Hogwarts Legacy

Right, as a lifelong gamer and newbie game developer, this is my first review ever. I felt compelled to write this, not because it's a good or bad game, but because my feelings are so mixed.
I first bought this game on Xbox and I played it all the way through. I've completed all of the story lines, side quests and challenges. If you're playing this game on a console or the PC version without mods, let me just say this: the highs are highs and the lows are lows.
Experiencing Hogwarts for the first time on this game truly has you in awe. The problem is that towards the second half of the game, you barely spend any time there. To that end, the map is way bigger than I think anyone anticipated. For people who really love to explore, this is something that you'd enjoy. Personally though, I would've enjoyed having a smaller map with a few big cities as opposed to just Hogsmead. Some of the towns, though they are unique in nature, start to feel a bit copy and pasted with how equally small they all are. Other than that - the quest lines, graphics and mechanics are overall nothing short of awesome. HOWEVER, the game play itself starts to fall off right around the time you begin to learn unforgivable curses.
I found that even on hard mode, enemies were still too easy to defeat. I personally dislike the fact that "dark wizards" don't use unforgivable curses against you. I also dislike that if you do use an unforgivable curse or respond negatively to quests, there's no negative impact or outcome. It's almost kind of like, aside from a cool lock screen animation, what's the point in even using these curses? This is where mods come in.
The problem is that you can only use mods on PC; but thankfully, the game does have a built-in mod manager for PC players. It should also be noted that it's relatively easy to request custom mods from creators because they've made the Hogwarts Legacy Creator Kit in Unreal Engine completely free for anyone to download and use; and as a developer myself, that alone speaks volume about how much the developers want this community to have the experience they desire.
But to answer the overarching question of "do you recommend this game," my answer is yes and no. If you are a potterhead like I am and are considering buying it on the console, then you'll enjoy it through and through. If you are not though, you're likely to lose interest half-way through; but if you are able to run this on a PC, I ***highly*** recommend doing so with mods that fix the aforementioned issues. Below is my recommendation for mods and why you'd want them based on your gameplay style:
Enhanced NPC Schedule is simply a MUST for everyone. It populates Hogwarts with more students that run on a much better in-game schedule that is aligned with classes. So for example, if a class ends, you can see a visible group of students that look like they just got out of class. This is in opposition to just seeing random NPCs in random places. My guess is the reason why this wasn't a thing on the original game is due to limitations on console performance capabilities; because more NPCs, the higher requirement for processing power. But I mean if you have a desktop in general, this won't be an issue. I just think they kept the requirements as minimal as possible so that it made it more accessible to a bigger player base.
Azkaban, Enemies Enhanced, and Enemies Balance are going to be fantastic for those who enjoy a challenging PVP style like I do. Spells enhanced is an honorable mention here, too.
The Azkaban mod works similar to GTA in the sense of if you do something bad (e.g., use an unforgivable curse in front of a good witch or wizard), you get reported and the authorities chase after you. In this case, aurors spawn all around you and you have to fight your way out. If you get caught, the mod will provide you with options: go to Azkaban where you can attempt to fight your way out, or you can skip that and still respawn from the last check point.
The Enemies Enhanced allows enemies to also use unforgivable curses; and yes that includes the killing curse, so there's a very real possibility that you can be one-shot by a dark witch or wizard.
The Enemies Balanced mod makes so the enemy NPCs scale better in terms of gameplay difficulty. If this is your first time playing this game, I would hold off on enabling that until you've found your groove.
Spells Enhanced is a mod that provides you with custom spells. Personally, if it were my first time playing this game, I wouldn't enable this mod until at least the second half of the game. The reason why is because some of those spells are immediately available to you, which makes a lot of the quests easier to complete because you have more spells than you're supposed to. It could also make learning the basic mechanics of the game a tad more confusing than it needs to be.
Auto-season, Hogwarts Express Train Plus, House Points, Sleep Mod are strongly recommended for players who desire an immersive experience, with the Curfew mod being an honorable mention.
The game doesn't cycle through seasons (e.g., winter, fall, spring, summer) on it's own. It only changes after completing a major quest-line. The auto-season mod makes it so it naturally changes with the in-game clock. The Hogwarts Express train is also pretty rare to see in the original game, but the Hogwarts Express Train Plus mod makes it run on a more frequent schedule. I personally don't know why either of these weren't already a thing, but I don't have to understand I suppose.
The house point mod is pretty much what you'd expect it to be, it allows for the player to collect house points to win the house cup at the end of each season (so it pairs very well with the auto-season mod). If you complete the weekly quests assigned to you, you gain points. If you respond kindly to relationship (side) quests that take place with other students, you gain points. If you respond negatively to to a student, you lose points (ah finally, a consequence for your actions).
The sleep mod doesn't necessarily require you to sleep at night, but it does make it difficult for you to play the game if you don't. For example, if you don't sleep, you can't sprint. The reason why I like both the house point and sleep mod is because it gives you a reason to continuously go back to Hogwarts on a regular schedule in the second half of the game, in opposition to you're just a random student roaming around in the woods for however long doing whatever; but if that's your preference of game-play, then I'd just suggest only sticking with the auto-season mod.
The curfew mod is an honorable mention because you don't really need it per-say if you have the sleep mod since it basically forces you to sleep at night anyways, BUT the curfew mod itself does make it so if a prefect or professor catches you out of bed at night on school grounds, you'll be sent back to your dormitory with a consequence of paying an in-game fee. The mod does have it's own hotkey menu that can be used to disable it in-game; so if anything it's worth downloading, even if you end up disabling it later.
For those who enjoy sandbox building gameplays, get these:
Bigger Vivarium - increases creature capacity
Rescue Animals - rescue non-magical creatures
Unlock All Conjurations - unlocks all build items
Remove Conjure Budget - removes moonstones as a budget requirement
Conjuration Everywhere - allows room of requirement item conjuration
Remove Conjure Placement Restrictions - allows for items to be stacked on one another, similar to a bb.moveobjects on The Sims.
Honorable mentions: Floo Companions, Emote with Any NPC, Character Editor, Cheat Plus, Alohormora Autosolve and Instant Silent Bigger Revelio.

