It sure was worth changing the formula just to create a terrible video game.

There are a total of 4 levels. You replay each several times because, to progress to the trials (of which there are three, meaning that there are 4 regular levels, 3 trials, the final boss and the tutorial, totaling at 9 unique story segments, plus a tiny arena for some shitty timed challenges) you need a specific amount of what are basically Mario 64 stars.

They're "Wizard Shields." What the fuck even are wizard shields? Sometimes they're like 20 seconds away from the spawn point. You reach them by using a spell on the only thing you can use the spell on in the area. There is no animation for picking them up, except for the ones that you pick up when first going through a level. You walk into them, screen fades to black and the level goes to the loading screen.

There are collectibles in each level. Hit 5 of item. Pick up 10 mini-shield and a wizard shield appears 5 steps away from the starting point. Because this game has a card system (cards are basically perks that you can equip for each of the 4 explorable levels and the timed challenge stage) you have to equip them before loading into the stage. Selecting a character (because you can only play as one, you can't switch between them like in the previous console game), selecting cards, loading the level, loading out of the level, totalling your points for the level up and loading back into the menu lasts longer than picking said shield up. They could not program it so that the wizard shield goes directly into your inventory.

This thing is rushed. It lacks content. It is repetitive to a halt. It spams enemies and reuses mechanics at every corner. There are animations clearly missing. Things just disappear once picked up or defeated. The characters, especially Ron, keep screaming, in a very funny manner admittedly, about the beans, progressively intensifying as you obtain more of them. When that's not happening, it's the lamest quips imaginable. The aesthetic is kinda neat, but there's just so little of it, and the focus on reusing content in an already small game makes all of it less special.
Why are there two of the enemies that I fought several times throughout this game at the end of the maze as the final challenge there? And why not allow me to select the cards I've earned if I'm going to get into a fight? Why have a progression system then? Why is there a tutorial level after the game puts me in a regular level where I already had to use all these things? Why is the second trial just the first trial but reskinned and with little moments of like a third person shooter?

Confusing mess, all the way through. Horrible direction for these games, but thankfully they once again shifted away from it with Order of the Phoenix.

1/10

I can name, like, one kinda okayish mechanic from this game: lighting up bushes so you can continue to light up the lanterns, making a line until you get to the final thorny bush you need to burn.

It's hard for me to think of any credit I can give this game. The levels are too long, the gameplay too basic, the AI too poor, the enemies too aggressive, the visuals too underdetailed, the music...

This was one of the worst soundtracks I've ever heard. They go for an epic vibe generally, orchestral within the limitations of the console, but they tend to add one silly instrument and it is goes completely against the melody. There's some brass instrument in the first trial theme, and this incredibly goofy xylophone in the cutscene theme. For actual boss encounters, the music is comparatively lighthearted. I'm honestly kinda baffled that someone signed off on this. Maybe the compression just killed it? I find that hard to believe, but it's a genuinely mind-boggling soundtrack.

The levels are so long. And they get progressively longer for the first three after the tutorial. Then they get shorter afterwards, but entering a level and seeing a quarter of the game's entire collectible count is to be found in it alone sure is something. Some levels took me over half an hour, and this is a very easy game mind you. So much of this game is just overlong, dull, mind-numbing stretches of boredom.

There is a dance rhythm minigame I'll give them that. The same rhythm minigame, minus the dancing unfortunately, is used for the final battle. What a way to bring it back together!

The DS version in particular adds so many meaningless and awful time-wasters. Shitty touch-screen minigames like "scratch to find a matching card" or "click on the same colored candy" or "throw the bean to the left or right" are placed at random spots throughout the game, with characters often just casually standing in unattainable, dangerous places. The most egregious thing is the use of this duel minigame, where, at seemingly random points, when you hit an enemy with a regular spell, which I assume would simply damage it on the GBA, it turns into this minigame where you can either click, draw or drag your stylus around the screen to attack, and then defend against the enemy attacks. WHY? Why have a regular, top-down adventure game, and just have it so that something that should be a simple action, something that IS a simple, quick action for 99% of the game in fact, and just turn it into this long and repetitive section? It's like if Super Mario RPG kept the gameplay from Super Mario World, but once every 10 goombas you entered a turn-based battle with it instead. This blows so much, such a ridiculous decision.

One more thing they added in the DS version is this Tamagochi-like creature called "Niffler" which you feed or wash when it wants to with the stylus. Awesome. Glad time was spent on this. Any and all amount.

