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Introduction:

While not as good as our dreams, Hogwarts Legacy is nevertheless a decent game that exudes the visual charm and beauty of J.K. Rowling’s fantasy world well. It is burdened by performance issues, a somewhat hollow world, and some small, though cumulatively bothersome design oversights, but with a passable story and mostly enjoyable gameplay it lands itself a generally positive recommendation.

Performance:

• GeForce GTX 1660Ti
• 8GB DDR4@1330MHz
• i5 9300H @2.4GHz
• HDD 7200RPM
*Game requires min. 16GB RAM.
Initially unplayable on low, changing system and game settings resulted in a fairly playable game at medium - low settings. A recent patch improved it a bit, and while there are FPS drops, there’s less freezing.

Graphics:

World:
Hogwarts’ architecture is breath-taking, and outdoor environments are varied and beautiful – some dark and creepy, others warm and vibrant. It’s a visual masterpiece, and the atmosphere of the Wizarding world is brilliantly captured. It’s absurd there’s no photo mode.
Some house and dungeon interiors are repeated, which feels lazy, but you're only there briefly to loot chests. Important places you visit often are unique.
Magic:
Spells are colourful and vibrant, and particle effects are pretty, with light wisps, auras and ‘sparks’ lending a magical quality to the game. Performance aside, these are smooth and satisfying to watch, too.
Characters:
While not photorealistic, the artistic style is pleasant, and characters do have well-detailed faces and mostly good expressions.
The cast doesn’t feel from 1800, but I’m not so bothered by this. It wasn’t sold as a historical game, and I didn’t expect realism. I didn’t buy this game because of the 1800s setting, but because of the fantasy setting.
Our characters are disappointing, with creation based around presets with very limited customisation – worse than Cyberpunk. Female characters in particular look pretty bad. In the world, lighting affects your face sometimes horribly, though cutscenes show how it in better detail.

Audio:

Environmental:
Hogwarts interiors sometimes capture the grandeur of the place in their soundscape in those big open stairways with high ceilings, but I don’t remember losing myself in outdoors nature sounds. Environmental sounds were more remarkable indoors than out, I think.
Voice Acting:
Characters are generally well-spoken which I like, and some personality does come through. Emotion is conveyed fairly well, but rarely to the point it moved me in any way. Our character (female for me) does a good enough job, but I wouldn’t say it was outstanding.
Soundtrack:
Music is pleasant, although sometimes perhaps a little energetic. When exploring, it never made you feel like you were floating on a breeze in this beautiful world, like Skyrim did. It was often quite intense in a way that’s a bit much, though in intense moments it served well. Regardless, it did have a fantasy feel about it, and in that way it fit the game well.

Gameplay:

Immersion:
The stage is beautiful, but the play is empty. There isn’t much sense of being a Hogwarts student. Classes teach you spells, but feel like tutorials. Once done, you aren’t really a student anymore, and this becomes a typical RPG, lacking RPG features. Extra-curricular assignments don’t change this feeling, and come over more as challenges than student roleplay.
You can’t interact with NPCs outside of missions. There’s no companions. Common rooms are lifeless. Mounts don’t stay, despawning when dismounting. At night, the atmosphere is lovely, yet there’s not much to do. We also can’t play Quidditch! They only strength with immersion is the graphics. Beyond that, the game doesn’t capitalise on its unique setting, and feels like any other below average open world RPG as a result.
As an RPG it lacks a sense of choice or consequence. While there are different endings, most of the game is linear, and so the room for roleplaying is limited, as is replay value.
Combat:
Combat is challenging without being too hard. Because you have to match spells with defences, you can’t just spam your way through fights, and that makes them feel quite rewarding. So far, I like this, though the abundance of fighting in tougher missions can also be very tiring.
I hate the spell toolbar system though. It takes 4 spells, and you can unlock 3 more toolbars, scrolling between them in combat. There are more spells than this though, and I kept needing to change, requiring a visit to the menus. Even with spells I have in my toolbars, scrolling through in combat is annoying.
Puzzles:
While overdone and abundant in the world to the point they can feel like mindless busywork, I do actually enjoy ticking these off to 100% the game. There is some variety across different types, so there’s some complexity, without being frustratingly difficult.
Crafting:
Crafting isn’t instant, and without minigames, you simply have to wait for a timer up to ~10 mins. This is such an awful, boring design. Once the timer is up, the game won’t produce more either, so you can’t explore and come back to 50 potions, for example.
Cosmetics:
One thing I love about the apparel system is the ability to change the appearance of anything you’re wearing to something you like more while keeping the stats.
However, nearly every chest has a clothing item, yet you can carry so few. Upgrades don’t mitigate the problem. Yet I can keep several Hippogriffs in a bag, and brooms in my pocket. This is irritating. Returning to vendors so often is tedious, and destroying the clothes wastes money they could be sold for. It also requires going into the menus and then to return to the world, you have to escape through about three layers of menu. It just feels so painfully slow!
Achievements:
This is like a Ubisoft game - grindy. There’s many repetitive tasks, all of which you have to do to 100%. I expect 100+ hours.

Story – Spoiler Free:

The narrative hasn’t moved me as much as I would have liked, but it would be unfair to say it’s bad. It is yet another ‘you are the unique hero who can save the world’ story, which is fine – it’s nice to feel important. But then you are sent on a plentiful amount of fetch and carry missions, and given you’re a young student, adults are quite willing to send you into danger, too.
By almost 50 hours in-game at 57% total completion, the story introduces some unlikable enemies and some mildly likeable friends, but none are very memorable. The overarching story is compelling enough to drive the gameplay – there is a reason to play on, but rarely do you feel the stakes or care about the consequences, as it’s hard to care about most characters. The thing that’s moved me most so far is a mission where you rescue animals. Take that as you will.

Conclusion:

While I recommend this game, it is also symptomatic of the downward spiral in quality we see these days. It’s quite repetitive and shallow, but some of the sting is taken away by a beautiful world and the Harry Potter setting. Many criticisms I have are small, but together sap the game of charm. When the child-like excitement fades and the product is viewed neutrally, it’s not a masterpiece.
The environments are lovely, the audio and puzzles are good, and combat is the right balance of simplicity and challenge for me. Roleplay and immersion are lacking, and the story is mediocre. For these reasons, while I recommend the game, it’s not an overwhelming recommendation. Ultimately, though, do I regret pre-ordering? No, I don’t. I like Hogwarts Legacy. I just don’t love it.
I’ll be happy to try and answer questions in the comments. If you enjoy thoughtful, detailed reviews, follow me at, Elysian Reviews!