The biggest problem with Hogwarts Legacy is that after the initial excitement, the game quickly becomes repetitive and empty.
Wasted Potential of Hogwarts: The castle is gorgeous, but underused. You only spend a few hours inside, classes and professors have only few cutscenes, and there are only three puzzles throughout the entire school. For a game set in Hogwarts,this is wasted potential.
Repetitive Filler Everywhere: The open world is stuffed with Merlin Trials (95 of them), bandit camps, and countless caves that all look the same. The loot is almost always useless, and minigames that could’ve been fun just repeat endlessly. What starts as discovery turns into chores.
Combat Without Variety: You’re stuck fighting the same four enemy types (goblins, trolls, spiders, and humans) on repeat. Spells should open up creative strategies, but in reality, the system pushes you toward spamming the same few effective combos. Shields force you into matching colors instead of experimenting. Enemies never actually catch you off guard, and boss fights are just damage sponges with recycled mechanics. The game makes you feel powerful, sure, but not in a satisfying or tactical way more like a button-masher.
Story and Choices Don’t Matter: The main story can be summed up in five minutes: you’re the chosen one, and that’s it. Side quests are more interesting than the main quest, but none of your choices matter. Learn unforgivable curses or not nobody cares. House reputation? Doesn’t exist. Freedom is an illusion, because the world never reacts to you.
I had fun but i would recommend buying it only in sale
6/10
Even if I just hate it, I genuinely had fun during the first 20 hours. I was running home from work to play it. But after the 20-hour mark, you start to see all the bad parts, and they keep layering on.

Hogwarts Legacy is a dream come true for Harry Potter fans. Exploring the castle, flying a broom, and learning spells feels magical. The attention to detail in Hogwarts and the open world is breathtaking.