Goblet of Fire is, overall, the weakest showing for the Harry Potter games. The executive decision was that the one movie where Harry spends a lot of time on his own should be a co-op title. And with so little to go off of for the levels that aren't the trials, both the approaches taken by the individual teams (a very short game with few levels that you revisit to progress into a next one vs a longer game with the same amount of levels but having them take much more to beat the first time) failed to make one of the seemingly most gamey parts of the series—it is entirely about tournament games after all—good.

3/10

The Gameboy Advance version of the Goblet of Fire is an okayish time. It not having all the added dumpster fire content, that the DS version did for the sake of using touch controls, actually allows for a better appreciation of the title.

The gameplay remains largely repetetive and the levels are still slightly too long, but it's nowhere near as bad as its DS counterpart. There is admittedly a somewhat nice Zelda-like feel to the levels, though it obviously lacks the visual flair or the animation work of those; there's just very little satisfaction to be derived from progression. There is a jingle that plays but it gets old very quickly, not to mention that the things you collect are simply some dumb shields that do not fit the actual world they inhabit. Why a shield? What does that have to do with anything? Everything also feels a lot more sluggish overall, just the mechanics they went with for both exploration and combat take too long and the screens are too big for their own good.

Having played this version I also came to the realization that the soundtrack here is much better. I believe that the reason why the DS one sounds so horrendously is because the tracks themselves were never meant to be heard without the compression caused by the GBA system. Simply upscaling them doesn't work, they were never meant to be heard this way. They're the same compositions and a lot of the track sounds the same, but it seems that some instruments were simply adjusted for the GBA while recording, which is why, when cleared up, they sound so off-key.

This is the best version of the Goblet of Fire when it comes to games. Still a pretty major disappointment when it comes to this part's potential, but it's all we got. I would really hope that the Triwizard tournament can be revisited some day if any future Harry Potter games were to be made. It's a good concept and may make for fantastic setpieces if given a chance. Just, you know, don't force a co-op focus on it.

4/10 - PS3

The best way I can think of explaining how this game feels, is that it's like one of those bonus menus on a DVDs back in the day but it has stupid amount of budget behind it.

The two main sources of entertainment in this game come from callbacks to the movies/books and the short minigames in-between mindless running from one place to another, which is the main gameplay. There's chess, there's snap and there's also the worst fkn minigame called Gobstones, which uses one of my least favorite mechanics, which is "push/pull the analog stick lightly." There's different rules but, basically, you flick balls, you pull a certain extend and then push. I don't know how am I supposed to estimate the distance or speed of the ball through that. It's dumb. I spend like two hours on beating one guy.

The gameplay is bearable, however, because this game's biggest selling point is its faithful and impressive reconstruction of the Hogwarts castle and its grounds. The entire gameplay is based around the fact that they just built this castle so might as well put some gameplay in there. You cast spells on the things you can lock onto in a room, get points, and unlock interviews with the cast and slides from the movie. It leans so much into being a companion piece to the other media, which is why I compared it a DVD menu earlier.

There's some enjoyment to be derived from that, the spell casting mechanic, which incorporates the wand movement, is neat and there are a few genuinely cool setpieces and moments of gameplay (You play as Dumbledore and Sirius at certain points, which owns) but the game really needed more meat on its bones.

PSP version - 1/10

The PSP version is devoid of anything and everything that made the console version enjoyable or special. The visuals are obviously a pretty severe downgrade, with a focus on fixed camera shots. You can't ever really admire the castle because you can't see it. This also leads to traditional problems with this viewpoint, that is that when switching perspectives your character turns around if you hold the stick in the same direction for too long. It's more severe here than in most titles I've played. This is only made worse by the worst and most confusing layout of the Grand Staircase from any of these games.

Control issues continue, as they refuse something like holding down a button and using the stick for spellcasting. Instead, you press buttons. But there's more spells then buttons. Then let's do button combos! But oh no, you don't just press them one after another. You have to hold them for just a tiny bit, then hold the other one. How long? I don't know! And I beat it! There's also a cooldown added to it, just to make it even more annoying.

There are some different systems (like a loyalty one of sorts, where you have to help kids from different houses) some different sidequests, most interactables are gone and replaced by newspapers on walls, all of which amounts to running around and either fetching items or trying to combo during extremely frustrating dueling.

I am highly worried about the other handheld games for this part, as well as Half-Blood Prince.

