Reviews online shooting games: Hogwarts Legacy

Hogwarts Legacy is a game that was destined to become a stumbling block between Harry Potter fans and those who by all means "cancel" the original author, writer JK Rowling. If you have followed its development at least to some extent, then you yourself know everything. They tried to boycott the game, both with the help of Twitter campaigns and with the help of demarches from the Western press, whose representatives do not hesitate to give 1/10 points without seeing the game itself, and stuff like that. Which, however, did not help much.

Ordinary players who didn’t pay attention to all these “rallies” (or simply laughed at them) greeted Hogwarts much warmer: the game has a high approval rating on Steam, it set the record for views on Twitch among single online shooting games, in the UK it it sells 80% better than Elden Ring, and its peak online on Steam is only slightly inferior to the latter. A logical question is how justified is such an interest? Did Avalanche Software manage to make such a good game that it eclipsed everything at once? Let's figure out what's what.

Please note: this is an updated material. The final impressions and rating will appear in the article after the game is completed to the end. So far, we're talking about the main points of the game - without spoilers, of course.

The game takes place in 1899, a hundred years before Harry Potter and Voldemort came together in a deadly battle for Hogwarts. Why, the key characters of the magical World War II - Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald - at the time of the events of "Legacy" can hardly be considered adults. Therefore, the focus is on a new magical universe for readers and viewers, in which only places of action and some names are recognizable. From a certain point of view, this unties the hands of the authors, but the question immediately arises: why does no one mention everything that happens in Hogwarts Legacy then?

Our main character (or heroine - to taste) enters Hogwarts immediately in the fifth year. Moreover, before entering, he manages to survive the attack of an enraged dragon, gets into the Gringotts magic bank, and at the same time discovers an incredible power in himself - to see traces of ancient magic and manipulate it. So, ladies and gentlemen, get acquainted: the Chosen One!

In order not to spoil the plot, I’ll simply say that the hero is indecently lucky, good, and in general all of himself is such a Marty (or Mary) Sue. Magic, which the protagonist had no idea about a month or two ago, is given to him with incredible ease. Flying on a broom is mastered as if the ancestors of the hero were not people, but birds. Battles? Oh, you won't believe how powerful a wizard can be when he meets his magic wand just a week ago! The hero literally can do anything - this is such an ideal sorcerer that he could be appointed to the post of Minister of Magic and live happily ever after.

It is clear that these are all game conventions, but the frank imbalance of the protagonist greatly undermines faith in the world created by the authors. The hero turned out to be so cool that Potter and his friends seem to be insignificant insects, and all their achievements are childish babble.

However, you are guaranteed to sit for the first five to ten hours, glued to the chair and staring with might and main at what is happening. The first hours at Hogwarts Legacy are pure magic, especially for Harry Potter fans. Locations familiar from books and films come to life right before your eyes, you can walk along them on your own two feet, studying every crack on the wall.

This meticulously conveyed atmosphere of the world invented by JK Rowling is one of the key achievements of the game. Hogwarts wants to explore far and wide; in Hogsmeade there is a desire to visit every single shop and visit every tavern; From a distance, the Forbidden Forest seems gloomy, but attractive in its own way ... anyone who has ever read books or watched movies will instantly feel at home. The game actively supports the illusion of a living magical world: students scurry around the corridors of the school and actively talk, Hogsmeade is literally packed with sorcerers and sorceresses during the day, and in the forest, in addition to evil overgrown spiders, you can stumble upon a herd of centaurs.

Exploring Hogwarts is also interesting because the castle, although it seems small, turns out to be huge. It has just an incredible number of passages, corridors, some intricate stairs and unexpected routes, it will take you a lot of time to unravel all its secrets. The game actively throws up puzzles for you: it offers, for example, to find sixteen flying keys in order to get the “treasure of the faculty”. Solve a puzzle on one of the bridges. Or find the key to the ingenious doors locked with the help of the science of numerology.

And all this to the accompaniment of meetings with students, various ghosts (there is, for example, the poltergeist Peeves, who even plays a small role in the plot), living pictures and other elements of Rowling's magical world.

