Hogwarts Legacy

It’s probably not necessary at all, but you know what… this is my blog and I do what I want, and it feels to me like I have to get all this other stuff out before I tell you about playing the game.

Harry Potter

The Books

I am of the generation that grew up with Harry Potter. I read the first one when I was the same age as Harry, and the last book came out when I was at university! I used to preorder each new book (through Play.com, remember when Amazon had rivals?!) and read then them in a day or two.

The books were an undeniable part of my childhood, but it was during my stint as a school librarian that I gained a new appreciation for them. I reread them all in preparation for writing the most difficult quiz I could for Harry Potter Book Night (this became a thing Bloomsbury pushed from 2014) and found that I not only still enjoy them but actually more so than I think I did the first time around. As an adult I could appreciate the depth in the world JK Rowling has created, and see some of the adult characters in a different light.

The fandom has always been on of the most amazing things about these books, and the way they can bring people together. The Harry Potter Book Nights were the highlight of a job I was otherwise ill-suited to. I loved making decorations for the library (flying keys, flying letters, floating candles etc), preparing activities, and the fact I could write a hard enough quiz to stump some of my mega-fans! (One student in particular would carry his “House” team to victory every year, single handed).

I learned how to make wands from paper and hot glue, which were easy and looked incredible! I sold them to the kids for 50p to help cover the budget for treats, and they absolutely loved pretending to duel.

I still have some of those wands! I also gave them out to some of my Potter-loving friends.

The films

I have never particularly enjoyed the movies, but I have greatly enjoyed two visits to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour over the years. I love to be able to see how much creativity and detail went into the films. It’s so rare you get to see so many props up close from a movie like that!

As for the newer stuff, I went to see Fantastic Beasts in the cinema when it came out, and really enjoyed it. I thought it was cute, I love Eddie Redmayne (I think as Newt Scamander he made my Man Calendar that year – note: new blog idea, share my old Man Calendars) and I want every coat in that movie.

Oh my god the coats are so good.

Subsequent Fantastic Beast movies were … pretty bad. I’m not sure I even saw the third one!

And not forgetting The Cursed Child, I read some of the published script when we got it in the library, and I could not get past out entirely out of character everyone felt. It read like fan fiction. That plus the fact it’s also two fucking plays you need a very long day (or two) in London extinguished any desire to see it.

The Wizarding World™

Over the years I have gotten increasingly uncomfortable with the mounting consumerism around the “Wizarding World™”. There is so much crap out there. It’s like these days you can’t move for Harry Potter merch.

Visiting Universal Studios Orlando in 2022 was something of a final nail in the coffin for me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but The Wizarding World™ areas of the parks were smaller than I expected and what is there is 80% shops. I had been excited to go then when I was standing in Diagon Alley it felt like an empty cash grab. And $60 for one of those wands is outrageous!

I don’t know if it was because we had been to Galaxy’s Edge at Disney a couple of days before which has an incredible level of detail and immerse, and Universal’s older park just couldn’t compare, but it just didn’t have the magic for me that I was expecting. Setting aside issues with JK Rowling, I can’t put my finger on why I felt OK about all the consumerism and merch and shops at Galaxy’s Edge (overpriced limited edition TINY bottles of coke!), but it bothered me in Hogsmeade/Diagon Alley. Maybe the Florida sun also made it feel a bit uncanny and extra fake too!

I did love the Forbidden Journey ride though, I would go on that again! That was a great time!

The author

And then, of course there is the implosion of JK Rowling and her increasingly closed minded, self-defensive, extreme anti-trans spreading of misinformation and support for bigoted groups. I am not going to get into all that here but I’d rather not give her more money if I can help it (I loved Universal Studios in Orlando and it really pisses me off just buying a ticket for that puts money in her pockets even if you go nowhere near the Wizarding World™!).

Hogwarts Legacy

And so, when Hogwarts Legacy was announced I felt a bit torn. For all the reasons above I was not particularly struck with any desire for a game set in the Harry Potter universe, that world no longer has any special allure for me, but it looked like the kind of game I would enjoy! There has not been any RPG that excited me since The Outer Worlds in a long time.

I just wanted a game where I can create my own character, and run around casting spells!

I had been thinking I’d get it second hand at some point, but then, even better, my partner’s friend gave us his PS5 copy to borrow.

I have to say, it was a lot more fun than I expected it to be! There is something I found unexpectedly thrilling about running around Hogwarts, and flying around the Scottish Highlands on my broom! And it all looks gorgeous.

