Hogwarts Legacy Review: Casting Spells Is Only Part Of The Magic

I had high hopes that Hog­warts Lega­cy would be the RPG we always need­ed, as its set­ting is one that I wish I could have explored since I was child. My hopes were not dashed, as the game ful­ly encom­pass­es the beau­ty and enchant­ment of Hog­warts School of Witch­craft and Wiz­ardry, as well as the grounds around it. The Wiz­ard­ing World is full of mys­tery, dan­ger, sad­ness, curios­i­ty, joy–but most importantly–hope, with the devel­op­ers at Avalanche Soft­ware grasp­ing these con­cepts and bring­ing the play­ers right into the expe­ri­ence of this mag­i­cal world. 

It’s the 1800s and our pro­tag­o­nist, a late start­ing fifth year Hog­warts stu­dent, just so hap­pens to be a very spe­cial witch/wizard. This stu­dent has the pow­er to see an ancient mag­ic and manip­u­late it to their advan­tage. Our pupil must uncov­er the rea­son for the resur­gence of this mag­ic, along with tak­ing down those who are try­ing to har­ness it.

To start the game, play­ers must choose their char­ac­ter in the typ­i­cal RPG fashion–choosing pre­set or design­ing a char­ac­ter from scratch. Cus­tomiza­tion options are decent, although I would have liked to have seen more hair­style options. In gen­er­al, cus­tomiza­tions in Hog­warts Lega­cy is on par. Trans­mo­gri­fy­ing can be done to all pieces of cloth­ing right from the get-go, mak­ing cus­tomiz­ing gear fast, and east. It also does­n’t include some ran­dom quests to unlock, or need in-game items to transmogrify.

When final­ly being allowed to explore the Hog­warts school, I was amazed at how well the stu­dio mapped the cas­tle out. It fea­tures areas peo­ple have like­ly seen in the movies, like the Din­ing Hall (float­ing can­dles and all), the Grand dis­ap­pear­ing spi­ral stair­case, the Room of Require­ment, and many more. How­ev­er, unlike the movies or books, you get to explore these zones. I found myself get­ting sucked into the explo­ration of the cas­tle ear­ly on, not even notic­ing that the map includ­ed so much more than just Hogwarts.

The For­bid­den For­est, Hogsmead, and Diagon Alley are the big­ger named loca­tions I’ve tra­versed, but the mas­sive amount of space this game has to explore is incred­i­ble. The best part? This does­n’t trans­late to vast amounts of emp­ty space, it’s full of oppor­tu­ni­ty. There is always a quest, a side quest, a chal­lenge, a trial–the list seems end­less. Be it to fur­ther my char­ac­ter’s pow­ers or to help the towns­peo­ple and my fel­low stu­dents for that sweet XP. Aside from that, I’ve nev­er felt the pang of tedious­ness I some­times get when play­ing oth­er RPGs.

It also helps that the world itself is visu­al­ly stun­ning. The Hog­warts cas­tle is beau­ti­ful­ly detailed on the inside, and out. Mov­ing and talk­ing pic­tures lit­ter the walls, mak­ing for an inter­est­ing time while walk­ing down hall­ways. Stat­ues, foun­tains, and Knights are post­ed up through­out, with the Knights some­times com­ing to life–moving and hum­ming in their suits. The strik­ing dif­fer­ences between sec­tions of the cas­tle, like mar­bled floors of The Great Hall in com­par­i­son to the fields of Fly­ing Class.

The same could be said for the rest of the map. The For­bid­den For­est has a dark, men­ac­ing pres­ence, with the trees and foliage look­ing spooky. Hogsmead is filled with live­ly towns­folk and inter­est­ing­ly designed build­ings. Small­er vil­lages that sur­round these big­ger areas are lush with green­ery, water­ways of all sorts, and tiny hous­es that would put any code enforce­ment offi­cer into car­diac arrest. The only issues I’ve had graph­i­cal­ly, are the occa­sion­al white flash­es from light­ing. I was run­ning the game on Per­for­mance mode (PS5), as I sim­ply did­n’t want to take the hit to my frames by using either Fideli­ty or Fideli­ty with Raytracing.

How­ev­er, frame drop still hap­pens from time to time while in Per­for­mance, but it’s not enough to effect the game­play. Sur­pris­ing­ly, frame loss dur­ing com­bat isn’t a prob­lem, even when con­sid­er­ing the amount of action hap­pen­ing dur­ing encoun­ters with enemies. 

Spells are the main source of com­bat pow­er in Hog­warts Lega­cy, and cast­ing them is only part of the fun. Com­bat flows so eas­i­ly, and with the vari­ety of spells every con­flict can be unique­ly han­dled. Dodg­ing and par­ry­ing can be done from the begin­ning (always an added bonus), with the ancient mag­ic wield­ed by the char­ac­ter being an extreme­ly help­ful tool when an extra punch is need­ed. There are also items like potions and mag­i­cal plants, like the Man­drake root, which makes the most hor­ri­ble screech­ing sound against its foes.

It should also be not­ed that ene­mies typ­i­cal­ly have weak­ness­es to cer­tain spells, throw­ing in a bit of strate­gic maneu­ver­ing when it comes to dis­patch­ing foes. There is also an ele­ment of stealth, as there is a spe­cif­ic spell that allows the char­ac­ter to go trans­par­ent. Com­bat has nev­er felt like a chore, and this is a key point I haven’t been able to apply to oth­er recent games I’ve played.

My biggest com­plaint about Hog­warts Legacy..the UI. It’s frus­trat­ing to deal with, to say the least. There are a num­ber of exam­ples, but here are just a cou­ple to men­tion: no “select all” buttons–for anything–gear must be destroyed sep­a­rate­ly and sold sep­a­rate­ly and there is no dis­tin­guish­ing how many items are being car­ried vs. how many can held by just pick­ing up anoth­er item. The Field Guide map is anoth­er sore spot for me, as it requires so much switch­ing between the world map, Hogsmead­’s map, and Hog­warts map.

Oth­er than some much need­ed qual­i­ty-of-life updates, this game is the breath of fresh air I needed.

Hog­warts Lega­cy has so much packed into, with an decent sto­ry, great graph­ics, and mechan­ics that are so grace­ful. If it was­n’t for the fact that I don’t want to spoil large por­tions of the game for play­ers, there is so much more that could be said in regards to game­play, mechan­ics, and explo­ration. How­ev­er, this is one top-tier game and I could­n’t rec­om­mend it enough–especially for those who are RPG fans.

Being able to step into the Wiz­ard­ing World and explore, wand in hand, is a gam­ing expe­ri­ence I will not for­get, and will like­ly revisit.