1/10 - GBA version

The second 1/10 for Order of the Phoenix. While this game isn't as infuriating as the PSP version, the controls work, but everything is simplified just too much. The graphics look like an indie horror game. The spellcasting is reduced to a tiny, bad minigame in the top right of the already small screen. The other minigames are simpler than any other version. There is no way to check your objective sometimes, so walking can take too long if you aren't fully aware of what is needed from you. Dueling and training, which was technically cool, is just reduced to spamming fully upgraded Rictusempra, which will one/two-shot most enemies.

A lesser version of an already somewhat poor DS version. Trying to squeeze any and all money from owners of a dying console in 2007.

A much better version of the previous game, cutting out a lot of the bad aspects of Order of the Phoenix for a lot of genuinely fun mechanics. The best part of game, however, is perhaps not even the gameplay, but, for the first time, the characters.

I've never had much appreciation for Half-Blood Prince's plot, but this game made it genuinely entertaining. There's some surprisingly witty comedy, the characters play really well off each other, they add a freaking RECORD SCRATCH SOUND for when Ginny rejects Harry. The whole mystery aspect is simple, but couple it with the more lighthearted vibe and it reminds me a lot of Chamber of Secrets. It's 4 years later though, and perhaps the subject matter doesn't warrant that sort of approach to it. Really up to you to decide, I found it delightful.

As mentioned previously, lots of the mechanics underwent an overhaul. The exploration is much more gamey than previously, there's only a few select type of these mini-challenges, but they require more interaction, as, for example, you have to aim and throw an object to get a collectible off the wall, or time a jump to touch a tapestry as Harry runs past it.

The minigames are a lot better now. All of the ones from Order are gone, instead replaced by quidditch, dueling and potion-making. All of these things are also integrated into the story, and there's a lot more focus put into them. Quidditch is the weakest one, it's usually overlong "fly through all the rings" type of thing, in fact it's probably the worst version of quidditch from any of the games. Even the DS version of Order had a superior Quidditch minigame. The other two, however, are great! Dueling allows you to cast up to five spells, learning each at specific dueling clubs for each house. In reality, you only need the first two and the charging ability. Once you can charge your basic spell, you simply cast any immobilizing one (which all the rest, with the exception of the defensive Protego, are), charge up, walk as close as possible and one-shot anyone. It's easy to exploit, but very satisfying, it's like shooting a shotgun right into someone's face in a shooter (foreshadowing to Deathly Hollows). Potions are easily my favorite side-activity in any Harry Potter video game, picking up potions can be a bit difficult to control at times, but besides that I have only praise. Timed, hectic, and pretty tough. The system was so good in fact that it was later repurposed, with slight changes, for the game Book of Potions.

The game is also very short, which means it is very replayable. Much more so than the overlong, fetch-questy Order of the Phoenix which had to rely on a lot of filler mechanics and minigames to stretch out its play time. Just a very tight, focused experience, adding a lot of the meat which was missing from the first attempt at this iteration of Harry Potter gameplay.

A nothing game. Takes the approach of Order of the Phoenix, in that it's mostly about running from one place to another, always doing fetch-quests specifically this time around, with only the occasional minigames serving as gameplay, but doesn't have that many minigames, and the ones it does aren't great. They are more difficult, however. On average at least, nothing really beats that one Gobstone minigame from Order. You do get rewarded with an occasional rail shooter segment or two (Half-Blood Prince really likes its shooter comparisons that's for sure), though it isn't much. Regardless, the gameplay is really mindless, and you'd really benefit from using the speedup option on an emulator.

Instead of going for prerendered backgrounds, the game has its own artstyle and environments, though it obviously takes a lot of the assets from the other games. It generally looks unimpressive, sometimes kinda funny, like a handheld JRPG from that era almost.

What is a bit frustrating is that the game does have spells for overworld use, and chooses to use them only for furthering the minigames. There is an Order-like game somewhere in there, but the minigame focus goes too far and upsets an already poor balance those games had.

(As of writing this, the most popular emulator hangs up on a loading screen early on. If you really want to play this, do try another emulator, and even if it has graphical artifacts you should still be able to get past the train sequence and yoink a savestate that you can use. The rest of the game works fine.)

The DS version is exactly the same as the PSP version but with touch controls, so I cannot really justify completing it for the binge I'm doing. I played through every minigame just to test out whether they are different, and no, not really. The rail shooter section has enemies a bit further away sometimes because it is easier to aim at smaller objects with the stylus, but that's about it. The spells generally work better here, as button and analog combination tends to be a bit wonky in comparison. I had about half an hour of the game left before finishing, but my goal is to play the different versions of these games, not just play the same game several times for the sake of seeing, like, a different texture.