I found the game to have generally relaxing vibe. I loved that almost all the characters you meet, especially fellow students are very welcoming and open minded. Hogwarts just felt cosy. My character was also incredibly polite and has a habit of clasping her hands together in a demure way that which I found – as she would say – quite charming.

Plot

The player character is a mysterious new student starting in the fifth year of school. Who are you? Do you have a family? Why are you starting in the fifth year, which is as everyone keeps telling you is highly unprecedented, and why do you get a special escort to school with Professor Fig… You’ll never know! Just know you are SPECIAL! You can see traces of ancient magic, and this might have something to do with the so-called “Goblin rebellions.”

Gameplay

I assume the reason you play as a fifth year is because it’s a bit more palatable to have a 15 year old running about the Scottish Highlands killing enemies than a 10 year old! There is a lot of murdering dark wizards and goblins for a game set at a school! And breaking and entering that nobody bats an eyelid at, in fact this is actively encouraged by one member of staff!

There also is no reaction within the game to you using Unforgivable Curses as much as you want! (I didn’t use them but my partner did!). I understand it’d be a pretty dull game without these things, but I was forever amused that I was a child running around committing hundreds of murders and nobody had a problem with it!

There is also a facet in the game where you are “rescuing” magical creatures from potential poachers (the Highlands are positively teaming with poachers) by trapping them in your Newt Scamander-style magic bag …with the potential to sell them.. this also felt a little strange to me. The character dialogue “there, there, you’ll be safe with me” did feel a bit sinister whenever I captured one for my vivarium!

Cognitive dissonance aside, the magic creatures were surprisingly cute. At first when this popped up in the game I was deriding the decision to tack on this element but I soon found myself enjoying hanging out in my vivarium petting my creature, and watching them play with their toys. Honestly, the music and the chill vibes in there are very relaxing and a break from some of the chaos in the rest of the game!

The game is stuffed with collectables and little magic puzzles that I did for the most part enjoy, though I do wish you could skip the animation whenever you complete a Merlin Trial! Once I got my broom I did love “brooming around” and exploring the massive map. For a game ostensibly about Hogwarts, most of the action is taking place outside the school.

Story

What lets the game down is the story. It’s pretty weak and most the characters are very underdeveloped. The main plot of the goblin “rebellion” is not quite that, they are more a gang of goblin following leader Ranrok who wants to teach wizardkind a lesson after centuries of oppression and his own bad personal experience with a wizard. It’s very much Not All Goblins, you meet several perfectly nice goblins who are just going about their lives and express their opposition to what Ranrok is doing – and they also become victims of his gang.

Wizards are however outright racist and it is clear the goblins have been oppressed, they aren’t quite slaves like the house elves are but they’re definitely second-class citizens. The game never really goes into this its just sort of a feature of the world. One of the friends you make does later in the game make derogatory and hate-filled comments about goblins, and your character does push back in their overly polite manner but that’s about it.

Characters

You make a handful of friends with NPCs and complete side quests for them, but they’re all quite wishy-washy. Poppy Sweeting was easily my favourite, but even her missions have some “wait, what?!” moments in the writing! The most developed, particularly in that it ties most directly into the main quest, and most infuriating was Sebastian Sallow. He’s an initially very charming and seemed to have a very generous spirit, and I thought he was making a refreshing change for a Slytherin after the ones met in the Harry Potter books are stereotypical villains… but his quest takes some turns that had me shouting at the TV! Ominus Gaunt is far and away the most interesting in the game, and I wished my character had more of a chance to interact with him (I was a Ravenclaw, if you play as a Slytherin you might get to hang out a bit more).

I did really like Professor Fig who serves as your mentor, I’d take him over the withholding Dumbledoore any day. Some of the other Professors seemed cool, I liked the potions master in particular but you don’t get to interact much with them.

Its delightful!

I mustn’t forget to mention the coats! I was very happy to see they took a leaf out the Fantastic Beasts costume book. Some great outfits to find… although also some horrible ones, and every hat is hideously ugly! Not to worry though you can hide them, and change your appearance while keeping the stats of what you’re wearing!

Also I love a good sound effect in a game, and this had some really satisfying ones. In particular I loved the sound when you picked up some ashwinder eggs and the noises the telescope puzzles make. It’s the little things!

This was the most I have been into a game in a long time! I had a lot of fun with it, though as I’ve said also plenty of eyeroll moments – oh and there are some stealth quests in there are…. frustrating, but thankfully not many – the snappy combat (which is at times quite challenging, and I never mastered the timing of protego!) and the beauty of the world make up for those.

I don’t know what I’ll play next, potentially get back to Fallout 4 for a refresh on that world before the TV series is out but I think first I need a break from videogames to catch up on my other projects!