The game could easily be trashed for its simplicity and bugs, but that would require me completely ignoring what an achievement capturing the setting truly is. For a child living at the time this franchise was at the peak of its popularity, these movie tie-ins were nothing short of awesome.

Exploring Hogwarts in 3D, even at its simplest form, still fills me with giddinness. It's designed so cleverly, as even though you don't explore that much of it, the rooms differ ever so slightly every time, making for the feeling that the entire castle is alive, ever-changing. The game has this ominous aesthetic, the music is haunting and most of the rooms are dark and dangerous, but it is occasionally intercepted with these joyous discoveries where the music becomes happy once again. Those short moments stick with me over the years: stumbling upon Nearly Headless Nick's hidden napping place, finding a gigantic statue of a dragon, Fred and Goerge popping up out of nowhere to get their 25 beans. I think they made up the core of what made this a great game for children, it added a sense of wonder and amazement, providing a peek behind the courtains of what the movies or books haven't shown/described. They add some personality to this iteration of the story.

Of course this isn't a definitive game based on this particular part of the saga. Every game has elements that other games are missing—you don't get to explore Diagon Alley in this one, but on the other hand you get a longer section with the invisibility cloak.

Games like this make me nostalgic for the time where video games based on pre-existing IPs were extremely common. Sure, they were rushed and often underwhelming compared to other products on the market, but the value of being able to explore the IP itself, taking control of these scenarios and seeing everything about it expanded upon, is worth much more than I realized. Nowadays, when these sort of games are announced they are made out to be a huge deal, but they often end up as underwhelming compared to their contemporaries, and draw just as much inspiration from them. In reality, little has changed, we just get to be teased about these experiences instead of getting more of these tiny, passionate projects like the Harry Potter video games.

As I stepped outside Olivander's shop with my freshly acquired wand, I began my rat murdering spree immediately. Quickly, I became one of the richest oligarchs in the community. It was difficult to tell whether the rats or the shopkeepers feared me more. I bled them both dry. I bought not only all of the finest equipment, but also the cheapest, I had the people pay me for rotten Pumpkin Pasties I scrubbed from the remains of the dead rats. Even before reaching the school of magic itself, I was already the most powerful wizard in the world. For if anyone wanted to send their children into the most prestigious of magical schools, they'd first have to go past the stone wall. Not the fake one, leading to the train station, but instead the very real one, consisting of the heaps of sickles I used to rule Diagon Alley.

Along the way I have managed to master the first two spells I have learned: Flipendo and Vermillious. I didn't know much about their effect, other than the fact that they dealt significant damage to the tiny creatures roaming the alleys around the Gringotts Wizarding Bank. I went inside after several days, dragging all my cauldrons and clothes behind me, where Hagrid and the goblin waited for me, seemingly unphased. I knew, however, that Hagrid was already jealous of me. While I was grinding to change my life around, he couldn't handle the Hagrind. That is why he didn't turn around when I tripped over the uneven floor of the Gringotts corridors. He just kept walking. He knew what he was doing. It wouldn't be the last time he, or everyone else, left me to fend for my own.

From there on out, it was all sorts of creatures that I had to face, all on my own at that. The so-called "friends" always left me behind too. I even faced the mother of all rats, Jack! Even the riches inside my family vault seemed like a measly amount compared to all that I've collected up to that point.

Nothing was a challenge after the arduous work I put in at the very beginning. I may have had my ups and downs. I may have spent my entire family's fortune on chocolate frogs just to try and get a full card collection. I think that's what the non-wizards call "lootboxes" or "card packs" or whatever. But I got the money back by murdering more rats. That is how I chose to live my life. That is how I lived it. That is, until the next year where all my progress was "magically" taken away from me. Gringotts found out I created what they call a "monopoly" on supplies. Regardless, I will return next year. The rats shall not know peace.

What the fuck was that flying orb in Hogwarts though?

Serious stuff: Harry Potter RPG is a cool idea, some... unique spritework, but traveling is pretty tiring, you gotta grind a lot and the tasks themselves take too much running around for such a relatively small space. I kinda lost my mind after grinding so much at the beginning, as you can see.

The Gameboy Advance had a few too many of these games where you just walk from point A to point B with some of the simplest mechanics in-between. Some of them were okay, but a lot, like this one, banked more on the IP recognition instead of adding its own flavor.