"Do not pity the game, Harry. Pity the players, and above all, those who play without mods"
Jokes aside, the base game has some pretty tedious mechanics that may ruin your experience, but these can be fixed with the right mods. Which can be easily enabled through the in-game menus. Overall, a solid game. Props to the developers for showing so much support to its modding community.
Recommended mods:
* Instant Revelio
* Instant/Skip Alohomora
* Auto loot

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☑ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10
Like to pet the cat
　　　　　 　____
　　　　　／＞　　フ
　　　　　| 　_　 _ l
　 　　　／` ミ＿^ノ
　　 　 /　　　 　 |
　　　 /　 ヽ　　 ﾉ
　 　 │　　|　|　|
　／￣|　　 |　|　|
　| (￣ヽ＿ヽ)__) __)
　＼二つ

I almost quit at first.
This game had the chance to be a masterpiece but unfortunately fails short in some departments which make it just good. In fact, there are aspects of it that are pure genius 10/10 while others are really bad.
Rarely have I seen such a gap in quality within the same game.
This developer got ahold of an incredibly powerful, fleshed out IP rich with lore and personality.
And to their credit, they recreated that atmosphere impeccably. The world feels magical, dreamy, cozy, and superbly crafted as a whole. There's a lot of attention to detail that really brings this whole vibe to life.
The music, and even sound effects, which are both excellent help even further when it comes to the mood and ambiance. It is a real pleasure to just wander around, and especially to fly on your broom seamlessly across the gorgeous map. That too was perfectly recreated, you feel a real sense of freedom and liberation.
That said, the masterpiece part of this game comes from the art direction. Few games have had this kind of quality and there are some side missions that blew my mind, particularly one in a haunted basement. It felt like that side level took more effort and creativity than the whole main story put together. I wouldn't want to spoil anything so I shan't go into details. But let's just say it was a work of art. The art direction team is goated.
Visually, the one issue I had was with the face animation tech. That part looks like it's a 20 year old game. Stiff faces with barely any expression, which resets after every line, like the old point & click games.
While that's nothing major, it does hurt the otherwise extremely high standard the rest of the game has set.
The game itself starts off REALLY slow, I was wondering what the heck was going on when 5 hours into it, I was still just going from class to class doing relatively boring quests. I almost quit, But then, about 7hrs in, it picks up steam as Hogwarts opens its doors to the outside.
The main issue I've had with the game was the writing. It is just bad. It's childish and as cringe as it gets.
It was painful having to listen to the conversations most of the time, so much so that I skipped a lot of it.
Now, I do realize Harry Potter are children's books and perhaps the game is meant for a much younger audience, but it is still based on books that are written amazingly well, poignant, funny, witty, engaging. This game has none of that, every conversation is so bland, weak, void of character, even AI would've come up with better.
There is no reason it should be this way, even if small kids are the audience, they are not redacted, they're smarter and sometimes more mature than we old people are.
And I've noticed this is becoming a trend unfortunately. It is so hard to find good writing anymore.
When it comes to combat and gameplay, it's in between the incredible art direction and abysmal writing, it's neither horrible nor is it great, it's just mid. Very easy, same 5-6 enemy types, pretty much the same 3-4 buttons on repeat. The lack of diversity and challenge handicap an otherwise interesting base idea of hitting combos in a timely and reactive manner.
Now the puzzles, which are the vast majority of the game, are even more mediocre, and even simpler. A puzzle will literally consist of you jumping on 3 platforms in a row, or shooting 10 balls without moving from your spot, and you're done. It's mind numbing and that's a real shame too.
Funny story, at one point I encountered what I thought was a really challenging puzzle. Finally!
You're supposed to turn cubes on top of columns until all 3 sides match, a sort of a simplified Rubik's cube.
Only here, one of the cubes was floating above the column,
AHA! I knew exactly what I had to do, I had to first flip it while it was hovering, then slam it down with Descendo. BOOM.
But wait, no that didn't actually work, 15min later I gave up, feeling shame.
Here I was wanting a challenging puzzle and I couldn't solve it, so I looked it up.
Turns out it's a bug, it's not supposed to be floating at all :/
Speaking of, the game has a lot of bugs. Nothing game breaking, but definitely a lot of achievement breaking ones. If you're a completist you're gonna have hell in some cases. From getting stuck in the ground and having to load an old save, to crashes to desktop, to icons not showing up on the map, enemies becoming invisible mid fight so you cant hit them back, to chests not opening, and a ton of others I don't remember.
There are a lot of strange and nonsensical decisions within the game too. For example you often cannot fast travel outside a dungeon even if you completed it, you have to backtrack the whole way. The menus require multiple clicks to reach the area you want, the map is also kind of a mess. There's room for a lot of QoL improvements in Hogwarts.
And why cant I pause during cutscenes? I almost peed myself once.
So, TLDR, while the game is a masterpiece in the art direction department, it lacks in almost every other one, in some very badly. They seem to want to do too much and end up watering everything down. Ok, the Pokémon style animal hunting is cute and fun for a minute, but then what? So many resources went into building biomes for them and giving you all those tools to craft a nice place but there is zero incentive to do it. It's fun for a total of 5 minutes.
Those animals could've had a use. For example keeping your puffskin with you could have helped you sniff particular chests or items more easily, or perhaps some of them could help you in a fight.
They could've come up with a lot of incentives for all those systems they built that are completely useless and unnecessary.
They also give you map nausea with 3000 icons each of which is a 20s pointless event with nothing interesting to do it for.
Developers need to focus, make 20 epic puzzles instead of 100 ultra short mind-numbing ones. Make 10 epic fighting arenas instead of 500 small villages with 2 enemies each and ridiculous loot.
Too much emphasis is placed on quantity at the expense of quality and it's overly diluted in an attempt to appeal to a broader audience, ultimately failing to fully satisfy any of them.
It's a game riddled with missed opportunities and shortcuts.
While Hogwarts is alright, it had the potential to be a complete experience with deep systems, compelling writing, and challenging yet rewarding puzzles. And I hope that, if they ever make a sequel, it'll be just that.

