A surprising jump in quality from the previous GBA title, Chamber of Secrets primarily improves, and drastically so, in the graphics department. The spritework is good, Aragog looking particularly great even though you don't get to have a boss fight against him, but it's the environments that really caught me by surprise. The isometric view lends itself to a slightly closer look at all the textures, and there is indeed a lot more attention to detail—puffs of smoke, water drops, bouncing coins and beans.
The game is still clearly following the design documents the teams were given for the first video game, but they fit the story of the second book within it. You use Flipendo, Incendio, Wingardium Leviosa, Avifors and one unique spell which has a dual functionality of... removing goo and also removing ghosts from statues. The spells find much better uses in here though, while the exploration in the first GBA title was an afterthough, it plays center stage here, you switch between the jinxes often—sadly it has to be done through the menu, which always takes a little while. There's a total number of beans to collect throughout all of the castle, there's also chocolate frogs which improve your health, there's painting shortcuts to unlock and the wizard cards of course, and I do think they're often hidden pretty tightly, given the fact that I sadly couldn't find the set required to unlock an additional Alohomora spell and to explore the castle in full.
Also genuinely impressed with the flying minigame in this one. It has its quirks, just like any other iteration, but it looks great and has surprisingly tight controls. Adding a boost adds just enough of that risk vs reward factor to some of the tougher challenges, and the strafe comes in clutch when you really need it.
I'd put it higher if it wasn't for a few specific missteps. As I mentioned earlier, you don't get to fight Aragog, and it's a huge shame because it's the best-looking model in the entire game, but it's only used for a short, textbox dialogue. Additionally, some of the backgrounds are just nonsensical. There are rooms with a black hole, the starry sky or even the pits of hell. Nothing, however, comes close to the final bonus bean room which has a night's sky as the background, but it ROTATES. I could feel the motion sickness and nausea creeping up as I platformed through it. The animations on Harry are also incredibly stiff, comically so, almost Lego-like in a sense. Gotta mention the slightly forced and somewhat tedious stealth sections, although them becoming a staple of the first three generations of these games leads me to believe it was a decision made in the design document rather than on any individual level.
I did manage to enjoy this game overall, however. Snappy pacing, simple and effective mechanics, a proper sense of exploration in Hogwarts and a consistent, pretty artstyle made for a nice little handheld adventure. Really wish I could have completed this one, but I know even if I went back to try, there is a certain card which can only be found by connecting with the Gamecube and, uh, yeah, that's not happening.
The game is still clearly following the design documents the teams were given for the first video game, but they fit the story of the second book within it. You use Flipendo, Incendio, Wingardium Leviosa, Avifors and one unique spell which has a dual functionality of... removing goo and also removing ghosts from statues. The spells find much better uses in here though, while the exploration in the first GBA title was an afterthough, it plays center stage here, you switch between the jinxes often—sadly it has to be done through the menu, which always takes a little while. There's a total number of beans to collect throughout all of the castle, there's also chocolate frogs which improve your health, there's painting shortcuts to unlock and the wizard cards of course, and I do think they're often hidden pretty tightly, given the fact that I sadly couldn't find the set required to unlock an additional Alohomora spell and to explore the castle in full.
Also genuinely impressed with the flying minigame in this one. It has its quirks, just like any other iteration, but it looks great and has surprisingly tight controls. Adding a boost adds just enough of that risk vs reward factor to some of the tougher challenges, and the strafe comes in clutch when you really need it.
I'd put it higher if it wasn't for a few specific missteps. As I mentioned earlier, you don't get to fight Aragog, and it's a huge shame because it's the best-looking model in the entire game, but it's only used for a short, textbox dialogue. Additionally, some of the backgrounds are just nonsensical. There are rooms with a black hole, the starry sky or even the pits of hell. Nothing, however, comes close to the final bonus bean room which has a night's sky as the background, but it ROTATES. I could feel the motion sickness and nausea creeping up as I platformed through it. The animations on Harry are also incredibly stiff, comically so, almost Lego-like in a sense. Gotta mention the slightly forced and somewhat tedious stealth sections, although them becoming a staple of the first three generations of these games leads me to believe it was a decision made in the design document rather than on any individual level.
I did manage to enjoy this game overall, however. Snappy pacing, simple and effective mechanics, a proper sense of exploration in Hogwarts and a consistent, pretty artstyle made for a nice little handheld adventure. Really wish I could have completed this one, but I know even if I went back to try, there is a certain card which can only be found by connecting with the Gamecube and, uh, yeah, that's not happening.