequel
1. Have a scheduling system that requires you to go to school (or punishes you for missing). I think the persona schedule system would be perfect
2. Small map. Only hogwarts, hogsmeade, the Forrest and lake. You can create smaller open maps for specific story beats I.e Diagon alley, Godrics hollow
3. Either get rid of dialogue options and define the MCs personality, or make dialogue choices matter so we can define the personality
4. Make hogwarts more rewarding to explore
5. Get rid of loot. The clothing options were ridiculous and felt pointless
For number 1, I think a Bully scheduling system would be better. In Bully, you had 2 classes everyday and the game didn't force you to go, however if you went and passed the class you got a reward. And if you didn't go, you were basically being truant and had to avoid the prefects while on campus. Persona isn't bad by any means, but I don't think the game design of having to pick 3 things to do a day would work well for this game. Bully system is better for an open world game that wants you to explore.
Expanding on point 2 - if there is an open world then I want to be able to shape that world. Bring consequences and rewards for doing certain things. If you're becoming a Dark Wizard then make those lore-specific consequences felt. If you're helping people left, right and centre, then make other characters more likely to help you in return; if you helped one character out once and they have another quest to give you, they will rememeber that you helped them and give you better rewards.
Have an interconnected world full of characters who know each other and have quest lines based around each other. Xenoblade Chronicles did this very well. If two characters dislike each other, and you help one but then go to help the other, it will cause a rift between your character and the one you helped but then could lead on to another quest that helps to reconcile their relationship (if that is plausible for those specific characters) or permanently make you disliked. Also make it so that every NPC character has a journey of their own that you can miss if you don't pay attention (The Legend of Heroes does this and it's so immersive).
Also, get rid of the quest markers and let people figure out the quests themselves. This forces a player to talk to every single character and remember character designs to complete the quest.
@@dfabulous if persona was used, it would have to be altered a bit.. but I personally like the idea of playing an entire school year, but it may be tough.
I’ve probably played an hour of bully.. and while I get the appeal I just think it would be too hard to get from class to class on time with such a big castle
IMO extensive work needs to be done for immersion. After so long as you mentioned I stopped feeling like a student and more like an exhibitionist who can just come and go from the school as I please. There should be a more in depth day/ night cycle with mandatory classes and a headcount before bed every night. There just needs to be enough dynamic conversations and scenarios for those to not get boring, which is a lot of crunch and no small order dev wise. Even Harry Potter was a student first for the majority of his story. I’d really love a fully fledged out student life in the next one. They should be basing the story and events around the student life and school year like the original story did for the majority of the early books.
I agree with part of your analysis on the Sebastian and Ominis quest line, I wish that they integrated more of the choices in it to the rest. Also, I wish they had more of the Sebastian story tie with how the MC had the potential to "take away pain" like I would love to see more of him driving forth on research into that and his reaction
The game felt lonely. The character constantly remarks that he/she need their friends beside them despite not having co-op, online play, or NPCs that can go with you. This leaves the character feeling lonely too. I was particularly annoyed at combat because instead of it being challenging, the enemies just don't die. I loved the stealth sections where we feel like a student out after dark and the characters constantly refer to how students are not allowed out at night _except_ you are allowed out after dark - no one cares. You don't really feel like a student but instead like an adult allowed to kind of return to the castle of your younger life. I found the main conflict and main secretive story of the ancient magic boring and poorly written. I understand why the game has a huge play area but what this game needed was a much smaller, tightknit story that bounces between Hogwarts and the village with the name that escapes me currently. Given that I sided with Sebastian going with me early on, I honestly thought the other companion was a spy for the baddies because she knew so much about events I had not taken her with me to see. In fact, her entire plotline was utterly rubbish in my playthroughs because my player character hardly ever interacted with her due to my suspicions and yet the game expects me to be BFFs with her. It also doesn't help that while the outside world is very Harry Potter it is also very uninspired and lacks creativity. The idle animations are played during cutscenes which are on a loop and the voice acting doesn't remotely match the visuals. I did like the game except I'm now bored with it and haven't even finished it. Somewhere between the uninteresting gameplay, lacklustre story, and the overwhelmingly bland push of modern shit politics I've found myself disheartened and playing older, more fun games that I've already completed two-to-three times beforehand.
!!!
I went back to the witcher 3 and red dead.