Can you believe that this game has the rights to some of the best music from the series but they only use music 4 times or something like that?

The DS version is almost entirely played using the stylus, with only pausing and a very specific, sparingly required action requiring the use of buttons. This, combined with the silence and the short length, makes the game feel incredibly cheap. It's comparable to a mobile game.

You kinda just run past enemies or spam your overpowered spell. You don't need to use any special abilities to completely destroy the game without much issue, aside from, once again, rare, specific situations requiring their use that need to be interacted with.

One of those is a potion which gets rid of tall grass. This means that that potion-making is back, and it is entirely based on the great minigame from the PC version of Half-Blood Prince. It's limited to three specific potions you make over and over again, but it's ok, the game isn't that long that it would becomes an issue in theory. Unfortunately, one of the potions is too crucial to not make over and over again: The Wiggenweld potions, or simply the health potions. The game is very easy, but it requires making them more than any other potion, which does get quite tedious.

Another one of those "nothing" video game adaptations of a HP movie which have been more prevelant since Goblet of Fire. Pretty sad to see the state in which movie tie-ins were by the time 2010s rolled around.

Confused. Stupefied, even.

So horribly mismanaged. It almost feels like the devs didn't know that this was to be split into two parts. But they did! This was announced two years before this game. And they also had more time to work on it than most previous Harry Potter games. But there is clearly so much filler that it is so difficult to wrap your head around the process and decision making behind the creation of this game. I mean, even aside from the fact that this is a COVER-BASED SHOOTER... that doesn't even utilize cover!

There's just so much repeat content. In-between the actual story beats which follow the movie, the game presents a set of three small maps every once in a while. You will often return to these locations during the main story or vice versa, making very few areas feel actually unique. The first set is somewhat special, with one mission involving an escape from a dragon cave. Because, you know, going into a dragon cave only to escape it while being hunted is a great idea. But there is also one that's... in an abandoned nuclear powerplant?

Yes, a nuclear powerplant. Not only that, but you return to it later as part of the main story. For some reason they fit in a section where the main characters find Dean Thomas and Griphook traveling and discussing how they're trying to avoid Snatchers (which always conveniently spawn right behind them and in front of you), which gives Harry a lead on Gryffindor's sword. But... he doesn't even catch up to them. Why? And to make matters worse, you have to go back through the level to find a resting spot (this happens often by the way, you run through a level from the back. Filling in time at its finest). The resting spot Hermione decides on is in a cylinder, where, previously while passing it, immortal zombies resided, and in-between which a hundred Snatchers were spawning around every corner.

These are only some of the multitudes of nonsenses which the game throws at you to actually put in some gameplay. Another one worth mentioning, and perhaps the single most egregious one, is that after escaping the Ministry (which Hermione specifically mentions is the single most dangerous place they could be at given their current situation during their attempt at sneaking in) when the trio are on the run, Harry still somehow gets tips about people being held in various locations, and so he RETURNS TO THE MINISTRY TO FREE 6 RANDOM PEOPLE. WITH THE HORCRUX.

And I'm not trying to make it out as if some of the other games don't change the original stories significantly or without much sense in order to add some gameplay, the GBA version of Prisoner of Azkaban comes to mind as it has Malfoy guard the cage Sirius is locked in so there can be a final boss, but this is seriously out there, and in a very serious part as well. Also, it's quite difficult not to nitpick everything, when the actual gameplay is so boring.

Everyone in their mother heard at this point that, for some insane reason, EA decided to make the Deathly Hallows games for mainline consoles be third person shooters. What some may not know is that the shooting is very bad. You unlock spells as you progress the game (There is a level system. Yes, a level system), and while there is only one strict upgrade, they all feel either awkward, look silly, or both. You can make comparisons to guns in other shooters, Stupify is a pistol, Confundo is a sniper (which zooms in Sniper Elite-style when shot by the way) and there is even a rocket launcher. Some spells cause the enemy to fall over, which is incredibly effective as it takes them out of a fight for a time. Others simply deal damage. Confusingly, however, some spells cause a paralyzing effect... like the shotgun one. That's right, you PARALYZE with a SHOTGUN instead of DOING DAMAGE WITH THE SHOTGUN SPELL.