The castle looks boring, a lot of this game does. It feels like it's a reskin of something else than a legit Harry Potter game. It has some shared assets with the PC release, but they don't translate too well into this game. It just has very little personality.

And all the walking awards you with merely one awful mechanic after another. There's a spiky bush that for some reason you have to hit 4 times to remove. Each time it gets hit it launches spikes in 8 directions, so you have to dodge after every hit. The corridors are overly long. The spells take too long to cast. Objects you lift up with Wingardium Leviosa can't move diagonally even though everything else can. The enemies have terrible hitboxes.

At one point, and only that one point, the game requires you to shoot through a wall, which I thought was a bug. Elsewhere the game, which taught you you can only hit blocks from behind so that you push them forward, has you hit the same blocks from the front so they get pulled to you. With the push spell.

After, like, 10 minutes, the game feels like nobody wanted to work on it anymore. Someone just said "fuck it, don't fix it, it can be beaten so it works." The best part about it is the cool, 2-minute-long Any% speedrun and the fact that you can hit any NPC with a spell and they all have a silly dialogue reacting to it.

The PS1 version of Sorcerer's Stone is largely a downgrade on the PC version, but it has certain things going for it, that's for sure. For one, Hogwarts is slightly more open, you discover a lot of the secrets at your own pace and can return to certain areas to collect missing cards or beans. Not every area though. The platforming is pretty tight, the auto-jump gives you this huge boost of speed after you jump off a platform, and you can climb really high ledges, making for some reasonably fun moments. There is a semblance of a combat system, though I honestly prefer the instantaneous, mouse-aiming spellcasting of the PC version. Also, the character models are funny, the voice acting is very British, the situations you play through are ridiculous and some of the mechanics and even entire sections (such as returning to Diagon Alley to collect some ingredients) are unique to this particular version of the story, adding to the charm.

My problem lies in the general atmosphere. The lack of music during exploration is brutal, as the over-exaggerated sound effects really stick out without it. The game's secrets are actually hidden minigames a lot of the time, but they're not particularly exciting or fun, so I wish they just weren't included honestly. I'd rather just go in and pick up a card and feel clever that I found a secret, rather than have a kid or a ghost already be there and give me it as a reward for some trivial task. Collecting beans leads to upgrades for stuff like Quidditch or your basic offensive spell, but they are not noticable in the slightest. The game doesn't have spell challenges, which I enjoyed in other versions because they added scale and mystery to the castle. Here, Hogwarts feels much, much smaller, and a large chunk of this game is just really forgettable due to the level design being really messy. Just like with the discoveries, there is no impact, no special music, no pizzazz.
And absolutely fuck the Gringotts Mine Cart minigame. I really want it gone.

I wanted to like this game more, but I think it doesn't have the staying power some other versions have. Even though I think I liked playing it more than the GBC RPG, that game was far more unique and interesting to go through. This one just feels too small and limited for the system it's on.

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.

I do think this is slightly, very slightly better than the previous HP RPG title, but several ommissions, additions and a lack of certain changes make it for an overall all-too-similar experience, while providing new frustrations all of their own.

A severe lack of shortcuts. There were a lot in the first game, and they were actually INCREDIBLY useful while traversing the 8 floors of Hogwarts. Here, there's one useful one, and two total. Card combos are even less useful, some spells provide the same and better functionality. They added a Quidditch minigame, but it's the worst one in any of these games.

You have to grind a TON to feel even remotely strong. I did the same thing as I did last time, I grinded for about an hour at the beginning of the game, earning TWENTY levels in the first area. That wasn't enough to keep up with the enemies for, like, two hours in terms of damage. Sometimes you level up spells by casting them a lot of times. Sometimes by levelling. There's all these new mechanics, but none are useful enough to sacrifice a turn of dealing damage, unless you're in a full party. The menus are just as annoying. While previously it was just this long list, here they all have nice icons, but for some reason the first spell is the identify spell, not your basic damaging one—the returning fan-favorite Flipendo—which makes grinding take even longer than usual.

Speaking of which, a first good change is adding an actual party. Some parts of the game aren't scaled for having two other party members, one can cast a paralyzing spell and you can stunlock enemies pretty easily, and the equipment prices are just too much to have the best boots (or whatever) for one party member, let alone all of them. Nevertheless, it's funy seeing Ron throw his fucking rat like a baseball, or Gilderoy throw his autograph at an enemy to stun it for a turn.