Hogwarts is first of all a school, and the hero comes there not to beat the thumbs, so lessons are waiting for you. Here, however, there is a small problem: the hero may have been enrolled immediately in the fifth year, but he has the very minimum knowledge. Therefore, teachers have to explain the most basic spells to the hero (and at the same time repeat them for the whole class), and the hero has to try to remember them all. But the chosenness of the hero helps him to learn new material instantly, he easily "does" his more experienced comrades in any trials and online shooting games. The lessons are rather important for creating the right atmosphere, for reminding the player that he is not just anywhere, but in an educational institution where they teach magic. And it is a pity that there are few such lessons in the game.

Yes, and the main gameplay loop greatly interferes with this element of the plot. In the real world, the hero would be quickly labeled a truant and issued a return ticket from Hogwarts in no time.

There have been jokes about Friv5Online online shooting games for a long time, they say, the company does not make online shooting games as such, but produces game-containing products that you go to as a job. Joking aside, their open-world projects do have a number of serious problems (though most of these games do). Unfortunately, Avalanche Software has trodden on exactly the same rake.

The game is literally packed with all sorts of activities. Caves with chests. Outposts with hostile mages or goblins. Broomstick racing (because the headmaster canceled Quidditch - Hogwarts students have to get out). The search for sources of ancient magic, allowing the hero to become stronger. Scattered here and there are Merlin challenges that allow you to expand your inventory (yes, the base 20 slots are a real mockery). Running after butterflies that lead to treasure chests. Search for the "correct" constellations in the night sky. In general, you understand: there are a lot of activities here.

I don't know about others, but for me, this approach simply destroys the carefully recreated atmosphere of Harry Potter. Our terminator student not only skips classes and hangs around anywhere, but also mows down hundreds of bad guys who can’t even do anything to him.

Outside of Hogwarts and the main plot, what is happening is not a Potterian, but some kind of Hogwart's Creed, it's hard to say otherwise. Clearing outposts, solving puzzles, doing side quests like "go into a cave and kill a spider fifteen levels above you there to bring me a dead friend's commemorative shoe" - there are too many tasks of this kind scattered around the game world. This hits the perception very hard, and all the magic simply disappears.

Fortunately, the battles turned out to be quite interesting: the hero is able to combine spells with each other, keeping his victims (otherwise it is difficult to call it) in the air and showering them with a hail of attacks. With the right use of your arsenal, opponents will be simple punching bags, and if you hesitate a little, the enemies will come to their senses and immediately hang around shields and counterattack in a frenzy.

A fairly simple mechanic works here: “a wedge is knocked out with a wedge.” Enemies in red shields need to be hit with powerful spells (for example, explosive ones). Those dressed in yellow will be stopped by control magic - the same "Leviosa", well, and against enemies with purple shields, enchantments will help, allowing you to push, twist or attract objects. Actually, these are your three main "classes" of spells. Having at least one in the Quick Access Toolbar is the smartest decision you can come up with.

It is also worth remembering that certain spells are good against certain enemies: for example, infernal zombies should be set on fire at the very beginning of the battle, and fast spiders should be thrown into the air and try not to let go.

You can either defend against retaliatory attacks with your shield or dodge. Everything is easier than ever. Having reflected the spell with a shield in time, you can counterattack the enemy, well, and everything is clear with dodges: they allow you to get away from especially dangerous attacks that are not blocked. As an addition, the hero has access to ancient magic that allows him to inflict colossal damage on anyone, as well as three "unforgivable spells" - the latter, however, still need to be found and obtained.

Impressions from the "Heritage" - so far! - rather ambiguous. The game has a great atmosphere, design, music and all that, but the open world spoils a lot, and there are questions about the plot. Of course, it is extremely pleasant to be in the world with which you have been familiar since childhood, and it is incredibly interesting to study something that was not even mentioned in books and films. However, a lot of this involves routine and stupidity in the spirit of “listen, go dig me some mushrooms in the nearest cave, okay?”

