The days before Hogwarts Legacy got into my hands had me in a constant state of nervousness. I convinced my family to watch the films with me and thus refresh my memory a little with names, dates and details that I might miss when watching them. I’m a huge fan of Harry Potter and his entire wizarding world, so it goes without saying that the expectations for Hogwarts Legacy, as well as the demand for its open-world approach, were very high. Also, it’s true that my partner Jakob’s first impressions made me a little wary of what I might find in the final version, and the first thing I have to say is that his initial feelings were partially fulfilled… but they left it’s hard to scratch the surface. Hogwarts Legacy is above all a gigantic game. And to break it down little by little, I’d like to start at the beginning, the character editor.
Maybe it’s one of those things that most of us give less importance to when playing one of these titles, but this Character editor is pretty complete and the preset models are also quite successful. There are enough faces that anyone can model faithfully enough, or at least choose a cute little avatar to tour Hogwarts and beyond with. And they even let you choose the voice and treatment as a boy or girl, whatever physiognomy you choose. Five points to Avalanche for that.
This detail is important because it already paves the way for us to move away from our idea of life in the magical world that we know from books and films. This is our story, the story of how a student of uncertain origin and an innate talent for magic slowly becomes the hero of the school and the wizarding world. But talent without work is useless, and that’s why this main storyline is accompanied by dozens of missions, errands and tasks in which we will increase our knowledge and which will lead us to explore both the school and the surrounding area, and I think that here this is where the magic of the game lies.
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Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has been recreated with great love and care. Logically, the films have been an excellent visual guide to model the scenarios, especially the first two parts directed by Chris Columbus, since there more emphasis was placed on recreating life at Hogwarts and where the game differs from all other titles takes off. based on this magical universe. Here you will find everything: from the bedrooms and common room of your home, to classrooms, teachers’ offices, landings, bathrooms, stairs and thousands and one paintings, statues, trophies, secret rooms and objects to contemplate and enjoy their unique models. I’m not exaggerating when I say that my first six or seven hours since arriving at the school consisted of going around every corner cataloging their mysteries in the Hogwarts Field Guide, our personal adventure journal here, and using the starting spell I reveal. From this guide we will access the map, the mission log, the countless collectibles between outfits, lost leaves, catalog of species and character and team improvements.
And as I said, those first hours were just inside the school, because after Hogwarts Legacy expands almost dizzying open world, although it also shows us that it is in fact an RPG with the usual problems. A endless markers on the map Between landmarks, treasure chests, and enemy caves, the screen quickly becomes cluttered, and that dampened my initial smile at the beautiful detail in each shot. By the way, I have to say that for this game and the opening sequence, I decided to play it in Fidelity mode, and despite this, when I tried the Performance mode in battle, I didn’t choose the second option. In any case, it would have been nice if the game had the option to remove markers on the map or make the pause menus more agile as well as hide the HUD to enjoy a neat photo mode. Maybe the latter can be corrected with an update for very complete accessibility options, it has to be said.
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Additionally, the title is fully localized and dubbed into the language, and a small pre-patch improved that further voice-matched lip syncing whatever you decide to play. Another five points for Avalanche Software here.
In addition to Hogwarts, we can visit other villages and well-known places of the magical world, such as the city of Hogsmeade, the Forbidden Forest or the surrounding valleys and swamps, always with a secondary objective to complete. Visiting remote points (if we don’t want to use them) can be tiring in the first few hours fast travel with Floo Powder
The world of Hogwarts Legacy is beautiful, but also dangerous. There are dark wizards, rebellious goblins, and deadly creatures and spells that can test us at every step, and that’s why the Combat system is equally rich, fluid and phenomenal, even if it doesn’t invent anything new. We have a large arsenal of spells that we will learn at school as we advance in our training with each subject, in addition to offering us new functions such as collecting and caring for fantastic animals, making potions and cultivating plants, with which we can make potions improve the fight or help us. Help in fights. This prior preparation takes place at our base in the Room of Requirement, which is adapted and expanded according to our needs.
And these fights? Well, the system is based on other action titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt or the Arkham series, since you have to counteract the strengths of the respective opponent with appropriate magic spells, carry out evasive maneuvers or defensive enchantments at the right time and crush objects with thrown at them, or with the Ancient Magic special attack. I’m not going to talk much about this magic, so as not to spoil anyone’s surprise, except to say that it has great importance in the plot and that we must recharge it by performing a series of attacks without the opponent hitting us . This special attack is extremely powerful and will come in handy for lowering the health bar of the toughest enemies or taking out the normal ones in a single hit. The system works and is a lot of fun, but again, the “dodge” or “shooter” markers that appear when an enemy tries to hit you make it too easy. Even when playing on high difficulty, I didn’t get weakened more than a few times, where I either fought a single enemy well above my level (watch out for the Forbidden Forest) or because I fell from a great height.
Combat is important, yes, but I can’t conclude without mentioning the various secondary character missions that we find. Many are fairly generic, true, but others, like those involving our group of friends (everyone from a different house, except Raveclaw, curious), are more interesting. Poppy, Natty and Sebastian are very well built characters and certainly there are many fans asking for even more stories or expansions with them.
Hogwarts Legacy may not have reinvented the genre (in fact, it makes a few mistakes that should be years overdue by now), but almost everything it tackles is brilliantly done and is by far the wizarding adventure of the Harry Potter universe that fans have come to love have been waiting for so long. A title that even those not very familiar with the series can enjoy if they let themselves be carried away by the magic.