Both ten times the game Hogwarts Legacy is. The main story felt like it was a bad hogwarts fanfiction. And my character the most boring creature ever. I suppose it was meant to be like skyrim and fallout where you kind of invent your backstory. Didn't really work though in this game imo.
@@louwinters508agreed
I'm not a Harry Potter fan at all, never read the books or watched the movies, but I played this game and I was in love with the beginning of this game. Exploring around the castle and that first town, meeting the characters like the teachers and other students, stuff like that. But once all that was over with, I ended up never finishing the game. Such a shame, there was so much potential here.
@@bwhere45 Yeah, I didn't think I would. The main story was not very interesting and wasn't able to keep me engaged. That early part of the game though, man that was good.
If you liked the beginning then you should go read the books and watch the movies lol
Fans got to have that experience spread over a decade or so, or a couple weeks for the newcomers.
It's definitely more of a light novel for teenagers and has its flaws, but it's the best selling series for a reason. The world really is a delight to immerse yourself in, so long as you don't dig too deep. Great character writer, slightly-above-average worldbuilder.
if the hamlets had as much to do as hogsmede, I think it would've been nice. I liked not being in the castle because it was just confusing to explore. But the one hamlet across from hogwarts that had a person get eatten by spiders she was breading. Brutal and amazing. The hidden mazes of the black trees or whatever they were with the story line in little books and teresures at the center. amazing. Finding some dude who exploded himself by accident on the other side of the bridge thing to the lower map, very coiol. thigns like that is what I like about RPG's. Staying in a building isn't. So I'm glad to not have been in the castle the entire time, but they needed to do more with other villages and make them as extensive as hogsmeade.
My main issue was repetitive puzzles, would br awesome to use spells in a creative way to solve em like reparo, arresto momentum, descendo or transformation.. 90% of the puzzles comes down to depulso, confringo and levioso
What I think is really frustrating is if they fix some of these in a sequel it’s gonna feel backwards IMO. I think ideally you start off with a fully realized Hogwarts castle with a smaller map of the outskirts that you expand as the series goes on; Then as the series continues you raise the stakes more and more better justifying why the faculty doesn’t really care about the protagonist spending so much time away from the grounds in years 6 and 7. Instead what I could see happening is they still raise the stakes but try to incorporate classes and Quidditch but that it will feel odd that you’re taking a break from the main story to go learn about Herbs.
Definitely agree - I kept saying to my friend when playing that I was shocked by how little we were in Hogwarts. Best parts were going to lessons and being a pupil at Hogwarts!
I'm sorry but Sebastian and Ominis was only the second best story quest. Number one was Poppy and the underground dragon fight club!
Couldn't agree more with the video!
If anything i wish that (who knows, a sequel/dlc?) will focus more on daily life at Hogwarts. I get that something major and extraordinary has to happen, it happens to HP every year, but keep it mostly inside the castle. I was disappointed that you could just leave the castle like that. Leaving Hogwarts grounds (apart from scheduled Hogsmeade) should feel like breaking every rule and risking your house their chance to win, your wizarding career and your very life. I would have preferred to keep the stakes smaller or atleast more intimate.
Other than that:
- the world outside Hogwarts should feel challenging, you're a gifted student, but just a student after all.
- The forbidden forrest should have dangers you can't win and a variety of monsters.
- Dark wizards should feel impossible to defeat, given how they are graduated and honed the dark arts.
- The classes should be more engaging and tie in to events in the story.
- An unforgivable spell should absolutely bare the greatest consequences, even throw you off into an entirely different story trajectory with bad endings as a possibility.
- Daily life at Hogwarts, however interrupted by the story it might be, should always play a role. That means worrying about the house cup, quidditch season, passing your exams, detentions and your right to leave the castle.
That said, i absolutely love the entire team at Avalanche for realising my childhood fantasy. Every point of criticism i have comes from nothing but love for the game and pointers to make it perfection.
I couldn't even finish the game, it was just too mediocre. I loved seeing talking paintings and suits of armor smacking each other because one was humming, the castle was just beautiful... but that was the strongest part of the game. And like you said, they barely fleshed it out and you spend 80% of the game outside it
what some people dont get is a thing. this game unloyalty to the books did'nt bother me, you know why?