For fans of "Potter", I believe, the question "to play or not" is not worth it in principle - this can be seen from the overwhelming amount of online on Steam. The question is rather whether it makes sense to play Hogwarts Legacy for all those who do not have such warm feelings for the Rowling universe. And, unfortunately, so far I don't see much reason to recommend "Legacy" to those for whom "Harry Potter" is an empty phrase.

Unfortunately, after almost thirty hours of play (which was enough to complete the story and most of the side quests), my opinion has not changed for the better. Hogwarts Legacy fails exactly where it should not have been done: it shows the life of one single student of the Hogwarts Academy of Magic very badly. Everything that reminds you that the hero is actually a schoolboy is very rare lessons, and even the fact that he refers to some NPCs as "professor such and such." And that's it.

It turns out that the euphoria from getting into the school of magic dissipates somewhere in ten hours. By that time, you will have already bypassed the castle, and studied Hogsmeade, and you will have time to learn spells. Then you will be driven into an open world, which, as mentioned above, does not fit well with being a student.

As a result, instead of "Bully in the school of magic" or "Persona in the world of" Harry Potter ", you really get some kind of Assassinʼs Creed or Far Cry with magic wands and magical creatures. Instead of lessons - extermination of brooding spiders and shooting zombies, instead of hiking with classmates in Hogsmeade and homework - cleaning up bandit camps, and instead of trying to catch up with five courses of magic items in just a year, there are only continuous absenteeism. This, unfortunately, will not change until the very end of the game, because the further you go in the story, the less interesting content connects you to Hogwarts, and the more often you are pushed to wander around the beautiful, but rather boring open world.

The story also does not shine with originality, and towards the end it more and more resembles mediocre fan fiction. Here you have dramatic (albeit rather stupid) plot twists, and jokes like “oh, you have already passed our three tests, and you are about to start a war there ... but I don’t think we can trust you” from keepers of the local MacGuffin, and so on. The plot turned out to be so insipid that even the side quest chains of your Hogwarts comrades (and there are only three of them) turn out to be more interesting and fit much better into the idea of ​​"a game about a student of a magical school." The quest of Sebastian, a student of Slytherin, is the only place in the game where there is a working, albeit simple, drama.

Memorable plot quests - the cat cried; offhand, I can remember literally two cool, but insanely short tasks, where there was a place for good humor, and another dose of fan service, and staging ... the trouble is that there are only two such quests. The entire main story can be told in three sentences without losing anything.

In the last quarter of the game, when you are sent to the southwestern part of the map, Hogwarts Legacy is completely "tired", so a brave new world of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion opens up before you . The very one where ruins, abandoned forts and caves were placed a step away. It's the same in this region. A huge number of enemy fortifications, a little bit of side quests (where there is only one interesting one, with a treasure hunt), and just hordes of opponents. Even from a visual point of view, this is perhaps one of the most faded areas of the game. The feeling is that by this moment the imagination of the authors had completely dried up, and they decided that it would do anyway.

At the same time, Hogwarts Legacy can be scolded for a lot more. For a short role-playing part, where dialogue options have almost no effect on anything. For completely flat characters. For the equipment system pulled from looter shooters, which looks in a similar game ... to put it mildly, strange. You can also remember the completely stupid idea to “visualize” lockpicking with an instantly annoying mini-game or the need to pump this spell with collectibles. In short, the game has enough small problems.

That being said, I would be lying if I said Avalanche had a bad game. Not at all. Rather, they ended up with a project that does not reach its full potential. "Heritage" looks like a foundation for something more; like a concrete wall on which they forgot to paste wallpaper and hang a shelf with books.

It seems that the gameplay is relatively good (again, if you are not tired of the same type of open worlds), and the characters are pleasant to meet, and you meet familiar elements of the universe with a smile, realizing that the developers themselves are actually fans to the core. But trying to put it all together, you will realize that the puzzle does not fit. Details are missing.

The bottom line is that fans of the Rowling universe are likely to be delighted with the game (at least those very first ten hours!), And the rest are in danger of meeting a completely ordinary, unremarkable modern AAA game with an open world. And whether you like this approach or not is a personal matter for everyone.