The animations are slightly better, and while some designs are reused, Aragog (whose mouth runs away when you beat him for some reason) and the Basilisk look impressive enough to have an impact.

I also appreciate the addition of the Folio Bruti. I have a soft spot for mechanics related to collecting information on your enemies. I always feel incentivized to spend a little time to identify every foe. Too bad you can't do that with bosses to have a look at their sprites afterwards.

Overall, these two GBC titles are a bit overlong, there's too much of going back and forth within a small space, The grinding is egregious. Generally, everything has very little impact and the castle loses its splendor when you get angry at how annoying it is to move around it. There's definitely parts that are novel and charming in their own way, but they're both low on my personal ranking of Harry Potter video games. I'm definitely a bit bitter about a somewhat squandered potential, though I also genuinely don't know how to approach a concept like a TURN-BASED HARRY POTTER RPG.

Another impressive jump in quality from its previous iteration, this PS1 version of a Harry Potter adventure takes its best qualities from the PC version of Sorcerer's Stone. The exploration is so much more satisfying when going through a bookcase doesn't always lead to a bad minigame (though there is a football one here, just once, and it's truly awful), but instead to an entirely new, cool, mysterious and untouched section of a castle that you have to maneuver around instead. Some of these sections even require you to return once you obtained a necessary spell! Don't get me wrong, the castle is still small, but the game is short enough that every one of those areas felt like an entire new level.

Another bonus is the atmosphere. While the game is probably the campiest one yet, with its abundance of wacky sections (being chased by cupids, running after Ron as he pukes slugs, catching said slugs in Fang's bowl and much, much more) these larger secret areas create a much better sense of space and counterbalance it with the moments of calm exploration; the music, which is much more prominent here by the way, establishes the same balance between the joyful and the mysterious as the aforementioned PC game. There's a lot of reused assets (the funny character models work much better here though), but the focus on all the new content is strong enough that it becomes basically meaningless.

Few things hold it back. First is the fact that the main collectible—the beans—are absolutely useless. There's still a nice little sound when you pick them up and getting to the areas is satisfying, but you need a total of 250 beans to get all the cards they can buy you. I had around 400 by the time I got to the point where I could buy them, an hour into the game. I was reaching around 700 by the time I was done. It's just a bit too nonsensical, and really makes the levels that much less fun to explore, knowing that there's very little reason to aside from the obvious secrets where the wizard cards will be.

The other big thing for me is a very underwhelming finale. I didn't play this video game with all these new things popping at me every other second only for the final section to be a super basic rethread of everything up to this point. It starts with an awful slide section, then there's an overlong duel with Lockhart, during which I believe he can only knock you out with a specific, easy to dodge spell. After that there's three rooms with basic mechanics seen throughout the game, and finally, one of the worst boss battles in video gaming history. You hit The Basilisk in its open mouth with a charged up spell as it spits acid on the floor, and then you draw the sword and... deal 3 times less damage to it, having to work through the poor controls for any bit of damage by reflecting a beam back at its tooth of all places, which has a very wonky hitbox. It's the worst ending to any of these games so far.

With those things out the way, while they do sour me on the game a little bit, the rest was really fun. This is what I wanted out of the previous PS1 game, it just makes a much better use of the console it's on, and as such genuinely stands on its own merits.

The first PS2 title is a strong outing for the Harry Potter games, it really raised the bar in a lot of ways and provided a great deal of wish fulfillment. Most importantly, it has a fully explorable castle, and the game leans into that a lot.

The game is split in two: day activites, such as classes in which you gain new spells and quidditch, and night acitivites, where you do things that go against the school code, which largely just mean that you'll be sneaking around prefect which patrol the halls. At night you can also visit a shop Fred and Goerge set up, with additional cards, prank items and even a spellbook to buy for beans. This currency is a tad bit too scarce for my liking, but it's not a terribly important problem if you decide to complete the game.

This version of the story takes several major liberties in order to make both sections relatively short, meaning that, for example, in this iteration of the story it is never revealed that Lockhart is a conman. He's only ever seen twice, once in Diagon Alley and once during his class. Some liberties were also taken with the intro, having two tutorial sections in Weasley's household for the very basics and some minigames, and then the Knockturn Alley and Diagon Alley, which are largely about stealth and items. It's a very memorable section, similar to the portable titles, where the Alleys are much more expansive and you get to visit all sorts of shops and other buildings. Afterwards, you get to Hogwarts itself.

