This review contains spoilers
Sorry in advance for the essay. I just have a lot of thoughts, both positive and constructive criticism I feel worth noting for this game.
I really enjoyed this game! I enjoyed it so much that I ended up playing it twice, back to back! That is the first time I've ever done so with any game! The music, voice acting, and camera angles during cutscenes were particularly what shined to me. I loved the NPC characters and their side stories! What really stood out to me was the exploration and combat. The combat was so snappy and felt like dancing when you got it right, with this flowing rhythm. It was the first time as a magic caster character that I felt I was "IN" the action and not off to the sidelines. The combat pacing was intense and rewarding.
This said, I do have some negatives. When this game first came out (unsure how it is now) many of the cutscenes were not optimized for PC yet, and there were major stuttering and frame drop issues. A small patch somewhat fixed this problem for my second playthrough, however, it did not fix all of them yet.
There were a lot of puzzles, and they did start to get rather repetitive after a while and it felt like they were added literally EVERYWHERE just to add more content. I still enjoyed them, just don't understand why there were so many of them (particularly the Merlin Trials) other than to give the feel that there was lots to do in the game. That said, I never felt bored/never felt like there was nothing to do.
One other negative I found was that I played the game twice, once as a good witch and one as a dark witch. Choosing the "bad" dialogue did change the way NPC characters talked about you when you walked past them and some of the dialogue was pretty hilarious and entertaining. However, the main issue I had with playing a dark witch was that the three side character NPCs you meet and help along the way did NOT really make sense for a dark witch, particularly Natty and Poppy. There were many NPC characters, three from each house. I feel like they missed a huge opportunity to utilize the other characters depending on two things: 1. which house you joined; and 2. whether you were a good or dark witch/wizard. I was assuming there would be more replayability depending on if you played the good or dark side, but other than complaining about me using the dark art spells, their attitudes toward me didn't change and their stories pretty much remained the same. So I felt a bit railroaded into being "good"/many of the dialogues and NPC actions did not make sense to me.
That said, I loved this game enough to play it twice in a row, which has never happened with any other game! I've been wanting to explore Hogwarts in a game since I was a young kid, and this definitely fulfilled that aspect!
I really enjoyed this game! I enjoyed it so much that I ended up playing it twice, back to back! That is the first time I've ever done so with any game! The music, voice acting, and camera angles during cutscenes were particularly what shined to me. I loved the NPC characters and their side stories! What really stood out to me was the exploration and combat. The combat was so snappy and felt like dancing when you got it right, with this flowing rhythm. It was the first time as a magic caster character that I felt I was "IN" the action and not off to the sidelines. The combat pacing was intense and rewarding.
This said, I do have some negatives. When this game first came out (unsure how it is now) many of the cutscenes were not optimized for PC yet, and there were major stuttering and frame drop issues. A small patch somewhat fixed this problem for my second playthrough, however, it did not fix all of them yet.
There were a lot of puzzles, and they did start to get rather repetitive after a while and it felt like they were added literally EVERYWHERE just to add more content. I still enjoyed them, just don't understand why there were so many of them (particularly the Merlin Trials) other than to give the feel that there was lots to do in the game. That said, I never felt bored/never felt like there was nothing to do.
One other negative I found was that I played the game twice, once as a good witch and one as a dark witch. Choosing the "bad" dialogue did change the way NPC characters talked about you when you walked past them and some of the dialogue was pretty hilarious and entertaining. However, the main issue I had with playing a dark witch was that the three side character NPCs you meet and help along the way did NOT really make sense for a dark witch, particularly Natty and Poppy. There were many NPC characters, three from each house. I feel like they missed a huge opportunity to utilize the other characters depending on two things: 1. which house you joined; and 2. whether you were a good or dark witch/wizard. I was assuming there would be more replayability depending on if you played the good or dark side, but other than complaining about me using the dark art spells, their attitudes toward me didn't change and their stories pretty much remained the same. So I felt a bit railroaded into being "good"/many of the dialogues and NPC actions did not make sense to me.
That said, I loved this game enough to play it twice in a row, which has never happened with any other game! I've been wanting to explore Hogwarts in a game since I was a young kid, and this definitely fulfilled that aspect!