CAUSE THIS IS NOT HARRY POTTER
To be honest I really wish they gave you the option to choose blood status and your family. Wish they would’ve given an option to OFFICIALLY be a Weasley or a Black, Lestrange, etc; would’ve been cool if that also dictated how certain Npc’s interacted with you. Also wish you could find your common room npcs and bring them on missions with you kinda like how the original saints row games let you recruit homies (trials would’ve been exempt from this). Also wish the indulging in the dark arts would’ve had an impact on how npcs view you,?Hopefully they do this in the sequel.
This would be really cool. The option of various origins
Solid take. Quidditch and duelling are the kind of side activities that can really breathe some variety from the quests into the game and do a whole lot for longevity.
Kind of a shame that they didn't capitalize on that and the other things you mentioned near the end.
I wouldn't be mad if they copy-pasted their world and almost exclusively worked on a new story and a better core experience for a/the sequel.
Also: no muggle interactions? Could've been fun. And lastly, I still don't know the protagonists backstory or motivation. Why didn't he get in year 1? Is he muggle born? ...
You shouldn't know their backstory. It's YOUR story at the core. You implant your own backstory.
Muggle interactions? NAH.
12:07 “Deek thinks you should be proud of all the potions you’ve brewed!” 🙃
You really articulated my issues with this game so well. Exploring the castle was incredible, Sebastian's storyline was great, there's so much to love about this game. But when you got outside the castle, it felt so unfinished and empty. Pointless encounters and empty caves without any meaningful loot. I wish that they had taken more time and actually fleshed out the huge map the way they had with the castle. It could have been AMAZING.
There’s so many games out there that really didn’t need to be open world. With this being one of them. All we really needed was: the castle, forbidden forest, and hogsMeade. If they would’ve focused the game on those small areas and made it densely packed, it would’ve been so much better.
7 months of waiting and im watching this 7 months after you released it 🤯
Same 😂
Absolutely all criticism here is on point. I did like the game, it was by no means bad, especially for casual gamer, which was in all honesty the target audience. And it was a childhood dream come true for me, but I was first and foremost excited to explore and roleplay in Hogwarts itself, and one class per professor plus a few side missions and collectables in the castle itself is a huge miss IMO. You put it so well. The giant explorable world becomes tedious after a few hours in, and actual house system, quidditch and more stuff in the castle would have been so much better.
The quality of your content has improved a lot over the years! Keep up the good work.
While I agree with most, I completely disagree with your opinion about the open world being too large. If they made it smaller people would complain it’s too small.. I think devs made a very good choice when it comes to the size of the game
I felt exactly the same about Sebastian’s quest line , I found myself only wanting to progress the story to just get more of his content and when the game ended I felt incredibly underwhelmed by his stories ending and I was half expecting them to announce a Sebastian based dlc because of how abruptly it ended !
The fact that he ignores you and doesn't have dialogue after his ending kills me. Everyone else will say a npc phrase about your experiences together but he just npc walks away like we didn't just had a traumatizing adventure together.
Part of the joy of the books to me is uncovering the mysteries of Hogwarts itself. There's something mystical about it in the sense that Hogwarts itself won't ever let you solve all of its mysteries. I hope the sequel's main story takes place in Hogwarts and centers around a mystery of the castle itself.
I watched this video 2 years ago amongst a bunch of other hogwarts legacy videos. I forgot about it until I finally got witcher 3 several months ago and haven’t stopped playing it since. And so I’ve been binging your videos (amongst others) over and over again at work cuz I can’t get the Witcher out of my head. I gotta say I love yours the most. 👍🏻
What we wanted:
- Student life
- Multiple years
- House systems
- Holidays and weekend events
- Classes
- Pets
- Reputation Points
- Companions
What we got:
- A pretty good Potter-themed Ubisoft open world with Hogwarts slalpped onto it.
basically an open world visual novel with a non-character being played to fruition.
I bought it, played a half hour and returned for a refund cause it wasn't any good to my taste.
For me, I was expecting it to handle it a bit more like Bully did. Sure there was story, but the school was still a major focus. You had a time limit, and if you were off campus after hours, there were repercussions...much like when you wander Hogwarts after hours (let alone elsewhere), you lost points and possibly got detention. Classes weren't just one note, you could attend multiple sessions of multiple subjects. You built up respect or disrespect with the different cliques (in this case the different houses) and could even date the students (and was done with just kissing, because not every game that includes romance needs to go full on sexual). As a game revolving around being in school, it felt like being in school, even when there were missions that took you away, because you always had to remember that timer and be back in school to be in bed (at least until you unlocked hideouts).