With a hundred cards to collect (every 10 increases your health), there is an abundance of chests, locations, secrets and even sidequests available once you begin the aforementioned Hogwarts day-to-day routine. During the day you can use everything you've learned to get closer to completion without too many threats. The problem is, everything is a bit too spaced out, and, just like in the RPG title of this part of the series, there is just so much running back and forth for some of these things. You go to the grounds and find these tiny objects, sometimes without any indication of where exactly they could be, and to return them to their owner, you either have to fly around the grounds or go all the way back up to the top of the castle, to your common room. You have to do a lot of this to win the House Cup, and without that, the ending just doesn't feel satisfying at all. It's a bittersweet design choice, having to do ardous tasks just for a short moment of satisfaction at the end. There are some minigames to go in-between, like gnome-throwing (every attempt costs beans and is also a bit too finnicky for my liking) and a genuinely fun version of Quidditch, but they're still very short bursts of variety.

Worth noting that the castle grounds are only fully open in the PS2 version, the Gamecube and Xbox ones may avoid this problem, as they simply teleport you across it to fit on the disc.

This particular part of the saga has probably the most video game potential, with several major encounters that can be turned into bosses and several areas that are only ever appear in it. It's a shame that a lot more of your time will be spent on these mindless, clueless searches, because the story sections are actually really fun. They're a bit more nonsensical than even your standard HP game section perhaps (Some spell challenges have BUZZSAWS in them) but this style of a game works so well with the extremely nefarious and oppressive nature of the Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban, where the danger is always looming, even though it is only felt as poignantly by Harry. The Basilisk is always waiting within the Hogwarts pipes, and you can hear its faint whispers if you listen in on the chatter, though it sometimes also speaks very loudly, directly to Harry. There are also spiders roaming the halls from day one.

And, as mentioned, the bosses should deliver, and they actually do! They're not fully polished, but both serve their purpose well enough. Aragog perhaps less so, it feels like he should be able to completely destroy you, but when you fall into a hole and go mano-a-spidero he is just very limited. The Basilisk, on the other hand, is fantastic, it slithers through the pipe holes in the Chamber, it can feel your presence, but it cannot see you—it was blinded by the phoenix beforehand—so it crawls randomly and you have to avoid its gigantic body. After each strike the sword (or a dagger: it's very short because it's actually a reskinned wand) falls out of your hand and the snake attempts to slither its way before you can grab it back. In the original book, and in the movie as well, this encounter is so cool because it's more so a stealth section—Harry is running and hiding and gets that one, big final blow in— so it's weird that they never utilize actual stealth—which is a core mechanic in every iteration of HP video games up to this point—but at least the gigantic blind snake boss battle feel is there in this one.

This game in particular is very fondly remembered by people who played it, and is considered one of the best, but I honestly think a lot of the other games have it beat, even back when it was released. Technologically it was rather impressive, and it was an absolutely awesome game to show around when HP was at peak popularity, but going back to it, it sadly hasn't aged very well. Other HP games have really switched their focus onto that exploration aspect after this one came out, and they do it a lot better, while this game, unfortunately, does it rather poorly. It feels like playing a tech demo, where a lot of the ideas for what to do with the assets and the castle itself were mere prototypes. However, as a Harry Potter video game, this is an impressive and ambitious title indeed. All it really takes for this game to seer itself into an impressionable mind is to use the broom, go for a ride on the Hogwarts grounds, and stare for a bit at the giant building in all its glory.

This is a pretty much perfected Harry Potter video game formula. On the technical side, bugs and glitches have been ironed out (unless you're playing on a modern system but you can't fault the game for that), but even aside from that, I think every change made is somehow beneficial to the overall experience.

The major change comes from the fact that the castle is opened up. Instead of the ever-changing areas from the first game, you get a set of sprawling areas, spell challenges (which you can go back to at any time to earn more house points) and a couple totally unique levels which you can visit only once. The reason this particular development works is because it creates this addicting loop of traversing the castle grounds, seeing an area you can't access without a spell, and then remembering it once you've learnt it. You familiarize yourself with not only the layout of the castle, but also its secrets, and I think that makes for the most enjoyable and memorable version of Hogwarts yet. Especially since you have some spells at your disposal from the previous year at the beginning (Flipendo, Alohomora and Lumos), meaning you can go exploring immediately upon reaching Hogwarts and actually find quite a few secrets you can access that early. This castle is not as large as the one found in the PS2 version, but it's so much more intricately designed, not to mention that you later unlock ways to traverse it even faster, making it a joy, rather than a chore to explore.

