This game ultimately feels like it's not for the hardcore Harry Potter fan but for the casual one. It's for the fan who enjoyed the movies when they saw them years ago and thinks it would be cool to play as that kind of wizard in a video game. It's got the narrative logic of those franchise theme park roller coasters that recreate the characters and the sets and the props and then slap together a little storyline to immerse you in that universe for 10 minutes. It's for the people who remember the spell names and the creatures and the castle but aren't SO invested in the story that they'll think too hard about why any of these elements manifest in the way that they do here. Why is the Caretaker (who is essentially the security guard at the school) teaching your student character how to pick locks after dark?? Why does a regular student just know one of the wizarding world's so-called "Unforgivable Curses" and why does he teach you to use it on him?? Why is the solution to saving wild animals from poachers to more or less poach the animals yourself?? Why is everyone in the game trusting your 5th-year transfer student with no past or internal motivation with all of this stuff??
The answer is because these are the tools you use to play the game. Your wand is your avatar's weapon and the spells are your abilities. The animals provide crafting materials. Your character is at the center of this story because they're your character. The game wants you to create your avatar in whatever image you'd like but doesn't make any room to deepen the context. There's no personal connection to the larger conspiracy you take part in. The villains are one-note caricatures seeking power who never emotionally register. The trailers for this game teased a "dark path" your character could take but really all that amounted to was the existence of Unforgivable Curses in your arsenal. There are zero consequences for using these once you've added them. You know they're SUPPOSED to be bad because they are in the original books and movies but the game wants you to have them so they play dark ominous music when you first learn one and then you're more or less off the hook.
After almost a year of passing over this game I wound up getting it for Christmas. My fiancé and I are always looking for a big story-driven game to get sucked into and we've both loved Harry Potter since we were kids so on some level we felt compelled to eventually check this out. I don't feel great about it. I wish I could say the story or the mechanics were so unbelievably compelling that it was all worth the trouble. I've sunk quite a few hours into it at this point and I'll admit I've had some decent surface-level fun with it but I can say that it's probably not worth whatever moral handwringing you might have to do to get yourself to play it.
The answer is because these are the tools you use to play the game. Your wand is your avatar's weapon and the spells are your abilities. The animals provide crafting materials. Your character is at the center of this story because they're your character. The game wants you to create your avatar in whatever image you'd like but doesn't make any room to deepen the context. There's no personal connection to the larger conspiracy you take part in. The villains are one-note caricatures seeking power who never emotionally register. The trailers for this game teased a "dark path" your character could take but really all that amounted to was the existence of Unforgivable Curses in your arsenal. There are zero consequences for using these once you've added them. You know they're SUPPOSED to be bad because they are in the original books and movies but the game wants you to have them so they play dark ominous music when you first learn one and then you're more or less off the hook.
After almost a year of passing over this game I wound up getting it for Christmas. My fiancé and I are always looking for a big story-driven game to get sucked into and we've both loved Harry Potter since we were kids so on some level we felt compelled to eventually check this out. I don't feel great about it. I wish I could say the story or the mechanics were so unbelievably compelling that it was all worth the trouble. I've sunk quite a few hours into it at this point and I'll admit I've had some decent surface-level fun with it but I can say that it's probably not worth whatever moral handwringing you might have to do to get yourself to play it.