When I said this game is confusing, this truly extends to nearly every aspect of this game. Some things are passable, the music is nice (they even reuse a melody from the very first Philosopher's Stone video game soundtrack very early on, which I found very heartwarming after this whole binge) but it all fails when you just look at what you're doing. Worth noting is that every boss fight is also very weak, you just kinda spam the same spells as always, sometimes literally spam as you just have to press the button a shitload of times aiming at a specific spot. This just wasn't the part that needed this sort of a game. The second has the Battle of Hogwarts, that's where these systems could shine perhaps, but this mellow, character-driven story of part I just doesn't fit, and that's why so much nonsensical content was created, to make it more gamey. The stealth sections in particular stand out, just such a horrible mechanic, though it is kinda cute that, even in the last part, there will always be stealth in Harry Potter games in one way or another.

I had this realization somewhere around the mid-point that I am playing a shitty shooter that is a Harry Potter movie tie-in game, and the location I spent the most time in is an abandoned nuclear powerplant. Again, in a Harry Potter game.

Why?

While I don't think this format of a game had much of a chance to begin with, this is a significant improvement over the Part 1 game.

You continue to control using primiarily the stylus, but there's even less need to use buttons, with only a shoulder button being necessary to have a fighting chance against some late-game enemies. This control scheme would be awkward even on the DS, and it still is on an emulator. This is the main reason why I think these games were doomed from the start, this gimmicky approach to design has been a plague when it comes to the handheld Harry Potter titles from the fourth movie onward. It feels cheap, and it aged poorly.

There is music in this game! If you were to only read about this game, this might not be a big deal, but Part I only ever had music in very few instances, so its presence is welcome. I'm not going to give it credit for having music for goodness sake, but it is worth noting.

I enjoyed the rather robust cast of playable characters. Aside from the main trio, you get Neville, Seamus, McGonnagal and Flitwick, with all except the last having unique abilities. There are seemingly even more characters available in the multiplayer, even Voldemort, but I am not forcing someone to try it out with me, sorry.

I enjoyed the combat more than the puzzles, however. They're pretty much the same typical bs as almost every other handheld HP game: there's one thing on the screen, click it. Few of them did require slightly more effort, there were BLOCK SLIDING PUZZLES, truly my favorite for sure, but they were individual moments rather than a consistent challenge. So, again, this is mostly just mindless walking.

The combat, while similarly simple, actually manages to occasionally provide a feeling of being a powerful wizard, taking on multiple enemies at once and casting these multi-target spells with ease, or repelling hordes of enemies while protecting your ally. In many ways I enjoyed it more than even the mainline version of Part I.

While all these novelties are good and all, like I mentioned I think this format was doomed from the start, and these two games couldn't manage to overcome their gimmicks. Very little could have been achieved here in my opinion, but I'll give credit to this part for squeezing something out of it.

I theorized in my other review that this style of gameplay fits Part 2 much better, and I was extremely right.

There is exactly zero filler content, and it does a genuinely great job at taking each section of the movie and turning it into a shooting gallery. While the DS version had more characters to play as, here they feel better to play. You get to control Harry, Ron, Hermione, McGonagall, Seamus, Neville, Ginny and Molly. Their sections are short, but so is the game itself, which is honestly its strength.

This is where my praise ends for the most part. The spellcasting, while generally snappier, is still not very fun. You get less spells and each is actually unique, but the pace of the combat is often unexciting, due to the heightened focus on the cover system. Enemies hide more often, there's generally more of them and they can spawn from any direction, as teleportation is a thing, and they all tend to use the shield spell Protego a lot. This creates a very static feel, and the game seemingly acknowledges that by having a plentitude of segments where you have to defend someone. Unfortunately, it just isn't very fun, even on the medium difficulty this pidgeonholes you into a very repetitive playstyle, and it gets old very fast without much else to latch onto.

There are some sections of this game which look neat. The Chamber of Secrets is the single biggest standout, with it being restructured into a pitch-black cave system connected by pipes, with visions of yellow eyes scattered around the darkness. You are incentivized to follow Ron as he casts Lumos, but you can also light up the road with your own spells, and since they have different colors, it can make for a nice visual. The rest of the game, however, is still very gray and unimpressive. I guess even in the movie, the visual of Hogwarts getting attacked isn't as impressive given the fact that the battle largely takes place at the courtyard and not the grounds. Maybe there's only so much they could do.

The level design is often very annoying, with enemies spawning extremely slow or from too many angles. The focus on putting "snipers" with heavy damage spells high up and far away in the latter half of the game is similarly not very fun. Doesn't help that you also begin revisiting the same areas as well.

If you HAVE to play a Deathly Hallows game, this is probably the best one. This doesn't say much unfortunately. The best part of this game comes after the credits, with a wonderful little montage of all the different styles in which Harry Potter games were realized in 3D. Almost feels like they knew some idiot like me would binge them one day.