All the secrets are much more clever than they were in any other iteration as well. There is so much variety in the approach to what is a seemingly simple point-and-click mechanic. Most, if not every area has its secrets, so you get all these satisfying realizations by just scanning a room, being observant about a specific amount of paintings or a different colored patch on the floor, remembering a Lumos statue that you could access previously, noticing a small button hidden behind an object or realizing that the game threw one extra enemy than is required for a particular puzzle. Chamber of Secrets for PC is a genuinely satisfying puzzle platformer, its mechanics are simple but it knows how to trick a player into complacency, throwing new types of secrets or placing them differently, and with each new spell available and each different tileset, you can once again find yourself having to work harder to find some of the secrets the game throws at you.

But it also never punishes you for not finding them. It is very fun to find these secrets, but if you don't discover all on your first run, you can either go back to certain challenges, or you can purchase them from students in the school for beans. Beans are far from a rare commodity—especially after you unlock the dueling club, where you can get well over a thousand if you just spend a little bit of time—so while in the beginning you can't get, for example, the best quidditch equipment, later on you should be able to buy that, as well as all your missing Folio Magi spots without any issue (I heard there are two fully missable ones that you can't buy, the ones from Dumbledore's Office, so be sure to explore that fully before approaching Fawkes and the Sorting Hat). While you will still likely have a lot more beans than you need by the end, it feels like there's a purpose to having a decent supply, just in case you miss more cards than you expected.

While there's no PS1 Hagrid in this game (he's still huge though and actually walks around the castle grounds to jumpscare you sometimes) this game has its own grand meme with the inclusion of the BONUS BEAN ROOM. Should you collect enough house points, after each spell challenge you are able to enter a large area where you can run around and use your spells to collect a large amount of beans. I love that this game adds this mythical room to the Hogwarts lore, especially since everyone seems to be aware that they are a form of currency inside the school. Remember, do well in class kids, maybe one day you can get rich and buy yourself a sick fucking broom from a shady dealer.

The game is very easy, and becomes even easier when you unlock potions. Any and all difficulty comes from insteadeath pits, which send you all the way back to your last save. It's not often you'll fall into one, but you'll occasionally get baited into jumping on a Spongified space (Spongify is a spell unique to this game, used to make an area bouncy, and is one of the best spells in the entire Harry Potter universe) which will lead you to your doom.

While the game's Basilisk fight is rather simple, and the snake itself seems rather puny compared to some of the other versions, the actual way to the Chamber is really cool. This is the only game that really adapted the fact that it is pipes which lead to it, and that's exactly what you travel through, with some occasional openings.

In general the aesthetic is super nice, varied; the music only elevates it. These PC versions just freaking get it, the castle is always populated, kids are running around, the soundtrack is magical but it knows when to disappear and let everything else take center stage. I mentioned it previously, but all the tilesets allow for additional creativity in hiding secrets, but it's also just so much more interesting and adds to all that I mentioned above.

There's more enemy types than ever, even if you get some returning ones like the snails, they all get a little change to make them feel fresh. The goblins and imps are my favorites, you have to throw them inside their holes or use them to eat these mushrooms which spawns more beans. Sometimes, when you throw them into said hole, you can hear a bowling strike sound. Just brilliant.

Perhaps I'm overrating it a tad bit, but it's just such a solid title within this niche that the HP games carved out for themselves. I really enjoy the style of these games, maybe parts of it are nostalgia, but I do think they are a genuinely unique experience, and they surprised me many a time with just how clever they can be once they find their stride. This one in particular makes such a great use of its foundation, the PC version of Sorcerer's Stone, and just improves on it so much. This is an experience I would gladly come back to, and it made me understand exactly why I came back to these games, what I wanted out of them and why I remembered them so vividly.