A Beautiful Yet Shallow Dive into the Wizarding World
Hogwarts Legacy invites you to step into the shoes of a wizard or witch in the late 19th century, delivering a visually stunning and magical experience that captures the atmosphere of the Harry Potter universe. From the moment you enter the Hogwarts grounds, it’s clear the developers poured immense effort into crafting an environment filled with charm, wonder, and nostalgia. While the game excels in creating a vivid magical atmosphere and engaging combat mechanics, it falls short in terms of narrative depth and quest design.
Summary
Pros
✪ Magical Atmosphere: The world is brimming with enchanting details, from secret passageways in Hogwarts to the lush landscapes of the Forbidden Forest and beyond.
✪ Combat Mechanics: The dueling system is surprisingly robust and engaging, offering plenty of spell combinations and strategies that make every encounter thrilling.
✪ Visuals and Audio: From the detailed interiors of Hogwarts to the ambient sounds of bustling Hogsmeade, the game’s aesthetics are phenomenal.
Cons
✪ Predictable Storyline: Despite its potential, the narrative lacks depth and often feels like a missed opportunity to explore more nuanced or surprising paths.
✪ Repetitive Quests: Side missions often boil down to fetch quests or simplistic tasks, failing to provide meaningful engagement or variety.
My Experience
As someone who values immersive gameplay, I was delighted by the fluid and satisfying combat system. The ability to mix and match spells in dynamic ways added an extra layer of strategy to encounters, keeping me hooked for hours. Exploring the castle and its surrounding areas was equally enjoyable; every nook and cranny seemed to have a secret or collectible waiting to be discovered. The atmosphere and attention to detail were so strong that I found myself simply wandering around, soaking in the magic.
However, the quests and storyline left much to be desired. While I expected the narrative to weave a complex web of intrigue, it instead delivered predictable and shallow outcomes. The main questline lacked memorable twists, and side missions often felt like filler. I kept hoping for more significant consequences to my actions or surprises along the way, but they never materialized.
Final Thoughts
Hogwarts Legacy is a visual and gameplay marvel that captures the essence of the Wizarding World but misses its mark on storytelling. If you’re looking for an immersive and visually captivating adventure with solid combat mechanics, this game will surely enchant you. However, if you prioritize deep narratives and meaningful quests, you might find the experience a bit underwhelming.
Rating: 8.5 /10
A must-play for fans of the franchise, but with room for improvement in its storytelling.