Hogwarts Legacy could have very much benefitted from similar bits versus magical Hogwarts wow worthy but essentially abridging the actual school lifestyle right down you being able to explore at night as well as exploring the restricted section with no repercussions beyond the story-centric moments that added prefects and professors on patrol. Not to mention completely omitting Quidditch and adding a lame excuse as to why it was canceled.
Spot on. Give the license of hogwarts legacy to rockstar and they would have probably done such thing.
Yeah not to mention the story of Bully is all ABOUT the school life and drama. Youre at the bottom working your way up, fighting bullies and making school better. The villain wants to be the top dog of the school. The conspiracies are all about the school. It was all about the school. Then HogLeg comes out with... ancient magic? What? Why cant it be simply about winning the house cup? Or about reconciling Slytherin and Gryffindor? Why all this chosen one BS? Why can you do dark magic? This is all so stupid.
To be fair you'd really need to reinvent quidditch so any roll but seeker didn't feel like wasting your time. Personally though I have a feeling at one point in the past Qudditch must have had points for debrooming the other team, as that is really the only way to justify the point system that the Snitch is worth so much and ends the game.
I agree with this 100%. One of the most amazing things about Bully was having a story that's just around just school drama end up being super engaging and way deeper then it has any right to be. I remember the game building up to rigging the Jock's football game, it felt like feeling like you were pulling a heist when really all you were doing was putting some glue on benches and messing with the signs. Just stuff like that I feel like hogwarts legacy should of been about.
1 thing I really wished they could of done when compared to bully was the Quality vs quantity mindset. Bully's map is like 5% the size of hogwart's legacy map yet thousands times more memorable. I just feel like if Avalanche just made the map the size of just being barley a couple acres from hogsmade and scrapped all the ubisoft slop, instead using those resources to Create better story, better missions, better RPG mechanics and just better everything, the game would have been a masterpiece.
The whole idea of the house rivalry is the only interesting thing about harry Potter imo
Deek thinks you should be proud of all the potions you've brewed!
Imagine each house having a quest equivalent in quality to the Sebastian quest, which would take the game in four different directions. That alone would enhance the replay value and buzz around this game.
Maybe it would be better but it still wouldn't be what people expected it to be after their marketing "become the witch/wizard you want to be, go to class, study, learn new spells, make impactful choices..."
I was hoping for a student roleplaying game combined with an action RPG like bully from 2006. But instead after 10 years we get generic countryside open world RPG
After arriving at Hogwarts and exploring for a few hours, I remember thinking to myself that I can't wait for night, to see what goes on in the dormitories and to sneak around the castle. Turned out that absolutely nothing was going on. Nobody in the whole building, no sneaking required. Was so disappointing.
I mean FOR FSCKS SAKE there was a mission in HL where students were guarding the library. They would capture you if they saw you. Couldnt they act as hall monitors at night? Instead you never see them again. There have been plenty of harry potter games where ghosts attack you at night in the castle. not in legacy though. you can only pet cats.
I remember enjoying sneaking around the castle and hiding in secret passages in the early game boy advanced Harry potter games. Very fun
There’s a mod that fixes that I think it’s called Hogwarts curfew or whatever but it’s still depressing that you need to mod for simple quality of life improvements, even if it isn’t that difficult lol
@@townfuneral4564 Good to know! You are right.
I’d say it’s good because sneaking is a slog in this game. Honestly Chamber of Secrets for the PS2 did a better job at that stuff…
Pretty much summed it up for me. The castle is SICK, the collectibles there weren't a chore to collect. And I liked the sebastian and main story line both. But the endless filler in the open world...could have been 90% less and I wouldn't miss it. The reputation and more teacher interaction would have made a world of difference though.
I short, I wanted to have it make me feel more like I was a student there. That illusion faded too soon.
I feel you. But also, I adored this game. I’m excited to see what they do next but I really really enjoyed just being in this world. It felt like something I needed. For a sequel I do hope they make the castle even bigger and make the open world smaller, but man did I really love this.
The Sebastian storyline, having to sneak out at night to investigate the secrets of Hogwarts, even a whole undiscovered part of th school untouched for centuries and filled with Slytherin's traps would've been fun. Each level closer could've involved another level of spells and discovery.
I liked how the PS2 gen of th Potter games let you discover secret passages to sneak around the prefects.