The Gamecube/Xbox versions are seemingly only a slightly different experiences, but the differences here are extremely worthwile. While you cannot walk around the grounds fully, this is actually a HUGE benefit. It cuts down on so many boring sequences of walking back and forth, yet it sacrifices nothing as everything is still fully modeled and you can still fly around on a broom once you unlock it. The assets they saved up by removing freeroaming seemingly went into making the entire game look better, more colorful and vibrant. The game is also streamlined in a lot of other ways, all for the better. Sidequests are much faster and easier to complete, secrets are moved around to much more convenient locations, some enemies are reskinned to add to variety, and during the final boss fight with the Basilisk you get to use an actual sword rather than dagger that's just a reskinned wand. Just a purely improved experience, for me anyways, but do take that with a grain of salt, as I am binging all these games in a row.

A conclusion of a trilogy, the PC version of the Prisoner of Azkaban marks the end of an era in the movie tie-in Harry Potter video games. The unique style these titles have created was never truly replicated; as such they truly stand not only as wortwhile pieces of companion media, but on their own strengths as adventure games.

While this is my least favorite of the three due to it being shorter and simpler than even the Sorcerer's Stone game, the series remains consistent in terms of evolving its style. While you technically take control of all three major characters throughout it, you don't switch between them freely, meaning the same design philosophy remains: find, point, and click. There's less well-hidden secrets, but there are still some, and you're still never punished entirely for missing them. You do actually need to find a certain amount of collectibles to COMPLETE the game, but it is nothing more than a cutscene and you aren't blocked from any of the content. Again, not like the secrets are hard and the game is the shortest one, but it's worth noting; it's a practice I'm not very fond of.

This game definitely has the snappiest gameplay, everything is so instantaneous and satisfying, spells are cast in an instant, enemies defeated super fast, there's slides, there's a grapple hook spell, there's the returning Spongify and it is used for the longest jumps in the series, there's the BONUS BEAN ROOM. Combined with the game's length it creates a very tight experience that is superbly replayable should you need a dose of nostalgia.

What throws me off a bit is the tone, I think the 6th-gen console version has this more ominous atmosphere that befits this particular part of the story more, and there's a lot more attempts at comedy here, mostly consisting of what you would nowadays call "Marvel-esque" quips. Wasn't great then, is even worse now. The visuals are also very vibrant, which makes for some memorable areas and a great-looking castle interior, but, again, not particularly fitting.

The new spells, actually unique to this version, are very creative. I already mentioned the grapple hook, which is available to Ron, but the coolest ones are unlocked by Hermione, who gets to transform statues into fully controllable bunnies and dragon whelps. These abilities tend to slow the game a bit down with their animation or sheer functionality, but are visually awesome and very much welcome.

The castle and its mystery areas get a pretty big makeover, with a new traversal system, new types of secrets and new currency in place. That last one adds a lot to the game, the health items from the Playstation versions become these immensely satisfying to find objects, especially when the game just rains them on top of your head in a few select instances. You know at that moment you're going on a shopping spree whenever you can, and it feels great.

The PC trilogy of the first three games is perhaps the strongest outing the HP games have up til now. They're very consistent in terms of creativity and the smoothness of gameplay. They're still fairly simple games, ones made in very short time, don't get me wrong, but in all that they somehow manage to have all these ideas and execute them more than properly. They have little moments, big setpieces, a great soundtrack, and are all based on an already strong and likeable IP (fuck the author, the world just has very cool ideas) which bases itself on leaving a lot to the imagination. This game, like its predecessors, takes advantage of exactly that.

Prior to the deciding that I'm going to beat all these games in a row, Prisoner of Azkaban for the PS2 was my favorite Harry Potter video game. It continues to be one of my favorites, but, unfortunately, the format of the first three 6th gen games has its limitations.

The game succeeds primarily as a companion piece. Its aesthetics and soundtrack are excellent, which opens up a whole new approach to the world of Harry Potter. It is the most vivid and unique visual depiction of Hogwarts that isn't based on the movies. There's a fantastic balance of unnerving and weird with the amazing and vibrant, and it manages to fit the more oppressive atmosphere of Prisoner of Azkaban with a very stylized artstyle. The spell challenges are just mind-boggling, there's an underground infestation of creatures which settle near locations where plenty of blood has been spilled (yes, that's the in-game description of the Red Cap enemies) merely few steps outside the Potions classroom, but there's also the wonderful grand staircase, the grounds with different possible weather effects, and Buckbeak flying segments.

