Hogwarts Legacy

I’d compare it more to Ghost of Tsushima or GOW in terms of being able to play how you want and to some degree choose a build/gear based on your play style.
I didn’t use the counter/Protego spell much after the early part of the game, preferring dodge roll more, so I did not take the talents related to Protego. I used ancient magic a lot, so geared more to take advantage of it. I sort of halfway used harvestable stuff, so invested in that stuff towards the end.
It’s a really good game, but yeah difficulty/skill gap nowhere in the ballpark of Elden Ring.

Szeth said:

Could be an interesting mechanic ala achievement locked expansions. You can rush through Year 1, but you still have to complete the "exams" or whatever they choose to use before you can get to year 2.

Click to expand...

Could also do something along the lines of using OWLs/NEWTs in specific subjects as a class/specialty system.

I had to look up what that was and god damn. I hope this does get canceled.

So, I finished the main story at 45hours. I still have a lot of stuff to do in the open world, a few side quests and stuff.

So my thoughts now.

It's a great adaptation of the Harry Potter universe. It's probably one of the best adaption of an IP period. The world just feels like you're in the Potterverse. They did a remarkable job with the adaptation.

While it's somewhat a generic open world game, it's done very well in my opinion. Good looking world, good design, fun and somewhat diverse objective type, although each type gets repetitive after a while, basic open world issue. Still a good open world game. The combat was better than I expected, and quite enjoyable with some fun combos.

Itemization sucked big time, it's boring as fuck until you unlock the ability to upgrade the items and add traits. Even then it's fairly unimpressive.

The room of requirement is just plain awesome.

Ok, now the story and pacing. While the main story was decent, the pacing was horrible. The general structure of it was. Do main quest, then do a bunch of "main side quest" that are required to advance the main quest but barely connect to it. It's not that the sidequests were bad, it's just that they kept interrupting the main narrative.

This ties into the worse part of the game, the pacing. The introduction of new features is tied to the main story, and are unlocked way way too slowly. The idea that you unlock talents and have like 15 points to spend already is dumb. The same with the loom to upgrade items. You get items that you can upgrade and have slot for traits probably 10-15 levels before you get the loom.

At some point I was doing open world and side stuff and realized that unless I concentrated on the main story, I would finish the game with a few system still locked...and than just did the main story. I'm not sure I'll bother with the rest now. That was just in my opinion some terrible design and pacing.

Still beside that major issue, it is still a great game that I enjoyed a lot.