Unfortunately the gameplay remains largely the same as its predecessors. While the new spells are cool, and there are few puzzles in the dungeons themselves alongside a few fun bosses, the overworld is largely devoid of any fun secrets, it's all laid out in the open from the very beginning, and only becomes interactable once you obtain the necessary spell or item. The pacing, even that of exploration, is snappy and never overstays its welcome as much as the previous parts, but by following said games this closely it could only ever be fun as a companion piece. There is a necessary level of interest required from the player in order to make them feel like trudging through mediocre gameplay is worth it.

To me, it is. I really enjoyed seeing this reimagining, all the added content, casting spells in real time, but it would be difficult to recommend for someone outside of an already diminishing circle of interest. I've seen and played enough 6th Gen titles to tell that, despite being a genuinely pretty title with a strong aesthetic, there's many games that had it beat in that regard even back when it released.

With that in mind, however, I believe it is once again worth reminding that companion pieces are not any less worthwhile than these experiences. The aforementioned investment required to get into the mood for playing this game isn't difficult to obtain, as the universe is still a strong one, and perhaps Hogwarts Legacy can reignite it for many players out there. The same game may also increase the standards too high for these titles to be worth coming back to, however. Only time will tell.

Another Harry Potter trilogy comes to an end with the GBA version of Prisoner of Azkaban: the RPG trilogy. It, very unfortunately, goes out with a whimper, as despite many improvements, there are just too many stepbacks for this to be a satisfying sequel.

This game is much shorter than its two previous versions on the Gameboy Color, and while I am generally partial to shorter experiences compared to the more bloated ones present on other consoles, I think this isn't the game to apply that mindset to. The castle is smaller, there's less exploration, no secrets and very simplistic shortcuts. While spell challenges are still present, the entire castle is not mysterious or interesting. This is, most likely, the worst version of Hogwarts in any Harry Potter game.

This also comes down to very weak visuals. The art style of the GBC titles wasn't my favorite either, but there was a lot of unique flavor to it. You walked around the castle and get all these wacky statues of like a big old lady, or a musical classroom. There's just so little to differentiate between floors and rooms. Even outside of those, the tilework they went for makes for difficult to comprehend screens. The colors are very washed out and they mesh together so that it is often difficult to notice a screen's verticality, or even notice a wall.

This extends to the way the story is paced and presented, as well as the gameplay at large. This game, similar to its console and PC counterparts, introduces the "switching between the main trio" mechanic. This translates to both combat and the overworld exploration, as each character gets a certain collection of spells which allows them to interact with specific objects. It's all very simple, but honestly preferrable to the back-and-forth running gameplay loop of the GBC titles. It's just that outside of the story moments, you don't use these spells at all. There's just no secrets. All those mechanics are honestly wasted on the straightforward dungeons, when they could be utilized in the exploration of Hogwarts, which would add so much to the boring, samey-looking hallways.

The combat is alright, better than previously I'd say. Taking even less time to grind than I did in the previous game, I managed to quickly get overpowered to the point where I could entirely rely on level ups (which heal you back up fully) to get me through any area. Grinding wasn't a chore at all as the menus are laid out perfectly, with the free-to-cast Flipendo being the default choice. The other spells are also very easily accessible. The spell level-up systems are back too, meaning that while grinding out regular levels and gold, I could also acquire stronger versions of my attacks and buffs. Speaking of buffs, there was one cool idea for a battle where Buckbeak joins your party and the hippogriff is the only thing that can damage your opponent, meaning you have to buff him and debuff the enemy. While those things usually don't come in handy in the other games, here using them is actually necessary, which is a pretty good idea. The animations during the battle are also probably the best-looking things in the entire game. So, to give credit where credit is due, I do think this is the title finds the best balance out of the three HP RPGs.

Too bad some encounters are pretty nonsensical. During the first spell challenge, on the path that a transformed McGonnagal traveled through, the devs decided to insert a fight with Crabbe and Goyle for some reason. Similarly, the final boss is not the dementor horde chasing you on the Hogwarts tower. No, that honor falls to Malfoy, who is out at night in front of Sirius' cell. And who could forget the gigantic Troll who somehow fit under the Weeping Willow. Stuff like this is present in other games too, but to a much lesser degree, here it just feels like some models they had on hand were thrown in at random places.

Unfortunately, there is not enough to really save the HP RPG formula. There's always a lack of balance in one aspect of the design or another, and there's always either some tediousness or some disappointment. They're all very interesting experiments, but I can't say I found any of them particularly pleasant.